Originally published 5/3/07, 11:50 PM, Eastern Daylight TIme
Informal survey:
Informal survey:
Both Rav Shaul Lieberman and Rav JB Soloveichik died around the Passover season. The close proximity of heir respective yahrtzeit’s led me to the following question:
In your experience who – of the 2 rabbis above -had a greater impact on:
In your experience who – of the 2 rabbis above -had a greater impact on:
- Rabbis
- The Torah World
- General Jewish Life in
Remember this is NOT quite a poll about your opinion of whom you THINK had a greater impact!
Rather, the question focuses upon your own experience of “Who impacted YOU more personally” - whether it be directly or indirectly.
Kol Tuv,
Rabbi Rich Wolpoe
Rabbi Rich Wolpoe
11 comments:
I can give a quick answer. Who was Rav Shaul Lieberman? I never heard of him.
Sorry Dr Mike, but if you have not heard of R Shaul Lieberman, you have much to catch up on. It also proves that unless a personality is Orthodox in the strict frum manner of speaking, he or she will not be given much exposure and credibility. What a shame!
I should add that R' Lieberman is considered by many to be the most illustrious student of the Gemorah in our generation....
Umm, Saul Lieberman had almost no direct effect on even his own Conservative Jewery. For example, card carrying Conservative Jews for the last 35 years, have almost no awareness of Professor Lieberman, however were familiar with and had even read some of Rav Soloveitchik's essays. Liebrman was certainly one of the greatest academic Jewish scholars of the 20th centruy.
Oh wow! Someone else is reading this blog. That tastes great! Or is it less filling? I can never remember...
A few years ago Ismar Schorch, then head of the JTS, announced that Conservatism should do away with the Three Weeks period between 17 Tammuz and 9 Av. He felt that Judaism should be a religion of happiness and didn't need to have so many periods of mourning. The response from Rav Avi Shafran at the Agudah was incisive: 90-95% of Schorch's co-religionsists either have never heard of the Three Weeks or, if they have, don't alter their behaviour one bit during that time to recognize it. So who cares about abolishing it?
Shaul Lieberman was a conservative rabbi? Very nice. He knew a lot of gemara? Also, quite nice. To the vast majority of Conservatists, the Talmud is a closed book and in the context of Western society where anything a person doesn't know is automatically of no relevance or importance, that means his knowledge doesn't count for much in his movement. Rav Soloveitchik was a giant scholar within a group of people who respect scholarship. That's probably why he's had far more influence of the two.
Rabbi Wolpoe has his reason for writing this post -- we may wonder why he singled out these two individuals for this comparison. I leave that for Rabbi Wolpoe to comment.
Yet I knew that in reading this post, it would be somewhat controversial, for Rav Lieberman in himself was controversial. He did teach at JTS but would it be fair to describe him as part of Conservative Judaism. Marc Shapiro's recent work on Rabbi Lieberman only further highlights the enigma. Given who he was and his lomdos it is difficult not to speak of him with respect -- and indeed many within Orthodoxy only spoke of him in the most complementary way. Yet, given his position at JTS, it is also difficult to speak of him without wondering what he was thinking, in many ways.
Yet, this is not Rabbi Wolpoe's question? Maybe Rabbi wolpoe's intent is to further highlight the nature of the enigma by considering the effect.
RBH
Well, RYBS more influential, I suppose.
But Lieberman had a massive effect on the Conservative movement - by staying alive, he prevented them from ordaining women rabbis. Only after he died did they approve ordination of women.
And that event triggered the splitting off of the Union for Traditional Judaism.
But really, how influential was R' Lieberman aside from that? His main work was on the Tosefta, which almost nobody actually learns in isolation (although the Breslov calendar lists a Tosefta Yomi cycle). He composed one of the two major commentaries on the Tosefta in the 20th century, the Tosefta Kipshuta.
But he seems to have been yet another of the long chain of Orthodox scholars who happen to have taught at JTS, while not actually influencing their students to maintain much tradition, much as there has been a long string of "black-hat" rabbeim at RIETS who don't actually produce "black-hat" talmidim.
Maybe this is a pattern in American rabbinical schools: the rabbeim are two steps frummer than the talmidim. Which doesn't leave much hope for YCT, where the rabbeim are already on the leftward edge of Orthodoxy - where will the talmidim land?
The first thing that should be remembered is that the phenomenon of a Modern Orthodox rabbi working within the Conservative movement didn't used to be such a strange thing. After World War II when Orthodoxy in general was on the decline and non-religious Jewish historians were predicting that other than isolated groups of hasidim, the rest of Orthodox Jewry would disappear to be replaced by Conservatism and Reform (cue the laugh track), many Orthodox rabbis went where the money was, and that was in Conservatism. The story told about Toronto was that in the 1950's and 60's all the Conservative synagogues had Orthodox rabbis! The other thing to remember is that Conservatism in those days was a confident, ascendent movement that was far more traditional than the joke we see it as today. In many Conservative synagogues, the only really "unorthodox" thing in back then was the lack of a mechitzah. So to ask what Shaul Lieberman was thinking isn't so hard a question to answer. He was doing what all his compadres were. I doubt that, were he alive now, he would work at JTS.
The other point is that, yes, rabbonim tend to be frummer than their students but there is an artificial reason for that. First of all, the PR machine of the Agudah has drummed into our heads that the blacker the hat, the better the rabbi. Why hire a guy with a knitted kippah, even for a MO school, if there's a black hat available for the same price that will give the sense of higher quality? Secondly, a higher proportion of the black hat population goes into teaching than the MO population which still goes into medicine, accounting and, Heaven forbid, law as well as other profressions so there are more black hat teachers around to hire. That's the probable explanation for trend you're seeing. As for YCT... well that's another post for Nishma to put up.
Rav Shaul Lieberman was the Rector of JTS. He was a great Talmid Chacham and he wrote and edited his magnum opus Tosefta Kifshuta.
My post related to a debate with a friend re: the influence of R. Shaul Lieberman vs. that of Rav JB Soloveichik. Note, the more influential rabbi is not necessarily the better rabbi, but it is noteworthy to determine who did what for the Jewish community
Taking away nothing from R. S. Lieberman as scholar, his influence amongst Observant Jews seems marginal at best. As far as who was the greater scholar, that would be difficult to determine but there is no doubt that the 2 had mutual admiration for each other and tried to engineer a mutual solution to the Agunah problem in the 1950’s but got shot down. The story goes that they discussed either a pre-nup or a modification of the ketuba. Rav Lieberman eventually did make just such a modification. Despite this brief spirit of co-operation accompanied by mutual admiration, outside political forces shot it down. Probably from both left and right.
‘nuff said- RRW
The importance of a leader is directly related to the crowd he leads. Had the first Nazis never amounted to more than a bunch of rabble rousers and drunkards, we would never even have heard of Hitlet, y"sh. Had Columbus' crew mutinied before they reached the Carribean, we would never have heard of him either. So this answeres the question of who's more important. R' Soloveitchik led in an environment where the word of the rav was part of one's daily behaviour. R' Lieberman worked in an environment where the leader was allowed to make suggestions but nothing more authoratitive. Who knows how influential he'd have been had he stayed in the frum world.
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