Rabbi David Weiss Halivni is a scholar of Talmud and a Holocaust survivor, originally of Sighet, Hungary. "He studied for a short while in the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in New York. He is the author of Mekorot u'Mesorot, a projected ten volume commentary on the Talmud. He is also the author of the English language volumes Peshat and Derash, Revelation Restored, his memoirs The Book and the Sword and others. Rabbi Halivni also served as Littauer Professor of Talmud and Classical Rabbinics in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. He is the Head of the Metivta of the Union for Traditional Judaism.
A close student (or talmid-haver) of Rabbi Saul Lieberman, he studied with him for many years at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Conservative Judaism. Halivni left the Seminary in the 1980s after the controversy surrounding the training and ordination of women as rabbis. He felt that there may be halakhic methods for ordaining women as rabbis but that more time was needed before such could be legitimately instituted. His disagreement with the process by which JTS studied the ordination of women led to his break with the seminary and co-found the Union for Traditional Judaism." (Wikipedia)
Dr. Weiss-HaLivni is married to Dr. Zipporah Hager-Halivni, formerly of the Chemistry department in Columbia University, daughter of Reb Boruch of Vishiva, son of Reb Menachem Mendel of Vishiva, son of the Holy Reb Yisroel of Vizhnitz, the Ahavas Yisroel. What does that say about Vizhnitz? Absolutely nothing. The typical excuse, not that it's necessary, is that she was a Holocaust survivor, and thus devoid of a Chasidishe education. He has the same excuse for his "source-critical-analysis" of the Talmud, I guess. Let's see if the "how many Frum Schneersohns are there" crowd sees this as a condemnation of Vizhnitz and its great heritage.
33 comments:
Can I please have my High Horse back? You sure have been up on it for a long time now.
i do not think RDHW is Conservative
It is my personal tragedy that the people I daven [pray] with, I cannot talk to, and the people I talk to, I cannot daven with. However when the chips are down, I will always side with the people I daven with; for I can live without talking. I cannot live without davening.
- david halivni's Letter resigning from the Jewisth Theological Seminary Faculty.
Sorry, but your example is so off.Firstly the Vizhnitz dynasty is quite a bit younger than Chabad.Despite this, there are literally THOUSANDS of frum chassidish HAGERS.There are also a small number of frum but not chassidish Hagers.There are next to NONE non religous Hagers.
Even your case with Halivy-Weiss:He was a young Iluy who came out of the holocaust at about 16, he and a much older unlcle were the sole survivors.Satmar Rebbe and others sought to mekarev this gifted young man and he ended up studying wit Saul Lieberman.He is of course a shomer mitzvos and was a leader of a halachik congregation Orach Eliezer on the Upper West Side.Of course he should not have been in J.T.S, but he is no 'Conservative' in the regular sense
He was Conservative but now is in the MO category. Same mentality as Chovevei Torah. What is this post about? Was it in response to something?
That's a beautiful quote. But l'maaseh, his views on the nature of both Torah She'Bichsav and Torah She'Baal Peh are of the Conservative variety.
Even the leaders of the controversial Revadim method of Talmud study, who adopt a similar version to his Mekorot u'Mesorot method, are always extremely sensitive on that point.
Shaul
the Vizhnitzer dynasty goes back to Reb Yakov Kopel Chosid and Reb Chaim of Kosov. That's as far back as Chabad, and even a bit earlier. Of course there many frum Hagers, they left Bukovina and went to Rumania/Hungary. The Ahavas Yisroel said it was to save his own children and grandchildren. But Bukoviner Jewry was virtually all Frei by WW2. There are many more examples of recent non-frum Hagers.
The Schneersohn family was childless very often, as was pointed out before, and I believe Russian Haskoloh and communism had something to do with it.
FWQ
it's in response to a common topic discussed often here and elsewhere.
The post is not really about Weiss.His is or was or maybe Conservative beliefs.The post was in response to 'where are the frum Schneersohns'.Nu, where are the frum Schneersohns?So you found one Vizhnitzer aynikel who married a questionable guy,but what about the thousands of frum Vizhnitzer eyniklach?
Read my comment above.
There are many, many more. And many that didn't bring Nachas, despite being somewhat Frum. The point is not to display the glee you do when you understand nothing of the situation, and cannot compare it to anything else.
"the Vizhnitzer dynasty goes back to Reb Yakov Kopel Chosid and Reb Chaim of Kosov."
How can you forget the Ahavas Shalom?
"But Bukoviner Jewry was virtually all Frei by WW2. There are many more examples of recent non-frum Hagers."
The Bukoviner Jews were very modern but to say that they were virtually frei is simply not true.
While we are on the Bukovina/Kosov topic I should point out that while the Tzemach Tzadik's Family (aka Vizhinitz) did dominate large parts of Bukovina; the Toras Chaim's middle son Reb Yosef Alter of Radovitz and his descendents were also very dominant throughout Bukovina. In fact most Rabbonim of major towns in Bukovina were members of Rev Yosef Alter's family.
Reb Yosef Alter is buried in Haifa in the Cave of Avdimi D'man Chaifa. His Beis Medrash still stands in Tzfas.
You still haven't answered the question. No one denies that almost every single chassidic dynasty and litvishe family have members pf the family who have fallen away. This is a truth. But, no group or famil has seen the numbers consistantly over the generations like lubavitch. The reasoning of he Russian Haskola and Communism doesn't wash. These same movements and many more existed across both eastern and western europe leadin up the war. I was just told by a gerrer that before the war in Poland it was quite he norm in many families that on Friday night the men would come home from shul and wait for the women to come back from the theatre...it was everywhere (not exclusive to lubavitch). At the same token lets consider the rapid rate of decline of the kids of today in Chabad as opposed to other groups. All groups see kids drop off the radar as has always occured, but in this area, chabad is currently the stand out in quality and quantatity. Seems chabad unfortunately is currently leading the pack...in the wrong direction. What happened to the good old days of chabad, where everyone took them seriously and considered them part of the chareidi world.
Weiss-Halivni was my professor at Columbia years ago. I took the course for an easy A :). At the time, he was very adamant about Torah MeSinai, but the rest of his approach was to turn limud haTorah into one big intellectual exercise and to remove from it any lessons and all of the beauty that we derive from it. All he was concerned about was the meaning of the text, and he was on a quest to find all kinds of textual errors in every source he examined.
I think he told me that his father HYD was a Belzer chossid. I do not remember which Chassidus he himself was raised in (his father did not raise him) although he certainly did tell me.
The scars of the Shoah have never left him. He is small, bent and fragile, and he speaks in a very low voice, almost a whisper. I had to sit in the front row to even have a clue as to what he was saying. He is also the product of a broken home, which was VERY unusual in his day.
One of his sons was part of the Conservative community at Columbia; another made aliyah and when I knew him, he was learning and teaching at one of the hesder type yeshivas.
All in all, he is a da'as yachid whose influence will not last very long even among his tiny circle of followers and YCT/KOE fellow travelers.
Anonymous
That's where you're wrong, and you speak not of knowledge but of assumption. An in-depth study will show that.
Please don't change the subject into at-risk kids.
Hirshel
You have a few things wrong. The Rebbe Yisroel'che of Viznitz did not leave Viznitz because of his children... all his children were married before the 1st world war. His youngest son Reb Eliezer ran the yeshiva for 100s of studends; one famous talmid is the present Sekulener Rebbe.
He did say he left because it was difficult for him see so many of the young generation become assimilated. When he was asked why doesnt return to Vizhnitz he said. "I can't take the מגולחים [shaved ones]" and when they asked him arn't the Hungarian Jews of Groosverdain shaving too? He replied איך האב נישט געקענט זייערע עלטערן [I didn't know their parents]
Weiss is not the only Vizhnitz einikel who is questionable. Cheif Rabbi Lau has a [half] brother named Yehoshua -or as his zeide called him- "Shiku" Lau his mother was a daughter of the Rebbe Yisrul'tche and before the war he had long payous, the works etc.. now he is clean shaven and MO he even wrote a book I think it's called החיל והחוסן under the name of הרב יהושע הגר-לאו
Rebbe Chaim Meir has a deaughter [also named Tziporah] who lives on a Kibutz: in the last few decades she is frum with a sheitel etc... but some of her children are barely religious.
As far as Haskala ... You might be unaware that Viznitz is very close to Chernowitz and Lemberg the very cradle of all 'isms' as far as Jews go. The Hager family had many Rebbe's operating in Bukavina with great success, with children and einiklech, and many are around today as a living testimony of the family cohesivness. I.E. The Otonier Rebbe [brother of R. Yisroel] his son the Rebbe was killed but his surviving Einikelech are here [one serves as a Rebbe in Bnei Brak] the Kosover Rebbe is an einikel of an -other brother and Rebbe- who served in Chernowitz his grandson is now The Kosover Rebbe in Boro Park .. there are many more members of the Hager family who not only survived the war but survived the onslought of all those 'isms' and withstood them all.
Yes, Yosef I've heard all that, about the Glatte Peynimer but from what I heard from Vizhnitzer Chassidim much of it had to do with the Chinuch of the Eyniklech too, since it WAS so close to Haskoloh centers.
And if Bukovina, which was so close to Galicia, was a problem, imagine places like far away Belarus and Eastern Ukraine!
I think much of the Vizhnitzer success, at least with the children, was the fact that they were all Rebbes and Rabbonim, something that gave them little time or chance to do anything else. The current Rebbe of Vizhnitz-Monsey seems to have carried on this tradition, albeit with less success...
There's also the fact that there were so few chidren in the Schneersohn family, just look at how many recent ones left no children. The Rebbe Reb Boruch of Vizhnitz had 12 children! That sure helps build the clan.
I also find it odd that the names mentioned as examples of Kosov/Vizhnitz eineklech were Dr Weiss and Yehoshua Hager-Lau. These two are not good examples as both are in practice Torah observant Jews.
There are though several eineklach of the Toras Chaim who are not religious at all. There are even some non Jewish eineklech of this kind. In fact I know a gentile in western Europe who is a einekel l'beis Kosov, Belz, Ropschitz, Savran, Zlotchov, Apt, Linsk, Berditchev, Baal Shem Tov, Yeruslav, Premishlan and several more which I don't recall.
P.S.
יוסף 718 said... " His youngest son Reb Eliezer"
He was not Reb Yisroltche's youngest son.
He was the third son. Reb Bourch and Reb Shmuel Aba were younger
MIB
sorry I missed the mistake about Reb Lazer'el, he was the 3rd son, and was entrusted with Vizhnitz after his father left for Orodea/Grosswardein.
There's the Imrei Chaim's daughter Tziporah, whose husband "asked not to be written about" in תפארת שבמלכות, the comprehensive book by Alfasi on Vizhnitz/Kosov.
There's also a court case that was brought by the family of ישראל הגר, a lawyer who died in his 30's in Israel about the wording of his Matzeivoh. He was a grandson of the Ahavas Yisroel as well, and sounds totally irreligious.
We can start "taking apart" the Chernobler dynasty as well. Should we start?
For the record I don't view these as flaws in these dynasties. I just point out that it can happen anywhere and sadly it has.
I again don't get your point, dear Hirshel.
Answer the question:Where are the Frum Schneersohns??The Tzemach Tzedek had ten (?)kids, his son R'Shmuel had about 6, the Tzemach Tzedek died 141 years (?)ago there should be thousands.Where are they??
Of course there are non religous Hagers,BUT, the point is that there are THOUSANDS,yes,thousands of frum Hagers living with us.
Anyway,I guess you were man enough to admit that ''it had something to do with haskoloh''So, what had Chabad chassidus done more than others, to 'save' , I mean, apparently the 'eigeneh mishpucheh' did not fare too well.
I''ll repeat what I have claimed earlier.The Chasam Sofer theology apparently was the most succesful.I have zero Hungarian blood and feel compelled to agree to the truth.I know, now all the chachomim are going to come out of the woodwork and say the Neologs were very big in Hungary,the answer is that the Neolog were allready big in the Chasam Sofers time.As a proportion of the Jewish Population, Orthodoxy in Hungary held its own.This also thanks to a chasidic influence, especially in the Unteland
That you don't get Hirshel's point is obvious by now. I am clueless as to why Tzig put your post up with the moderation on and all.
well, HMMM, it does generate conversation....
I guess we can all agree that while other dynasties focused their energy on saving their own families, the Rabbeyim of Chabad created generations of Talmidei Chachomim Baalei Mesiras Nefesh, maybe even at the expense of their own families.
That's why Tchernobel, Skver, Boyan, Slonim, Kaydenov, Stolin and many ohers have zero from the old country, unless you count Reform Jews from Detroit. Lubavitch (and Breslov to an extent) had hundreds of families come out of there.
Hungarians? yes, but others?
dear Mr.Anonymus, just for the sake of knowledge,
The Tzemach Tzedek's children somehow didn't have the big families as the Hagers,just look at the Marash Family plus there was no Communisim that wiped out russian Jewry for decades earlier.
Lately a book was translated from Hungarian to Hebrew on the subject of Visnits/Sighet machloke in the town of siget. Its a novel based on 95% facts. He claims that the rebeim of visnitz were the ones that built the whole yidishkiet structure in that region. The ignorance and am harotzes caused them to be Mechalel Shabbos and also Tharas Hamishpocho problems. then the Tietelbaums arrived to a clean slate
There is also a big difference between Chabad from the other chasidic courts, that whoever felt that he is not rebbe material picked a different field, some of them were Rabonim some were in business vs for instance the Chernobler in Ukraine or Sanz in Galicia, each child became a rebbele. For a real taste of Chernobel Rebbes,get yourself the coffetable books of Twersky of Queens,he has in there a cassatte of his father davening Chernobel Nussach, he barely knows the Ivri.Some of the pictures are amusing.
to Yosef 718
I dont buy your reasoning of the Ahavas Yisroel abandoning the fight for am yisroel. No rebbe in his stature would do that,the Belzer Rov went back to his hometown Belz eventough it was ruined in Ruchnios after the WW1.
Anonymous (5:30pm)
you speak in riddles, please elaborate a bit.
anon you don't have to buy it but I heard it from Vizhnitzer Rebbe himself and it is published in his bio קדוש ישראל
He did not 'abandon' anybody he did come and visit and when he came 1000s of chasidim came to see him both in Vizhnitz and on the way in the many train stations.
The book about sighet/viznitz is called שוחרי השם בהרי הקרפטים it is currantly sold out. It is a novel based on true facts and Yitchak Alfasi writes in the preface that from all the 100s of books writen on hasidic history this book is the most stunning in its detail and vividness.
Vizhnitz Rebbes did indeed redeem the entire region in the Carpatian mountains and beyound but its wrong to say that most yidden were so deep down and ignorant. There were many great talmiday chachamim in the area. The only point of difference between the Taitelbaum and Hager dynasties was in style the Hager Rebbes were mekarev the biggest ignoramous with love as if he were a talmid chacham and Teitelbaums devoted there energies in building yeshivas and training Rabonim.
And as the book points out most Rabonim in Maramures were Vizhnizter Chasidim even if a great many of them were talmidim of the Yetev Lev.
"For a real taste of Chernobel Rebbes,get yourself the coffetable books of Twersky of Queens,he has in there a cassatte of his father davening Chernobel Nussach, he barely knows the Ivri.Some of the pictures are amusing."
what nastiness! (and ignorance!)
R' Yankele Twersky was a Tyere yid (however good his Ivre was) a son of the Azarnitzer Rebbe (Chotin). here is a man who survived the Holocaust and rebuilt a life and though he was more of a modern man he obviously did a good job raising his son who is among the finest chassidishe balabatim out there... his book on the chernobler dynasty is one of a kind and unlike others does not try to rewrite history.
Just plain old nasty ppl out here.
whatever happened to heve dan es kol odom lkaf zchus...
Hirshel,
Are are you comparing a chassidus like Slonim to Chabad???
Chabad was much, much bigger and most importantly a big percentage of Russian Jews survived the holocaust, almost all Lithuanian Jews perished and 90percent of Polish Jewry, that's why the dynasties you mentioned were almost wiped out.Lubavitch for the most part survived but had allready been decimated earlier by communism.Today most Lubavitchers are gevorener.
Hmmm,you seem to be a nasty fellow.Why are you so negative?
The point he made here about Reb Yaakov Yosef Twersky from the Bronx was that he was a nice man, a B'non Shel K'doshim, but far from an old-time Rebbe. The same could be said for before the Holocaust. The rest of the family were seemingly quite modern, especially for a Rebbishe Kind.
Slonim was close to decimation way before the Holocaust. There was a Kremel in Baranovitch, but not much else. If not for Tverye there would be nothing.
to Yossef 718
I appreciate your comments, eventough it still needs a explanation on the Ahavath Yisroel's leaving Marmorosh if he visited the region anyway, and he met the glatte penimer, and as you claim his family members were married, so why did he leave? unless its a rebishe reason.
Please list a few Rabonim that were Sigeter Talmidim and Visnitzer chasidim,thats a shocker to me, since most of the years the relationship between the 2 courts were not the best
I was just told by a gerrer that before the war in Poland it was quite he norm in many families that on Friday night the men would come home from shul and wait for the women to come back from the theatre..
This dramatic difference between men and women was well-known and endemic. It was part of the reason why the age of marriage shot up so high, and also why the Litvishe started shaving and dressing snazzily — it was difficult for a yeshive bocher to find a shidach. This also explains the level of tznius that was common even among the most chosheve rebbetzins — if a man could find a wife who was prepared to keep a kosher home and go to mikveh, he counted himself lucky, and didn't press the issue of hair covering, etc.
What's interesting, though, is that in America the opposite was often true. Behashgocho protis, last night I was reading Fanny Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans, and came across this passage: "I never saw, or read, of any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a slighter hold upon the men."
This was in the 1820s among Midwestern goyim. About 100 years later, when my bobbe o"h was in the age of shiduchim in Jewish New York, the situation she and her friends were faced with was the mirror image of that in the Old Country: if a woman could find a husband who would agree that the home would be kosher and they would keep taharas hamishpoche, and that the kids' chinuch would be in her hands, she counted herself lucky. My bobbe's sister died shortly after giving birth; she asked her parents to raise her baby, because she knew her husband would not raise him to be a shomer mitzvos.
It's also noteworthy that 2000 years ago in the Roman Empire, it was the women who flocked in enormous numbers, first to Yiddishkeit (all the "matronisas" mentioned in the gemore), and then lehavdil to Christianity.
Anon.
You seem to imply that it is wrong to leave a place where yidishkiet in the decline and seek to live among those who are stronger in their devotion. It is a simple mishna in perkei avos! איני גר אלא במקום תורה
Just a small correction: Vizhnitz is not in Maramores. The Vizhnitz Chasidic movement dominated '2' areas, one was maramores and the other was Bukavina. both provinces where however very different both politically and in particular the yidden where quite different.
Bukavina was more urban, much more advanced economically, and the yiddish spoken in Bukavina had a very different accent to it. Maramores was an area that was dirt poor. If we could make a comparison it would be like Appalachia, the Jews were basically peasants or dealt with the local peasantry, hunger and dirt was plentifull, the mountains were awsome. But as the Ahavas Yisroel traveled thru He once told his gabbai "I can't look at these mountains because I know how many 'yiddishe tzures' exist there"
However Maramores Jews were extremely devout even the biggest am haaretz was a big chasid and makpid על קלה כבחמורה a great many traveled by foot over the span of the month of elul over the mountain peeks to reach Vizhnitz for Rosh Hashana. In the later years those 'dirty, poor, hardscrabble, Jews who came to Viznitz, Bukavina where the butt of derision of the better fed and fancy [shaven] Chasidim of Bukavina.
Considering the background of social change in Bukavina it is not hard to understand why the Rebbe as a refugee in WWI refused to return to Vizhnitz on a permanent basis.
[Except for 2 Rosh Hashanas in the 1930's when the Rebbe was in Vizhnitz. I personally knew a Jew in Boro Park who as a boy went on a trek with a bunch of chasidim by foot over the frightfull mountain range. From the town of Bichkev it took them 2 weeks by foot. All he had was a bag over his shoulder and a lantern in his hand. The Vizhnitzer Rebbe in Israel used to recall many times that Rosh Hashana when he was a young boy and saw early morning in the dark, thousands of chasidim decending the mountains by foot מיט קליינע בליטשקעדיקע לאמפטערנעס with small flickering lampterns]
As for the Talmidim of the Yetev Lev who were Viznitz chasidim.. one notable personage comes to mind: The Rav of Ganitch Reb Yehuda Yoel Deutch. just one of many many. The Yetev Lev had excellent relations with the Reb Mendele of Viznitz trouble started 'after' his petirah, when the Kahana family refused to accept the Satmar Rebbe's father as Rav and they 'shelpped' Vizhnitzer chasidim in the town of sighet into the war.
For that you need to read the book mentioned above.
Thanks for Hirshel Tzig. for the blog even though I hardly agree with him. still I really like the style and content of the blog.
Thanks Yoshe for your compliment (It is a compliment, right) and your for your insightful writing here. It's very much appreciated.
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