[Avodah] Tiqun Olam

[Michael Makovi]

> Actually, does anyone know what RDJHH's [ = R' Dr. J. H. Hertz] philosophy was? (That question
> is /not/ rhetorical.
> R' Micha

Generally, I'd say he falls into a left-wing Modern Orthodox, YCT,
more or less. In many of his essays, he uses "Postive-Historical" and
"Orthodox" interchangeably, since, in his time, right-wing
Conservatism (which most of JTS's professors of Talmud were) and
Enlightened Orthodoxy were still quite close. We might recall also
that Congregation Shearith Israel - with whom JTS's Sabato Morais was
associated - helped found both the OU and JTS.

Hertz refers to his greatest influences as being:
--- His own father, who learned in Hildesheimer's (apparently not
getting smiha, being referred to as "Mr." in his obituary)
--- Alexander Kohut (referred to by Hertz as "German-American scholars")
--- Sabato Moraise (referred to by Hertz as "Sephardic scholars")

I'd advise seeing Meirovich, Harvey. "Reclaiming Chief Rabbi Hertz as
a Conservative Jew," Conservative Judaism 46/4 (1994).

That essay copiously footnotes from across the Hertzian corpus,
documenting his various positions, including:
--- A positive-historical view of the Oral Law, that halakhah can
evolve with time - aside from often offering a peshat that differs
from Hazal's midrashei halakhah, Hertz apparently also supported
various tena'im in kiddushin and gittin, etc. I'm personally not sure,
but I'd wager that he'd have a lot of general agreements with Rabbis
Eliezer Berkovits and Emanuel Rackman and Benzion Uziel and Haim David
Halevi, if I may generalize.
--- His constant endorsement of Schechter and JTS until the end of his days
--- His holding Biblical Criticism to be "higher antisemitism", as per Schechter
--- His staunch Maimonidean rationalism and universalism. Hertz's
views on Kabbalah are somewhat hard to precisely pin down; in his two
essays on Kabbalah in Sermons, Addresses, and Studies, Hertz tries to
show that mysticism has Biblical roots, but all the same, he decries
gematria and belief in demons and such as primitive diseases of the
human mind. Generally, I'd say that his understanding of Kabbalah is
very historical and academic - in the Scholem sense - and while he
occasionally would use Kabbalistic metaphors, he generally holds by
very Maimonidean positions. For example, regarding Pharaoh's heart
being hardened, he explains that when G-d hardened Pharaoh's heart, it
really means that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and G-d hardened it
only insofar as He created all natural law, including the
psychological law that anger and pride make one stubborn. In his essay
on the Fall of Man in his Pentateuch, Rabbi Hertz - like Rabbi Dr. Leo
Adler's The Biblical View of Man (a very Hirschian book - see the
translator's appendix) - reinterprets the midrashim of the snake
injecting venom and Sinai being the tavlin for the yetzer hara as
referring not to Jew but to mankind in general. Rabbi Hertz is very
comfortable using ancient Near Eastern culture and literature to shed
light on the Tanakh, an approach anathemous to Rav Hirsch but finding
much approval in Rav Kook. (Rav Kook bases this on the idea that
prophecy is given in accordance with the prophet's own abilities to
receive. He uses this to explain how the Torah could be similar to the
Code of Hammurabi - Rav Kook says that whatever cultural elements
could be uplifted, the Torah preferred to keep them and sanctify them,
rather than to reject them. Cf. how Rav Kook, following Rambam,
suggests that the Garden of Eden could be a metaphor, explaining that
the lesson is more important than the history, and that G-d knew when
it was better to either craft new legends or reuse old ones in order
to achieve His pedagogic ends.)

That essay is copiously footnoted, and contains a fantastic wealth of
historical data. I'd say, however, that the ultimate thesis of that
essay - viz. to show that Rabbi Hertz was a Conservative - is a
failure. I will elaborate, quoting what I wrote at
http://shimshonit.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/tzniut-adventure-grade-1/#comment-593

I just read an essay trying to prove that Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz was a
Conservative, as the term is understood today. Now, the essay was
quite learned; the author copiously cited Rabbi Hertz’s Pentateuch,
showing his view of Biblical Criticism (viewing Wellhaussen as an
anti-Semite who wanted to make the Torah be post-Exilic in order to
say that original authentic Judaism, like Christianity, was
antinomian), support of the concept of evolution in halakhah and
progressive-revelation in the Oral Law, and Maimonidean rationalism in
his moralization of Judaism (eschewing all Kabbalism, appealing to
late 19-century and early 20th century Germanic rationalism). The
essay also showed how Rabbi Hertz’s views followed from those of his
teachers, Alexander Kohut and Sabato Morais at JTS, and how Rabbi
Hertz, to his dying day, heaped praise upon JTS and its faculty
(especially Solomon Schechter).

But while the essay was brilliant from a technical historical
standpoint, its ultimate thesis I think was a failure. If Rabbi Hertz
was a Conservative for believing in the evolution of halakhah and the
Oral Law, then so were:
– Rabbi Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin (a renowned Hasidic master);
– Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (a traditional old-school dayan in
Klausenberg, Hungary);
– Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits;
– Rabbis Benzion Uziel and Haim David Halevi, both traditional Turkish
Judeo-Spanish rabbis who never attended yeshiva.
– Arguably, Rambam, whose philosophy of the Oral law Glasner relies on.

The essay also wanted to say Rabbi Hertz was Conservative because of
his positive attitude towards Solomon Schechter. But as Professor Marc
Shapiro notes in another essay (”Sociology and Halakhah” in Tradition
– the title says it all, on how sociology as much as ideology shapes
denominationalism), Rav Kook referred to Schechter as “rabbi”.
Similarly, the essay about Hertz remarked how Rabbi Hertz considered
Zacharias Frankel, the founder of Positive-Historical Judaism (the
precursor to Conservative) to be a rabbi in good standing, whereas
Rabbis S. R. Hirsch and Esriel Hildsheimer, the foremost figures in
German Neo-Orthodoxy, considered Frankel a heretic. But, as Professor
Shapiro shows (op. cit.), Rabbis D. Z. Hoffmann and Yehiel Weinberg,
Hildsheimer’s direct successors, considered Frankel to be a kosher
rabbi! So if Rabbi Hertz was Conservative for supporting Frankel, so
were Hoffmann and Weinberg! (We might note that Weinberg is even cited
reverentially in Eastern-European Lithuanian Haredi circles. So
apparently, the Haredim are all Conservative as well!)

The essay again tried to show that Rabbi Hertz was Conservative
because he was president of Jews’ College in Britain and favorably
compared it to JTS. But we might note that the principal of Jews’
College rabbinic school, Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein, received his smiha
from…Rav Kook!

Then, the essay noted that Sabato Morais, Rabbi Hertz’s revered and
oft-cited teacher (Rabbi Hertz called him his “patriarch”) doubted
whether the Third Temple would have animal sacrifices, thereby
attempting to impugn the Orthodoxy of both Morais and Hertz. But as we
all know, Rav Kook (as well as many Orthodox authorities cited in
Professor Marc Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology, chapter on
eternity of the Torah) also thought that the Third Temple would have
only vegetal offerings!

So for every single piece of evidence adduced to show Rabbi Hertz was
Conservative, a multitude of unquestionably Orthodox rabbis are
impugned as well. Heck, Rav Kook is already Conservative three times
over!

Sofo shel davar: be very careful when dealing with denominational
labels. If Rabbi Hertz was Conservative, so were:
– Several Eastern European scions of traditional yeshivot (Glasner and
Tzadok ha-Kohen of Lublin);
– The entire Turkish/Greek school of Judaism;
– Half of the German Neo-Orthodox school (Hoffmann and Weinberg, in
contrast to Hirsch and Hildsheimer);
– Rav Kook.
That’s a pretty wide brush to be painting with!

Michael Makovi