Was a Famed Hungarian Rabbi and Purported Founder of Orthodoxy a Jewish Edmund Burke?

Throughout the history of rabbinic thought, widely accepted practice has always had a quasi-sacred status, even if it goes against the conclusions suggested by the authoritative texts. Yet rabbis also felt able to criticize popular customs they found contrary to halakhah, and generally distinguished custom from the letter of the law. Moses Schreiber (1762–1839), one of the greatest Central European rabbis of his day, and considered by some historians a founding father of Orthodox Judaism, sought to transform that relationship. Confronting the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, and the earliest stages of the Reform movement—which he saw as threats to the fundamental integrity of Judaism—Schreiber believed it was necessary not merely to defend halakhah but to prohibit the slightest innovation of any sort.

To this end, Schreiber contended that the distinction between law and custom should be erased, and every custom be considered possessed of the utmost sanctity. Schreiber thus bears some resemblance to the British parliamentarian and thinker Edmund Burke, who—in the face of Enlightenment rationalism—set forth a defense of tradition and prejudice against the onslaught of the French Revolution. Shmuel Ben-Shalom notes both important similarities and differences:

Schreiber’s attitude to custom was a turning point in the history of halakhah. He identified custom as the ultimate rival of modernity and consciously augmented its centrality, turning it into a potent weapon against the Haskalah. Schreiber’s “conservative revolution” reinvented custom, granting it a higher status even than that of halakhah.

[Burke and Schreiber] both identified the danger latent in the dismissal of custom emanating from the revolutionary winds. They both understood that the fundamental problem of the revolutionaries was their primary reliance on reason, which allowed them to wave away customs rooted in the public consciousness of many generations.

At the same time, it is important to distinguish between Burke’s conservatism and Schreiber’s protection of custom. Burke’s approach understands humanity as being a partner in history, part of a great contract between the dead and the living. We are able to repair custom and are even duty-bound to do so yet must be careful not to shatter them; every correction must be undertaken out of respect for the past, cautious advancement, and an empirical examination of results. This permission to change past approaches does not appear in Schreiber’s teachings.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Edmund Burke, Halakhah, Haskalah, Orthodoxy, Reform Judaism

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023