On Friday March 13, 2020, as the coronavirus was beginning to ravage Israel’s Haredi
community, R. Hayyim Kanievsky, the 92-year old acknowledged leader of
the so-called Lithuanian Haredim, issued an open letter “Regarding the
concern of transmission of the Corona Virus Pandemic.” “Everyone,” he
wrote, “must be mechazek [strengthen themselves] to refrain from Lashon Harah [gossip] and rechilus [slander] as it states in [Talmud] Arachin 15b…They must further strengthen themselves in the midah [attribute] of humility and to be maavir al midosav [let matters pass, that is, not take umbrage] as the pirush haRosh
[commentary of the Rosh] on the side of the page says explicitly in the
end of [Talmud]Horios......
And the merit of one who strengthens himself in
these prescriptionswillprotect him and his family members so that not
one of them will become ill.” [1] He said nothing about social distancing, or any other orders that might have emanated from the medical community.
The
following night, Motzei Shabbat March 14, Rav Kanievsky’s grandson
asked his grandfather (in Hebrew) whether Cheders (elementary schools)
and Yeshivot should remain open. The grandson said that the “Medineh,”
that is, the Israeli government, was warning that schools should remain
closed until there was a way to deal with what he called the mageifeh (plague).
R. Kanievsky, mumbled something that was not entirely audible. The
grandson then said, “so the cheders should remain open?” and R.
Kanievsky nodded his assent. The grandson then followed up with “and the
yeshivot should remain open too?” Again the Rav agreed. The grandson
never mentioned medical advice, and the rabbi never asked.
Despite
personal pleas the next day from top police officials, who did refer to
medical opinion, R. Kanievsky, together with R. Gershon Edelstein, the
Rosh Yeshiva (Dean) of the famed Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnai Beraq and chairman of Aguda’s Mo’etzses Gedolei Hatorah (Council of Torah Greats) issued an open letter that called for Haredi
schools at all levels to remain open though it did acknowledge the need
for certain precautions. The letter began with a clarion call that no Haredi was likely to ignore:
“In a time when we are in grave need of great heavenly mercy to maintain the health of our nation, certainly it is proper to strengthen ourselves in the study of Torah, to be careful in committing slander (Lashon HaRah and Rechilus),
and to strengthen ourselves in humility and to judge everyone
favorably….Our sages have already stated (Yuma 28b), “Since the days of
our forefathers, the Yeshivos have never ceased [to be active] from
them. They further stated (Shabbos 119b): The world only exists on
account of the sounds of children in the house of their Rebbe
[yeshivos]. They are the greatest insurance possible that the destroyer not enter into the homes of Israel [my emphasis].”
The
letter then made some allowances for the reality of the epidemic,
calling for schools and yeshivot to split up students; ensure “that
there is adequate space between person [social distancing – recommended
at 2 meters” and that “classrooms and Batei Midrashim [study halls] be properly ventilated; and to appoint supervisors [Mashgichim]
to maintain the proper level of cleanliness as a health necessity.” It
also called upon educators to ensure that no one who was meant to be
under quarantine, or had a family member under quarantine, was to enter
the Beit Midrash.
The
two rabbinical leaders then observed that “This is all from the
perspective of an understood precondition to the action [of attending
school or Yeshiva]. The Roshei Yeshiva [Deans] and the
administrators of the Talmud Torahs (and Yeshivos) must be on guard to
ensure compliance.” The letter did not specify whether “compliance”
meant compliance with health regulations, or compliance with the
directive to keep the yeshivot open. The letter then concluded with the
admonition that “we must have faith in the Holy One Blessed Be He who
watches over all His creations, and no man is stricken by a calamity if
it was not decreed from Above. And may the merit of Torah and all that
strengthen us stand for us as protection and salvation.”[2]
The
letter prompted a major outcry over the danger into which the aged
rabbi and his Ponevezh colleague had placed youngsters and their
families and led to his reversal two weeks later. By then, however,
considerable damage may have been done. Though it was unknown, indeed
unknowable to what extent his ruling resulted in more coronavirus
carriers and more Covid-19 deaths in Bnai Beraq, Jerusalem’s Haredi
neighborhoods, and other Haredi enclaves such as Beitar Ilit, there was
little doubt that the letter had added to the roster of both carriers
and death.
It was also reported that Kupat Ha’ir, a charity based in Bnai Beraq that raises funds by offering to have young Haredi scholars pray at the kotel
for all sorts of personal requests made by the donors, was advertising,
in R. Kanievsky’s name, that donors who paid the shekel equivalent of
$836 would “enjoy immunity from the coronavirus for themselves and their
families.”[3] This appeal for funds simply reinforced the intent of R. Kanievsky’s original edict of 13 March.
On
April 20, shortly after the conclusion of Pesach, it was reported that
R. Kanievsky had ordered the schools and yeshivot once again to open
their doors but that R. Edelstein had put a hold on its publication. The
latter denied that was the case, however, and instead, the two rabbis
issued a second letter that revealed their impatience, warning that if
there will not be a response [to reopen the Yeshivot] and the foot
dragging continues without real progress, the great Torah sages [of
Agudah] will consider drastic action.”[4]
Meanwhile the virus continued to rage in Israel generally, and among the Haredim in particular. Though Haredim
accounted for perhaps 12 percent of the Israeli population, it was
estimated that they accounted for as much as 50 percent of all hospital
beds in the country. No wonder that R. Kanievsky’s edicts in response to
the country’s health crisis prompted outrage among Israel’s non-Haredi
elements.
At
long last, in recognition of the depth of the crisis confronting the
Haredi community no less than the entire Israeli population, the two
rabbinic leaders, acting with the government’s consent, appointed a
special task force consisting of two younger rabbinic leaders, R.
Shraga Shteinman, son of R. Kanievsky’s predecessor as leader of the
“Lithuanian” Haredim, R. Aryeh Lev Shteinman (and R. Kanievsky’s
son-in-law), and R. Baruch Dov Diskin, scion of another leading Haredi
rabbinic family, together with Dr. Meshulam Hirt, “the Gedolim’s
physician,” to examine ways to reopen schools in compliance with
government directives. The task force issued its initial guidance on May
3, recommending that higher elementary grades and above could reopen
under strict conditions mandated by the government. R. Kanievsky
endorsed the task force recommendations.
For Haredim, Rav Kanievsky’s views were not merely the opinions of a wise leader. They were Da’as Torah[5] and thus had the imprimatur of the Divine.[6]
At a minimum, it was asserted in some quarters that if the rabbi had
erred—and no one would dare say that he had—it was because he was so
enmeshed in his studies that he did not fully realize the extent of the
threat that the virus posed to Israeli society.
The problem, however, was not with R. Kanievsky’s initial responses. It was with the way the matter had been put to him.
Haredim and “The Medinah”
After 72 years of existence as a state, a consequential portion of the Haredi
community has yet to come to terms with what they term “the Medinah.”
Nothing has changed since 1912, when Yaakov Rosenheim convened the first
Agudas Yisrael conference in Kattowitz (Katowice), then part of
Germany, in no small part as a reaction to a decision by the Tenth
Zionist Congress not to fund religious schools. Rosenheim envisaged
Agudah as an umbrella organization for all religious Jews. While he
never fully realized his dream, the organization did emerge as a major
locus for opposition to Zionism. Not coincidentally, Da’as Torah also became enshrined in the Agudas Yisrael platform. Indeed, Agudah created a Council of Torah Giants (Mo’etses Gedolei HaTorah),
whose pronouncements on all matters, whether Halachic or secular, were
treated as authoritative and binding upon all religious Jews. And the
Council was overwhelmingly anti-Zionist.
During
the First World War, when Germany occupied parts of Russian Poland,
leading German rabbis, notably Rabbi Dr. Emmanuel Carlebach, coordinated
their activities with the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter,
one of the most prominent Hasidic leaders. Like the German rabbis, and indeed, Hasidic admorim (Grand
Rabbis) of all stripes, R. Alter was hostile not only to secular
Zionism, but also to religious Zionism, which was organized under the
umbrella of the Mizrahi movement.
The Agudah leadership allied itself with the representatives of the so-called “Old Yishuv,” the long-standing Haredi
community of Palestine, most of whose members resided in the older
districts of Jerusalem and Tsefat. These Jews were violently opposed to
the influx of Zionist settlers into what after 1918 became a British
mandate. Not surprisingly, the Agudah leadership aligned itself with the
leaders of the Old Yishuv who in 1937 testified before the British Peel
Commission in opposition to the creation of a Jewish State.
Needless to say, Agudah invoked Da’as Torah
in its opposition to Zionism and the notion of a Jewish State. In so
doing, it was claiming heavenly support for what was essentially a
political position. This was consistent with the view, articulated by
R. Yisroel Meir Kagan, best known as Hofetz Hayyim, and subsequent rabbinic leaders such as the late Rosh Yeshiva of the Mirer yeshiva, R. Nosson Zvi Finkel that Da’as Torah
was as binding with respect to non-Halakhic matters as to Halakhic
ones. As R. Finkel put it, “when a great man offers either advice or a
ruling, Emunas Hakhamim [belief in the Sages][7] mandates that one can neither hesitate nor doubt. This is Da’as Torah and this is how it should be.”[8]
Agudah
had no choice but to come to terms with the Jewish state once its
leaders declared its independence in 1948. There was a sense among Haredim, as among some secular Jews, however, that the State would not survive more than a decade or at most fifteen years,[9]
but for the moment, Agudah felt it had no choice but to transform
itself into an Israeli political party. Nevertheless, in so doing it did
not relinquish its refusal to come to terms with the secular state. It
refused to join government coalitions, or to allow its representatives
to hold ministerial posts, though through a sleight-of-hand ruling, the
Council of Torah Greats permitted Agudah’s representatives in the
Knesset to serve as Deputy Ministers. These men often acted as de facto ministers, and in some “emergency” cases, held full ministerial portfolios.
Agudah’s
participation in Israeli political affairs did not extend to other
aspects of Israeli society, however, particularly army service. The Haredi
leadership viewed the army’s secular, assimilationist orientation as
the leading threat both to its values and to its control of the
community. Thanks to an agreement between Agudah’s acknowledged leader,
R. Abraham Isaiah Karelitz, popularly known by the title of his works as
Hazon Ish, and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion , yeshiva
students were exempted from service in the Israeli Defense Forces. The
agreement enabled Haredi leaders to maintain at least some
semblance of a wall between their adherents and the rest of Israeli
society, and to underscore their fundamental and principled opposition
to what they termed “the Medinah.” It is in the context of this
opposition that R. Kanievsky’s edict must be seen.
The Mantle of Haredi Leadership
Not all Haredim are anti-Zionist. In 1984 the great Sephardi leader R. Ovadia Yosef led his followers out of the main Ashkenazi Haredi political parties, and created the Shas Party with its own Council of Torah Sages (Motetset Hakhmei HaTorah).
Shas displayed a more sympathetic attitude toward the state, including
having its Knesset members serve as full ministers in the government.
Even among Ashkenazi Haredim, however, there is no common stance vis a vis “the Medineh.” Although they share a common antipathy to Zionism, Haredi leadership is not vested solely in Agudah’s Council of Torah Greats. In particular, the Eidah Haredis,
successors to the Old Yishuv, is far more vociferously, and far too
often violently, opposed to the Jewish State. Moreover, whereas the
majority of Haredi yeshivot do not hesitate to receive financial
support from the State’s coffers, some –such as the Brisker yeshiva,
following the leadership of its late dean, R. Yosef Zev
Soloveichik—refuse to take any state funds. Nevertheless, whatever their
differences, the vast majority of Ashkenazim look to a single leader
for guidance, Da’as Torah, on major political and social issues. Until his passing, Hazon Ish was that leader.
Hazon Ish rose to his position of prominence on the passing in 1940 of his brother-in-law, R. Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski, who had in turn succeeded Hofetz Hayyim as the acknowledged leader of the Lithuanian Haredi
world. Familial ties among the Lithuanian Haredi leadership continue to
this day: R. Kanievsky was not only a student of the Hazon Ish,
but also his nephew. And, as has been noted, R. Shraga Shteinmann, whom
R. Kanievsky appointed to the coronavirus task force, is the latter’s
son-in-law.
At 92, R. Kanievsky represents the tendency of the Lithuanian Haredim
to recognize as supreme leaders of the movement nonogenarians or even
centenarians. Thus, R. Kanievski’s predecessor, R. Aryeh Yehuda Leib
Shteinman was niftar (passed away) in 2017 at the age of 103,
while his own predecessor, R. Sholom Yisef Elyashiv died at the age of
102. R. Elyashiv’s predecessor, R. Elazar Menachem Man Shach, likewise
was 102 when he was niftar.
Is the problem the answer, the question, or the system?
The
Torah teaches that Moses was as much in control of all his faculties on
the day he died at the age of 120, as when he was a much younger man.
That is not necessarily the case with other older persons, even if they
are great scholars. It is arguable that by the time they reach their
nineties, even leading Halakhic experts may have lost half a mental
step. They might comprehend what is being asked of them, indeed, their
replies may reflect their decades of Torah knowledge. Nevertheless, they
may not have the mental acuity to probe all facets of whatever issue is
brought before them, as they may have been able to do as recently as a
decade earlier.
It is well known that Haredi leaders surround themselves—or are surrounded by—men who are collectively known as askanim. In the words of R. David Stav, leader of the moderate Orthodox Tzohar movement, askanim are “a small group of Haredi askanim who, because of their own personal interests, make Judaism and Haredi society hateful to Israelis." [10] R. Dov Lipman, an American-born moderate Haredi who served for a period as a Knesset member, outlined the power of these men:
“The issue of the gedolim Torah greats] is very largely the askanim who surround them…Askanim
are the community activists and assistants who normally surround the
leading rabbis and act as a buffer between them and the communities they
lead. They [Torah greats] are totally controlled by people around them
and that’s the biggest problem….[11]”
These askanim
clearly take advantage of elderly rabbis, putting questions to them in
much the same way as pollsters with a particular political bias will put
questions to their respondents. Not surprisingly, manipulative
questioners will elicit pronouncements that are in line with what they
want to hear. And since those pronouncements have the force of
unchallengeable law for the Haredi community, they are in effect empowering their questioners to ride roughshod over that community.
This appears to have been the case when R. Kanievsky’s grandson, with one of the askanim standing over his shoulder, asked his grandfather whether yeshivot and elementary cheders
should remain open. He did not explain clearly that not just the
“Medineh,” but doctors had argued for such closures. Had he done so, R.
Kanievsky would immediately have recognized that the issue was one of pikuach nefesh,
saving lives. Without a doubt, had R. Kanievsky been asked whether
schools should be closed to save lives, his answer would have been in
the affirmative. After all, Halakha is unambiguous with respect to this
issue; indeed, Halakha posits that even the remote possibility of life
being endangered justifies violating the Torah.[12] Indeed, once R. Kanievsky fully fathomed the severity of the crisis, he did call upon a trusted doctor, along with respected Haredi
rabbis, to devise an approach that satisfied both the requirement to
maintain safety and the objective of studying Torah. It was the word
“Medineh” that had acted as a red flag to the aged rabbi and prompted
his initial response.
The Challenge for the Haredi world
("Modern"- This term never existed until the Agudath Israel created it in the 1960s - PM)) Orthodox Jews do not recognize Da’as Torah
outside the bounds of Halakha. They look to specialists, for example in
the military or medical realms, for guidance on purely secular issues.
They justify their attitude both because rabbinic greats ranging from R.
Joseph B. Soloveichik to R. Ovadia Yosef took this view, and because Da’as Torah
has been on the wrong side of Jewish history in multiple occasions,
failing the Jewish people at critical times in the recent past. These
include opposing immigration to America or Israel when it was still
possible before the invasion of Poland; opposition to the creation of
the State of Israel; and opposition to public demonstrations to free
Soviet Jewry. For the Modern Orthodox, therefore, Haredi rulings concerning responses to the coronavirus epidemic had little impact.
Moreover, not all Haredi leaders are as closed to the outside world, and therefore as vulnerable to askanim.
The recently departed Novominsker Rebbe, R. Yaakov Perlow, who died
due to the coronavirus, graduated with honors from Brooklyn College![13] A group of Hasidic admorim and rabbonim
residing in Boro Park, Brooklyn and led by R. Perlow, issued a
proclamation on the eve of Pesach outlining the importance of
maintaining government restrictions even at the cost of hallowed
Passover traditions.(4 weeks too late - PM)
On the other hand, as noted at the outset of this essay, contrary pronouncements by Haredi rabbinic leaders have had a devastating effect on the community. Indeed, the outsized impact of the coronavirus on the Haredi population affected all Israelis, since Haredim
occupied a disproportionate percentage of hospital beds. The community,
whether in Israel, the United States or elsewhere therefore needs to
re-evaluate how to structure its leadership. In particular, if it will
continue to treat the words of aged leaders as inviolable law it must
take steps to rid itself of the scourge of askanim. The lesson of Israel’s hospital bed crisis is that doing so not only will enhance the welfare of Haredim, but will also redound to the benefit of the Jewish community as a whole.
[1]
Translation of the Hebrew, reprinted in David Zer, “MESSAGE FROM THE
GADOL HADOR: Rav Chaim Kanievsky’s Instructions on How to Protect
Yourself and Loved Ones,” The Yeshiva World (March 13, 2020), https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/featured/1839688/message-from-the-gadol-hador-rav-chaim-kanievskys-instructions-on-how-to-protect-yourself-and-loved-ones.html.
[3]
Jacob Magid, “Charity tied to top rabbi raises cash with promise of
immunity from coronavirus” (Times of Israel, April 18, 2020). https://www.timesofisrael.com/charity-tied-to-top-rabbi-raises-cash-with-promise-of-immunity-from-coronavirus/
[4]
TOI staff and Jacob Magid, “Top Haredi rabbi Kanievsky orders yeshivas
opened; his colleague blocks him – TV” (Times of Israel, April 22,
2020). https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-haredi-rabbis-threaten-drastic-steps-if-no-way-found-to-open-yeshivas/
[5] When citing Haredi statements or concepts, this essay employs Haredi Ashkenazi pronunciation.
[6]
For a discussion, see Lawrence Kaplan, “Daas Torah,” in Moshe Z. Sokol,
ed. Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy (Lanham, MD and Boulder,
CO: Rowman&Littlefield, 2006), 1-60, and Dov S. Zakheim, “Emunat
Hahamim, Da’at Torah and National Security,” Conversations 30 (Winter 2018/5778), 78-93.
[7]
When citing the writings and names of leaders of the Yeshiva World I
employ their “Ashkenazis” pronunciation, since that is how both the
authors and their intended audience will pronounce what is written.
[8] R. Nosson Zvi Finkel, “Sihos Mussar,” in Yeshurun 27 (Elul 5772/September 2012), 373.
[9] See R. Hayyim Shlomo Leibovitz, “Hashpo’as HaTorah” Yeshurun
38 (Kislev 5777/December 2016), 328. Interestingly, R. Yosef Zev
Soloveichik postulated at the time that “if they [i.e. the Israeli
government] will permit yeshiva students to study and not serve in the
military, then the state will survive in the merit of the exemption they
are granting to yeshiva students.” Ibid.
[12] R. Yosef Karo Shulhan Aruch: Orah Hayyim 329:2; R. Meir Kagan, Mishna Berurah, ad. loc., s.v. kemehtza; R. Moshe Feinstein, Igros Moshe: Orah Hayyim I: 132.
[13]
Sam Roberts, “The We’ve Lost: Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, Head of Hasidic
Dynasty in Brooklyn, Dies at 89,” The New York Times (April 16, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/obituaries/rabbi-yaakov-perlow-dead.html
