[Avodah] Rab Dessler's Givers and Takers

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Aug 8 23:50:09 PDT 2012


I just posted:
: I said that "Tenu'as haMussar really doesn't utilize Qabbalah much". By
: which I meant, whatever Qabbala they might have used, or might be
: consistent with because after all they are perspectives on the same
: Torah, is not necessary to explore that to follow the derekh...
:               Qabbalah is framed as not essential for knowing man's job
: in this world.

I should add that this led to a dispute between Dr Immanuel Etkes and R
Dr Hillel Goldstein about whether R' Yisrael Salanter studied Qabbalah.
At the end of R/D HG's "Israel Salanter: Text, Structure, Idea", he has
an excursus titled "Did Israel Salanter Stufy Philosophy and Kabbalah?"
refuting Etkes's claim that he did not. Still, R/D Hillel Goldberg does
conclude that RYS didn't teach Qabbalah.

See the thread "Reb Yisrael and Kabbalah" in Avodah's archives at
http://j.mp/ON9uad
In particular, R' Meir Levin (author of "Novhardok", published by
Aronson) wrote then:
> Hillel Goldberg quotes these words of Ettkes and argues with them. The
> evidence for Ettkes is third line (R. Zaitchik and R. Levovits) and
> very late whereas R. Y. Blaser reports in Ohr Isroel that R. Salanter
> studied Kabbala. His other evidence is that a number of people around
> R. Slanater, including his teacher R. Zundel were masters of Kabbala as
> well his immediate disciples, such as R. Blaser.

> I agree that R. Salanter made a break with the conceptual
> world of both philosophy and Kabbala (see my article in
> Jewish Action, Volume 64, No. 2, Winter 2003/5764, fn.10,
> <http://www.aishdas.org/news/jewishAction.pdf>). That does not mean that
> he did not study or wasn't proficient in Kabala. While he seems to have
> avoided using Kabbalistic terms, philosophical terms are encountered
> abundantly in his writings.

And to quote the footnote:
    10. Reb Yisrael appeared to see both the "negative" and at least
    some of the "positive" middot as residing in the same "animal
    soul." He felt, therefore, that both positive and negative middot
    should be subject to the same methods of musar training (Etkes,
    126-127). This view contrasts with both the philosophical and
    kabbalistic traditions. In philosophy, good middot are an expression
    of "form," (spiritual within man) and bad ones come from "matter"
    (physical within man). Kabbalah attributed them to the "lower"
    and "higher" soul, respectively. (See Moreh Nevuchim, 3,8 and
    Rav Chaim Vital, Shaarei Kedushah, ch. 1-3). By breaking with this
    understanding, Reb Yisrael made good and bad middot correctable with
    the same techniques. The antecedents of Reb Yisrael's view may have
    been in the writings of the Gaon of Vilna; see Commentary to Yonah
    1,6.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             What we do for ourselves dies with us.
micha at aishdas.org        What we do for others and the world,
http://www.aishdas.org   remains and is immortal.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Albert Pine



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