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Thirty-Nine Years Since his Passing --
From the Teachings of Maran Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky zt'l
By Rav Yosef Elias
29 Adar marks the thirty-ninth anniversary of the passing of one of the gedolim of America: HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky. In this important article, Rav Yosef Elias brings together several major themes that HaRav Yaakov developed, to teach some very important lessons about Chumash and education. The ideas and issues that are clarified here are matters of daily contact for anyone who has an ongoing relationship to Torah, and the lessons of Reb Yaakov will certainly have a profound effect on this relationship.
This interesting and important essay was originally published in 1996, 29 years ago.
Last week we discussed: Seeking Guidance from Chumash; The Growing Need for a Growing Understanding; Why Yaakov Ovinu send real Mal'ochim to Eisov, and more.
Part II
For Part I of this series click here.
Going Down From Sinai
The giving of the Torah at Sinai obviously was the most crucial moment in the history of the Jewish people. As we are further and further removed from that event, our connection to it is weakened and hence, too, our spiritual level. Thus the decline of the generations: "If the earlier personalities were like angels, we are like humans; if they were humans, we are like donkeys — and not even like the donkeys of Rabbi Pinchos ben Ya'ir," of whom the gemora talks (Shabbos 112).
I (Rabbi Elias) once addressed a teacher's conference on the lessons that we can convey to our students from Jewish history. The Rosh Yeshiva was present and after I had listed a number of points, he commented that I had omitted the most important one: the decline of the generations. The Rosh Yeshiva stressed this principle in many different contexts and pointed out a number of implications.
For instance, Chazal (Temuroh 16a) say that Yehoshua was wrong to tell Moshe that he had learnt from him everything; as a result, he forgot a number of halachos, and G-d would not reveal them to him.
The Rosh Yeshiva explained that there was one rule that Yehoshua had not been taught — the decline of the generations — and he learned it now the hard way: The period of Moshe, in which the Torah was received from G-d, was closed, and the Jewish people had entered the period of Yehoshua, the recipient of Moshe's teaching, rather than of G-d's Revelation (see Emes LeYaakov on Bamidbar 9:8).
Thus the rule that we are not on the level of preceding generations is not a mere sermonic statement, but has profound halachic implications. For example amoraim could not disagree with tanaim and in general, when a major period in Jewish history came to a close, those who followed could not take issue with the earlier authorities.
How does a period come to a close?
When the outstanding Torah personality of the time sees the need to gather all the halachic material accumulated during the period and to arrange it in a systematic work — such as Rabbi Yehuda Hanossi's Mishnah, Ravina and Rav Ashi's Talmud, and Rabbi Yosef Karo's Shulchan Oruch — all these mark the end of a major historical period.
In addition, the Rosh Yeshiva often spoke about the passing of individual gedolim as marking a hiatus in the flow of Jewish history and a change in the way Jewish life, Torah study, and institutions continued.
The passing of HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky zt'l, in particular, served as the occasion for his reflections on the passing of a godol (printed in the Jewish Observer, Oct. 1976). The Rosh Yeshiva saw Rav Abramsky's passing as ending the era of classical rabbonus, during which the rav, as leader of a community and expert in halacha, also excelled as a rosh yeshiva. Nowadays these functions are increasingly separated.
Yet, the Rosh Yeshiva stressed that this change should not leave us paralyzed with frustration. "We recognize that there is not a single replacement for all that Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky encompassed. But surely each one of us can assume a portion of his multifaceted personality. This ambition should be the response of all who survive Rabbi Abramsky, for Jews have always responded in such a manner whenever faced with such a challenge.
HaRav Yechezkel Abramsky
"The passing of Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky leaves a void that must be filled. Should not every Jewish father and mother want their child to be the chosen leader to step in and fill that void? Should not every teacher strive to see to it that his student — or collectively, his students — be prepared to step in to fill that void? Should not every yeshiva student aspire to be that one person — or one of those people — privileged to step in to the space made vacant by Rabbi Yechezkel's passing?
"Preparation for leadership begins at a very young age. Remember: Moshe Rabbenu refused, as an infant, to be nursed by anyone but his mother, for instinctively the mouth that was to engage in direct conversations with the Creator sought to preserve its purity, avoiding idolatrous Egyptians. This type of protection and this type of preparation must continue for the person aspiring to greatness throughout his childhood, his youth and beyond.
"We are witnessing the passing of towering gedolim: Men for whom there is no single replacement, each leaving a yawning void in his wake. Who can replace a Reb Yechezkel Abramsky? I don't know... But it is incumbent upon each one of us to recognize the folly of reaching for hollow achievements in the secular world, and instead to strive to be at least a portion of that which Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky was."
The change of tekufos in Jewish history also brought with it changes in the way Torah was studied. Shortly after the Rosh Yeshiva assumed the rabbinate in Toronto, he published an essay on this subject, titled "Ways and Aims in Jewish Education" to which he often came back in later years (republished in Selected Essays of HaGaon Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky II; see also Emes LeYaakov on Shemos 24:18):
Reb Yaakov with HaRav Gedalia Schorr
New Times Bring New Material for Study
"To us, who believe in the fundamental traditions of Judaism, it is a matter of course that the Torah, as we have it today, is the same as that given to Moshe Rabbeinu. And it is clear to us that Moshe Rabbeinu, Ezra Hasofer, Hillel Hanossi, the Rambam, and the Rema, all took, at Succos time, the same lulav and esrog that we take, on Rosh Hashanah they blew the shofar that we blow; and that the tefillin, and mezuzas that we have today were also in the hands of the teachers of the Mishnah and gemora, the geonim and the later rabbonim. It is a strange thing, then, that the mitzvah of educating our youth that the Torah stresses so much has changed its form and contents from age to age, to the current way of keeping it.
"Let me explain. In the earliest times of our national existence, several thousand years ago, it was the duty of every father to instruct his son — for the Torah demanded: `Thou shalt teach thy son.' Whoever had no father, went uneducated.
"Later the sages appointed teachers in Jerusalem for the instruction of those children whose families could make use of the opportunity, to fulfill the word of the Bible: `From Zion the Torah shall spread, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem.'
"But what about those children whom nobody sent to Jerusalem? The Sages then arranged for teachers to be employed in every major district city. Pupils came to them at the age of 16 or 17, so when one of the teachers got angry and hit a boy, he would simply leave school. Finally, Reb Yehoshua ben Gamla issued a decree that every single city should have its own teachers and schools that the children could attend starting from the age of 6 or 7 (Bava Basra, 21).
"Here, in the case of such an important feature of Jewish life, we see change following change, prescript following prescript — and we wonder how our Sages so easily turned away from the Biblical commandment that each father should teach his son, or that Jerusalem should be the center of instruction.
"Yet the changes went further. According to the Mishnah, boys of 5 years started studying the Bible; at 10 they began the study of the Mishnah and at 15 of the gemora. This was the law: first a boy had to know the `written tradition,' the Tanach, and then he would learn the `oral tradition,' the Talmud. And yet — in the times of such great scholars and leaders of later Jewry as the Bach and the Shach (16th century), who were so careful to preserve all our traditions in their integrity, and on down to our times, the Tanach has suffered from increasing neglect.
"We all know that today children start studying gemora even when they do not have even a superficial acquaintance with the Tanach. The Shach, in his remarks to section 245 of the Shulchan Oruch (Yoreh Deah) has tried to explain the origin of this change. We also remember that already at the time of Rabbi Yehuda Hanossi (164-200) our Sages declared: `There is nothing beyond the study of the gemora.'
"But we must ask: where did our leaders find the authority to institute such great reforms in Jewish education, constantly adapting it to the circumstances of the time? Or to put the question in a better way: why did not the Torah lay down definite laws and insist on their scrupulous observance just as it did with all other mitzvos?
"To give an even clearer example: There is a rule that the written tradition should not be passed on orally, by mere word of mouth, and that the oral tradition should not be brought to paper. But what do we see? The teachers of the law pointed out various possible emergencies in which the Torah permits us to disregard the aforementioned rule, and this [emergency] ruling gradually became the basis of our daily practice — until the greatest of our scholars considered themselves only too happy to be able to write elaborate works on aspects of our oral tradition, never even thinking that they might be violating a definite rule of the law.
Reb Yaakov
"The explanation of this phenomenon, to my mind, lies in a saying of our Sages. On the verse of the Torah, `You shall study and observe them, to fulfill them,' they remark: `Great is study, for it leads to action!' It is deeds that count: the form and contents of an educational system must be such as to produce desirable action. Hence, with the change of times, methods of learning had to be modified and the emphasis on various aspects of the Torah to be shifted.
"At first, when all Jews were well acquainted with the Torah, it was left to the parents to instruct the young — they are most suited to the task, for none can know better than they the abilities and limitations of their own children. But when, in the course of time, ignorance spread, there was a danger that it was that ignorance — and not wisdom — that would be passed on to the younger generation. There was a need, then, for teachers.
"Initially, the place of instruction was Jerusalem: here the pupils were in daily contact with all that was greatest and holiest in the Jewish people. They saw the Priests and Levites doing service in the Temple, and received guidance and inspiration in their learning.
"With the gradual decline of the spirit of holiness, in the last years of the Second Temple, this arrangement was no longer adequate, however. To collect all the pupils at one place demanded waiting till they were already 16 or 17 years old, and when the salutary influence of the national sense of G-d consciousness weakened, discipline became a major problem among these adolescents.
"It was essential that formal education start at the age of 6 or 7 and this meant instituting schools in every township (even a net of residential district schools, advantageous for pedagogical reasons, was impracticable now). Only local schools could serve general public education and prepare youth for a life in the spirit of the Torah — the aim of education, as I pointed out.
"Similar consideration caused the change over in the subjects studied. At first our Sages and teachers knew well the traditional rules of interpreting and grasping the basic meaning of the Bible. As the Talmud shows us, they penetrated into the significance of every phrase, every word, every letter, written or omitted, and they extracted from them the teachings of our faith. Hence it was so important to study the Torah always with the aid of the written text — no oral rendering could preserve all its fine nuances.
"And, similarly, oral interpretations had to be passed on by words of the mouth — they would have suffered distortion from a stiff written rendering. Only the blind were instructed in the Bible by heart, and, on the other hand, oral traditions were only marked down in private notebooks and not for public teaching.
"But there came a time when national suffering endangered the Jewish tradition of intensive study; it became necessary to preserve oral teachings by laying them down in a written form. This Rabbi Yehuda Hanossi did in the Mishnah (c. 200), which was composed with extreme care: the greatest scholars of the age, meeting in long sessions, surveyed the whole of the tradition and condensed it in precise rules of law.
"From this time on, the study of the `oral tradition,' still so- called, came to take precedence over that of the Bible. For information about the law, people went back to the Mishnah, only rarely turning to the Tanach itself. As a result the traditional rules of interpretation, stemming from Moshe's time and enabling us to obtain the exact meaning of the Biblical verse, fell into disuse and were gradually forgotten. There was, then, no longer any possibility of developing and widening the tradition. Now it became a matter of protecting and deepening it.
"This found visible expression in the formal conclusion and collection of the gemora (c. 200-600) — that body of discussions of the Mishnah and the Tanach that is our source for all we may want to know about Judaism, its thought as well as its law.
"Of course, even after the conclusion of the Talmudic period, there still arose great Jewish teachers and thinkers. Delving into the treasures of the tradition, the geonim and rishonim (c. 600-1500) clarified its meaning in important philosophical and legal treatises — circumstances forcing them, also, to bring these into written form. We only have to mention Gaon Rabbi Saadia (c. 880-940), the Rambam (c. 1135-1208), the Ramban (13th century), and their contemporaries. What they — still close to the Talmudic era — laid down became, in turn, authoritative guidance for our scholars, the acharonim of recent times.
"Whilst in the end the Torah itself became almost like a primer to us (an `Alef Beis,' as Rabbi Israel Salanter put it): a mere preparation to the study of what we still call the `oral tradition.'
"This, as a vast storehouse of Jewish thought, offers enlightenment on our duties in life, guidance on the path we have to walk. That is why we must concentrate on the study of the Talmud. Through it alone can we obtain genuinely Jewish appreciation of what the Torah means, and thus reach the ultimate end of our educational efforts: a Jewish way of life."
The author, HaRav Yosef Elias
New Times Bring New Institutions
In a speech to the Chicago Community Kollel, the Rosh Yeshiva pointed out that the changing times also brought a change in the institutions of Torah study. (The speech is available on tape from the Kollel.)
After the time of the Shulchan Oruch there were no authorities who would bring a general change, a "closing of a major period." Rather, gedolim responded to the changing conditions of Jewish life by devising new appropriate forms for pursuing Torah study.
Initially there emerged formal, organized yeshivos. Later came the institution of the kollel, when long-term learning for future gedolim, traditionally in the house of one's father-in-law, was no longer socially and economically possible. The select young men who learnt in the kollel grew from their interaction with each other and were committed to their lofty goal of attaining the highest level of Torah learning.
A further development was triggered by the fact that young men began to get married at a much younger age. For them, a different type of kollel emerged, that made it possible for them to continue their learning for some years after getting married, under the guidance of a rosh hakollel. These varied and innovative institutions are a tribute to gedolei Yisroel who understood how to assure Torah study in ever changing circumstances.
The concept of the decline of the generations also throws light on certain halachic developments in our history, specifically the "fences" that the rabbis built to prevent transgression of Biblical prohibitions (Emes LeYaakov, Bereishis 1:26 and Vayikra 23:24). Why did the Rabbis introduce these fences since the Torah did not? And why, indeed, did the Torah not ordain them?
The Rosh Yeshiva explained that the Torah expresses the strict and true thought of G-d. However, since man sank to a lower level, G-d gave the authority to the Rabbis to make rules that would prevent him from violating the will of G-d and also to continue to fulfill the will of G-d.
For example, as long as the Jews were completely absorbed in the sanctity of Shabbos they would not write on that day, even if they had to buy something they wanted on Shabbos. But once their sense of the sanctity of the Shabbos weakened, buying and selling had to be explicitly forbidden, lest they come to write in the course of buying or selling.
For the same reason, studying alone with a burning lamp on Shabbos was prohibited by rabbinical ordinance, since one might forget that it was Shabbos and adjust the lamp — but Chazal permitted reading by lamplight on Yom Kippur because they were sure that we had not sunk so low as to forget about Yom Kippur.
The decline of the generations also explains why the Torah and the Talmud do not mention that Hoshanna Rabbah is the final day of judgment, a fact only revealed in the Zohar. In earlier generations when the fear of Divine punishment deeply affected people, the awareness of Hoshanna Rabbah as judgment day would have dampened the joy of Sukkos. We, however, regrettably, do not have such fear of judgment and therefore the Zohar could reveal to us this secret.
Educational Impact of the Decline
The principle of "yeridas hadoros" is of particular importance in the education of our children. The secular world seeks to trace man's origin to the monkey and, later, to the primitive cave man, and sees him then progressing higher and higher with every generation that passes. No wonder, then, that youth disdains the elderly and values only what is new and up to date.
We, however, trace our origin back to G-d's creation of man, to the Ovos, and to the high point of our people, the Revelation at Sinai. This provides a very different perspective on our parents and elders, and on earlier generations in general. "When will my actions reach those of my forefathers?" is a question we must always ask ourselves. If we want to teach our children respect for parents and teachers and the mesorah that they pass on to us, we must stress the memory of ma'amad har Sinai and what it means to us.
In discussing how to teach Nach, the Rosh Yeshiva stressed the danger that children might look at the personalities in Nach as primitive people — after all they had no phones or airplanes. The tendency may be to see ourselves as cultured and modern. Therefore, it is important that we not teach Tanach by just translating the text and leaving it at that. Instead we must draw on Chazal for a deeper understanding of who these personalities were.
The Rosh Yeshiva pointed out that Rabbi Yehuda Hanossi said that the difference between him and Rabbi Yosi (who lived only one generation before him) was like the difference between the worst chulin and the holiest kodoshim.
And the Rosh Yeshiva told that when Rabbi Naftali Amsterdam had a question on the Malbim (who lived just a few years earlier), he put it in the most careful and guarded way. On studying Torah we must tremble in awe before it and its carriers throughout our history.
The author would like to thank Rabbis Dovid Elias, Mordechai Kamenetsky, Dovid Neustadt and Nissan Wolpin for their assistance in the preparation of this article.
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