TY - JOUR
AU - Yedidya, Asaf
AB - Abstract As part of the cultural revival that accompanied the Zionist revolution, important literary projects were created, providing ideological support for the Zionist project, enriching the newly revived Hebrew culture and redefining the Jewish bookshelf. Within this diverse cultural work, the project of the anthologies was formed. These projects were led at the beginning by disciples of Ahad Ha'am—the founder of the cultural stream in Zionism. Religious Zionism, which during the British Mandate in Palestine had struggled for its place among the pioneers, also sought to initiate its own literary projects. However, its scholars came to compile anthologies individually rather than through the Movement. Their interest was sparked by a combination of modern Jewish scientific research, an aspiration to enrich Jewish literature, and the theoretical and practical challenge presented by national revival. The two most prominent efforts of this sort during the Mandate period: Otzar HaGeonim (by Benjamin Menashe Levin), and Seder Kiddushin ve-Nissu'in Aharei Hatimat ha-Talmud (by Abraham Chaim Freimann), reflected two different trends in religious Zionism. The first, expanding the study of Torah, touched on the theoretical side of the Talmud in Jewish literature and enjoyed Orthodox consensus. The second, concerned with the renewal of halacha, touched on the practical side of religious law throughout the ages and sought to locate, collect, and analyze judgments and rabbinic rulings from Jewish consortiums in the post-Talmudic period, in order to formulate legal precedents that could resolve halachic problems that might arise in the future in Eretz Israel, where the Jewish People were about to establish an independent national state. *** In his article “Compilations—Wissenschaft des Judentums and the Formation of a National Culture in Eretz Israel,” historian Israel Bartal discussed the efforts of Zionist intellectuals, headed by supporters of cultural Zionism, to collect Jewish spiritual treasures as part of the creation of a modern Hebrew national culture. This enterprise, designed to collate, edit and preserve the cultural assets of the Jewish people, had two goals: national and scientific. It aimed to present and make accessible traditional texts that were the fruit of national creativity, preserving what was appropriate and consigning the rest to oblivion. According to Bartal, the new national culture needed to be discovered and liberated from the traditional world. While this was necessary for the sake of continuity, there was also a need to uproot, change, and forget. Moreover, behind this enterprise lay the assumption that it could be carried out scientifically by rational, systematic sorting, classification and interpretation introduced by Wissenschaft des Judentums in the nineteenth century. This project, which began in the Russian empire in the early twentieth century, brought together ethnographers and musicologists such as Ansky, Zalman Robashov (Shazar) and Joel Engel. When it relocated to Eretz Israel after World War I, it was partially sponsored by the Hebrew University, which had recently been: established in Jerusalem. The project’s achievements included: the Book of the Yishuv, edited by Shmuel Klein, who compiled all the information about the Jews in Eretz Israel, from the Arab conquest in the seventh century to the dawn of the new settlement in the late nineteenth century; The Book of Zionism, a collection of essays documenting Zionist history; and Israel in the Diaspora, a huge compilation of sources of the history of Israel, edited by historian Ben Zion Dinur.1 Another initiative from that time was Gershom Scholem’s scheme to publish all the important manuscripts of Kabbalah “as critical and analytical publications, to refine and clarify the truth about Kabbalah's development and progress.”2 The highlight of the enterprise was the monumental Sefer Ha’Aggadah by Haim Nachman Bialik (1873–1934)3 and Yehoshua Hana Rawnitzki (1859–1944), although this artistic-subjective anthology belied the scientific trend. Compiled in Odessa in the first decade of the twentieth century, this work essentially brings together the many legendary tales from the Talmud and homiletic commentaries, sifting all that the compilers presumed needed to be kept and presenting it both chronologically and thematically, explaining words, translating Aramaic texts, and combining different versions of the same stories.4 This compilation was part of the new canonization of Jewish literature towards which Bialik was striving, that could then be established as a central pillar in the creation of modern national Hebrew culture. It represented a new symbol of the Jewish cultural codex, bestowing a dimension of national holiness within the concept of traditional religious holiness. Through the new canonization Bialik sought to achieve a number of goals: to make Jewish literature accessible to Israeli youth, to unite the nation around one literary focus, to encourage fresh Hebrew creativity, and to encourage intimate encounters with the cultures of the world. According to Bialik, Sefer HaAggadah had a crucial role to play because the traditions of the people would serve as the basis of their new cultural creation, revised through the paradigm of modern national thought which differed from the paradigm of traditional Jewish thought.5 In Sefer HaAggadah and the articles he wrote in its wake, Bialik outlined the direction to be taken by other anthologies, which he thought were necessary for the formation of the new canon. He enumerated five steps: Search, locate and collect the texts from all the sources. Sort and classify the texts. Arrange and edit them scientifically, sifting out what should be archived and leaving what is worthy of preservation for future generations. Translate and interpret the texts to make them accessible to the developing Yishuv, in order to restore them to the national Hebrew language. Publish and distribute the material.6 Another project he undertook was Mishnah La’Am, by which he sought to “give the Mishnah to the people as an appropriate book for each Jew who knows Hebrew […] in a new form, more appropriate to the contemporary discernments and demands.” However, when Bialik praised Halacha, he was not referring to the halachic corpus of the Shulkhan Arukh but rather to the principle of Halacha (law), which is different from the principle of Aggadah (non-legal exegesis material), i.e. behavioral patterns as opposed to ideological–literary patterns.7 We are speaking not of this or that particular halakhah or aggadah. Our concern is with halakhah in general – with halakhah as a concrete and definite form of actual life, of a life which is not in the clouds, which does not depend on vague feelings and beautiful phrases alone, but has physical reality and physical beauty. Halakhah in that sense, I assert, is but the inevitable continuation and sequel of aggadah.8 In order to realize these ideals Bialik founded the Dvir Publishing House in 1922, after his arrival in Eretz Israel. After his death, the Zionist Organization established the Bialik Institute to continue to fulfill his ideals.9 Bialik’s approach, which relates selectively to rabbinic literature and especially to halachic literature, was a thorn in the side of Orthodox Judaism and within it national Orthodoxy, which supported Zionism. Although the banner of Religious Zionism was not emblazoned with the national spirit of resurrection as the central mission of Zionism, unlike the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'am, some of its figures nevertheless attributed to it great importance. They sought to make it a central mission, adapted to the spirit of tradition.10 Notable among them were writer and historian Ze'ev Jawitz (1847–1924) and Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (1865–1935).11 Ze’ev Jawitz (1847–1924) was born in the shtetl of Kolno in Poland. His family moved to Warsaw in 1865. He immigrated to Palestine in 1887. From 1897 Jawitz lived in various places in Europe: Lithuania, Germany, Belgium and England. His literary and communal activities were highly varied. They encompassed virtually all areas of culture and he left his imprint on them all. He realized that he was living in an age of transition from one way of life in the Diaspora to a different one in the national homeland, one that presented complex problems together with occasional opportunities. Jawitz strove to harmonize Orthodoxy with the life that was developing in Eretz Israel, partly by blending it with nascent Jewish nationalism. He understood that a people returning to its homeland needed a national culture, one that was both broad and deep, and that the narrow world of Halacha would no longer suffice. Writing in a positive spirit rather than subversively, he therefore strove to construct a traditional picture of the past, with a view to creating a new program for religious education that would meet the needs of the time without causing a rift with the past. He also tried to advance these ideas in the political sphere through the Zionist Organization’s Mizrachi party.12 Jawitz did not initiate a national cultural project of collating, although he was the first to popularize aggadic literature. In fact, Bialik was influenced at the very start of his literary career by Jawitz’s writings. The very fact that Bialik chose to invest in producing Hebrew literature was partly a result of the cultural activity of Jawitz, and Sefer Ha’Aggadah was influenced by Sichot Minei Kedem, Jawitz’s pioneering work of adapted rabbinic legend. Ultimately, however, Bialik chose the path of Ahad Ha‘am and dedicated considerable effort to the latter’s cultural Zionism. Rabbi Kook, on the other hand, designed several halachic literary projects, including the idea of a halachic anthology. Rabbi Kook was born in 1865 in the town of Griva, in the Courland Governorate of the Russian Empire. In his youth he received a traditional education, and at the age of nineteen he attended the Volozhin yeshiva. In 1888 he was invited to serve as rabbi of Žeimelis, near Kovna, where he expanded his knowledge of Kabbalah. In 1895 he was appointed rabbi of Bauska, in Courland. He supported the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) movement,13 and after the First Zionist Congress (1897) he also supported the Zionist movement. In 1904, he accepted the invitation of the Jaffa community to serve as rabbi, and immigrated to Eretz Israel. Rabbi Kook believed the highlight of spiritual revival was the revival of Jewish thought. He internalized a great deal of the Haskalah’s (Enlightenment) critique of Jewish life, but not its conclusions, believing that religious thought had the power to delve into the honest spiritual questions of the younger generation, which had begun to abandon its traditions. Rabbi Kook assumed that the moral questions and contradictions between religion and life extolled by the Haskalah writers could be resolved through studying all the strata of the Torah— halachic, aggadic and kabbalistic. His thought-provoking work dealt with a wide range of issues: the relationship between religion and nationalism, the roots of secularism, the relationship between halacha and aggada, the place of national revival throughout history, and more. He also encouraged and fostered the creation of a new literature that would deal with issues of belief, opinion, and contemporary problems from a deep religious perspective, and would provide an alternative to the literary activity of the secular–national circles. In a letter written by Rabbi Kook to the members of the Bet Va’ad Hachachamim in the summer of 1908, he expressed his desire “for the beginning of a new light, to bring together all the spiritual treasures of God’s light, shining the light of Israel upon the world … ”.14 A detailed plan for a Torah creation, including a compendium of halachic literature throughout the generations in the field of civil and criminal law, can be found in a letter written to his student Israel Porat in 1913.15 Much against his will, Rabbi Kook spent time in Europe during World War I, first in Switzerland and then in England. Rabbi Kook was fascinated by the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917), which he viewed as an act of divine providence. He estimated that the Zionist movement, immigration to Eretz Israel, and its rebuilding, would be significantly enhanced by the Balfour Declaration. He began to design a comprehensive plan of action for ramping up the cultural and intellectual struggle over the soul of the Zionist movement and the Yishuv.16 The plan, which fleshed out various ideas he had formulated during his tenure as the rabbi of Jaffa, called for founding a counterpart to the Zionist Organization that would include all Orthodox Jews, most of whom had been unwilling to embrace the Zionist movement. The new organization would take action in the three main areas in which Zionist factions were already active: politics, practical initiatives, and culture—while adhering strictly to tradition. In stark contrast to the mainstream emphasis on Zion, the new movement would be called Degel Yerushalayim (the Flag of Jerusalem).17 Rabbi Kook called his cultural–spiritual vision “the revival of holiness.” Just as the resurrection of Israel was progressing substantially through immigration, settlement and national institutions, so it must advance spiritually, through religious literary creations that would expand and deepen the study of traditional Torah. Upon his return to Israel in 1919, Rabbi Kook sought to fulfill his plan to serve as rabbi of Jerusalem. In early 1921 he gave a lecture in Jerusalem to commemorate the anniversary of Maimonides’ death. It was entitled “Raise the flag of a life of spiritual creation, a life of sacred creation, of good works, a life that brings blessing and benefit to us and to all the world.”18 He proposed embarking on several halachic literary projects focusing on the Talmud, including a Talmudic Encyclopedia and a treasury of Talmud commentators—collating and editing talmudic interpretations. He also proposed “clear halacha with halachic exploration,” designed to connect talmudic issues with the literature of the Poskim (legal arbiters)—first, by bringing rulings of Maimonides and the Shulkhan Arukh along with the Talmudic issue from which they were derived, and, secondly, by explaining different halachic methods through adherence to the various interpretations of the talmudic issue and its original commentaries. During his lifetime he was only able to promote this last venture. The other two came into being some time after his passing. In contrast to the compilations of Bialik and his followers, who sought to reorganize the corpus of Jewish literature by selecting Rabbinic literature and expanding it through old secular and modern texts, Rabbi Kook sought to rework and reshape the existing traditional material without discarding anything or introducing secular texts. Religious Zionist scholars who participated in the compilation were faced with the models of Bialik and Rabbi Kook. Two of the most prominent scholars who were active in Eretz Israel during the time of the Mandate period were Benjamin Menashe Levin and Abraham Chaim Freimann. BENJAMIN MENASHE LEVIN’S OTZAR HAGEONIM Benjamin Menashe Levin (1879–1944)19 was born in Belarus and studied in a number of yeshivot, including the Telz Yeshiva headed by Rabbi Eliezer Gordon. He also studied with Rabbi Shmuel Alexandrov of Bobruysk (1865–1941) who initiated him into the world of literature and history. At the age of eighteen Levin traveled to Bauska, where he met Rabbi Kook and became his student. The relationship continued until the death of Rabbi Kook in 1935. At the same time, Levin became acquainted with historian Ze'ev Jawitz, the editor of the journal Hamizrach, in which Levin published several short articles. In 1905 Levin traveled to Berlin to attend the Orthodox rabbinical seminary. A few months later, when Ze’ev Jawitz arrived in Berlin, the two began working on Corpus Tanaiticum, arranging all the Baraitas (remnants of earlier Mishnaic teachings) according to the order of the Mishna. The project was commissioned by the Union of Judaic Studies in Breslau but was cut short.20 After one year at the Berlin seminary Levin left to attend the University of Bern, studying history, philosophy and Semitic languages, and within four years he obtained his PhD. His doctoral thesis was a scientific analysis of the Letter of Rav Sherira Gaon (Rashag), including a biography of Rashag. During his studies at the University of Bern, Levin became acquainted with other Jewish students who, like him, had been born in Tsarist Russia and raised in traditional homes, attended Lithuanian yeshivot in their youth, and were now seeking new fields of study. Bern was a kind of colony of Jewish students from the Russian Empire who, due to the “Numerus Clausus” could not attend Russian universities and had no choice but to travel to Switzerland, which was in many respects more convenient than Germany because there it took less time to complete a degree.21 The university had two Jewish student associations: the Jewish National Kadima Society and the Zionist Academic Association. In early 1908, Levin, together with other Orthodox students at the University of Bern, including Biblical scholars Moshe Zidel (1886–1970), Shmuel Zvi Cohen (1882–1933), and Shmuel Halevy, son of the ultra-Orthodox historian, Isaac Halevy, founded the Tahkemoni Student Association whose purpose was to engage in Wissenschaft des Judentums in the spirit of Orthodoxy. Between 1910 and 1911 Levin edited the Tahkemoni Journal of Judaic Studies. Initially he wanted to engage in the study of the Bible, and his first paper dealt with wording in the Bible, focusing on Biblical criticism.22 But a suggestion made by members of the Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft in Frankfurt am Main—among them Rabbi Isaac Halevy who went on to publish a scientific text of Rashag—eventually led him to engage in the literature of the Geonim. When he could spare the time from his university studies he visited European libraries to seek out manuscripts of the Rashag. After rigorous philological examination and comprehensive bibliographical-historical research, his findings were published in the Jahrbuch der Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft and constituted his dissertation.23 Levin preferred the platform in Frankfurt to Mekitzei Nirdamim, which was also desirous of publishing his research, because he identified with its Orthodox orientation and the fact that it had taken a sectarian stand against the opponents of Isaac Halevy’s research methods.24 He dedicated the Hebrew version of his work on the manuscript of Rabbi Sherira Gaon (Haifa, 1921) to “the Admor Shlita, the president of Eretz Israel—the Gaon Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, from his student, the author.” Although scholars of the Geonic period who came after him questioned some of his conclusions about the two versions of Rabbi Sherira Gaon’s manuscript, the Spanish and the French, and the originality of the first version,25 Levin’s work remains the primary source for scholars of the Geonic period. In 1912 Levin immigrated to Eretz Israel to head the Netzach Yisrael Orthodox school in Petah Tikva. In 1920 he moved to Haifa and for ten years managed the local branch of Netzach Yisrael, apart from one semester in 1923 when he lectured in Jewish studies at the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, and the following year, when he lectured at the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, under the direction of Alexander Marx. At the end of that year, he declined Rabbi Bernard Rebel’s invitation to serve as lecturer for the coming year at the Yitzhak Elhanan Yeshiva, for fear that “if I delay I may settle here.”26 Even earlier, in 1922, he had begun to publish his scientific compendium, Ginzei Kedem, dedicated to Geonic literature. But his life’s work, begun in 1917, was Otzar HaGeonim—the complete anthology of Geonic writings on the Babylonian Talmud. With the help of assistants, Levin sought out Geonic commentaries in libraries and archives throughout Europe and the U.S., bringing together every text related to their teachings. He then embarked on the task of sorting out all the material to determine the extent of the Geonic period, eventually settling on the time of Rabbenu Hananel (965–1055). He classified the texts according to halachic responsa and Talmudic commentary. His seventh volume featured a third classification—the commentary of Rabbi Hananel. All the material was arranged in the order of the Talmudic tractates. Levin settled on this from among other possibilities, such as the chronology of the Geonim or the order of halachot, because he believed this to be the main context of the Geonic period, in that, “the conclusion of the Gemara was the foundation of the Geonic period. They extended it to all the house of Israel while zealously guarding it in the academy of Talmudic sages.”27 Levin edited the texts, using footnotes to discuss their sources, their parallels, and their representation in the literature of the Rishonim. He published twelve volumes. There was no archival element in his work as there was in the work of Bialik. As far as Levin was concerned, the teachings of the Geonim were entirely worthy of preserving for generations to come. He believed the importance of the Geonic period lay principally in the fact that there was a continuous tradition between them and the Amoraim, “therefore the Geonim will truly be regarded as the keepers of the Talmudic tradition. All the teachings of the Geonim in Babylon, where the Oral Law came into being, are no more than an extended signature and complete conclusion to the Talmud.”28 But beyond that he saw this enterprise as a compendium of the teachings of the Geonim—teachings that developed from one national spiritual center before the proliferation of Torah centers among the Jewish people, teachings that concluded the Talmud and completed the process of the ingathering of the exiles. Some twenty years later Levin wrote the following about his project: At that time of emergency (the 1917 war between Britain and Turkey), I sat in silence, contemplating the scattered remnants of Gaon Ya’akov, the Geonic literature from the sealing of the Talmud to Rabbi Hai Gaon and beyond, which has been dispersed to the four spirits of heaven with no one to gather it home to Eretz Israel. I was assured at that time that after the war the salvation of the entire nation would begin in Eretz Israel, but, I said to myself that the leitmotif of the Babylonian Geonim from which “Bet Hayenu” was derived has continued from the time of the Talmud to this very day through various channels. Who will liberate it? Who will gather it together for our land?29 […] The heads of the “Gaon Ya’akov” yeshivot shone like stars, illuminating “our mother’s house” in Babylon, and they will shine sevenfold when together they will arise over the entire Talmud. How much more so, when all the literature of that great period, every remnant that has survived, will be collated and arranged. This is an important period for it concluded the Talmudic period in Babylon which was another “spiritual center” of the house of Israel. After this the center was divided and widely shared! Indeed, this “gathering of the exiles” of an entire period and its resurrection also marks the beginning of the salvation of Israel! Thousands of years of decay and destruction have passed over these old parchments, in time most of them have been eaten away and the rest are worn out. Exile after exile has scattered them. And after all this, fragments and missing limbs are rising and coming together, one by one, some from the north, some by water, uniting and being revived by the Talmud and its Geonim. Is this not a sign that the remnant of Jacob is not lost and its glory will arise again!30 This is reflected in Levin’s attempt to harness his mission of compilation to the vision of his teacher, Rabbi Kook, for a spiritual creation that would systematically process Talmudic literature for generations, as part of the spiritual revival needed in Eretz Israel to complete the material resurrection. This vision also required the gathering of Torah–Halachic literary treasures scattered in various libraries around the world. Rabbi Kook himself saw eye to eye with his disciple. Like him, Rabbi Kook regarded the Geonim as the most qualified commentators of the Talmud, as he wrote in his article on Otzar HaGeonim: “We strive to again draw the faithful waters of the Talmud's wisdom and its interpretation from the earliest source, which is none other than the teachings of the first Geonim. They are the holy ones who instilled in us and placed in our hands this sacred treasure of the Talmud at the beginning of its exposition.”31 Like Levin, Rabbi Kook regarded the publication of the writings of the Geonim as a step in the process of the spiritual gathering together of the Torah of Israel. He prayed that “the light of Torah, the Torah of the Babylonian Geonim, now being published in Eretz Israel, will be a good indication of the restoration of the light of Torah from its land of exile to its place of rest, the place for which it was destined from time immemorial.”32 Responses to Otzar haGeonim were divided. On the one hand, scholars and Orthodox thinkers such as Rabbi Kook and his associates, Hillel Zeitlin and Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman expressed support for the importance of the idea behind the enterprise and its implementation by Levin.33 For example, the author Joshua Radler Feldman wrote as follows in the newspaper HaHed: His work places this great enterprise among the very few to which the word ‘eternal’ applies. We study a page of Gemara with Rashi commentary without paying attention to the space of time between the Talmud and its interpretation. We overlook the fact that the first heirs to the keys of the Talmudic were the Geonim of Sura and Pumbeditha … This reconstruction of the mighty period of the Geonim is the work of Dr. B.M. Levin in his book Otzar haGeonim, and he has achieved it with dedication, precision and enthusiasm.34 In contrast, national poet Haim Nachman Bialik criticized Levin’s project and his method of working. In a letter he wrote in the winter of 1927 in reply to Levin’s request for financial assistance for Otzar haGeonim from the Hebrew University, of whose Board of Governors Bialik was a member, he denied Levin’s application: I am very happy that your idea of publishing the responsa of the Geonim is taking shape. However, I will not hide from you the fact that the method you have chosen is not clear to me. I do not understand why you decided to organize the words of the Geonim according to the order of the Shas. Does the Talmud lack commentaries? Most of the commentaries of the early Geonim are anyway included in those of the commentators who came after them. For us, nowadays, it is important to see the words of the Geonim in their entirety, each one separately and all brought together in order in one place. Such a compendium would give us as complete a picture as possible of the personality of each Gaon: the content, the style, and so on. But what is the arrangement here? A collection of all the Geonim, crushing their organs and scattering their bones and ashes across the entire sea of the Talmud. This is like removing the threads from a blanket and saying here is the fabric for a garment. Single threads are not a garment. What will be left of each Gaon’s appearance and position after what you have added? You intended to please rabbis and scholars. Are these the proper methods and requirements of science? It is even more distressing because in our opinion very few follow this profession, especially those who are talented. You should not do this work of collating the words of the Geonim and their order because you will block the path of those who come after you for a long time. This is not good fortune for Israel and for Chokhmat Israel (Wissenschaft des Judentums).35 Bialik’s criticism of Levin’s enterprise reveals differences of opinion regarding the role of Wissenschaft des Judentums. Bialik often spoke about “the vigorous need for a spiritual Kibbutz Galuyot [lit. ingathering of the Exiles] and for gathering all the literary works written in the Hebrew spirit during all generations of exile,”36 including halachic literature. However, for Bialik, as we have seen, the purpose of this project was a new canonization of the sources of Hebrew culture, according to his view of Judaism as a national culture, in the spirit of Ahad Ha’Am—a canonization mainly in the historical-literary sense, aiming to make our substantial literature accessible to generations of readers who could not connect with traditional literature due to language barriers.37 Bialik himself took the first step, with his monumental Sefer Ha’Aggadah, an anthology of national values and myths accumulated over generations by sages and writers. Therefore, he was aware of the importance of publishing the Geonic writings, precisely as an infrastructure for historical–literary monographs that would illuminate this veiled period of Jewish history and preserve the spiritual stature and features of the creators of Geonic literature, as a service to cultural scholars rather than Talmudic scholars. Seen in this light, Levin’s method could be regarded as a small addition to the ancient canon, which in any case was being preserved, thanks to its faithful adherents who did little more than “satisfy the rabbis.” Since Bialik thought there would be only one project engaged in gathering Geonic literature, he wanted it to be done in accordance with the new canon that was in more frequent use, since “the Talmud lacks commentaries?” However, according to Levin, the purpose of the anthology was to expand and enrich the existing canon of Jewish literature in halacha and aggada, not to create something new. In this context, the publication of Geonic writings was intended to supply the missing link in the Talmudic chain of commentary and to make for better understanding. This concept was in line with Rabbi Kook’s desire to collect the Talmud commentators in one body of work, to connect halacha with its ancient sources (Talmudic commentators, the Talmuds, the Mishnah and halacha homilies) and to assemble them together, as he wrote in the lines he penned for Otzar Mefarshei Hatalmud and Berur Halacha in the lecture he gave in 1921.38 Bialik’s proposal made a great deal of sense and did not violate Orthodox values. Nevertheless, Levin preferred to harness his research skills to the traditional mold rather than a more modern form. This choice, much like the choice of the Jüdisch-Literarischen Gesellschaft, demonstrates the fact that Levin was a researcher in the service of his community. In the end, the Hebrew University, thanks to the recommendation and academic sponsorship of Levin’s friend Professor Jacob Nahum Epstein, supported the initial Otzar HaGeonim project (the first four volumes 1928–1932). Levin and Epstein had been involved in extensive research on post-Talmudic literature since 1909, and the latter also aided the scientific proofing of the first Otzar HaGeonim volumes. However, they did not always see eye to eye and they disagreed about work methods, especially when it came to attributing certain passages to some of the commentaries on the Talmud or some of the responsa. In a letter Levin wrote to Epstein in the winter of 1929 he complained about the nature of his criticism: And you, too, do not jab at me from time to time that there is no method in my work, because this is not so. Of course, my decision is not your decision. And your taste is different. But I, too, have my own taste and my reasons, though I will not justify myself to you. What can we do, they are very difficult. My friend, do no uproot me from my path but show me the way, and I will follow it as far as I can. He who seeks will find everything in its place even according to my method. Old people like me cannot be taught by stings and erasures. My burden is more than my strength, so it is better to encourage my spirit and add courage to my heart to bear my difficult suffering.39 From 1932 the university ceased its support and Levin had great difficulty in obtaining funding for his work. In a letter to Yehuda Leib Landau, the rabbi of Johannesburg, he regretted the university’s refusal to support his enterprise, implying that his colleagues were at fault: There are only a few who have the wisdom to truly appreciate the great enterprise to which I have given my life for decades and which has not yet reached even halfway! But old age has sprung upon me. I am impatient and helpless all day long! It is because of my friends who look askance at me and my enterprise, volume by volume, finding by finding, from the darkness of the early archive. The university gave them all breasts from which to suckle, but when it comes to my Otzar, its generosity falls short!40 Levin also failed to obtain funding from Orthodox sources in Eretz Israel. He was forced to seek support in the U.S. In a letter written in the fall of 1930 he expressed his distress at the attitude of certain ultra-Orthodox persons: Why am I being condemned to such an extent that even my achievements are seen as naught by the guardians of the spirit of Beit Yisrael! And even if they have pity on the “treasures” they do not have pity on its curator, the unfortunate worker, in order to tear from him the burden of his suffering!41 The last five volumes were published by Mossad Harav Kook. This religious Zionist institution, founded in 1937, was supported by the Zionist Organization and was in fact a branch of the Bialik Institute, founded two years earlier as a cultural institution, but funded by the Mizrachi movement. The living spirit of the institution was the chairman of the Mizrachi movement in Eretz Israel, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon (1875–1962).42 Since the institution dealt with traditional Torah literature and the field of religious Zionism, it also supported Levin’s work, which accorded with the vision of Rabbi Kook whose legacy it sought to advance. Today, too, Mossad Harav Kook publishes quasi-scientific editions of the early commentaries on the Talmud. ABRAHAM CHAIM FREIMANN AND THE ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL SOURCES OF ISRAEL’S COMMUNITIES An anthology with practical overtones was edited by Orthodox jurist Abraham Chaim Freimann (1899–1948).43 Freimann was born in Holesźow, Czechoslovakia in 1899. His family moved to Posen and then to Berlin, where his father, Jacob Freimann, was appointed Av Beit Din (head of the rabbinical court) and a member of the board of trustees of the Orthodox rabbinical seminary founded by Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer. Freimann studied law in the universities of Frankfurt and Marburg, specializing in Jewish jurisprudence, and then served as a district judge in Königsberg. As he wrote to Gershom Scholem in the winter of 1927: “I enjoy working in the courts of law. Here I am truly a free man, like my name, not subservient to anyone—which is very important to me.”44 In the same letter he wrote of his desire to immigrate to Eretz Israel and the difficulties of finding work in his field, which led him to the following rumination: “I have despaired of the return to Zion, and yet my heart tells me that my place is there, therefore I will try.”45 When the Nazis gained ascendancy in 1933 he was dismissed from his position and moved to Eretz Israel. In 1943 he was appointed lecturer in Hebrew law at the Hebrew University. In 1948 he was killed on his way to work when a Hadassah convoy came under attack. Shortly after his arrival in Eretz Israel he composed a memorandum of guidelines for the study of Jewish law. His purpose was to create “a guide to the legal reality of our times,” with the emphasis on the post-Talmudic period.46 He wanted to establish an enterprise that would bring together all the laws, customs, and regulations that had been generated in Jewish communities up to the present time.47 This was in fact an applied science project that aimed to facilitate the adaptation of halachic rulings to modern sovereign reality. The general idea behind this project was similar to that of the Otzar HaGeonim project of Benjamin Menashe Levin, who, by collecting commentaries of the Geonim on all tractates of the Babylonian Talmud, saw a kind of spiritual ingathering of exiles which would ultimately lead to the restoration of the one and only center of Torah authority in Eretz Israel. Freimann, too, in a later study, regarded “the dispersal of the sources of Israel’s laws as the dispersal of the nation itself, and therefore gathering them together would be a kind of ingathering of exiles.” He maintained that, “it is the duty of the scholar of Israel’s laws to bring forth from this scattered, dispersed material the legal creative expression of various eras, its roots and its absorption—not only in the sense of the study of antiquity, but as a guide to the legal existence of our time, paving the way for the future of the law in our land.”48 He viewed rabbinic literature and that of the communities of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the new era as a living, evolving legal method, one that was largely dismembered when legal autonomy was abolished in the 19th century. Freimann believed that the way to ensure its continuity lay in bringing together the vast amount of legal material that had accumulated up to the present time. His unique initiative proposed that the exiled legal sources be collected for the purpose of applying halachic rulings, against the background of various traditions of rulings that had crystallized in the new era, and within the framework of the main precedents of halachic rulings taken from the broad geographic range of the arbitrator.49 One such example can be seen in his discourse regarding the halachic obligation to provide sustenance for a child born out of wedlock. According to the Shulkhan Arukh (Even HaEzer, 71, 4), a man cannot be obligated to provide child support if the mother claims that he is the father, without his acknowledgement. This halachic approach, which prevailed at the time and was recognized as the official halachic position, earned loud condemnation from women’s groups. The background for this ruling was the increased number of children being born to unwed mothers, as compared to previous years. Through dozens of literature sources, responsa, and Jewish rulings, Freimann demonstrated that in actual fact in many cases men were obligated to pay child support for a child whose single mother claimed him as the father, even when he did not admit paternity. From this he concluded that: Legal history teaches that the legal lack of protection for a single mother and her child are not an insurmountable decree, because our independent courts in the Diaspora knew how to institute the necessary boundaries and limitations “to prevent the proliferation of shtukim (those whose father’s identity is unknown) in Israel, who would be a burden on the community.” However, it is claimed that most single women in this condition today are not in need of legal assistance and the counsel of a Sinai [Knowledgeable] who is versed in law, but rather the medical assistance of one who is “Okker Haroth” [terminates pregnancy]. But this does not absolve us, the community of jurists, from seeking to rectify a flawed legal situation, one that provides an opening for those who condemn the laws of Israel.50 By gathering halachic traditions from various communities, Freimann demonstrated that it was possible to find halachic practices that provided a solution for social problems, when prevalent halachic solutions no longer sufficed for modern times. Unlike the secular Jewish scholars of Hebrew law, he was committed to halachic tradition and opposed the selective adoption of some laws and rulings and the rejection of others on the basis of non-halachic criteria.51 He sought to expand the halachic corpus so that the option would be from that which existed rather than through the rejection of halacha. Freimann implemented his scholarly concept in his book Law of Betrothal and Marriage after the Completion of the Talmud (Jerusalem 1945), which was published too by Mossad Harav Kook. In the introduction to the book, he emphasized the importance of the rulings of the sages as the main institute for innovation of halacha in past generations. Many rulings of the sages, such as the decree of Rabbenu Gershom Meor haGolah, which aimed to solve social problems, were enacted during the period of exile by local Jewish courts.52 Twenty years earlier, Rabbi Kook expressed his willingness to institute the necessary general rulings in the framework of the Chief Rabbinate, “so long as most of the rabbinical authorities are in agreement and are thereafter accepted by the public, they will have the power of a din Torah (matter of litigation).”53 The Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel was established in 1921, and Rabbi Kook was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel, but in actual fact the only ruling that was introduced was the establishment of the Court of Appeal, which was the condition set by the British regime for recognizing the institution of the Chief Rabbinate.54 Approximately one year before the publication of his book, Freimann published an article entitled “New rulings of the Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel on Family Law.” That same year, the Chief Rabbinical Council enacted three rulings: to require a father to pay child support for his children up to the age of fifteen; to obligate a yabam (the brother of a deceased childless husband) who refuses to release his sister-in-law to pay for her support until he lawfully sets her free; and to increase the minimum amount in the ketuba (Jewish marriage contract) from ten to fifty lirot.55 In Freimann’s article, which deals with the new rulings, he praises the Chief Rabbinical Council for their implementation, which has advanced the creation of a unified Torah-based legal system for the general Jewish public in Eretz Israel. The new rulings of the Chief Rabbinical Council signify a turning point in the formation of a unified legal creation for all the tribes of Israel who dwell in their land, the Holy Land. Therefore, this new constitution is destined to hold an important place in the development of our rules and laws.56 He hoped that the Chief Rabbinical Council, which in effect constituted the supreme religious body in Eretz Israel, would institute the requisite new rulings in light of the swiftly approaching new political situation. In practice, the Chief Rabbinical Council did little to institute new rulings. In basic areas such as a daughter’s right to inherit, the Council could not even come to an agreement. Freimann’s hopes for religious rulings in this area never came to fruition. One aim of his book was to examine this institution and draw practical conclusions: This attempt to deal with the development of betrothals and weddings from their early Talmudic beginnings until the present day did not stem only from a desire to teach but rather from a desire to teach the entire method of research. This central topic in the laws of matrimony is designed to serve as the touchstone for basic questions in the legal history of our people: what are the forces that create the laws of Israel? How much legal authority do they have as regards amendment and renewal, change and annulment? And why were they enacted? I have chosen this topic not only for its great practical importance, but also for its dogmatic importance as regards defining the areas of legal authority for enacting legitimate amendments in Israel’s constitutional law, the traditional Written Torah, precisely in the most sensitive and delicate area of all our legal system, the laws of matrimony.57 In his book Freimann amassed some 140 rulings on marriage, culled from various times and diverse communities, “that teach us about changes and innovations that the leaders of the generations saw fit to insert into the existing legal status.” These changes and innovations indicate the sensitivity of these leaders to the needs of the hour and their flexibility in the face of local conditions. The main purpose of the book was to create a scholarly infrastructure for the renewal and arrangement of kiddushin (matrimonial laws) in Eretz Israel, since in the course of time “various kibbutzim [a cluster of communities] have moved away from one another in their customs and rulings, even as regards the laws of betrothal and marriage, upon which the unity of the nation depends.”58 It was his intention to ensure that in Eretz Israel one certified central rabbinical institution would impose its authority on all the communities through its new rulings. He proposed placing the emphasis on rulings of the Sephardic communities and Oriental Jews, because they have an ongoing tradition of involvement with these laws: These instructions and ordinances are known to have particular importance, since most Sephardic communities and Oriental Jews have always enjoyed wide legal autonomy as regards the laws (of matrimony). Their courts have dealt unceasingly with judicial personal matters, and therefore their rulings are outstanding in their continuity of tradition and the stability of their teachings. They form the solid foundation of every sound legal deliberation.59 Freimann arranged the regulations he had compiled in chronological order, according to four periods: (1) From the time of the Geonim to the Expulsion from Spain; (2) From the Expulsion from Spain to the Chmelnitski pogroms of 1648; (3) From the Chmelnitski pogroms to the loss of legal autonomy; and (4) The period of the loss of legal autonomy in geographical order: Babylon-Eretz Israel, Western Europe (France-England-Ashkenaz), Italy, Provence, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Ottoman Empire, Poland and Lithuania, the Portuguese Communities, India-Yemen, Austro-Hungary, Russia and America. Among the various regulations, he placed the most emphasis on those governing the marriage ceremony (kiddushin) so that future mishaps would be prevented, permitting the kiddushin to be annulled in the event that they were done in violation of the regulation. The two most prominent causes of annulment of marriage were abduction and clandestine marriage without registration in the municipality or the Ministry of the Interior, in places where state law required such registration. With the option of annulment as part of an agreed public amendment, he sought to solve problems that existed in the developing Jewish community in Eretz Israel. At the end of his book, Freimann contends with an extremely serious problem related to the laws of matrimony, one that saw a sharp increase in his lifetime—the problem of agunot (lit: “anchored.” The reference is to women bound in marriage to a husband who refuses to grant a divorce or is missing and not proven to be dead).60 This became a problem of national dimensions with the mass immigration from the Russian Empire to America in the 1890s, and the situation was later exacerbated by the two world wars: Our judicial independence and the power of enforcement of our courts have been abrogated in most of the Diaspora. The introduction of civil marriage and divorce in western countries and the increased flow of Jewish immigration to countries overseas has raised an extremely painful and perilous problem in marital life: that of the malicious ‘anchoring’ of the daughters of Israel to husbands who evade them and are estranged from them, to a degree that has been unprecedented since the time we became a nation.61 In a long appendix, Freimann reviews the proposals put forward in recent years as a solution to this problem, all based on legal principles: the annulment of the wedding ceremony by the local bet din; authorization to draw up a get (religious divorce) during the wedding ceremony that can be implemented in the event that a woman becomes an aguna; and the transition to marital life with no kiddushin according to the laws that govern a concubine. Freimann rejects them all: Most of these suggestions have widely missed their mark: in their efforts to improve the lot of agunot they jeopardize the very foundations of matrimony and family upon which every Jewish home rests. “Conditional matrimony” harms the basic principles of public order and social morality. For this reason the legal systems of enlightened nations do not allow conditions to be imposed upon a marriage. Are we about to institute conditional matrimony as the norm for matrimonial relations in Israel? How stringent are the reforms when it comes to severing marital relationships? How many millions of Catholics are in marriages whose bonds will never be loosed? Yet do we intend to make divorce attendant upon every marriage, folded and tucked away in a box from the time the couple stands under the wedding canopy? As to the last suggestion – reverting to the status of concubine – this means abrogating marriage, divorce, levirate marriage (the marriage of a man to his late brother’s childless widow), and halitza (removal of shoe under levirate law), loosening the reins, leading to chaos, and ultimately destroying our national existence. This is not the way. 62 In his opinion, the solution to this thorny problem can only lie in a general ruling by the Rabbinic Supreme Court in Eretz Israel because since the destruction of European Jewry there has been no challenge to the Court’s authority. Any ruling based on the authority of this central court of law has the power to annul kiddushin: The remedy must come from the weak spot. The evil source of malicious “anchoring” of agunot stems from the abolition of our judicial independence and authority, from the collapse of our inner discipline, and from the fact that a large segment of our people has rebelled against Israeli jurisdiction. It is not in our power to restore the crown of legal autonomy to our Diaspora courts of law, but the establishment of a supreme religious institute in Eretz Israel, the place of national vitality, has reinstated a religious center with authoritative jurisdiction for the entire Jewish world. Ever since the destruction of the centers of Jewish learning in the countries of Europe, nothing has been left to us but the Torah of this land. The eyes of all Israel are turned towards this supreme religious institution as the last stronghold for safekeeping religion and tradition, all that remains of the ruins of the Diaspora. Again, we cannot expect any authoritative, legitimate action in the sphere of religion and law from any other source. We cannot apologize, saying that perhaps there is an equally great and important court of law in our generation. This status is accorded to the courts of the Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel. Its power and strength, along with its jurisdiction, are unprecedented in any other Jewish court of our generation. This important court of law has great power to judge and instruct, to annul marriages, and to enact rulings.63 Despite Freimann’s intellectual daring, his grasp of the essence of the problem and his acknowledgement that there was an acute need for a solution, he remained extremely aware of the sensitivity of the issue and maintained that the solution could not depend on each individual rabbi or community but must be a national ruling. In this case, too, he did not pin much hope on the Chief Rabbinate. On the one hand, Freimann’s enterprise had innovative and practical halachic importance. He sought to bring together all the regulations and halachic rulings from the period of exile and apply them as halachic precedents for contemporary questions, even contrary to the rulings of the Shulkhan Arukh. He did not content himself with accessing the texts collected strictly for the study of Torah, but sought practical change. On the other hand, he was careful in his conclusions and did not propose to use any precedent he found to resolve any problem hastily, but offered some precedents as a source of inspiration for a new regulation, to be amended by the authoritative rabbinic body with the widest consensus of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel—the Chief Rabbinate of Eretz Israel. Unfortunately, Freimann was unable to publish additional chapters on other issues due to his untimely death. SUMMING UP Religious Zionism identified with secular Zionism in the practical and political aspects of Zionist ideology, and shared with non-Zionist Orthodoxy its concerns about the cultural aspects of secular Zionist ideology. It stood at the halfway mark between non-Zionist Orthodoxy and secular Zionism as far as modernity's encounter with traditional Judaism was concerned, as regards education, Jewish studies, art, and leisure culture. Within Religious Zionism there were differences of opinion regarding all these issues, forming a spectrum of Religious Zionist worldviews. The two most prominent anthology endeavors during the Mandate period reflected two different trends in Religious Zionism. The first touched on the theoretical side of the Talmud in Jewish literature and enjoyed Orthodox consensus. Haredi scholars participated in the compilation of the Talmudic Encyclopedia and the collection of Talmudic commentaries. Levin introduced the missing link in the chain of Talmudic commentary—that of the Geonim—contributing his academic and philological skills to the Otzar HaGeonim, that located, collated, sorted, classified and amassed numerous texts scattered in archives throughout the world, as well as those in print. The second trend, the renewal of halacha, touched on the practical side of halachic literature throughout the ages and sought to locate, collect, and analyze judgments and halachic rulings from Jewish consortiums in the post-Talmudic period, in order to formulate halachic precedents that could resolve halachic problems that would arise in the future in Eretz Israel, which was about to establish an independent national state. Both these enterprises focused on the halachic branch of Jewish literature which had been dominant over the years. In this respect, the affinity with the religious Zionist stream was reflected in the Orthodox worldview, a stream that regarded itself as maintaining the halachic tradition of past generations. Freimann’s enterprise sought alternatives to some Shulkhan Arukh rulings, and in this regard deviated from the declared Orthodox commitment to accept Rabbi Joseph Caro and Rabbi Moshe Isserles as the definitive authorities. However, Freimann was very careful with his practical suggestions, requiring an authoritative rabbinic body to support them, in order to avoid a situation where everyone can do as he pleases, which would end in painful controversy. Both of these enterprises were ultimately intended for scholars; they were not accessible to the general public, as Bialik had planned. Also, unlike Bialik, who compared the legendary narratives of Jewish literature to Halacha and permitted himself to edit a selection of both, religious Zionist scholars left the Halacha at the center. By means of selection they sought the ingathering of the exiles and discovered that which was concealed, so that by this means the Torah’s light would shine, both in the theoretical sphere—in talmudic commentary that was more faithful to the original—and in the practical sphere— halachic rulings or regulations that could better deal with a new and challenging reality. Neither of them was striving to seal the canon anew, but rather to supply a missing link that could contribute to optimal continuity—a continuation rather than a revolution. Footnotes 1 Israel Bartal, Cossack and Bedouin, (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 2007), pp. 98–108. 2 Gershom Scholem, Devarim Bego (Tel Aviv, 1976), pp. 59–63. 3 See: Avner Holtzman, Hayim Nahman Bialik: Poet of Hebrew (New Haven & London, 2017). 4 Jacob Elbaum, “‘Sefer Ha-Aggadah’ – A Prolegomenon,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature, Vols. 10–11 (1987–88), pp. 375–97; Tsafi Sebba Elran, In Search of New Memories: The Aggadic Anthologies and Their Role in the Configuration of the Modern Hebrew Canon (Jerusalem, 2017; in Hebrew), pp. 165–238. 5 Sebba Elran, ibid, pp. 172–91; Boaz Albert, Bialik's Project of Kinnus and the argument about the origins of nationalism, MA Thesis, The Open University of Israel, Raanana 2017, pp. 19–22. 6 I. Bartal, ibid, p. 103; Eliezer Schweid, “Hayyim Nachman Bialik and Jewish Studies,” Jewish Studies, Vol. 35 (1995), pp. 60–68. 7 Israel Kolatt, “Religion, Society, and State during the Period of the National Home,” Zionism and Religion edited by Shmuel Almog, Jehuda Reinharz, and Anita Shapira (Hanover, NH, 1998), p. 293. 8 Haim Nachman Bialik, Halachah and Aggadah. Trans. Leon Simon (London, 1944), pp. 25–26. 9 Mossad Bialik Ufoalo Hassifruti (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1943). 10 On religious Zionism, see: Dov Schwartz, Religious-Zionism: History and Ideology (Boston, 2009). 11 On these writers, see: Yehudah Mirsky, Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (New Haven, 2014); Asaf Yedidya, “The Cultural Zionism of Ze'ev Jawitz,” Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. 88 (2018), pp. 255–295. 12 For more on Jawitz, see: Asaf Yedidya, The Life and Thought of Ze’ev Jawitz:‘To Cultivate a Hebrew Culture’ (Lanham, 2021). 13 The Jewish national movement Hibbat Zion was established in Russia following the pogroms of 1881-1882 with the aim of promoting the return of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael. 14 Moshe Zvi Neria, Bissede haRre'aya (Kefar Haroeh, 1985; in Hebrew), pp. 441–442. 15 Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, Iggrot haRe'aya (Collected Letters of Rav Kook; in Hebrew), Vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 180–182. 16 Concerning the plan, see Y. Avneri, “Degel Yerushalaym,” In the Paths of Renewal: Studies in Religious Zionism, Vol. 3 (1989), pp. 39–58; D. Schwartz, Religious-Zionism, Chapter 4; Y. Mirsky, Rav Kook, pp. 145–52. 17 A. Y. Kook, Iggrot haRe'aya, Vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1965), p. 148. 18 Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, Hartza'at haRav (Jerusalem, 1921), p. 2. 19 See: Asaf Yedidya, “Benjamin Menashe Levin and Orthodox Wissenschaft des Judentums,” Cathedra, Vol. 130 (2008), pp. 103–28. 20 Simon Federbush (ed.), Hochmath Israel: Science of Judaism in Western Europe, Vol. II (Jerusalem, 1963; in Hebrew), pp. 162–69. 21 For more on the Jewish students at Bern University, see: Ben Zion Dinur, A Vanished World: Memories of a Way of Life (Jerusalem, 1958; in Hebrew), pp. 401–11; Shmuel Aba Horodezky, Zikhronot (Tel-Aviv, 1957; in Hebrew), pp. 91–97. 22 B. M. Levin, “Die Assimilation der Paarworte in der Bibel,” Jahrbuch der Jüdisch- Literarischen Gesellschaft (JJLG), Vol. VI (1908), pp. 234–42. 23 B. M. Levin, “Das Sendschreiben des Rabbi Scherira Gaon,” JJLG, Vol. VII (1909), pp. 226–92; Ibid, “Zur Charakteristik und Biographie des R. Scherira Gaon,” JJLG, Vol. VIII (1910), pp. 318–54. 24 In a letter written to J. N. Epstein on 12 Iyar 5669 he explained that the Frankfurt company was “more pleasing to me.” The Jewish National Library Archives, J. N. Epstein Archives, Arc 1453°4, file 120. 25 Jacob Nahum Epstein, Introduction to Amoraitic Literature (Jerusalem, 1962; in Hebrew), pp. 610–15; Moshe Beer, “The Sources of Rav Sherira Gaon's Igeret,” Annual of Bar-Ilan University: Studies in Judaica and the Humanities, Vols. IV–V (1967), pp. 181–96; Ismar Elbogen, “Wie sthet es um die zwei Rezensionen des Scherira-Berefes?” Festschrift zum 75 jahrigen Bestehen des jüdisch-Theologischen Seminars, II, (Breslau, 1929), pp. 61–84; Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (London, 1998), pp. 20–25. 26 Epstein Archives (footnote 22). 27 B. M. Levin, Otzar HaGeonim, Vol. 1 (Haifa, 1928), I–II. 28 Ibid. In a letter written in the summer of 1920 to Rabbi Yehuda Leib Landau, Levin indicated that the purpose of the essay was “to complete the history and development of our Talmud up until the end of the period of the Geonim who continued the tradition of Rav Ashi and Rabina in Babylon for another five hundred years.” The Jewish National Library Archives, J. L. Landau Archives, Arc 798/110°4 29 B. M. Levin, Otzar HaGeonim, Vol. 9 (Jerusalem 1940), p. 5. 30 Ibid., Vol. 10 (Jerusalem, 1941), p. 5. 31 Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, Ma'amarei haRe'aya (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 314. 32 Ibid., p. 315. 33 A. Yedidya, “Benjamin Menashe Levin,” p. 144. 34 J. Redler-Feldman, “Otzar HaGeonim,” HaHed, Vol. 4 (Tevet, 5689), p. 14. 35 Fishel Lachower (ed.), Iggrot Hayim Nachman Bialik, Vol. 3 (Tel Aviv, 1938), p. 191. 36 Haim Nachman Bialik, “HaSefer HaIvri [The Hebrew Book]” in: idem, Divrei Safrut (Tel Aviv, 1965), pp. 45–62. 37 In contrast to his response to Levin, Bialik responded favorably to Gershom Scholem’s application to collate kabbalistic literature “with pleasure, almost enthusiasm,” because it was in line with his vision of the new canon, which was to be mainly historical–literary. On this, see: Lachower, ibid., pp. 48–49. 38 A. Y. Kook, Hartza'at haRav. 39 Epstein Archives (footnote 22). 40 Landau Archives (footnote 27). 41 Epstein Archives (footnote 22). 42 Haim Zohar, “Mossad HaRav Kook, its Beginnings and Founders,” Sinai, Vol. 132 (2003), pp. 129–52. 43 On A.C. Freimann see: Asaf Yedidya, Halakha and the Challenge of Israeli Sovereignty (Lanham, 2019), pp. 92–103. 44 A letter from A. C. Freimann to Gershom Scholem, Adar I 5687, The Jewish National Library Archives, Gershom Scholem Collection, ARC. 4* 1599. 45 Ibid. 46 This method was similar to Simchah Assaf’s method. On this, see: Amihai Radzyner, “‘Jewish Law’ between ‘National’ and ‘Religious’: The Dilemma of the Religious-National Movement,” Mechkarei Mishpat, Vol. 26 (2010), pp. 136–42. 47 E. E. Urbach, “A. C. Freimann HY“D,” Yavneh, Vol. 3 (Nissan, 1949), p. 232. 48 A. C. Freimann, Seder Kiddushin ve-Nissu'in Aharei Hatimat ha-Talmud: Mehkar Histori-Dogmati be-Dinei Yisra'el [Law of Betrothal and Marriage after the Completion of the Talmud: A Historical-Dogmatic Study in Jewish Law] (Jerusalem, 1945, in Hebrew), p. 6. 49 Ibid. 50 Idem, “Mezonot Shel Yeled she-Nolad she-lo be-Nissu'in al pi Dinei Yisra'el” [Maintenance of a Child Born out of Wedlock, According to Jewish Law], Ha-Praklit, Vol. 2 (1945), p. 173. 51 Assaf Likhovski, “The Invention of ‘Hebrew law’ in Mandatory Palestine,” American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1998), pp. 339–73. 52 For historical and legal review of the Sages’ Regulations, see: Menachem Elon, Jewish Law: History, Source, Principles: Ha-Mishpat ha-'Ivri (Bernard Auerbach & Melvin J. Sykes, trans., 1994), pp. 643–65 and 780–879. 53 Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook addresses the Conference of the Chief Rabbinate in Eretz Israel, in: A. Morgenstern, Ha-Rabbanut ha-Rashit le-Erez Yisra'el: Yissuda ve-Irgunah [The Chief Rabbinate of Israel: Foundations and Organization] (Jerusalem, 1973; in Hebrew), p. 180. 54 Amihai Radzyner, “Rabbi Ouziel, the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa Rabbinate and the Rabbinical Court of Appeal: A Play in Four Acts,” Mechkarei Mishpat, Vol. 21 (2004), pp. 132–37. 55 A. C. Freimann, “Ha-Takanot Ha-Hadashot Shel Ha-Rabbanut ha-Rashit le-Erez Yisra'el be-Dinei Ishut” [The New Enactments of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel on Family Law], Sinai, Vol. 14 (1944), p. 254. 56 Ibid., p. 263. 57 Freimann, Seder Kiddushin, p. 5. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., p. 6. On continuity and changes in the Jewish communities in the Islamic countries, see: Zvi Zohar, The Luminous Face of the East: Studies in the Legal and Religious Thought of Sephardic Rabbis of the Middle East (Tel Aviv, 2001; in Hebrew), pp. 77–195, 183–298; Yosef Tobi, “The Organization of the Jewish Communities in the East in the 19-20th Centuries,” in Kehal Yisrael: Jewish Self-Rule Through the Ages, Vol. 3, edited by Israel Bartal (Jerusalem, 2004; in Hebrew), pp. 191–209. 60 On this problem, see: Aviad HaCohen, The Tears of the Oppressed: an Examination of the Agunah problem: Background and Halachic Sources (New York, 2004); Michael J. Broyde, Marriage, Divorce and the Abandoned Wife in Jewish Law (New York, 2000); David J. Bleich, “Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature: A 19th Century ‘Agunah’ Problem and a 20th Century Application,” Tradition, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2004), pp. 15–48. 61 Freimann, Seder Kiddushin, p. 385. 62 Ibid, 396–97. 63 Ibid., p. 397. On Rabbi Ouziel’s approach to the authority of the High Rabbinical Court, see: A. Radzyner, “Rabbi Ouziel,” pp. 161–64. Author notes * I would like to thank Professor Shaul Stampfer for reading a previous draft of this article and providing insightful comments and suggestions. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Expansion of Torah Study, Halachic Renewal, and the Religious Zionist Compendium
JF - Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience
DO - 10.1093/mj/kjab005
DA - 2021-05-19
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/expansion-of-torah-study-halachic-renewal-and-the-religious-zionist-IDEh5aGIQL
SP - 1
EP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -