The oneness of God is universally acknowledged as the foundation stone of Judaism and its main contribution to the world. The theme of the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,” underlies every single aspect of Jewish life and thought, and permeates every page of its vast literature. So powerful is this vision of God’s unity that inevitably it must express the corollary that the divine unity is the source of a unity that encompasses all existence.[1] Nowhere is the idea of yichud ha-shem, the Unity of God, given more poignant and intense express on than in the Kabbalah. In Jewish mysticism the Unity of God is not only one of the mightiest themes, but it becomes a living reality, per-haps the only reality. God’s unity is taken not alone as an arithmetic proposition, but as the unification of all existence, in all its awesome diversity, through God. It is symbolized, in the Kabbalah, by the unity within God Himself. It is this unity — elaborated, explained, enhanced, and expounded by kabbalists from the Zohar through the late Rav Kook — of which our modern world stands in such desperate need. If it was eve' necessary to reaffirm that theme, with its conscious rejection of all conflict, multiplicity, and fragmentation, it is today, when mankind stands poised, ready to blow itself to bits both physically and conceptually.In this paper we shall examine the treatment of the Unity of God in one expression of the Jewish spirit, the Kabbalah — particularly in the Zohar and in the works of its most recent exponent, the late Rav Kook, Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land; in one sacred institution of Judaism, the Sabbath; and in one famous hymn of the Prayerbook, the Lekhah Dodi, a kabbalistic poem which celebrates the Sabbath. Our purpose is not a his-torical presentation of the Unity Theme, but rather to see what it can yield for us in the way of instruction: its implication for moderns.The reader who is unacquainted with the atmosphere and terminology of the…

The study of Torah is one of the most fundamental commandments in Judaism; it outweighs all the other precepts. The question of what should be the motivation for such study depends upon how one defines the talmudic concept of Torah lishmah - usually translated as “Torah for its own sake.” The definition of this teleology of study is, in turn, usually contingent upon one’s general orientation to Jewish values: the role of the intellect as against ethical and ritual performances, inwardness vis-a-vis external acts, and so on. Moreover, the degree to which one insists upon pure motivation, i.e., study lishmah, depends upon the significance one attaches to the study of Torah as such: the more one esteems the act of study, the less one is disposed to demand lishmah, however one interprets the term; and the less one’s relative emphasis on the study of Torah, the more likely is his insistence upon lishmah. (3) The various definitions of the term Torah lishmah can generally be grouped in three categories, with the understanding that they are not mutually exclusive:In this context, it is interesting to analyze the writings on the study of Torah lishmah by R. Yehudah Leib Pukhovitzer, a late seventeenth-century rabbi and preacher whose books reflect the kabbalistically oriented piety of his times. (10) As a representative of this period, his works tell us something about the religious spirit and views of seventeenth-century Polish Jewry and about its religious and educational institutions and problems. This analysis is made particularly necessary because of some recent assertions about Puknovitzer’s concept of Torah lishmah which this writer considers highly questionable. Relying mostly on kabbalistic sources, Pukhovitzer fully subscribes to the functional definition of Torah lishmah: He who studies lishmah merits both this world and the world-to-come, as is written in the Zohar. . . . The reason for this is that Torah (i.e., study) without [the performance of] the commandme…

In the plentiful and fascinating polemical literature surrounding the Hasidic-Mitnagdic controversy, one of the more interesting tracts is a slim volume by the name of מצרף עבודה (hereinafter: MA). Its special importance derives from its explicit references to R. Hayyim of Volozhin (1749-1821), the leading ideologist of the Mitnagdim, and from its arguments which are, in effect, rebuttals to the criticisms contained in R. Hayyim's Nefesh ha-Hayyim[1] (hereinafter: NH). MA was first published in Königsberg in 1858 by Dov Segelowitz, and purported to be the record of a debate that took place seventy-two years earlier between a Mitnaged and a Hasid. It is quite obviously a pseudepigraphic work, abounding in innumerable contradictions and inconsistencies. The moderateness of its polemic and the respectful forcefulness of this Hasidic apologetic tract, preclude 1786 as the date of the alleged dialogue—the tone and temperament clearly mark it as the product of a later, more conciliatory period. It is important to note the nature of this work, its probable authorship and date of composition, and the reliability of its contents and its relationship to the NH.The MA appeared in two editions. The first has been mentioned above. The second was published by Meir Greenspan in Zytomierz, 1865. The title page asserts that the contents of the volume was composed first in the year 1786; the 1st edition refers to the debate as having taken place seventy-two years earlier, and the 2nd edition dates it as eighty years earlier. Similarly, the correspondence which forms the major part of the book is dated 1786. The two correspondents are identified as Benjamin Ze'ev of Slonim (the Mitnaged) and Joseph of Nemerov (the Hasid). Both editions carry, as an addendum, an undated letter by R. Shneour Zalman to his followers in Vilna, which appropriately refutes many of the Mitnagdic charges and relates the HaBaD leader’s efforts at mediation and reconciliation. The literary form of the MA is th…

One of the principal issues on which the Hasidic-Mitnagdic controversy turns, in its concern with substantive theological matters, is the question of the relative weight to be assigned to the study of Torah and prayer. It is the purpose of this essay to compare the manner in which each of these two movements treated the problem, using as the spokesmen for these groups two distinguished rabbinic scholars and thinkers: the Hasidic teacher and founder of the HaBaD movement, R. Shneour Zalman of Ladi, and the founder of the Volozhiner Yeshiva and disciple of the Gaon of Vilna, R. Hayyim of Volozhin. Both were commanding personalities and ideologists of their respective viewpoints, and yet were moderates, in a period of almost unrelieved, bitter polemics at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries.The question of Torah vis-a-vis Tefillah is a special case of the larger problem of study vs. practice (of the mitzvot) as such; indeed, the relative evaluation of Torah and prayer is the most sensitive barometer for the axiological preference for study over practice or vice versa. It is unnecessary to add that Judaism affirms both study and worship as major values, and a preference for one by no means implies the exclusion of the other. The corpus of a living Judaism is incomplete, indeed inconceivable, without either the head or the heart. Yet it is a question of no little import whether primary emphasis should be laid on the study of Torah, giving Judaism a rigorously intellectualist bent with corresponding educational and social consequences, or on worship, thus stressing the existential and experiential rather than the purely cognitive themes of Jewish religious existence.R. Hayyim accorded the highest possible significance to the study of Torah.¹ Alone amongst all others in the Lurianic tradition, he assigned the origin of the preexistent, hypostatic Torah to the loftiest realms within God Himself: the Unnameable regions beyond the World of Atz…

Volozhiner, Hayyim Ben Isaac (1749-1821), rabbi and eductor, leading disciple of R. Elijah b. Solomon Zalman the Gaon of Vilna and of R. Aryeh Gunzberg (author of Shaagat Aryeh). R. Hayyim was the acknowledged spiritual leader of non-hasidic Russian Jewry of his day. Hayyim distinguished himself both in the theoretical and practical spheres. In 1802 he founded the renowned yeshivah of Volozhin (later to be named Ez Hayyim in his honor), which became the prototype and inspiration for the great talmudic academies of Eastern Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries, and similar schools in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere. His yeshivah, which the poet H. N. Bialik was later to call “the place where the soul of the nation was molded" transformed the whole religio-intellectual character of Lithuanian Jewry. Imbued with his educational philosophy, it raised religious scholarship in Lithuania to the unique status it was to enjoy there until the Holocaust. It attracted students from afar enhancing the dignity of their calling. Hayyim set high standards for admission, insisting on extreme diligence and constancy of study, and instituted in the yeshivah the system of collegial study (havruta) preferring it to self-study. The talmudic methodology, which was introduced by Hayyim into the yeshivah. was that of internal criticism of texts which he had learned from the Vilna Gaon. Though humble and of pleasant disposition, Hayyim was fearlessly independent in his scholarly endeavors. His insistence upon "straight thinking" (iyyun yashar), as opposed to the complicated dialectics common to much of the talmudic discourse of his time, led him occasionally to disagree even with decisions of the Shulhan Arukh, albeit with appropriate reverence. The theological framework for Hayyim's educational philosophy is contained in his posthumously published Nefesh ha-Hayyim (Vilna, 1824), which is addressed primarily to “the men of the yeshivah.” Quoting widely from Kabbalistic as well as r…

To the honor of my beloved brother-in-law, my friend who is as dear to me as my [own] soul and heart, who is the distinguished rabbinic scholar, the saint[14] famous in [the study of] Torah and in piety, the honor of our Master, Rabbi Abraham Gershon, may his lamp shine, and peace be unto all that is unto him and unto his modest wife Bluma and all their children, may they all receive[15] the blessing of life, Amen selah! I received your holy letter, which you sent along with the emissary[16] who went from Jerusalem, at the fair in Loka in 1750.[17] It is written with extreme brevity, and in it is said that you had already written at length to each and every one through the man who traveled to Egypt.[18] However, those letters which were written at length did not reach me, and this caused me great anguish, that I did not see your holy handwriting which you wrote in detail. Certainly, this is because of the havoc of the countries[19], because of our many sins, the plague having spread in all the countries. For the plague came close to our areas, in the holy community of Mohilov, and the countries of Walachia and Turkey. Also, in your letter, it is said that those new interpretations and secrets which I wrote to you, through the scribe, the Rabbi preacher of the holy community of Polonnoye[20] did not reach you. This too caused me great anguish, for certainly you would have derived great satisfaction from them. However, I have now forgotten a number of them. But I will write to you, in great brevity, some details of what I remember. For in the beginning of the (Hebrew) year 1746[21], I performed the oath of the ascent of the soul[22], as you know.[23] I saw wondrous things in a vision[24], what I had not seen heretofore, from the day that I reached maturity. It is impossible to relate, even to ”speak mouth to mouth” (HO.12:8), of what I saw and learned when I ascended there. When I returned[25] to the Lower Garden of Eden, and I saw the soul of many living and dead, b…

The end of the phase of hostility between the Hasidim and the Mitnaggedim, and the beginning of genuine dialogue between them, was occasioned by a multiplicity of causes, ranging from the political and economic to the historical and psychological. However, in order to isolate, insofar as it is possible to do so, the basic mechanism of reconciliation that made possible the existence of vigorous dissent within a pattern of “tolerance,” I shall restrict myself to the realm of ideas and the interplay of religious values and theological concepts. By thus limiting the scope of this inquiry, we can perhaps sharpen the focus on what I think marks the beginning of the reconciliation which ultimately assured that Hasidism would remain within the fold of Traditional Judaism, and whereby the Mitnaggedim, although they continued to reject the foundations of Hasidism, accepted the Hasidim as authentically traditional Jews, thereby implying, indirectly, their acceptance of Hasidism as a legitimate variant of Judaism.We shall concentrate on one individual on the Mitnaggedic side, R. Hayyim of Volozhin (1749-1821), and, as a foil to his work, Nefesh ha-Hayyim, the works of R. Shneur Zalman of Ladi (1745-1813). R. Shneur Zalman, one of the youngest of the disciples of R. Dov Ber (the Maggid of Mezeritch) who was successor to the Besht, was the founder of the HaBaD school, the most cogent and profound intellectual formulation of Hasidism. R. Hayyim was the most distinguished student of R. Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, spiritual leader of the Mitnaggedim, and he was the founder of the well-known Talmudic academy, the Yeshivah of Volozhin in Lithuania.The period on which we shall concentrate is, approximately, the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The Gaon died in the Fall of 1797, and that is the approximate date of the publication of Likkutei Amarim by R. Shneur Zalman. In 1800, R. Shneur Zalman was released from his imprisonment in St. Petersburg, determined to effect a reco…

A few years ago I had the privilege of participating in a fascinating conversation between Jewish and Chinese scholars in Beijing. During the rest period, one of the English-speaking Chinese delegates asked: “Who are the heroes of the Jewish people other than the big three?” I thought he meant Einstein, Freud, and Marx, who, in the secular world, are the three greatest Jews. “Big three?” I said. “Einstein, Marx, and Kissinger,” he said. So much for heroes of the Jewish people.A little later, in Israel, I was asked asimilar question by an Israeli journalist: “Who do you regard today as the three greatest Jews?"“The criterion for that statement, “I said, "is that great Jews will worry about all of us, they're not sectarian," I told him, “So I would say Menachem Begin in the political sphere; then there was my teacher, Rabbi Joseph B Soloveitchik - in the area of the intellect, he was agenius; and in the area of spirituality, there was the Rebbe".Those three define for me the great- ness of leadership: one in diplomacy, one in intellect, and one in religion and spirituality. And, indeed, that is why it is such a pleasure for me to be here with you, Chabad, who are devoted to perpetuating the principles which so invigorate the Jewish world and who are not worried only about their own group but go out to the world.If I had to choose three ideas that I derive from Chabad and that I’m plugging for all people. I would say it is these:Firstly, the individual emphasis upon each soul, emphasised by Chabad, but also a basic Jewish teaching. Chabad teaches us that every individual is pre- cious, with the capacity to be a religious human being. Let me explain how Chabad does this:The greatest of all the command- ments is to love God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might. Now this is a mitzvah. A commandment. We are commanded to love God. How can you command something which is deeply emotional, a matter of the will and the emot…