1 | |
2 | Other famous graduates of Slobodka included Rabbis Aharon Kotler (1891–1962), Saul Lieberman (1898–1983), and Yehi’el Ya’akov Weinberg (1884–1966), and Harry Austryn Wolfson (1887–1974). See ( Goldberg 1989; Tikochinski 2009; Englander 2016). |
3 | |
4 | |
5 | |
6 | |
7 | Among Hutner’s many disciples were Rabbi Ahron Soloveitchik (1917–2001) and Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein (1933–2015), and his daughter Bruria David (née Hutner, b. 1938), who became a noted educator in Israel. |
8 | Hutner’s teachings were published anonymously before 1964. |
9 | |
10 | |
11 | It should be noted that Hutner’s daughter earned a doctorate from Columbia, where she worked with Salo Baron and wrote her dissertation on Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes, a nineteenth-century European Talmudist whose own life and intellectual world spanned modern and traditional realms. |
12 | |
13 | |
14 | |
15 | |
16 | |
17 | |
18 | |
19 | See also ( Abrahamov 2000; Herskowitz and Shalev 2018; Schwarzschild 1985, pp. 235–77). To my knowledge Hutner was not personally acquainted with Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira (1889–1943), another creative rabbinic leader and thinker from Warsaw. There are important echoes of Shapira’s educational philosophy expressed entirely in Hutner’s discourses, where such pedagogical insights are expressed in the language and vocabulary of Lithuanian Talmudism. On Shapira’s educational vision, see, most recently ( Leshem 2018). |
20 | |
21 | |
22 | |
23 | See, for example, ( Bialik and Ravnitzky 1992, pp. 414–19, 427–29; Rubenstein 1999, pp. 34–63, 64–104; Handelman 2012; Jaffe 1997; Ben-Menahem 2008, pp. 288–305; Aberbach 1967, pp. 1–24; Blidstein 1975). See also Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, hakdamah; ibid., hilkhot talmud torah, chap. 5–6; ibid., Perush ha-Mishnah on m. Avot 1:6; Num. 19; Num. 20:22–29; Num. 27:12–22; Josh. 1:1–9; I Kings 19:16–21; II Kings 2; and II Kings 5:20–27; and ( Assis 2004, pp. 25–42). |
24 | |
25 | |
26 | |
27 | It is worth recalling the following remarks by Joseph B. Soloveitchik in a Yiddish homily from the 1950s: “The teacher must give his deepest, hidden, and intimate truth to the disciple, inviting him—just, as it were, as the Master of the World did with all creation—to take part in his own existence. The student and teacher are poured into one another through an act of compassion. Just as God is revealed to humanity through nature, and the apocalyptic revelation of shekhineh comes via prophecy, so too is the teacher revealed to the student. He entrusts him with his intimate, quiet ‘I’, and through this trust they are united with one another. Two souls poured into a single mystical personality.” See ( Soloveitchik 2009, p. 223). Translated in ( Mayse 2019a), online, accessed 24 March 2019. |
28 | With characteristic insight, ( Goldberg 1987, p. 22) notes: “If the Elder addressed the whole person, restricting the flow of knowledge in accord with the powers of receptivity of the addressee. Rabbi Kuk addressed the heart and the mind, unleashing torrents of discourse woven from the entire range of Jewish thought: law, lore, philosophy, poetry, mysticism, pietism, homiletics, exegesis. The Elder was a pedagogue; Rabbi Kuk, an intellectual. Isaac Hutner sought to combine the two, to become the two.” |
29 | The italicized words appear in English (with Latin letters) in the original Hebrew. |
30 | In Talmudic literature, this term can refer to a nursing mother or a wet-nurse. See b. Yevamot 36b; b. Ketubbot 65b; and b. Niddah 7a and 9a. |
31 | Yitshak Hutner, Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim (Brooklyn: Gur Aryeh, 2016), no. 74, p. 134. |
32 | See b. Sanhedrin 99b: “Reish Lakish said: ‘One who teaches Torah to the child of another, the verse considers him as though he formed him, as it says, “and the souls they formed in Haran” (Gen. 12:5)’.” |
33 | |
34 | b. Pesahim 112a. See also Bereshit Rabbah 30:8; and ( Handelman 1992). It is worth noting that Targum Yerushalmi renders the word meniktah (“nurse”) in Gen. 24:59 as padgevatah, which may be translated as “guardian,” “nurse,” or “teacher.” This calls to mind the formulation in Gal. 3:24: “Therefore the law was our disciplinarian ( paidagōgos) until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.” See ( Lull 1986); and, on the Greek and Roman background of the pedagogue as a slave, tutor, or teacher charged with caring for the child’s wellbeing, see ( Young 1987; Yannicopoulos 1985; Bonner 1977, pp. 34–47; Corrington 1989). |
35 | On Torah as compared to milk, see Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 4:2, commenting on Song. 4:11. |
36 | |
37 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 74, p. 134. On the personal encounter, see ( Etkes 2005, pp. 31–47, 94–95); and Schachter-Shalomi, Spiritual Intimacy. |
38 | Here we should note the Mahayana Buddhist concept of upāya or upāyakauśalya, often translated as “skillful means” and referring to a kind of pedagogy through specifically-tailored means of education. See ( Harrison 2003). |
39 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim), no. 74, p. 134. |
40 | Yitshak Hutner, Pahad Yitshak—Hanukkah (Brooklyn: Gur Aryeh, 1989), no. 11, p. 100. |
41 | |
42 | Tradition recalls an early Hasidic sage making the following claim: “With you people (i.e., the opponents of Hasidism), the Hasidim are one thing, and the teacher and the teachings are another. That is why you need written texts. We, our teacher, and the teachings were all truly one. We had no need for written texts.” As translated in ( Green 2013a, vol. 1, p. vii). See also ( Mayse and Reiser 2018), and the relevant literature cited therein. |
43 | |
44 | |
45 | See Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 183, p. 273, translated with marvelous felicity in ( Bashevkin 2016), online. |
46 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 267, p. 337. |
47 | |
48 | |
49 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 32, pp. 53–55. |
50 | b. Berakhot 11b. |
51 | Leader, “Leadership as Individual Relationships,” pp. 177–202. |
52 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 74, p. 136. See Maimonides’ summary of the laws in Mishneh Torah, hilkhot talmud torah 6:1–14; and see also m. Avot 4:12, and the comments of Rabbi Yonah Gerondi ad loc. |
53 | See Yitshak Hutner, Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot (Brooklyn: Gur Aryeh, 2018), ma’amar 8:27, p. 80. |
54 | |
55 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 8:30, pp. 81–82; Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 132, pp. 222–24. |
56 | See Sifrei on Deuteronomy 11:22, quoted in RaSHI ad loc. Mishneh Torah, hilkhot de‘ot 6:2. Cf. b. Sotah 14a, for the injunction of cleaving to God through works of love and kindness toward others; and ( Rapoport-Albert 1979; Green 1977). |
57 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 18:7, p. 132. |
58 | See also Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav’s comments in Likkutei Moharan I:140. |
59 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 18:7, p. 133. |
60 | |
61 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 18:12, p. 135. |
62 | Pahad Yitshak— Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 29, p. 186. Rabbinic literature also presents a notion of the rav muvhak, a primary teacher to whom one’s honor is due. See b. Bava Metsia 33a; Mishneh Torah, hilkhot talmud torah 5:9; Shulhan ‘Arukh, yoreh de‘ah 242:30; and ( Cooper 2010). |
63 | b. Sukkah 27b; b. Rosh Hashanah 16b. In a work that may well have been known to Hutner, the nineteenth-century Hasidic sage Tsevi Elimelekh Shapira offered the following reflections on why a student is obligated to visit his master on the holiday in his Benei Yissakhar (Benei Berak: 2015) hakdamah: “When holy times come, supernal sanctity flows forth from the source of holiness to all. Yet the student cannot be compared to the master (whose ability to receive is much greater). Nonetheless, when the student enters the presence of the master, they become as one. Each one faces the other, the giver and the receiver, with intimacy and trust. They become as one flesh, and it is like lighting a flame of our candle from another.” |
64 | See b. ‘Avodah Zarah 5b, and RaSHI’s comments to Deuteronomy 29:6. |
65 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 12, p. 20. |
66 | See Bava Kamma 65a. |
67 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 12, p. 21. |
68 | Though he does not make it explicit, Hutner seems to be playing with the similarity of “face” (panim) and “innerness” (penimiyyut)—hence, one must seek to pierce the inner quality of his master’s words over the period of forty years, and during the in-person encounters in particular. |
69 | |
70 | |
71 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 155, pp. 244–45. |
72 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 135, pp. 225–26; ibid., no. 107, pp. 196–97; and ibid., no. 100, p. 190. |
73 | See his reflections in Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 64, p. 119. |
74 | |
75 | |
76 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 74, p. 134 |
77 | |
78 | ( Heilman 1992, p. 227): “A ben (son of the) yeshiva was a person who had gone through the Lithuanian-style nonhasidic yeshiva system and who, because he had assimilated its values and worldview, continued throughout his life to draw his Jewish identity from that experience … He was someone steeped in Jewish tradition and the details of Jewish law. He was not simply governing his behavior according to the norms of the street—even if that street was a Jewishly observant one. He was part of a rabbinic elite.” |
79 | See the 1919 appeal to found a new Hasidic academy in inter-bellum Warsaw translated in ( Biale et al. 2018, p. 602): “We need to open the gate to a house for the multitudes, a yeshivah, which will be a fortress; a fortress for the Torah, a guard tower for worship and a fire wall for religion and faith. And whoever seeks life—shall flee into this place and live.” |
80 | |
81 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 75, p. 137. |
82 | See also the well-known parable of the fishes who refuse to flee to dry-land in order to escape the fisherman, attributed to Rabbi ‘Akiva in b. Berakhot 60b. |
83 | See RaSHI’s comments on this verse. |
84 | The italicized words appear in English. |
85 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 75, p. 138. |
86 | |
87 | See Degel Mahaneh Efrayim (Jerusalem: 2011), kedoshim, pp. 388–89; and the BeSHT’s oft-cited exegesis of Psalm 32:2. See also ( Heschel 1976, p. 43). |
88 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 75, p. 138. |
89 | |
90 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 97, p. 187. |
91 | The italicized words appear in English. |
92 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 94, p. 184. |
93 | b. Berakhot 13b. |
94 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 94, p. 185. |
95 | See b. Ta’anit 31a: “In the future the blessed Holy One will arrange a circle of the righteous, and He will sit among them in the Garden of Eden. Each and every one will point with his finger, as it says: ‘And it shall be said on that day: “Behold, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might save us. This is the Y-H-V-H; for whom we waited. We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa. 25:9)’.” This text was much beloved and commented upon in Hasidic works. |
96 | Emphasis in the original. |
97 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 93, pp. 183–84. |
98 | |
99 | See Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 128, pp. 217–19; ibid., no. 96, pp. 186–87, and ibid., no. 9, pp. 12–14. |
100 | See below. |
101 | |
102 | |
103 | |
104 | Wenger, Communities of Practice, p. 100. |
105 | |
106 | |
107 | (Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 9:1, p. 82. Thus, Hutner explains why a student is not allowed to ask a teacher about something other than the subject he is studying. |
108 | (Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 15:5, pp. 97–98. |
109 | |
110 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 38:3, p. 210. |
111 | |
112 | |
113 | |
114 | Pahad Yitshak— Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 18:9, pp. 132–33; and ibid., ma’amar 9:2, p. 82. In thinking of religious study as a praxis beyond scholarship and scholasticism, we would do well to recall the words of ( Graham 1987, pp. 162–63): “Sacred books are not just authoritative documents or sources of doctrinal formals; they are living words that produce a variety of responses—emotional and physical as well as intellectual and spiritual. Moreover, at no point in the life of a sacred book is it likely to elicit more varied responses than when it is being chanted, sung, or recited in some meaningful context such as that of worship or meditation.” See also ( Davidson 1974, pp. 53–68). |
115 | |
116 | |
117 | Traditionally this is the first phrase, together with the Shema, that is recited by children as they learn to speak. |
118 | Pahad Yitshak—Hanukkah, ma’amar 11, pp. 98–99. |
119 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 74, pp. 134–35. |
120 | |
121 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 74, pp. 134–36 |
122 | |
123 | |
124 | |
125 | |
126 | |
127 | |
128 | |
129 | |
130 | |
131 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 24:4, p. 157 |
132 | |
133 | |
134 | |
135 | See b. Kiddushin 30a. |
136 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 28:3, p. 184 |
137 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 28:3, p. 185. |
138 | Mishneh Torah, hilkhot talmud torah 1:11–12; the italics represent the nuance of Maimonides’ intent in employing the word talmud. My thanks to Professor Bernard Septimus for sharing his incomparable translation of this book. See also ( Twersky 1967, pp. 106–18); ( Twersky 1980, pp. 493–95). Cf. Maimonides’ comments on m. Avot 2:4. See also Mishneh Torah, hilkhot talmud torah 3:7. |
139 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 17:1, p. 122. |
140 | See also Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 15:6, pp. 98–99. |
141 | |
142 | |
143 | |
144 | |
145 | Avraham Yesha‘yahu Karelits, Emunah u-Vitahon (Jerusalem), 3:8–11, pp. 25–27. My thanks to Shaul Magid for showing me the importance this element of Karelits’s thinking. |
146 | Karelits, Emunah u-Vitahon, 3:9, p. 25 |
147 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 8:29, pp. 80–81. |
148 | Pahad Yitshak—Iggerot u-Mikhtavim, no. 266, pp. 335–36. |
149 | |
150 | Pahad Yitshak—Hanukkah 9:4, pp. 82–83. |
151 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 4:4, p. 56; and m. Avot 3:9. |
152 | |
153 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 10:3, p. 84. |
154 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 10:5, p. 85. |
155 | |
156 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 10:3, p. 86 |
157 | |
158 | |
159 | Yitshak Hutner, Pahad Yitshak—Sha’ar le-Hodesh ha-Aviv (Brooklyn: Ha-Mossad Gur Aryeh, 1993), no. 68:3; and Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 8:29, p. 80. |
160 | See Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 24:2, on Torah as an all-consuming song. |
161 | |
162 | Mishneh Torah, hilkhot talmud torah 3:3. I extend my thanks once more to Professor Septimus. |
163 | b. Menahot 99b. |
164 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 40:6, pp. 217–18. |
165 | Pahad Yitshak—Shavu‘ot, ma’amar 40:7, p. 218. |
166 | Yitshak Hutner, Pahad Yitshak—Purim (Brooklyn: Ha-Mossad Gur Aryeh, 1989), no. 10, p. 51, commenting on b. Berakhot 6a. |
167 | |
168 | ( Seligman et al. 2008, p. 180), argues that: “ritual is something that is happening to some extent all the time, in the most seemingly common, mundane aspects of our lives.” |
169 | An alternate version of these remarks, addressed to a very different audience, may be found in ( Mayse, forthcoming d). |
170 | |
171 | |
172 | |
173 | |
174 | |
175 | |
176 | |
177 | |
178 | |
179 | |
180 | |
181 | |
182 | |
183 | |
184 | |
185 | |
186 | |
187 | |