New Chief Rabbis

I just wanted to write a very quick blog post about the newly elected Chief Rabbis - Rabbi David Lau and Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef.


Firstly, I am so glad that the elections are over. It has been an embarrassing chilul Hashem for the past several months as Rabbi engaged in politics and horse-trading. It should never have happened.

On the radio (and internet) this morning people were speaking about the election of chareidim as a defeat for the dati le'umi community, and a clear sign that the rabbanut does not want to move forward into the 21st century.

My thoughts (for what they are worth).

I do not identify with the chareidi community. But I do think that these two choices are excellent for Israel. Even though their fathers' were also Chief Rabbis, each of them deserves it in their own right, and was not elected because of their father.

I know Rabbi Lau a little bit (my brother knows him much better because he lives in Modi'in). Rabbi Lau is open, modern and concerned with the welfare of all Jews (and non-Jews) of every denomination. Notwithstanding what is being written about him, he cares deeply about people, knows Torah and halacha, and has been a tireless worker for the people of Modi'in for the past several years.

I know nothing about Rabbi Yosef as a person, but his books of Yalkut Yosef are tremendous. Clearly written, straight forward halacha for both Sefardim and Ashkenazim, and never erring on the side of chumra.

But as pleased as I am for both of these Rabbis, the Rabbanut and the State of Israel, I must say that it wasn't as much that these two won, but that the opposition lost. It seems to me that Bayit Yehudi is out of touch with the real world (based on the candidates they put forward). Rabbi David Stav is a forward thinking person (who wears a kippa seruga). But he has been exceptionally controversial in his rulings and actions (in terms of challenging the status quo). I think that Tzohar is an excellent organisation and has changed the way things are done. But to put forward such a radical contender for the office of Chief Rabbi was always risky. Tzohar operates well because it is outside of the system. I am yet to be convinced that it would work as the system.

And Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, who I'm sure is a great talmid chacham (though I have not been completely impressed with his halachic rulings on the weekly parsha pages, nor when I've heard him on the radio) and a great activist for the Jews of the world, is nevertheless a very controversial character. I disagree with the legal system getting involved in the elections - the Attorney General should never have allowed him to be called in - but nonetheless, his election would have been dragged through the courts and would have created an even bigger chilul Hashem. And those who feel disenfranchised by the election of Chareidim are possibly also the ones who would feel disenfrachised by a Rabbi who wrote a haskama to a book advocating killing Arabs.

If the dati le'umi community want to put up a serious contender for Chief Rabbi (and they should start planning now for 10 years time) they will have to find someone who is very knowledgable in Halacha, is not too radical, and can be accepted by most of the Jewish people of Israel. In the past they have had Chief Rabbis who filled most of those criteria - Rabbi Shapiro, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, Rabbi Goren, etc. At the moment I don't see those kinds of people leading the dati le'umi community. Don't get me wrong - there are many great dati le'umi Rabbis, but many of them are either more chareidi than the chareidim, or radical in either their political or racial views.

Ten years is not a long time. They had better get moving. (Of course what they will probably do is change the electoral system or do away with the office of Chief Rabbi - which would be a pity, but more importantly would be an admission that they cannot compete on a level playing field.

Chief Rabbi Hertz on Antisemitism

While looking for reading material for Tisha B'Av I came across this sermon (or short booklet, depending on how you view things) from Chief Rabbi Hertz.


It is dated "First Day of Sukkot" (though he calls it 'Tabernacles') "1922" and addresses the current increase in antisemitism. Any discussion of antisemitism today is in the context of the holocaust. It is very intersting to see what antisemitism looked like to Jews in England before the holocaust.

CR Hertz's starting point is the verse of kiddush Hashem. Jews represent G-d and religion wherever they go and whatever they do.

" Ye shall not profane My holy Name, but I will be hallowed among the Children of Israel."

He explains the importance of going beyond the letter of the law in dealings with non-Jews, citing the example of Shimon ben Shetach returning the gem which his students took from an Arab (sic.).

Thus, every Israelite holds the honour of his faith and of his entire people in his hands; and a single Jew's offence can bring slander on the whole House of Israel.

I think this message is still relevant today. As is what it can lead to:

I will not, on a festive day, dwell on the fiendish slaughter of 150,000
Jewish men, women and children in the Ukraine during the years 1919 and 1920; on the torture and murder inflicted on so many of our brethren in Hungary: on the tidal wave of hysterical intolerance that swept during these years over Western democracies even, and resulted in exhibitions of anti-Semitism that would have been absolutely unbelievable ten years ago.

Wow! If only he had known how bad things were going to get! And they were absolutely unbelievable in 1922.

We looked to the common sense and the enlightenment of the age to laugh such insane vapourings out of court. We certainly did not expect that this grotesque
myth, founded on malice and hysteria, built up of garbled history and synthetized by impudent forgery, would be taken seriously by anyone. We soon learned that in the words of the Prophetical Lesson of this Festival — our day was a day without daylight, when the heavenly luminaries contracted themselves. We found that the leaders of opinion in various lands resigned their sacred task of moral guidance. With very few exceptions, they either remained silent in the presence of all this malicious indictment of a whole race, or they shamelessly swelled the howling of the mob.

The entire pamphlet is here. It is only about 10 pages of text. It certainly put me in a depressed mood for 9 Av.

Chief Rabbi Hertz on Aggadata

I found this section on Aggadata in the Introduction to Nezikin in the Soncino Talmud. It is by Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz and is clearly written to remove any charges of anti-Christian sentiment from the Talmud (if you read the entire piece it is clear that is a major issue for him - this was the first time that the entire Talmud was translated into English).

But it is still shocking to see what he writes - I suspect that if a Chief Rabbi today would claim that Aggadata is simply "beautiful old stories" or that "certain Jewish commentators are fools" they would get in trouble.

But Chief Rabbi Hertz was the Chief Rabbi during the period from before WWI until just after WWII. Times were different. The challenges and issues facing Jewry, and the levels of anti-semitism were entirely different. And he felt that this type of approach was the most effective one.

The Talmud itself classifies its component elements either as Halachah or Haggadah. Emanuel Deutsch describes the one as emanating from the brain, the other from the heart; the one prose, the other poetry; the one carrying with it all those mental faculties that manifest themselves in arguing, investigating, comparing, developing: the other springing from the realms of fancy, of imagination, feeling, humour:

Beautiful old stories,
Tales of angels, fairy legends,
Stilly histories of martyrs,
Festal songs and words of wisdom;
Hyperboles, most quaint it may be,
Yet replete with strength and fire
And faith-how they gleam,
And glow and glitter!
as Heine has it.

Halachah, as we have seen, means ‘the trodden path’, rule of life, religious guidance. To it belong all laws and regulations that bear upon Jewish conduct. These include the ritual, the civil, criminal, and ethical laws. Everything else is embraced under the term Haggadah; literally, ‘talk’, ‘that which is narrated’, ‘delivered in a discourse’. This again can he subdivided into various groups. We have dogmatical Haggadah, treating of God’s attributes and providence, creation, revelation, Messianic times, and the Hereafter. The historical Haggadah brings traditions and legends concerning the heroes and events in national or universal history, from Adam to Alexander of Macedon, Titus and Hadrian. It is legend pure and simple. Its aim is not so much to give the facts concerning the righteous and unrighteous makers of history. as the moral that may be pointed from the tales that adorn their honour or dishonour. That some of the folklore element in the Haggadah, some of the customs depicted or obiter dicta reported. are repugnant to Western taste need not be denied. ‘The greatest fault to be found with those who wrote down such passages. says Schechter, ‘is that they did not observe the wise rule of Dr Johnson who said to Boswell on a certain occasion, “Let us get serious, for there conies a fool”. And the fools unfortunately did come, in the shape of certain Jewish commentators and Christian controversialists, who took as serious things which were only the expression of a momentary impulse. or represented the opinion of sonic isolated individual, or were meant simply as a piece of humorous by-play, calculated to enliven the interest of a languid audience.’ In spite of the fact that the Haggadah contains parables of infinite beauty and enshrines sayings of eternal worth, it must be remembered that the Haggadah consists of mere individual utterances that possess no general and binding authority.

Royal Wedding and the Chief Rabbi

Some people are very upset that the Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, attended the Royal Wedding. I am not a posek and will not make a halachic ruling, but I do have personal experience. Her Majesty the Queen invited me, representing the Jews of Scotland, to attend a service of thanksgiving in St. Gyles Cathedral before the opening of Scottish Parliament.

At the time the presiding officer explained:

The official programme actually begins on the evening of Wednesday, June 30 with the ‘Kirking’ of the Parliament at St Giles Cathedral. At 6.30pm, the Very Reverend Gilleasbuig Macmillan will conduct a service attended by Her Majesty The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

I spoke to the Dayanim of the London Beis Din who explained that there is a very simple principle: If the Queen invites you - you attend! Anything less would not be representing the Jews of Britian in a good light to the monarchy and the non-Jewish population of Britain.

So I sat there during the service, next to a Muslim cleric and a Buddhist monk, and we commiserated with each other about having to be in such a place.

If you look on this clip at about 15:06 minutes, you can see me (for a second) as we walked to the opening of parliament the next day.

So, for whatever reasons, it seems clear to me that the Chief Rabbi did absolutely the correct thing in attending the Royal Wedding at Westminster Abbey last Friday.

It also struck me that we should not take such invitations lightly. If we think back to another event that happened at Westminster, the coronation of Richard the Lionheart (he of Robin Hood fame), we see that Jews were not invited. In fact they were actively banned from attending, and later were murdered!

At the coronation of Richard the Lion Hearted in 1189, Jews bearing handsome gifts were refused entry by officials and pelted by mobs. The story circulated that the king wished them exterminated and many Jews were killed in riots and their stately homes were burned. Richard punished the ringleaders and sought to prevent further outrages and protect his financial interest in "his Jews". When Richard left for the third crusade in 1190 a series of terrible massacres wiped out several Jewish communities. The York riot was the worst. Before following Richard to the crusades, warriors, many of whom were heavily in debt to the Jews, plundered the possessions of the Jews. The Jews fled to the castle and were besieged by the warriors. When the Jews realised they were doomed they took their own lives. The few surviving when the tower was stormed were slaughtered. The attackers then went to the cathedral and burned the records of their financial obligations to their victims.

One of those murdered was one of the Baalei Tosefot - R' Yaakov of Orleans (a student of Rabbeinu Tam).

For the record (not that I remember) it seems that when the Prince and Princess of Wales were married (Charles and Diana) Rabbi (later Lord) Jakobovits was not invited, so we don't know whether or not he would have gone to such an event.

Finally, I'm not sure if this is actually a true story (I suspect it is not), but it is told often enough that it should be true. The Chief Rabbi owes his position to the Queen's great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. It was she who conceived of the position and enshrined it in British Law:

Years later, Queen Victoria's attention was directed to an announcement issued by the Dukes Place Synagogue in London, requesting applications to be submitted for the prestigious position of Rabbi there. This was publicised internationally, and many renowned Rabbis applied, including Rabbi Samson Rafel Hirsch and others.

The Queen sent a note to the synagogue, stating, ''Since Rabbi Adler saved me when I was in trouble, he will certainly be the right guardian and leader for your congregation.'' And so it was.

When the Queen's advice was accepted and Rabbi Adler was chosen as the Rabbi of the Dukes Place Synagogue, she further suggested that this position was not enough - he should become Chief Rabbi of England, or better yet, of the British Empire! A bill was raised in Parliament in order to decide whether the Empire required a Chief Rabbi. When put to a vote, a substantial majority chose Rabbi Adler as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, a post he filled with honour and distinction for 45 years.