The following material was gathered in connection with research on Rav Eliach's forthcoming book on the Vilna Gaon, entitled HaGaon. It was prompted by an article that appeared in the Tammuz 5759 issue of the Torah journal Or Yisroel written by R' Yehoshua Mondschein (author of the work Kerem Chabad), published in Monsey, New York, which noted that Rav Eliach, in his book Avi Hayeshivos about HaRav Chaim Volozhin, did not mention that HaRav Chaim gave a haskomo to a work of R' Shlomo Dubno.

Though that article built up an elaborate speculative explanation of the reasons that document was not mentioned, the simple truth is that when that work was published, there was no independent corroboration of that haskomo other than a work published by a notorious leader of the Vilna haskalah, and Rav Eliach, for obvious reasons, did not want to rely on that dubious source. Since then, and especially in the past year, much new information has come to light, and that is the subject of this essay. R' Shlomo Dubno should not be confused with Simon Dubnow, a historian who lived in Russia about a hundred and thirty years later and left the religious community as a youth.

Historical documents that have been discovered recently in Russia shed light on what has hitherto been a somewhat obscure episode that took place over two centuries ago at the time when the German haskalah movement was beginning to gather momentum. The new material reveals the central protagonist of this episode, the well known grammarian Reb Shlomo Dubno, in his true light.

In the past, many considered Reb Shlomo to have been one of the infamous Berlin maskilim because at one time he collaborated with Moses Mendelsohn, the father of haskalah. The problem with this theory is that later, when Dubno was about to publish a Chumash with his own commentary, he received letters of approbation from many great rabbonim, including the greatest among the Vilna Gaon's talmidim, the brothers Reb Chaim and Reb Zelmele of Volozhin.

Reb Shlomo Dubno's Chumash was in fact never published and our knowledge of these illustrious haskomos only dates from almost a hundred years later, when they were published by one of the first maskilim of Vilna, Shmuel Yosef Fein (who had his own agenda in making them public, as we shall see).

Who was Reb Shlomo Dubno and what was the significance of the haskomos that he and his work received from many of the greatest gedolim of his generation?

This article provides the answers to these questions.

The following selections are from the popular haggadah Arzei Halevonon that brings together divrei Torah from Torah giants of modern times, as selected by the compiler.

The Wicked Son -- What Does He Say?

HaRav Moshe Feinstein noted that when the Torah records three of the four sons' questions they are described in the singular: "When your son will ask you," "You shall tell your son." But when it comes to the wicked son's question, the Torah uses the plural: "When your children will say to you." This, Rav Moshe explained, alludes to the fact that when a wicked person airs his antagonistic views towards his culture, he usually assembles a group of other misfits around him to make a greater impression on his audience and to increase his sphere of influence. The fact that the wicked son is a rabble-rouser makes him particularly dangerous, and this is why the Haggadah cautions us to put a halt to his demagoguery by "blunting his teeth."

It Is Because Of This That Hashem Did So For Me When I Went Out Of Egypt

As the Haggadah soon explains, the meaning of "because of this" is that G-d took us out of Egypt in order to eat these foods -- matzah, morror and the pesach offering -- and to perform all the other mitzvos of the Torah (see Rashi to Shemos 13:8). Rav Moshe Feinstein noted that it seems rather odd that this is the answer given to the child who is unable to ask questions. That child presumably knows absolutely nothing about the Exodus, being totally ignorant of his heritage. Why, then, does the Torah stress for this son the mitzvos of eating the three Seder foods and their relevance to the importance of the Exodus -- instead of, perhaps, something along the lines of the answer given by the Torah for the simple son in Shemos 13:14- 15?

Rav Moshe concluded from this that the son "who does not know how to ask" is not an ignorant man, or an assimilated, uneducated Jew. Rather, he is a man who is quite familiar with the rituals of Judaism and performs them faithfully. However, he does so out of habit and conditioning; he does not know why the mitzvos are important, nor does he care. He does not lack the intellect to ask, but the interest to ask. For this son the Torah's response is indeed quite fitting: "You open up the conversation with him," explaining the profound significance of the mitzvos which he regards with such indifference. Let him know that it is because of the mitzvos that G-d took us out of Egypt altogether.

Holidays for Rejoicing

The Torah does not specifically call for rejoicing on Pesach as it does for Succos (Devorim 16:14) and Shavuos (ibid., 16:11); this requirement has to be derived indirectly, exegetically. Rav Moshe Feinstein explained that the reason for this is that it goes without saying that Pesach, the holiday on which our liberation from bondage and our foundation as a nation are celebrated, calls for great rejoicing; the Torah therefore did not have to mention this explicitly.

Similarly, Pesach is the only one of the three Festivals in which the concept of sharing our bounty with "the Levi, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow" is not mentioned. Here too, Rav Moshe explained, the Torah felt it obvious that during Pesach, when we recall that "we were once slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt" and that all that we now have has come to us only through the grace of G- d, should be a time when the less fortunate members of society should be called upon to share in our rejoicing.

"Will the formula at last be found, by which love can coexist peaceably with justice, and freedom with law -- on this earth? Will light and truth finally gain genuine victories? Or will science and art debase themselves and increasingly become accomplices of sensualism and despiritualization? Will the mind of man bend ever lower under the yoke of sensuality?"

These were some of the questions posed about Pesach 142 years ago by HaRav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch (see "Nissan II," Collected Writings, Vol. I, p. 23). Speaking about the beginnings of his century (the nineteenth), HaRav Hirsch writes: ". . . people were convinced that brilliant eras of enlightenment and knowledge, of well-being and peace were approaching on the horizon of the nations."

Already two hundred years ago, the explosion of knowledge and the increasing mastery of humanity over nature led people to anticipate the benefits of this progress in these terms. Two hundred years later there has been tremendous progress in these areas, in everything from life expectancy to mastery of space and time with jet planes and cellular phones. Yet morally and spiritually these utopian goals seem no closer to realization. On the contrary, they do not even have the mass appeal that they had two centuries ago. So much of humanity has clearly been overwhelmed by the yoke of the souped-up and technologically-magnified sensuality that is so easily available today for an affordable price...

The faculty of speech does not seem unique to humankind. Dolphins have a rather sophisticated language. And a whole host of other creatures, great and small, from the birds in the trees to the ants in the ground, have elaborate modes of communication that scientists are only beginning to learn about.

Yet, the Jewish Sages have for centuries taught that the human being is distinguished from other species precisely in this power of verbal expression. According to tradition, the physical world is divided into four strata of existence: the Mineral, the Vegetable, the Animal and -- the Speaker. In the Jewish view, speech is so unique to mankind that man is identified by this faculty.

Their typification of man as the Speaker certainly cannot be attributed to ancient man's ignorance of nonhuman language, for the Sages were not at all ignorant of it. The Midrash records that King Solomon knew the language of birds and animals. Why then, do the Sages insist on identifying man as the speaker, when speech does not seem to be at all unique to man?

One could argue that human speech is far superior. Dolphins may be highly intelligent mammals, but their system of clicks and whistles are hardly in the same league with English or French. When was the last time anybody named Flipper said "Give me liberty or give me death!" or "J'Accuse!"

The argument is less than satisfying, however, since it reduces the difference to a matter of degree rather than a matter of kind. And in the Jewish view, man is not just a more articulate version of something that can jump through hoops; he is a completely different -- and higher -- order of being.

It is a world-view which stands profoundly in opposition to prevailing notions of humanity's ranking in the ecological chain.