[Avodah] The Noda BeYehudah, Y'hi Ratzon, and the Baal Shem Tov

[Yitzchok Levine]

R. Baruch HaLevi Epstein, the author of the Torah Temimah, also wrote 
Mekor Baruch. In this book he recalled many events of the past. Part 
of Mekor Baruch was translated and published under the title My Uncle 
the Netziv. This book caused considerable controversy shortly after 
it appeared.

The book Recollections is a translation of another part of Mekor 
Baruch. On page 156 he writes

"The remark was characteristic of the Noda BeYehudah, who never 
passed up an opportunity to express his objection to chassidim and 
chassidus. The following story is related by his student, the Gaon 
Rav Eliezer Palklash, the Chief Rabbi of Prague, in his work She'los 
U'Teshuvos Teshuvah MeAhavah, vol. 1, no.1:

It once happened that a person came to recite a
blessing over the esrog of the Noda Be Yehudah, and he
began to recite the prayer Y'hi Ratzon printed in the
machzorim and in the work Likutei Tzvi, which is based
on various chassidic concepts of different combinations
of the letters of God's Name and other ideas. When the
Noda BeYehudah heard this, he was outraged and said
angrily, "I refuse to give my esrog to one who recites the
Y'hi Ratzon," and he did not give him the esrog.

It appears to me, however, that the Noda BeYehudah was not just 
reacting in anger to the kabbalistic nature of this prayer and its 
allusions, but, rather, there was an instructive purpose in his 
action; he was trying to teach a special lesson fundamental to Jewish law."

I have posted the rest of what the Torah Temimah wrote about this 
subject as well as an incident involving the Baal Shem Tov and the 
Noda BeYehudah at http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/noda_beyehudah.pdf

Yitzchok Levine 
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