[Avodah] letter of RSRH

[T613K at aol.com]

From: "SBA" _sba at sba2.com_ (mailto:sba at sba2.com) 

 

>>(Actually, I wonder if were he alive today, he might simply  be
the very mainstream Agudat Yisrael/non-Zionist; [--RMM]

Maybe in  Chul. 
But mainstream Agudah in EY? I strongly doubt it.

>>given  that his son-in-law and the descendants thereof were extremely
involved in  the Agudah, this seems like a safe assumption until someone
takes the time to  do a detailed analysis.)

But how many of his descendents are/were  involved in Israeli Aguda?

>>In any case, his Zionism wasn't a  promiment part of his hashkafa

Only as much as and when necessary. He was  busy dealing with the main
Shoresh Poreh Rosh veLaano of Germany at the time  - which was Reform.


SBA
 
>>>>
It is a bit anachronistic to speak of Zionism, whether Religious Zionism or  
the secular variety,  in Germany in the nineteenth century.  There  was no 
such animal.  Hirsch loved Eretz Yisrael.  His writings  are full of the ancient 
yearning and love for the Holy Land which has  accompanied us Jews throughout 
the centuries of galus, whether bitter galus or  benign galus.  
 
Had he been alive when Zionism really got under way, he would have followed  
the majority of gedolim and majority da'as Torah, and would not have been a  
Zionist. (I take it for granted that everyone knows the difference between  
political Zionism and ahavas ha'aretz.)   He would however have  cooperated with 
the institutions of government, once a medinah was a fait  accompli.  He would 
NOT have agreed with the Satmar Rebbe or the  Lubavitcher Rebbe that it is 
preferable, when given a choice, for Jews to davka  remain in chutz la'aretz 
until Moshiach comes.  OTOH where there is already  an established kehilla in 
chutz la'aratz, like the Yekke community in America,  he would not counsel them 
to dissolve their kehilla and reconstitute it in  E'Y. 
 
In the absence of a navi, it is extremely difficult to know where any  
individual Jew is supposed to be.  Overall, it seems to me (I am not  channeling 
Hirsch now, but expressing my own opinion) that the Hashgacha has a  plan for the 
Jewish people that includes both a strong Torah-only community in  Eretz 
Yisrael AND a Torah-plus-work community in chutz la'aretz. Even DL --  to the 
extent that they adhere to halacha and are idealistic and make a kiddush  Hashem 
in their daily lives (but not when they ostentatiously distance  themselves 
from the charedi community) are doing G-dly work.   That is the Torah Im Derech 
Eretz of our day -- different purposes for the  communities of E'Y and of 
chu'l.  Some who learn full time -- and may  Hashem bless them and increase their 
numbers -- and some who work and are kovea  itim and engage in rabbanus, 
chinuch and kiruv and just plain parnassah, and  philanthropy and tzedaka and 
chessed -- who support the full-time Torah  learners.  And may Hashem bless them and 
increase their numbers too.   Zareinu vechaspeinu yarbeh kachol.
 
Hirsch's descendants and followers in Eretz Yisrael mostly identified with  
the PAI party (Poalei Agudas Yisrael) in the early decades of the Medinah.   
That party now seems to be defunct.  Hirschians in  E'Y were /not/ Satmar and 
were /not/ Neturei Karta.  They even  built a kibbutz, Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim.
 
 
A sign of the essential yiras Shamayim of Yekkes in general and Hirschians  
in particular is that when they do (unfortunately) deviate from TIDE  
philosophical purity, they tend usually to head right rather than left.  I  speak of 
their Torah affiliation, not their political views.  
 
RMB wrote a post to which I didn't respond for lack of time when he wrote  
it, but he said that whatever I wrote about what Hirsch would have  thought 
about E'Y was just wishful thinking, that I was putting words in  his mouth and 
making him out to be some kind of Zionist because I myself have  some Zionist 
leanings, but that in reality RSRH was closer to Satmar in his  thinking. R' SBA 
agrees with RMB on that last point.
 
I am totally and absolutely convinced that they are both wrong.  
 
What has happened in E'Y in the last hundred years simply cannot be  ignored, 
cannot be gainsaid, and cannot -- chas vesholom even to say such a  thing -- 
all be attributed to the workings of the Sitra Achra.  We have  seen miracles 
upon miracles in Eretz Yisrael, and even if the Zionists hijacked  Hashem's 
gift and tried to uproot Torah in the Holy Land,  it is still  Hashem's gift and 
not some kind of a Satanic trick.  Like everything in  this post-Eden world 
of ours, everything in E'Y is ohr vechoshech mishtamshim  be'irbuvya.  Even the 
most rabidly anti-Torah secular Zionists  have some zechus for the 
infrastructure they built, which makes possible the  beautiful Torah communities we have 
today in E'Y.  We owe them hakaras  hatov as well as fierce and determined 
opposition to their secular ideals.   We have to be able to hold complexity in 
our minds.
 




--Toby  Katz
=============






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