The Orthodox Rabbi Who Pioneered Critical Talmud Scholarship

When David Zvi Hoffman (1843-1921) first delved into academic study of the Talmud, the field was largely the province of proponents of Reform Judaism who wished to ground their movement’s changes to Jewish religious practice on a foundation of historical scholarship. For his part, Hoffman wished to use academic scholarship to defend Orthodoxy. His efforts laid the foundation for 20th-century study of the Mishnah—the earlier stratum of the Talmud, compiled around 200 BCE and traditionally believed to be based on a divine Oral Torah given to Moses. Michael Chernick writes:

David Zvi Hoffmann worked out a distinct, Orthodox approach to critical Mishnah study that attempted to understand the historical development of the Mishnah from within itself and from rabbinic and non-rabbinic sources related to it. . . . What sets Hoffmann apart from his contemporaries is his attempt to derive the history of the development of the Mishnah not only from references to its composition scattered across other traditional texts, but by carefully examining the work itself, and by “excavating” its layers. . . .

Through their research [into traditional Jewish texts], Reformers sought to demonstrate that Jewish practices were neither uniform nor static. . . . To counter their claims, Hoffmann set out to prove that the original Oral Torah, which according to him was preserved in the Mishnah, was ancient and originally undisputed.

Read more at theGemara.com

More about: Jewish studies, Mishnah, Orthodoxy, Reform Judaism, Religion & Holidays, Talmud

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society