Rav Rosensweig resources

As should be clear to anyone reading this blog, I deeply respect the work of Rav Michael Rosensweig. In this post I simply want to point out where those interested can find his audio shiurim and his writings.

One place of course is YU Torah Online. Rav Rosensweig teaches at Yeshiva University in New York City and his regular Talmud shiurim are stored at http://www.yutorah.org/. The most direct way to find his shiurim is to go to the Advanced Search page and on the right of the page select him as the Teacher you are looking for and press "Search" -- you will then be taken to a page of over 500 shiurim!

For a more managable selection of his shiurim, which were given to the public, you can also go to Torahweb -- http://www.torahweb.org/. By clicking on Rav Rosensweig's picture on the home page, you will be taken to a list of his essays, as well as a link to audio and video shiurim. If you had time for only one, I would recommend "The Hashkafic Framework of Social Change" recorded in 2003, it is a wonderful description of the uniqueness of the halachic law system and its vitality and ability to face change.

Rav Rosensweig's latest essay on Torahweb can be found here. It is a reflection on the centrality of "Yirat Shamayim As An Approach to Life and As A Legacy."

The final resource that I would recommend is Rav Rosensweig's essay "ELU VA-ELU DIVRE ELOKIM HAYYIM: HALAKHIC PLURALISM AND THEORIES OF CONTROVERSY," which can be found here. He concludes this insightful essay with these words:

Finally, it should be stated emphatically that elu va-elu divre Elokim hayyim (these and these are the words of God -- my translation) should never be used as an excuse for complacency or mediocrity. Even as we encounter equal truths we must aspire to pursue our own conviction of ideal truth culled from and on the basis of insights that we form from the wealth of legitimate perspectives that we confront. Our pursuit should be intensified and enhanced by these exposures. In this way we will hopefully emerge with the concept of pluralism beautifully depicted by the Arakh ha-Shulhan in his introduction to Hoshen Mishpat:

"The debates of Tanaim and Amoraim and Geonim in fact represent the truth of the living God. All of their views have merit from a halakhic perspective. In fact, this diversity and range constitute the beauty and splendor of our holy Torah. The entire Torah is called a song whose beauty derives from the interactive diversity of its voices and instruments. One who immerses himself in the sea of Talmud will experience the joy that results from such rich variety."

Torah, then, is to be perceived as a harmonious symphony enriched by the diversity of its instruments and variations and bearing the singular message of devar haShem.

Every time I read these closing words I am inspired to study harder and to immerse myself in the sea of Talmud in order to hear one or two notes of the diverse and harmonious symphony that is the halacha.

The importance of our words

As I began to write this, I realized that just yesterday I was writing about how the Jewish tradition and the halacha helped me see the importance of each of my actions and today with the start of a new tractate in the Daf Yomi cycle, I wanted to write about the importance of words. Seeing and recognizing the importance of our actions and our words -- two pretty fundamental topics.

A few years ago I signed up for the daily email that one can receive from the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation that shares the Chofetz Chaim's insights and writing about Loshon Hora -- forbidden speech. I even bought the book Chofetz Chaim: A Lesson A Day from Artscroll. The teachings are truly an amazing collections of insights and recommendations on how to see the power of language for good and for bad.

This is the definition of Lashon Hora from the first day of these teachings:

Loshon Hora (lit. evil talk) is defined as information which is either derogatory or potentially harmful to another individual. A derogatory statement about someone is loshon hora, even if it will definitely not cause that person any harm. To focus on the shortcomings of another person is itself wrong.

A statement that could potentially bring harm to someone – be it financial, physical, psychological or otherwise – is loshon hora, even if the information is not negative.

(It should be noted that the term loshon hora refers even to true statements which are derogatory or harmful. Negative statements that are untrue or inaccurate are termed hotzaas shem ra, slander.)

I remember when I read this for the first time, I couldn't help but think that nearly EVERYTHING I read in the newspaper or on the news would seemingly fall in this category. And when I looked at myself, I was astonished to recognize how often the things I would say about someone were negative or somehow drawing attention to shortcomings. The teachings in this area from the entire tradition, which the Chofetz Chaim relied on, are a powerful antidote to all the angry and mean and hurtful language that surrounds us.

Another important issue regarding speech is addressed in the tractate Nedarim, which as I mentioned above was begun today by those following on the daf yomi cycle. The tractate is about vows (nedarim).

Recently, I have slacked off on keeping up with the cycle, but thought I would make a new start with this tractate and as I was listening to the shiur from DVDShas the rabbi made the point that one of the messages of the tractate is about the simple power of our words to commit one to certain actions and prohibitions. I look forward to learning all I can from Chazel on this topic.

Each of our actions is important

The other day I was reading one of Rabbi Gil Student's posts on his terrific blog -- Hirhurim Musings. It is about the halacha regarding brushing one's teeth on Shabbat, which was an issue raised when his young son had a friend spend the night on Shabbat. I will let you read it, but I have to admit that while I was reading all the detail that R' Student went into about the prohibition of causing bleeding and squeezing on Shabbat, I could not help but think "Unbelievable, this is legalism at its worst!"

BUT the next day as I was listening to a lecture by Hubert Dreyfus on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, professor Dreyfus was describing sense of the worldhood of the world, but the important thing for this post, is that professor Dreyfus in discussing one of Heidegger's points (I can't even remember the exact point at this time), made the distinction that for the discussion Heidegger was really focusing only on the "important" types of actions that we perform (such as teaching or being a parent -- something that defines us), and not unimportant actions like washing our hands, etc.

On hearing him say this I couldn't help but think about how hard R' Student had worked to describe the issue of brushing one's teeth on Shabbat! Now that is an unimportant issue (except of course for the health of your teeth -- though one day probably doesn't hurt one's dental hygiene much), if I ever heard of one. However, instead of treating in as unimportant the halachic tradition took it very seriously and put much energy into understanding what Chazel and the tradition said on the topic.

A bit later in the day I was listening to Rav Soloveitchik's shiur "Al Hanisim Chanuka" from Boston 1971, which can be found on the http://www.bcbm.org/ website. In it Rav Soloveitchik discusses the dialectic between the importance of the individual and the community within Judaism and while I have yet to finish the shiur and probably couldn't summarize it, even if I did, the one message that came through clearly on it and through much of the other works I have listened to and read from the Rav, was how much and how deeply valued the individual is within the halacha.

The final piece of this puzzle, which brings together many strains of thought I have recently had, comes from Rav Michael Rosensweig's recently posted shiurim on the Pirkei Avos. In the first few shiurim Rav Rosensweig is discussing the first mishnah in the second parek, which reads:

Rebbe said: Which is the straight path that a person should choose for himself?

Whatever is honorable for him and gains him people's respect. Be as careful in performing a slight mitzvah as a weighty mitzvah--because you do not know the reward for mitzvos. Consider the loss caused by a mitzvah in contrast to its reward, and the gain of a sin in contrast to its loss.

Contemplate three things, and you will not come to sin. Know what is above you: An eye that sees, an ear that hears, and all of your actions are written in a book. (translation from Rav Lau on Pirkei Avos from Artscroll)

Again, there is no way for me to try to capture what Rav Rosensweig says, but at the heart of it seems to me the message that while there may truly be a hierarchy within the mitzvot, it is most important for a person to treat each mitzva with the same level of honor and respect. Or as Rav Rosensweig might say, even though I don't think he does in shiurim, a person should treat each mitzva with a "maximalist" level of love, respect and thoroughness.

While this mishnah in Pirkei Avos brings to mind images of God as a strict taskmaster watching and judging every one of our actions, on the other hand it also depicts Hashem as a listening and guarding parent who pays close attention to us and is fundamentally and profoundly concerned about our welfare.

In closing while I am sure that the Orthodox focus on strict interpretation of all mitzvot may at times be used as more of a badge of who is the most frum (most observant), what I do appreciate is that with all that R' Student writes about brushing (and there is a second part to come) at the end of the day, the two boys had different practices (one brushed and the other didn't)! For all the scrupulousness of the halacha this recognition that in some situations there can be differences and that one should respect the tradition that one is raised up in, seems to be an important, if not essential, counter weight to a overly legalistic view of the world.

For myself what I find most inspiring is that sense of importance that this discussion gives to my actions. While the world may be interested in the day-to-day activities of celebrities, politicians or reality show contestants, the message from the halacha seems to be "Everyone of us is important and essential, and each of our actions shapes us and our future and has seemingly infinite depth and significance."

This is a message that I think many, many people need these days. Since today it is easy to feel unimportant, to feel like a number or to define one's value only in what we consume. When I combine this vision regarding our actions with the importance of study, of Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake), it helps see my life with a sense of depth and meaning that is difficult create on one's own within the often time's far too shallow, superficial and fast-paced world in which we live.

In closing, I am grateful to the Orthodox Jewish tradition for providing such an enormous array of online material and beautiful books in translation, like Artscroll's Schottenstein Babylonian Talmud, to help one become engaged in a conversation that began thousands of years ago and will continue for thousands of years in the future . . . What could be more important and exciting than that?

Wonderful article -- "The Twisted Wick: Talmud Study as Spiritual Practice for Post-Modern Jews [Seekers]"

I read this article many months ago and want to share it as widely as possible. It is called, "The Twisted Wick: Talmud Study as Spiritual Practice for Post-Modern Jews." I would change the title to read, ". . . Post-Modern Seekers," because I obviously believe that the Talmud is a spiritual document that can be valuable for all spiritual seekers.

Here is the link to it http://www.zeek.net/print/707talmud/

One excerpt:

Talmud study as spiritual practice teaches me to pay close attention to the world that surrounds me. A page of Talmud is not just filled with other people. It is also filled with things: twisted wicks, insignificant rags, millstones, willow branches, animal skins, scattered fruits, freshly laid eggs, pickled fish and precious stones. In order to understand a page of Talmud I must be paying close attention to the world: to the angle that willows grow in, the shape of a twisted lamp wick and the moment when a rag is no longer useful. This is the stuff of Jewish sacred text and Jewish sacred living, the everyday details that surround us. Talmud study as spiritual practice is not just about being in the present and listening to other people, it is also about the sanctity of the mundane. The holiness that resides in dirty rags and infant feces!

Another excerpt:

Although God is rarely discussed explicitly in the Talmud, the texts are filled with holiness: the holiness of the moment; the sacredness of everyday objects; the sanctity of the voice of another person; the divinity within our encounters with infinity. Each time I open my Talmud I learn to see more holiness in the people and things that surround me. I find God in a twisted wick, in a tattered rag, in the opinions of my teachers and study partners and in the voices of the street filtering in through the window of my study all.

The gift(s) of the Talmud

Not being able to sleep last night, I thought much about my interests and direction. Recently, I have been reading much from the Benedictine tradition, in particular commentaries on the Rule of Benedict -- a still vibrant document from around 600 CEcontaining rules about living in a monastery and elsewhere. It is a beautiful work that holds many messages for today.

I have also been exploring the poetry of Kenneth Koch, who I mentioned earlier -- his optimistic, creative and playful texts are also quite inspiring and freeing.

But in thinking about this blog and a viewpoint that that I can provide that perhaps others cannot, I returned to the Talmud as a source of meaning and understanding for me to continue to explore. While the Rule of Benedict has been and is being interpreted by a wide range of folks within and outside the monastery, even inside and outside Christianity, and the poetry of Kenneth Koch certainly can inspire, it is meant to be enjoyed and not analysed, the Talmud seems to thrive on analysis, to grow and grow and become richer from every question asked of it, every angle explored.

Therefore, since I do believe I provide a rather unusual perspective on this ancient and current text, I decided that I needed to renew my reading of, listening to and writing about this text that is certainly a gift from Hashem given us through Chazal and all following commentators. But it itself offers us the gift of providing infinite meaning to each action of our lives that often times can seem to lack much significance, much importance.

The Talmud breathes life into each moment by giving us the task of study and learning "day and night" and by focusing on every aspect of our lives it challenges us to see the importance, the beauty, the depth in each of those moments as well.

People die every day / for lack / of what is found there

In one of William Carlos Williams poems he wrote:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die every day
for lack
of what is found
there

When I think about how I feel when I am at my best and listening to Rav Michael Rosensweig's shiurim, this poem rings true.

In many, many ways it is difficult for me to get clear information or specific "spiritual" ideas or concepts from Rav Rosensweig's shiurim (i.e. "news"). What I can get from them is something far more important. Something that I would argue "people are dying for every day" -- dying, metaphorically from a loss of meaning, from a loss of creativity and passion.

At their best, poems help us focus on the particulars of our lives and find meaning within them, but we are not supposed to find answers in those poems. Only appreciation and perhaps more questions, but most importantly love -- love of the life we are given.

A few lines from another poem come to mind here. They are from Rilke's Ninth Duino Elegy:

. . . Perhaps we are only here in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window—
at most: column, tower … But to say them,
you must understand, oh to say them more intensely than the Things
themselves ever dreamed of existing. (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Perhaps it is this type of intensity that Rav Rosensweig means when he writes about:

• the "maximalist man of destiny" from his essay "The Spiritual Legacy of Noah and Avraham" or
• a "maximalist halachic lifestyle" from his essay "Chanukah as a Holiday of Idealism and Maximalism"

For Rav Rosensweig it is never a desire to find ways around the halakhah, but only a constant search to understand the "maximalist halachic lifestyle" ever more deeply and broadly. This, I believe, is why his shiurim range throughout the entire range of the Talmud. He is not simply focused on a daf or a mishnah or a gemara, but instead the entire Talmud and all commentaries on in conversation and Rav Rosensweig is always trying to find something new, to discover, a new chiddush, a new creation . . . it is this creativity and intensity that I believe on can connect to the art of poetry.

Rav Rosensweig's writings can be found at http://www.torahweb.org/rosensweig.html

More on saying "Yes" to life, even an "unexciting" one

In the last entry I wrote about how rabbis Singer and Rosensweig and their intense love of the Talmud, Hashem and the Halakhah represent for me individuals and a tradition that profoundly says "Yes" to all that life brings.

This fundamental position is the one that inspires me the most and one that I look for in any tradition or practice that I explore.

Just recently I discovered a new poet, Kenneth Koch. He was a friend and colleague of John Ashbery and part of the so-called New York School of Poetry of which he once said “Maybe you can almost characterize the poetry of the New York School as having as one of its main subjects the fullness and richness of life and the richness of possibility and excitement and happiness.”

To this line I want to say, "Amen."

Yes life is so full and so rich, even if is An Unexciting Life, as the title of one of my favorite books describes it. The book is on Benedictine spirituality and its Introduction begins:

Some years ago I read a quotation from a letter of Gustave Flaubert, creator of Madame Bovary, which could easily serve as a summary of one aspect of the spirituality that stems from the Rule of St. Benedict. As I remember it, the text ran: "Be regular and ordinary in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may violent and original in your work." What he seems to be be saying is that the price paid for the release of the inner spark of creativity is low impact living: the renunciation of superficial excitement, passive entertainment and mindless celebrity. In other words, exterior dullness is a condition of inner excitement. To describe this happy state I coined the phrase "creative monotony."

For us who live in a sensate society dominated by an appetite for excitement, no matter how vacuous its source, the preferential option for a quiet life may seem a little peculiar. No doubt in the midst of the helter skelter of a busy life, the idea of an oasis of silence has a certain appeal, but relatively few of us seriously consider building into our lives the values by which Benedict lived.

This reluctance derives, in part, from a misunderstanding of the nature of the unexciting life. The serenity envisaged by the Benedictine motto pax (peace) is not the deathly stillness of a stagnant swamp where nothing ever happens, nor is it the lassitude resulting from the abandonment of all ideals and the dodging of every challenge. The outward call, the nurtures inward growth is the fruit of a well disciplined life pursued through many years, and of battle-scarred victory in many struggles."

While everything I know and read about and listen to in regard to a Yeshiva is that they are not places of quiet or serenity, but they are places that offer something very different from the "sensate society dominated by an appetite for excitement, no matter how vacuous its source."

In future posts I will explore what Michael Casey says in An Unexciting Life, as well as other views that say a powerful Yes!

Saying "Yes" to life

While I regularly fight my decision to spend time studying the Talmud. because there are times that I question why I should focus on something so particular, so specific, so Jewish?

Listening to my teachers, Rav Michael Rosensweig and Rav Shlomo Singer, I have a profound respect for who they are and how they conduct their shiurim, however, their focus is entirely on the Jewish community.

Whether it is Rav Singer tirelessly learning Succah with those in his yeshiva or Rav Rosensweig using the Brisker Derech to create innovative interpretations (chiddushiim), I do not fit into their audience, nor do all the problems and struggles of those outside the Jewish community.

But . . . when I listen carefully; when I listen between the words, I can hear a profound "Yes" being shouted and lived by each man:

• a "Yes" to Hashem,
• a "Yes" to Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake),
• a "Yes" to a "maximal religious aspiration" as Rav Rosensweig likes to describe the halachic challenge that the Torah presents,

which together create for me a strong and deep, "Yes" to life and all that life offers -- good and bad.

Super blog -- Hirhurim Musings

A new resource that I found a few months ago is a blog written Rabbi Gil Student. The blog is called "Hirhurim Musings" and can be found at http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/

It is truly an amazing blog that at this moment is adding a variety of new features such as a Parashah Roundup -- a weekly collection of commentaries on the parashah (weekly Torah reading). Rabbi Student is a graduate from Yeshiva University and his audience is an Orthodox one. While I, of course, am not Orthodox, whenever I read his words, I sense a true warmth and humility, as well as a fundamental desire to love Hashem through study and sharing his study.

R' Student describes an "important policy" for his site as "This blog is intended only for the interchange of ideas for the purpose of Torah study, promoting enlightened public policy and/or the refinement of character." In particular, I sense this focus on a refinement of character his work.

The traffic on the site is also amazing -- it is not uncommon for there to be over 100 comments per entry, some from such well known Orthodox writers as Lawrence Kaplan and Arnie Lustiger.

I cannot recommend this blog highly enough.

I am back. I hope for a while

In a comment to my last post from February 2007, anonymous asked, "are you ever coming back?"

Since blogging doesn't come simply to me, especially about a topic such as the Talmud, it is much easier for me to not blog, than to blog. But just knowing that someone is reading these words energizes me to pick up where I left off.

Thanks to all who read these pages . . .

Why I Study the Talmud

It seems like I ask myself every day, "Why am I studying the Talmud?"

I currently am keeping up with the Daf Yomi process, reading a daf (page) a day. This is a simple morning ritual for me, sometimes reading in depth, sometimes skimming the daf for the day. One important thing that it has offered me is an overview of Jewish tradition and ritual that don't have, since I am not Jewish. While at times the topics can be obscure or seemingly repetitive, there are often wonderful, inspirational gems as well.

In addition to this for that last four months I have been trying to keep up with the class of Rav Michael Rosensweig as he covers parek Meruba of Bava Kamma. Here is a link to all the shiurim the Yeshiva University offers, which I discussed in my last post.

Rav Rosensweig's classes are extremely in-depth discussions of the Mishnah, Gemara and seemingly all the commentaries on a specific topic covered in either the Mishnah or Gemara. The difference between the Daf Yomi level of study and Rav Rosensweig's couldn't be clearer. Since September when I discovered the Rav Rosensweig's shirium, the Daf Yomi has covered over 150 daf, while Rav Rosensweig has covered 6 daf in over 50 separate shiurim each approximately 90 minutes long!

While I don't understand everything Rav Rosensweig discusses, because he uses an enormous amount Hebrew/Aramaic, over time (I have listened to 39 classes so far -- I am still 16 behind where he currently is) I have gathered more and more familiarity with the Hebrew/Aramaic.

But now to the basic question -- "Why?"

I am not Jewish and so I am not obligated to talmud Torah (studying the Torah) like traditional Jews are. The individuals to whom I am drawn like Rav Rosensweig don't represent a universalistic vision of the Talmud (for example, like Emmanuel Levinas), but a clearly orthodox and traditional vision of the Talmud and its study.

Yet, I just can't get enough of Rav Rosensweig's teachings (in other postings I will include links to his writings and other audio shiurim). There is a seriousness, clarity and yet lightness in his presentation, along with a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the sources that draws me in.

When I turn to other traditions that I have been drawn to in the past: Catholicism, Buddhism, philosophy and poetry -- while they offer a seemingly more universal message of love or emptiness or creativity or attention, which are clearly useful and helpful, these discussions now seem so abstract, so mystical that they don't appeal at this time.

This reminds me of what Rav Joseph Soloveitchik wrote in Halakhic Man:

It is here, in this world, that halakhic man acquires eternal life! “Better is one hour of Torah and mitzvoth in this world than the whole life of the world to come,” stated the tanna in Avot [4:17], and this declaration is the watchword of the halakhist. 30

The Halakhah is not at all concerned with a transcendent world. The world to come is a tranquil, quiet world that is wholly good, wholly everlasting, and wholly eternal, wherein a man will receive the reward for the commandments which he performed in this world. However, receiving of a reward is not a religious act;
therefore, halakhic man prefers the real world to a transcendent existence because here, in this world, man is given the opportunity to create, act, accomplish, while there, in the world to come, he is powerless to change anything at all. 32

What can be more exciting, more challenging, more inspiring than this?

Nothing!

And it is this sense of dedication and drive that I find in Rav Rosensweig's shiurim, and it is why I listen to his classes nearly every day. They help me get in touch with the "ideal of halakhic man [which] is the redemption of the world not via a higher world but via the world itself, via the adaptation of empirical reality to the ideal patterns of Halakhah." 37-38

To me the parek, Meruba, that YU has been covering -- which basically discusses the issue of stealing (gezeilah -- robbery and geneivah -- thievery) is a perfect example of looking at "empirical reality" through the "ideal patterns of Halakhah," which for myself certainly help me see my day-to-day reality with new eyes.