Featured Post

Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!

(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...

Jan 15, 2012

The Vacuum of Jewish leadership

I am not quite sure what to think of this...
Haaretz has an editorial about the vacuum of leadership the Jewish world is facing. It really makes two separate points:
  1. The leaders are really just propped up far longer than they are actually able to lead. Examples of this are the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shach and currently Rav Elyashiv, along with other unnamed examples.
  2. In the yeshiva system of today, the future leaders, gedolim, are not being , and really cannot be, developed.
From Haaretz:
On the top floor of a Jerusalem hospital lays a very old man. He is slowly dying, but he won't be left in peace. A small circle of courtiers around him continue to issue in his name edicts and rulings, ensure that his signature still appears on letters and when his medical situation improves temporarily, they will remove him from hospital and seat him in his chair at the synagogue, where everyone can see him. The hospital staff grumbles that all this just prolongs the old man's agony, but there is nothing they can do as the retinue controls all the old man's moves.


Only a tiny handful of relatives and trustees are allowed to talk with him, and they jealously guard his real mental situation while everyone is told that he is fully lucid and talking with his family and doctors, praying and studying as normal.


This is how the great rabbis die nowadays. These were the circumstances of the last years of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as the Chabadniks fought over him, manhandling him to the window of his study so he could wave to the crowds on Eastern Parkway, steadily deifying him as he descended into his last coma. His body died in 1994, at the age of 92, but many of his followers still believe he is with us.


Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach suffered similar indignities when visitors to his home in Bnei Brak were shown the volume of Talmud he was studying from, but were not told he had been on the same page for 10 years. Just before he turned 100, he was finally allowed to retreat from the public stage and given a few years of rest before he died at the age of 102.


The retainers of Kabbalist miracle-maker Yitzhak Kadouri bodily carried him to events well into his 11th decade, making sure he muttered the required incantations, shouting in his near-deaf ear the names of those to be blessed, and continued a brisk trade in his handwritten amulets until death finally liberated him from their clutches at 106.


Momentous rulings


By some accounts, 101-year-old Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the great sage of the "Lithuanian" ultra-Orthodox community, is undergoing the same treatment as these words are being written. For months now he is being shuttled back and forth from hospital to his tiny apartment in Mea She'arim; but despite growing reports on his frailty, he still seems capable of publishing momentous rulings on the pages of Yated Ne'eman, such as the one that appeared two weeks ago forbidding Haredi men and women from participating in military or academic vocational courses under non-Haredi auspices. While there are those who treat these verdicts as the word from up on high, speculation is growing that for months now, if not years, Rabbi Elyashiv's name has been appended to endorsements and prohibitions he has never heard of.


Modern medicine has created an intractable theological dilemma for Haredi Jewry. While it prolongs the lives of rabbis well in to their 90s and beyond, it does not guarantee soundness of mind. But how can a community brought up on the doctrine of "Da'at Torah," rabbinical infallibility, accept that their leaders' memory and reasoning can deteriorate. They liken their rabbis in old age to Moses, whom the Torah tells us that at the age of 120, "his eye was not darkened, nor his moisture ceased." And above all, their mind, this god-given gift to an entire nation, surely cannot fail, only gain strength and wisdom. But that is simply not the way of the human body.


And human nature being what it is, those surrounding the great rabbis are reluctant to relinquish their meal ticket. For decades they have derived a living and social standing from a proximity to his holiness - it is too much to expect that they supply the faithful with an accurate account of the revered sage's medical condition. To publicly admit to his physical limitations is tantamount to transferring power to a rival court.


Generation gap


But the inability to own up to a great rabbi's frailness goes beyond theology and avariciousness. There is literally no replacement to this dying generation of nonagenarians and centenarians. Elyashiv earned the title "Posek Ha-dor," the arbiter of the generation, decades ago - long before he replaced Shach as the supreme leader of the Lithuanians. But his followers have splintered into warring sects and there is no other rabbi today with such a consensus behind him.


Likewise, among the "Admorim," the hereditary leaders of the Hassidic dynasties, there is no figure who commands respect that transcends their courts - most of them have trouble keeping even their own flock together. Lubavitch did not appoint a successor to Schneerson - how could anyone stand in the messiah's place? Neither does the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox community have a viable candidate to fill 91-year-old Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's gigantic shoes when the day comes. His sons are already quarreling over his estate, but none of them will command anything near the same authority and they certainly won't allow an outsider to prevail.


And while there is no shortage of wizards, soothsayers and wonder-doers, the fierce competition between them assures that we will not see another "Zekan Ha-mekubalim," elder of the kabbalists, after Kadouri.


Ultra-Orthodoxy is the fastest-growing demographic in the Jewish world, not just in Israel but in the United States, Canada, Britain, France and other major communities as well, but it is facing a leadership vacuum. The yeshivas are booming, the number of men with a comprehensive grounding in all fields of Torah and Talmudic learning is unprecedented in Jewish history, but their prospects of one day becoming a venerated Gadol ha-Dor, the greatest in the generation, are nil.


The younger generation of rabbis are today under a level of scrutiny their predecessors never had to undergo. The details of their personal lives and foibles are circulated on websites. Rival factions have multiple channels through which to disseminate damaging gossip and promote their own champions. The mythologization necessary in constructing the image of a gadol is impossible. The successful resurrection of the yeshivas after the ravages of the Holocaust produced thousands of charismatic and learned rabbis. The market of Torah greatness is wide open and no competitor has a chance of cornering it.


In previous generations, leading rabbis could rely on the relative ignorance of most of their followers, who could not spend decades of their own in study, but tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of Haredi men, and a small but increasing number of women, are capable today of analyzing rabbinical rulings and picking and choosing their preferred rabbi.


It is impossible to predict how the ultra-Orthodox community will evolve in this new era of choice. Will rabbis try and rival each other with excessively hardline edicts, or will there be competition with those trying to liberalize Haredi ideology, making it more compatible with a modern lifestyle? Most likely we will see both these developments simultaneously.


As the last of the generation of rabbis born in the early 20th century close their eyes, an age of rabbinical hegemony is coming to an end.
What do you think? About both points - is the leadership propped up far longer than they are actual leaders? It actually makes it seem almost evil, propping up these old rabbonim for appearances sake alone, not allowing them to live out their last years peacefully. We often discredit claims made in their name, but it is true to this extent, that they have absolutely no idea what is going on? And, are our yeshivas not really producing future leaders? is it not possible because of the scrutiny applied nowadays?

17 comments:

  1. About point 2. According to Rabbi David Bar Hayim, the yeshiva system NEVER allowed Gedolim to develop. I've always thought this myself, but it's nice to have a famous name to pin it on. I'm not aware of any gedolim that went through the normal yeshiva system.

    And yes, it is evil. People have been calling for Yeshiva reform for generations.

    As to point 1. I don't think anybody can know for certain. It all sounds like a bunch of speculation because of a lack of transparency that modern minds assume means the worst.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been offered (by an otherwise credible party) an elderly gadol's signature on a letter, for $1000 cash. The intermediary explained that this is a going-rate, depending on the godol.

    I didn't accept the offer, so I don't know if the deal would have worked out, and to whom the money would have gone.

    I am confident not a dime would have ended up in the godol's bank account.

    And nor would I have been the only customer for this service.

    ReplyDelete
  3. heh heh I think my musings on the matter are worth about as much as those in Haaretz.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Garnel IronheartJanuary 15, 2012 1:45 PM

    In any good system there is an eventual point where the leadership system collapses because wanting to be a leader is seen as a sin of rebellion against the leader so no new leaders develop.
    This is exactly what's happening here. The current necessary quality for what passes for Chareidi leadership is to declare that one cannot make one's own decisions but is completely subservient to the applicable Gadol. When those few men who have the tag go, who indeed will take their place? The guys who insist they cannot lead?

    ReplyDelete
  5. To Anon # 1 - depending on your definition of "Gadol", I can think of at least one US-based Gadol who came through the Yeshiva system. R' Yisrael Belsky, Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Voda'ath, came up through the American yeshiva system.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "R' Yisrael Belsky, Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Voda'ath"

    Never heard of him, but according to the internet, his grandfather was the founder of the yeshivah that he is the Rosh Yeshiva of.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Garnel

    I think that is the sign of a broken system. In a good system they know that the current leaders are going to need to be replaced.

    For example at the US Navel Academy there are a bunch of 18 and 19 year old first year midshipmen. A few of those kids will be Admirals in 20 or 25 years. (Obviously we don't know which ones) but they are being trained for that because the current Admirals know that they will retire and need to be replace. In 30 years *SOMEONE* will be doing those jobs.

    The problem is that in the current yeshiva "System" there is no thought to the long term WRT leadership or much of anything else

    ReplyDelete
  8. "WRT"? And what is this "Navel Academy" of which you speak? "Innie" or "outie"?

    ReplyDelete
  9. "The problem is that in the current yeshiva "System" there is no thought to the long term WRT leadership or much of anything else"

    I'm sure you are wrong. They know exactly who they will declare the next gadol, but they don't want anybody else to know, lest they get to him first.

    ReplyDelete
  10. As far as I understand, Gedolim are chosen by the people, when necessary, and no one is groomed for this strenuous undertaking. They become thus through the people's desire for them to be so.

    I also read the Haaretz piece, and while there is some value to certain thoughts expressed, there is harsh criticism cloaked in words that 'express compassion'.

    This is another "admixture" of good/evil.

    If an elderly parent became frail, not fully conscious of their whereabouts, and seemingly partially here and partially 'there', wouldn't you still hold onto them for as long as you could, cherishing just being with them, no matter how conscious they were? You'd still communicate as much as possible.

    That is what the people are doing with our aging gedolim, hanging on as long as they can. Because the next phase is very very final.

    Because the evil in the world is grasping at all the straws possible to keep evil going ... those who are not yet strong enough need to be in a protective environment, in Yeshiva until they have built a reserve of strength to get married and deal with the world.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't know about point 2. We'll have to see who emerges. As for point 1, truer words have never been said.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Zach, I'm being sarcastic. Here's the bottom line: Admirals have shelf-lives. They have to retire and they're trained to have the best interest of the armed forces as their priority so they groom their successors knowing that their jobs are secure, eager as the young 'uns might be for their corner office.
    In politics (and this is all about politics) that isn't the case. No leader is secure and an aggressive up and comers just might push him out of that office before he wants to go. So the successful leader is good at destroying that young up and comer to protect his own position using the same abilities that made him leader in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  13. neshama,

    how can you even begin to compare 'holding onto' elderly parents and the circus that these elderly money machines are turned into.

    A better comparison is an elderly trained circus elephant, where the ringmaster doesn't care what happens to the animal so long as they can still sell tickets to the show.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Miriam,

    you knock haaretz butwhat you're really saying is that because they are not biased for your point of view they must be against you.

    Meanwhile, Haaretz has reported, with quotes, on the harediim protesting in Jm and BS regarding the arrest of haredi leaders for theft, tax evasion etc...

    and the issue is nowhere to be found on Jpost.

    You don't like Haaretz because they report on all sectors of Israeli society, including the harediim. In your world view, anyone who reports anything negative about what is happening in the haredi world must be biased.

    Assad also is blaming biased reporting for his troubles.

    ReplyDelete
  15. For example at the US Navel Academy there are a bunch of 18 and 19 year old first year midshipmen.

    I suppose they do a lot of personal contemplation at this institution, do they? <;-))

    ReplyDelete
  16. Bad mouthing. Rabbi Goldstein of Kehillas Yaakov in Ramat Beit Shemesh gave over a wonderful chidush in hilchos chanucah recently which he had discussed with a very lucid Rav Eliashiv the week before. The Rav is very lucid, albeit not very mobile. May he be strong and well 'ad meo v'esrim'.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...