Showing posts with label Rabbi Wein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rabbi Wein. Show all posts

Friday, 3 January 2025

Giants clash -- but who is the real winner? Vayigash 5785

The opening verses of this week's Torah reading are among the most dramatic and challenging in the entire Torah. Two great, powerful personalities in the house of the children of Yaakov—Yehudah and Yosef—engage in a clash and debate of epic proportions over the release of their brother Binyamin.

 At first glance it seems obvious that Yosef has the upper hand in his struggle. After all, he is the viceroy of Egypt, the commander of the palace guards who are armed and ready to do his bidding. In contrast Yehudah has very limited options as to what to say and what to do in order to obtain the release of Binyamin. Yosef’s position of power appears unassailable but the impassioned plea of Yehudah cannot easily be ignored. 

Since each of the two great antagonists, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, has the power to prevail over the other, perhaps we can conclude that neither is the victor in this clash of ideas and worldviews. The true champion who emerges from this story is the hoary old Yaakov. Seemingly isolated back in the land of Canaan, mourning and despondent as to the fate of his family, he shouts in anguish: “Yosef is no more, Shimon is no more; both of them will be lost to me!” It is this image of their father that haunts both Yehudah and Yosef. Each, in his own way, wishes to do justice to his father and to everything that he represents. And it is this selfsame image of Yaakov that brings Yosef to the climax of the story and to his ability, nay necessity, to reveal himself and be reconciled with his brothers. 

Jewish rabbinic thought over the ages has always sought to make the story of Yosef and Yehudah relevant to each generation of Jews. I think that the most relevant message for us from this great narrative is that it is the image of our ancient father Yaakov that truly hovers over all of our current struggles. It is our tasknot merely to win the debate with our other brothers or even with outside powers that are seemingly stronger and greater than we are, but rather to remain faithful to the old man that we can no longer see but who is always with us.

What gives both Yehudah and Yosef troubling pause in the midst of their impassioned debate is their uncertainty as to what their father would think of their words and their actions. It is this unseen presence of Yaakov that drives the brothers to reconciliation and to restoring a common purpose in their lives and those of their families. Father Yaakov has looked down at every generation of the Jewish people and—one way or another—every generation has been forced to ask itself “What would Yaakov think of us, our words and our behavior?”

It is this ever-present idea in Jewish life that has been an aid and a boon to our seemingly miraculous survival as a people and as a faith. We may not see Yaakov but we can be certain that he is there with us today as well. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

The wonder of it all! Though the eyes of a child: Chanukah 5785

Now there is not much new or brilliant left to be said about the holiday of Chanukah, right? I think that maybe many old and grizzled rabbis like yours truly would probably agree with that statement. Over sixty years of writing and speaking about Chanukah should pretty much exhaust the topic, shouldn’t it? But then again that would be selling Chanukah short. 

There is always a fresh insight that illuminates all the holidays of the Jewish year and Chanukah is certainly no exception. Reminiscing with myself (something that we senior citizens do often) about my own life and past, I was amazed that somehow a lawyer from Chicago ended up being a rabbi in Jerusalem. How did this happen? And how did the Jewish state itself happen—not in terms of history, facts, personages, dates, places and wars but in the amazing fact that such a state flourishes and progresses in spite of all odds, past and present, against its existence? 

The rabbis of the Talmud taught that people to whom wondrous things occur do not really recognize those events as being wondrous. It is part of the weakness of human nature to have such limited understanding. There has to be a flash of insight, a commemorative act, a tradition of being able to look past the trees to the forest, a spirit of almost childlike wonder in order for the amazing to truly be believable in the eye and mind of the beholder. I think that this is essentially how we have to look at Chanukah – as the historical event, as the commemoration of that event and of the traditions and customs that so endear this eight day festival to all of Israel. 

Jewish tradition and the rabbis of the Mishnah took an astonishing event that many people would view as being ordinary or natural, restoring it to its truly wondrous state. The story of Chanukah is that of a small and apparently weak nation overcoming a mighty army. It records a triumph of monotheism and Jewish tradition over pagan culture and practices, of the small, pure lights in the Temple that overcame the flaming torches that were far from pure, and of the vitality and resilience of Israel over those who would wish to snuff it out. It is all wondrous—but only if one views it all as being so. 

The rabbis in their holy perspective of Jewish life and events elevated the mundane and seemingly ordinary to the realm of the miraculous and eternal. That is basically the main lesson that Chanukah teaches us: we are a special people who live a miraculous existence with constant wonder surrounding us, yet it is all encrusted in seemingly natural and ordinary occurrences. 

To delegitimize the story of Chanukah and to treat as just another ancient war of the Grecian period is the same tactic that the world uses today to delegitimize the State of Israel and our rights to our ancient homeland. If the wonder of it all is lost and forfeited, then so is our struggle for existence and independence.

Perhaps more than other holidays of the Jewish year, Chanukah is a children’s holiday. Tradition allows even the youngest to light the Chanukah candles, to play dreidel, to taste latkes and sufganyot, to have time off from school and to observe the holiday through the eyes and senses of a child. Children still retain their sense of wonder and imagination. Their world is not usually bound by the practicalities, realism and occasional pessimism of their elders. Everything in life is still new and unexpected, worthy of curiosity and examination. Theirs is yet a magical world, even a spiritual world, viewed from a different plane of perception and thought. 

Chanukah is thus the perfect holiday for children for it requires this perspective: to be made wondrous, miraculous and thereby meaningful and beneficial. Chanukah is not for the jaded and empty spirited. Its candles flicker only for those that see the fire of Torah, tradition and morality that lies beneath their small surfaces. One who is privileged and able to see the wonder of the events that occurred to us “in those days” will also be able to discern the wonders that we encounter daily here in Israel “in our time.” 

Shabbat shalom and Chanukah same’ach, Rabbi Berel Wein

Sunday, 22 December 2024

Today’s turmoil—and what caused it: Rabbi Wein

In this, the seventh lecture in the series “The Jewish World 1880-1914”, Rabbi Wein focused on “Zionism, Socialism and Tradition”, looking at concepts and philosophies rather than geographical considerations. He actually structured his lecture around not two but three mainly Jewish movements that opposed the continued existence of Jewish life: Zionism, Marxism and Secularism. All three of these movements, he noted, are still around today but exercise a much lower level of influence on traditional Judaism than was the case a century or more ago.

Jews have always had a utopian, messianic world view: while this is the mainstream view, it was not share by Rambam. In his view, the messianic era would provide for is a world that continues much as it always has done. There will be no messianic revolution; instead, there will be an independent Jewish state, freed from the shackles of foreign domination. This view is in stark contrast with the world promised by the prophet Yishayahu, a world in which there will be no wars or illnesses, a world in which the lion lies down with the lamb. For Rambam this is all allegory: if the lion lies down with the lamb, quipped Rabbi Wein, the result will be lamb chops. Rambam’s view was not, and is not, popular. The traditional view was always optimistic, only to be eternally disappointed. Jewish religious leaders could offer no solution to our problems except to tell us to “grin and bear it, keep on praying—and wait”. This advice had been accepted for 1,800 years, but many felt that, at the end of the 19th century, this was simply not good enough: many Jews were disappointed with false promises and fake messiahs.

Many traditionalists gave up waiting for messiah and looked at three possible substitutes:

1.      Secularism: the secularists held no belief in God or Heaven, rejecting the prospects of a world to come and of an afterlife. Up till then, even among traditionalists there were varying degrees of personal observance—but hitherto there had been no official movement away from God and religion. In the wake of the secularist movement, entire generations of pure secularists were born, scientifically oriented and holding the belief that utopia would be achieved only through knowledge. In the 19th century, scholars believed they could achieve ultimate knowledge. Now, Rabbi Wein noted, they accept that, the more they know, the less they know.

How did this secularism affect the Jewish world? It began with the growth of the Haskalah, with acculturated Jews asking: “How can you be in the modern world without music, literature, art?” Kashrut and Shabbat were jettisoned on the basis that they had no relevance in modern world, being replaced by goals such as gaining entry to universities where people could obtain a truly secular understanding of the modern world in which they lived--a scientific world.

2.    Socialism and Marxism. In 1846, a Jewish apostate, Karl Marx, came up with a new philosophy based on the premise that all human history reflected class struggle, not national or religious differences. Religion, in his view, was the opium of the people, comforting the masses and deadening their sensitivity to reality so that they should be better equipped to accept the poverty and hardship under which they lived. Marx maintained that society, not individuals, should own the means of production—even though this was against human nature, which is to be acquisitive.

Communism, Rabbi Wein pointed out, is the ultimate utopianism. but 200 years of experience have demonstrated its failure in practice. Many Jews loved it—and regarded it as their second Talmud, being the only people to make it work in the form of Israel’s early kibbutzim. Kibbutz life was built upon the maxim of “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability”—the ultimate utopian ideal. Marxism is ultimately a cruel philosophy because of its belief that the end justifies the means, this being an invitation to dispose ruthlessly of one’s opponents, as has been done by Stalin and Chairman Mao. The Left is still strong in Israel, Rabbi Wein concluded, but socialism is not as pernicious as it once was: the Histadrut no longer owns the country.

3.       Zionism: in all of its forms, this is a highly complicated doctrine. At heart it is an intrinsically religious idea, that of Jews returning to an ancient homeland. But it was sold to prospective adherents as a species of nationalism, not as a religious ideal and, in doing so, it encountered great opposition from Jews in the religious, secular and Marxist sectors. The great achievement of Zionizm has been to keep secular Jews within Israel and to accommodate their secularism.

Divisions within the ranks of Zionism were apparent when the British Secretary of State, Lord Palmerston offered Theodore Herzl the chance to establish a Jewish state in Uganda. Herzl welcomed this offer, but European Zionists were aghast: even though many of them were secularists or Marxists, this was unacceptable to them.

The religious community opposed Zionism because it was seen as nationalist and anti-religious. Charedim are still fighting this battle, even though the State of Israel is 77 years old and 8 million Jews live here. But now there is also the phenomenon of Religious Zionism – Eretz Yisrael al pi Torat Yisrael – and the concept of Zionism as we know it today embraces even religious socialists and their kibbutzim.

Rabbi Wein concluded by asking: “How do we deal with residue of the turmoil of the 19th century that continues today?” He confessed that he had no answer.

Sunday, 15 December 2024

The Ottomans decline, while Jewish opportunities grow: Rabbi Wein

In the sixth of his eight-part lecture series, Rabbi Wein tackled the gradual disintegration of the Turkish-based Ottoman Empire and its impact on the many Jews who lived within its sprawling borders. This empire spread all the way from Balkans and the Mediterranean to the Middle East, Egypt, Libya and much of North Africa. Starting from the 15th and 16th centuries, this militantly Moslem even reached the gates of Vienna.

Because of its vast geographical spread, this empire began to decline. At the root of its failure was endemic internal corruption which was the consequence of its Caliph, based in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul (right), farming out governorships to different tribes, clans and families. Local autonomy was the norm, which meant that no two areas were governed in the same way. Eastern Sephardim were the main Jewish culture, and they lived within the Ottoman Empire as a self-contained society. Local rulers were less harsh on the Jews than were Western rulers, but in many communities they had no rights. Notably, however, there were no pogroms before 1948.

Israel, Rabbi Wein explained, was a sparsely populated wasteland with a tiny Jewish and mainly Sephardic population. The country had no effective economy. During the early 1800s, there was a small trickle of Eastern European Jewish immigration; these migrants came for purely religious reasons and had no expressed intention of founding a state. Safed, Tiveria, Yerushalayim and Chevron were the main centres of Jewish life. When Mark Twain visited the land in the late 1890s, he recorded that he had never seen a more desolate place. Incidentally, there was no real connection between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities, especially since the former had had no real exposure to mussar or chassidut.

The Turks had a large Christian population within their borders, particularly in Armenia and Syria. Moslems viewed them, rather than the Jews, as their enemy. This, said Rabbi Wein, had the paradoxical effect of making the local Christian churches more antisemitic than their Western counterparts. During the 1800s, as the West started eroding portions of the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem grew in significance: it was no longer just a place but had become an ideal, a vindication. Colonies were founded there by the Germans, Russians, French and others—and the Ottomans were helpless to stop this.  Many consulates based in Jerusalem claimed they were justified in being there to protect claims of locals living in these colonies. Curiously, at this time there was also a nascent movement among evangelical Christians who believed that Jewish settlement was needed as a precursor of the Christian Messiah.

Rabbi Wein then focused on the activities of Sir Moses Montefiore (left), who devoted his life to the cause of the Jewish people and intervened in the notorious1840 blood libel in Damascus. Montefiore visited Israel a total of seven times and generously donated money—but within the Jewish community there was no organisational infrastructure that could put it to good use. In short the Jews as a community were not ready for monetary support, but even private donations such as those of Montefiore would have the effect of weakening the Ottoman Empire first and, when the First Aliyah came, the Turks proved to be incapable of resisting it.

Within the crumbling Caliphate, the force of inertia was becoming impossible to overcome. Theodore Herzl had originally tried to buy Israel for the princely sum of 15 million British pounds, hoping to get this sum from the Rothschild family. The Turks however did not want to sell. In the 1890s, Greece broke away from Turkish rule (this assertion of freedom was romanticised by Lord Byron). Next, Serbia broke free from both Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian control. Cracks also appeared at the very core of the Empire, as hostilities increased between the Sunni Moslem majority and Shi’ite minority. Happily, the Jews were not caught in the crosshairs of their disputes.

Returning to Herzl and Zionism, Rabbi Wein showed that the Ottomans saw Jewish nationalism as a direct threat: it was not only European in origin, and therefore alien, but also featured secular Jews—something that the Ottomans regarded as a direct threat to an empire was founded on religion. Following Herzl’s unsuccessful bid to purchase the land of Israel, the JNF set out to buy land on a piecemeal basis and had far more success. In this way the Zionist movement succeeded in implanting itself in the Galilee during the First Aliyah through the establishment of kibbutzim and moshavim. How odd, commented Rabbi Wein, that the land of Israel should be built by the non-religious.

With Jewish settlement came Jewish disputes, largely between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. The Turks gave kashrut rights to the Sephardim, which the Ashkenazim said they couldn’t accept. Disputes amongst Jews were always referred to the Turkish authorities and, since those authorities were corrupt, the arguments put before them were corrupt too. Also, the 0od Yishuv refused to recognise the new Yishuv, finding the newcomers to be so rebellious and condescending towards traditional Jews that there was no dialogue.

Sunday, 8 December 2024

“If not for us, then for our children”: Jews in the USA

Yesterday Rabbi Wein delivered the fifth of his eight lectures in the current series, The Jewish World 1880-1914. In this lecture the audience was treated to a potent mix of hard fact, penetrating analysis and personal recollections.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century around 2.5 million Jews had entered the United States. This began a wave of migration that both saved Jewish people and allowed for creation of State of Israel. But why was the USA so eager to welcome Jews? After the Civil Law, the USA had became a continental power. It took over an enormous amount of land—but was short of human resources and needed people. At the start of its industrial revolution this new power needed workers and customers in great number. Thus Immigrants encouraged to come until the 1920s.

The earliest Jews to arrive came in colonial times, but they comprised only around 1,000 out of a population of around two and a half million. In the main they were Sephardi, and traditional in their religion observance. This was a good time for them to come, being businessmen and middlemen in a land that had no income tax, no poll tax, and practically no restrictions on trade: this was the beginning of the era of the robber barons. Thus the USA offered great opportunities and a world of freedom and enterprise that simply didn’t exist in Europe.

In the 1840s there was an influx of reform Jews from Germany, but this wave of immigration left little behind since second and third generation Jews of German origin chiefly converted to Christianity. Though they created federations, institutions, hospitals and schools, the aim of these institutions was to Americanize any Jew that came to America. Rabbi Wein cited the extreme example of the Pittsburgh Platform – a document that called on Jews effectively to abandon their Jewish practice and to divorce themselves completely from traditional Judaism.

Non-Jews who thought that the assimilationist position of the Pittsburgh Platform was real Judaism were deeply shocked at the sudden massive influx of Jews from Eastern Europe towards the end of the century. Yiddish-speaking and very different in their behavior and dress, they looked quite out of place in their new social environment. In the eyes of America, the USA was supposed to be a melting pot, so there was no tolerance of diversity. The norm throughout the land was a six-day working week, with Sunday being universally recognized as the day of rest. This posed enormous problems for immigrants who sought to remain observant Jews, who also had to face the challenges of urban life as they exchanged the city for the shtetl.

Life was tough for those who kept Shabbat since jobs were lost on a weekly basis. Poverty was rife and tenement life was tough. However the prevailing attitude was positive and forward-looking: “I won’t make it, but my children will”.

Rabbi Wein did not neglect the unseemly side to Jewish immigration—our involvement in crime. This was a field in which the immigrant Jews and Italians dominated, but there was a crucial difference between them: the Jews never put their children into the crime business, preferring to spend the proceeds of crime on educating them and putting them through college, whereas the Italians put all theirs into the family crime business and thus became the scapegoats for all crime.

Around 10 percent of Jewish immigrants were involved in left-wing politics, which was seen as anti-American. There were no pogroms as such, but there was the occasional spontaneous blood libel. Although the Jewish populace was generally not liked, such fighting as there was tended to be along ethnic, not religious lines. But the hold of religion on the new Jewish Americans was weak. Rabbi Wein quoted a telling aphorism of Dr Twerski: parents were giving their children what they didn’t have, but forgot to give them what they did have.

Given the powerful pressures towards conformity and Americanisation, it was not surprising that European rabbis had little influence even on their own families. After all, this was the United States, not the shtetl, and everything was different. Against this, the early 1900s saw the creation of the Young Israel movement. This was an attempt to preserve halacha while giving it an American tinge. Young Israel encouraged communal singing in shul, spoke English and looked for English-speaking rabbis. Against this, the Conservative movement sought to make concessions to religious observance and custom on the basis that this was the only way to prevent the complete assimilation of American Jewry. There was little else to choose from, since even by 1914 there were only a few truly orthodox institutions, and they weren’t seen as forerunners of any successful movement.

In conclusion, Rabbi Wein reminded his audience, when contemplating the calamitous situation he had depicted, not to be too judgmental. Times were hard and so were the decisions that people had to make.

Sunday, 1 December 2024

Jews under threat -- and Jews seen as a threat: Rabbi Wein explains

In this, the fourth in his series of eight lectures on ‘The Jewish World 1880-1914’ Rabbi Wein continued his discussion of the plight of the Jews in Russia, taking up with the last of the Romanov Tsars—Nicholas II (right), who strictly enforced the harsh decrees imposed by his father Tsar Alexander III.

These three decrees were as follows:

1.       Jewish men of 18 had to serve in Russian Army for 25 years. Around 50,000 Jews were forced into the army; hardly any came back as observant Jews. Many tactics were employed to evade this conscription, such as changing surnames to make it look as though there was only one son in the family.

2.       All Jews had to live within the Pale of Settlement; this excluded them from living in the great cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. Once again, it proved possible to get round this restriction, at least for the wealthy.

3.       Heavy taxes were imposed, but these too could be evaded since Russia had a culture of corruption.

Nicholas was the head of the heavily antisemitic Russian Orthodox Church. He was also a cousin of Kaisar Wilhelm in Germany and King George V of England. All were grandchildren of England’s Queen Victoria and this was assumed to be a positive indicator of peace. Unfortunately it did not, since nationalism drove the family apart and led to the First World War.

The Jews in this period were divided. The maskilim (secularists) believed that society could order itself without religion and that history displayed a progressive improvement in human life and conduct. This movement began in Germany but spread throughout Europe. The maskilim regarded Judaism as being devoid of culture, with no real culture, literature or music of its own. Their philosophy is now reflected in the acronym DEI (“diversity, equality, inclusivity”) and in denial of the notion that the Jews are a special, unique people.

The Russian government, with which the maskilim cooperated, was sympathetic to this view, and to the solution of the Jewish problem by converting one-third, killing one-third and driving the remaining third out. Local rabbis were the “enemy”.

The orthodox community was not however beaten. Thanks to the Gaon of Vilna (left), the foundations of Jewish survival through Torah education were firmly established in the institution of the yeshiva. The establishment of the yeshiva enabled the best and most promising students to study in depth and also involved whole communities in their support.  Yeshivot also produced communists and free-thinkers, as well as what turned out to be leaders of the Zionist movement. One by-product of the establishment of yeshivot was the ongoing tension between the Rosh Yeshiva and the Rabbi of the town: not many people could fulfil both functions at the same time.

The yeshiva world was not immune from disagreement and dispute. Reb Chaim Brisker’s popular new way of analysing the text of the Talmud was at odds with the traditional methods used by the Netziv. This caused a split in learning methodologies that exists to this day—but in the nineteenth century they were both taught within the same institution. Added to this was the emergence of the Mussar Movement of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, focused on establishing a world view based on ethical and behavioral values. Some yeshivot were in favour of mussar, others against it. And then came the political issue of Zionism: should the yeshivot be for it or against it? All these issues contributed to the fragmentation of the Torah world, not just in Lithuania but throughout the world.

A further idea promoted by the Gaon was that the Jews should stop waiting for the Messiah and should move to Israel. He encouraged those whom he influenced to leave and settle here. He himself got as far as Odessa, but never completed his Aliyah. The idea of moving however took root in Russia, where entire villages were emptied out as the Jewish poor fled to the United States to escape the cruelty of Tsar Nicholas. They knew they would struggle in their new land but reckoned that it was worth the struggle for the sake of their children.

There were however some Jews who did not want to leave Russia: they wanted to remain there and improve the country. They spoke Russian but were seen as a constant threat to Russian society because they tended to espouse far left and anarchist political causes. Nicholas was always worried about the threat that these Jews posed. Hounded by the police in Russia, some of them left for the United States, bringing their left wing sentiments with them.

Sunday, 24 November 2024

The power of "ignorance, illiteracy and superstition": Rabbi Wein

Last night, in the third of his eight lectures on "The Jewish World 1880-1914", Rabbi Wein introduced us to the condition of the Jews in the days of the Russian Empire. This lecture was quite unlike its two predecessors. While Jews were moving into Western Europe and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, quite the opposite was happening in Russia where it was the Empire that was moving into areas that already contained Jews.

Much of this lecture was taken up by Rabbi Wein’s vivid depiction of social, political and religious conditions in Russia which, remarkably, had remained more or less unchanged since the 15th century. Russia was a primitive, feudal country that was controlled by a powerful aristocracy. The country was also dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church—a body that cultivated deeply superstitious and sometimes pagan practices, and which could not tolerate, within the borders of Russia, the presence of those who worshipped any other religion. This was because, for the Russian Orthodox Church, Russia was effectively The Holy Land.


For those who were not members of the aristocracy, life was hard. With an illiteracy rate of 95% there was no educated middle class to counter the power of the Church. Nor was there any trade of the sort that brought prosperity to the lands further to the West. The vast majority of the population consisted of serfs—effectively slaves—who worked the land in exchange for the food they ate. The serfs had no rights and could not leave the land to which they were born. Poverty was endemic but, because all were poor, being poor carried neither shame nor stigma.

Russian society was in effect frozen. The aristocracy wanted no change since they lived comfortably off the labour of the serfs. The Church likewise had no interest in change since it was only by keeping the masses ignorant, illiterate and superstitious that they could retain their influence and, as Rabbi Wein quipped, “The wonderful thing about a superstition is that you can never prove it wrong”.

It was not until the Napoleonic wars that there was any thought that change might occur. While the invading French army overreached itself and had to retreat, Russians who encountered the French were shocked into realising what a backward and primitive people they were, when compared with their better educated and more sophisticated invaders.

From this point onwards, the stability of serf-bound Russia began to weaken. Moves were made to emancipate the serfs, which alienated the nobility and while leaving the serfs with nothing they could do with their freedom. Meanwhile anarchists began to spread their doctrine that man was basically good and that it was only government that was bad: destroy government and self-rule by the inherently good would follow.

It was against this backdrop that the Tsars (Alexander I, right, and his successors) had to consider what to do with the Jews who lived to the west of their empire. The government, increasingly paranoid, imposed censorship on all Hebrew publications and simultaneously operated contradictory policies: it was sought to assimilate the Jews into Russian society via military conscription—thus forcing them to learn the Russian language and become part of Russian culture—while also depriving them of basic legal rights.

What happened after that? Stay tuned to Rabbi Wein’s next lecture to find out!

Sunday, 17 November 2024

"Can you have a society without beliefs?": Rabbi Wein

Delivering the second of his eight lectures on "The Jewish World 1880-1914", Rabbi Wein sent out a powerful message to his audience on the importance of understanding our past in order to make our present more meaningful and our future more viable.

Starting with a survey of the vast polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire and the manner in which it unravelled, Rabbi Wein went on to describe how the Jews living within the Empire themselves fought vigorously against one another, with traditional Jews fighting chasidim and with maskilim and Neologs -- the advocates of extreme reform -- fighting them both. This was a tragedy because, ultimately, the only cause that united the disparate nations and communities within the Empire was their antisemitism and their belief that it was the Jews who were responsible for all their misfortunes. The efforts and varying fortunes of many celebrated rabbis of the era were also reviewed.

In the course of his lecture, Rabbi Wein reminded the audience of both the power of the press -- which was even greater in the late nineteenth century in the absence of other mass media -- and its propensity to influence rather than inform its readership. He also posed some deep philosophical questions: 

  • How do you define 'tolerance' in a secular society?
  • Is it even possible to have a society that has no beliefs whatsoever?

Rabbi Wein painted a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century Vienna, the capital of the Empire. Vienna then was a rival to Paris in terms of culture and the arts, a fantastic backdrop against which Jewish attempts to gain acceptance, whether through assimilation or (in the case of Gustav Mahler) conversion, ultimately failed.

Sunday, 10 November 2024

"Some periods of history just get overwhelmed by what happens afterwards": Rabbi Wein

 Speaking to a packed Beit Midrash in Beit Knesset Hanassi, Rabbi Berel Wein opened his latest lecture series, The Jewish World 1880-1914. In this first lecture Rabbi Wein focused on the three major centres of Jewish life in Western Europe--the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

"History is not made by general trends but by people", Rabbi Wein began: this established his methodology for the evening, looking at the lives of some of the most prominent Jews of that era.

Starting with the United Kingdom (which at that time included what is now the Republic of Ireland), Rabbi Wein described the rise to power of Benjamin Disraeli -- novelist, apostate, pro-Jewish campaigner and ultimately Prime Minister during the lengthy reign of Queen Victoria. Regarding himself as an Englishman of Jewish birth, he faced down his critics and opponents by unapologetically asserting the nobility of his Jewish origins. Rabbi Wein referred briefly to one of the most famous examples of Disraeli's bold stance, which goes like this:

Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Roman Catholic leader, attacked Disraeli in the House of Commons. In the course of his unrestrained invective, he referred to Disraeli’s Jewish ancestry. Disraeli replied, ‘Yes, I am a Jew, and while the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

Turning to matters religious, Rabbi Wein then gave a fascinating account of the development of the institution of the Chief Rabbi, which spread to several countries that were under British rule (South Africa has a Chief Rabbi to this day). The very Britishness of this institution made it anathema to later generations of immigrants from Eastern Europe, who rejected this Germn-influenced office and became the charedi community of the United Kingdom today.

Rabbi Wein next turned his attention to France, a country that was known for its inherent antisemitism and for the institutional hostility of the French Catholic Church.  Here Rabbi Wein went into some detail in explaining not only the legal background to the famous Dreyfuss trial but also its pivotal role in reminding French Jews that assimilation -- despite its huge attraction -- was not a viable option in the hostile social environment in which they lived. The role of author and journalist Emile Zola in exposing the fraudulent nature of the trial and the reasons in his article, J'Accuse!, was also emphasised. So here in France, as in the United Kingdom in the case of Disraeli, it was someone from outside the Jewish community who made a vital contribution to Jewish survival.

Finally Rabbi Wein reached Germany, a country only recently cobbled together from some 160 little duchies, principalities and self-governing entities. The mastermind behind this enterprise was the brilliant German diplomat Otto von Bismarck (right). The fusion of these mini-states was effectively done under the leadership of Prussia -- the most powerful of them and also, following a treaty, the ruler of approximately one-third of Poland (Silesia, an area with a large Jewish population). Bismarck's political plans did not include persecution of the Jews; rather, he made it easier for them to escape the confines of local restrictions and to enter into regular German society.  

At this point, we meet Moses Mendelssohn -- an orthodox and practising Jew but a man who was convinced that Judaism was in need of an uplift in order to bring it more into line with modern Jewish life. Being the centre of intellectual fervour, Germany was unsurprisingly the place where many scholars -- Jewish and otherwise -- exchanged ideas, arguments and their views on religious doctrine. This is where we also learned of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, his orthodox ally-cum-rival Rabbi Y. D. Bamberger, as well as Abraham Geiger and the Reform movement, which was seen as a bulwark against conversion to Christianity. Rabbi Wein concluded by pointing out the fallacy of this reasoning: it simply offered a way to assimilate into German society without commitment and without the inconvenience of becoming a Christian.

Sunday, 27 October 2024

The Jewish World 1880-1914: a new lecture series

Beit Knesset Hanassi is delighted to announce details of the forthcoming lecture series by Rabbi Berel Wein: "The Jewish World 1880-1914".  This series covers the three and a half decades that culminated in the First World War, the conflict that many believed to be the war to end all wars. This period saw many shifts in the fortunes of the Jewish people and of the Jewish religion itself, as commitment to the Torah faced competition from the claims of nationalism and conflicting political philosophies.

Delivering the lectures is Rabbi Berel Wein, who has earned an outstanding reputation as a writer and lecturer on Jewish history. 

These lectures are open to the public as well as to our members. You can sign up in advance for the entire series, or you can pay at the door for each lecture you attend. 

We hope to see you there!


Sunday, 21 July 2024

Rabbi Wein's birthday celebration

 

Our hearty thanks go to Heshy Engelsberg for sharing this link to his live recording of the highlights of the magnificent birthday celebration event which Beit Knesset Hanassi held on 17 July for Rabbi Berel Wein. Earlier this year Rabbi Wein turned 90, and the birthday event, held in Nefesh b'Nefesh's beautiful suite in Jerusalem's Cinema City, featured tributes from across the decades.

We wish Rabbi Wein many more productive years of good health and happiness.




Giants clash -- but who is the real winner? Vayigash 5785

The opening verses of this week's Torah reading are among the most dramatic and challenging in the entire Torah. Two great, powerful per...