Six years ago the first issue of Yeshiva University’s The Torah Umada Journal was published. In his short preface, Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University, stated that the appearance of the journal was for him the realization of a dream he had harbored since his student days at Yeshiva.
The preface was followed by an introductory essay “Torah Umada Revisited” from the pen of the editor, Dr. Jacob J. Schachter, who is the rabbi of New York City’s “Jewish Center.”
Dr. Schacter’s essay opens with a discussion of a letter the late Rabbi Simon Schwab wrote in the 1930s to various rabbinic authorities, soliciting their opinion on the Halakhic legitimacy of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch’s Torah Im Derekh Eretz.
Dr. Schachter states that in Rabbi Schwab’s view Rabbi Hirsch’s propagation of the Torah Im Derekh Eretz ideal was essentially no innovation. Through the centuries there have been rabbis as well as other adults who combined erudition in Torah with a wide secular knowledge which — in most cases – they acquired after having spent years in the Beth HaMidrash. Rabbi Hirsch’s Hiddush was the incorporation of thorough secular studies in a school curriculum for the young.
Dr. Schacter describes the development of the educational program of Yeshiva on its way to becoming a center of Torah Umadah. He writes about Yeshiva’s three presidents– Rabbi Bernard Revel Z”L, Rabbi Samuel Belkin Z’l and Rabbi Norman Lamm– describes their academic achievements, and tells of their commitment to the blending of Torah with culture by quoting from their speeches, statements and writings. In his investiture address, in November 1976, Rabbi Lamm declared: “The guiding vision of this university, as it was formulated by my two distinguished predecessors, was the philosophy of synthesis, the faith that the best of the heritage of Western civilization- the liberal arts and the sciences – was or could be made ultimately compatible with the sacred traditions of Jewish law and life, or at the least, that this dual program with all its tensions was crucial to the development of young Jews in an open society.”
Dr. Schacter’s essay is accompanied by many an interesting note. In one of these he lists a host of articles and studies about Torah and Madda, which appeared in recent years.
The publications of the first issue of the journal was made possible by the generosity of Jacques and Hanna Schwalbe of New York. Following the death of Mrs. Schwalbe, who was a descendant of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch, the subsequent issues were sponsored by her husband in her memory.
Five volumes of the Torah Umadda Journal have appeared to date. They are packed with interesting, stimulating and well researched studies and articles. Though it was our intention to review only the latest issue which appeared some time ago, we must make mention of a work that was published earlier. The major part of the late Dr. Zanvel E. Klein’s excellent extensive and impressive bibliography of the writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It lists Rabbi Soloveitchik’s books, studies, essays, printed lectures and addresses and other writings, as well as essays and article about him, in several languages. The bibliography appeared originally in a limited typewritten edition. Klein presented me with a copy and I felt greatly honored. From Chicago, where he served as professor of pediatric psychology, he sent me from time to time clippings from newspaper articles which he felt would be of interest to me. Occasionally we spoke on the telephone. I knew he was very knowledgeable in various fields of Jewish learning, but regrettably I didn’t know much about his eventful life. He died in 1991 at the young age of 54.
In volume 4 of the Torah UMadda Journal, more than half of his two part annotated Soloveitchik bibliography was reproduced together with a short account of his life from which the following lines are taken:
Dr. Klein, A”H was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1937, the son of Rabbi Hugo and Rose Hartstein Klein. the family descended from prominent rabbis who served in Ungvar, Szerecs (Hungary) and Mattersdorf (Austria). He attended the Cleveland Hebrew Academy, Yeshiva University High School and Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland. He did his undergraduate work at Case Western Reserve University and received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, New York.
He spent a year at the Rav Kook Yeshiva in Jerusalem. After his return, he did his internship at Langley Porter Hospital in San Francisco and at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. He was an instructor-lecturer on World Campus Afloat, travelling by boat throughout the world for six months and was also affiliated with the Peace Corps in the Virgin Islands.
He was the author of many books in the field of psychology and wrote numerous articles in the area of pediatric psychology as well as on Torah related subjects. He served as professor of pediatric psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago.
He was buried in the Eretz HaHayim Cemetery Beth Shemesh, Israel next to his beloved parents.
Yehi Zikhro Barukh
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 25, 1995
Half of the latest issue of the Torah UMadda Journal is taken up by Jacob. I Dienstag’s “Art, Science and Technology in Maimonidean Thought (A Preliminary Bibliography).”
Jacob I Dienstag, who was professor of bibliography and for many years headed the Judaica Division of Yeshiva University’s library, is known throughout the Jewish scholarly world as the bibliographer of Maimonides. For more than half a century, he has not only recorded all of Maimonides’ writings, their editions and translations, but also all that has been written about the sage of Fostat. He has devoted all his free time to the Rambam bibliography. He continued to work on this project, as best he could even as a soldier in the U. S. army during World War II.
His bibliographies and studies have been published in a variety of journals and publications in the U.S., Israel and other countries. Only a few of his publications can be mentioned here. He is the author of separate bibliographies listing all the editions of Mishne Torah, More Nevukhim, Sefer HaMitzvot, Shemonah Perakim and Millot HaHigayon (in the latter bibliography are also enumerated the translations and commentaries on the treatise).
Other publications of his include: “Maimonides in Kabbalistic Literature,” “Maimonides in Hassidic Writings,” and “Christian Translators of Mishne Torah into Latin.”
He has published a series of essays on leading scholars, such a Steinschneider, Bacher, R. Simha Assaf and R. Reuven Margulies, describing in great detail their contributions to the study of Maimonides and is the author of biographic dictionaries of persons, who wrote about particular works of the Rambam.
Dienstag’s studies and bibliographies have not been limited to the Rambam’s rabbinic and philosophical writings. In recent years, the Maimonides Research Institute of Haifa, headed by Rabbi Yehuda Assaf, began the publication of an English edition of Maimonides medical treatises. The five volumes, which have appeared to date, feature bibliographies by Dienstag, listing all the editions and translations of the respective treatises and as well as studies and articles about them.
Maimonides interest in and great knowledge of various sciences is evident in all his writings.
In his new bibliography, published in the Torah UMadda Journal – which he dedicated to the memory of the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik– Dienstag has listed all essays and books in which Maimonides’ knowledge of the sciences and of technology or his views on aesthetics are alluded to or discussed. He also included studies which refer to scientific terms employed by the Rambam or to ancient scientific words mentioned in his writings. The individual items are listed according to subjects, which in turn are arranged according to the alphabet, beginning with “Aesthetics,” “Agriculture,” “Alchemy,” etc. Other headings are “Architecture,” “Astronomy,” “Botany,” “Geography,” “Geometry,” “International Dateline’ and more. The last subject heading of the first part of the new bibliography is “Longevity and Life Expectancy.” Most items in this entry are about an Arab responsum of Maimonides on this subject. The responsum was discovered in the last century and was published for the first time in full about 40 years ago.
One of the larger sections is that on “Architecture.” In the beginning of the brief preface, Dienstag states: “Our information about Maimonides’ knowledge of architecture is derived from his commentary on the Mishna, Tractate Middoth and his Code, Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Beth HaBehira.”
Dienstag lists many books on the Temple in which Maimonides is alluded to or commented upon. These include R. Yom Tov Lipmann Heller’s Tzurat HaBayit and Jacob Judah (Aryeh) Leon’s treatise on the Solomonic Temple. Leon (1603 -1674) of Marrano descent was a rabbi and teacher in Holland. He constructed a model of the Solomonic Temple and wrote a description of the Temple in Spanish and in Hebrew. The treatise was translated into other languages. Because of his preoccupation with the Temple, Leon was nicknamed “Temple.”
(To be continued)
The Jewish Press, Friday, Sept. 1, 1995
(Continued from last week)
Here are some examples from Dienstag’s Maimonides bibliography.
Under the heading “Cartography” are listed several studies about a diagram, defining the borders of the Holy Land, which Maimonides had drawn. The Rambam sketched it in 1177 in a responsum he sent to one of his students, who resided in Tyre and had asked him for a clarification of the borders with regard to the “Commandments dependent on the land.”
In the rubric “Astrology” one finds a list of essays and studies about Maimonides opinion of the belief that the stars exercise an influence on human events.
Maimonides condemns this belief in his commentary on the Mishna, in his Mishna Torah and in a letter which he sent to the scholars of Southern France. He went even further in that letter. he expressed his opinion that our land was taken from us and the Temple was destroyed because our forefathers occupied themselves with the teachings of astrology, which is idolatry. They followed these teachings from which they expected great help and did not engage in the study of warfare and the conquest of countries. For this reason the prophets called them fools, and truly fools they were, going after vain things which cannot profit.
From Dienstag’s bibliography, we learned about a controversy which took place about 35 years ago, regarding the authenticity of Maimonides’ statement that our ancestors followed the teachings of astrology and did not engage in the study of warfare.
In 1960, the late Rabbi Chaim Bloch (author of a well known work on the “Golem” and various other books, both in Hebrew and in German) published in HaPardes, the New York rabbinic monthly, a highly interesting article, in which he related that in the last quarter of the 19th century, the late Prof. David Kaufmann and other Jewish scholars declared Maimonides’ Statement about our ancestor’s failure to occupy themselves with the study of warfare to be a forgery. Against this, the late Rabbi David Shlomo Shapiro of Milwaukee, who was a well known Torah scholar and Hebrew writer, maintained that the statement was authentic. He explained that when Maimonides criticized our forefathers for not studying the art of warfare and conquest, he didn’t mean that Jews should have engaged in these studies for the purpose of conquering other people’s countries (Thus Kaufmann and others might have interpreted his words, and for this reason, declared them a forgery). Maimonides meant they should have studied warfare in order to be able to occupy their divinely promised land and defend it against strangers. Both Bloch and Shapiro published their first articles in HaPardes and later continued their controversy in the New York Hebrew weekly HaDoar.
Studies and articles about Maimonides’ views on demons are enumerated under the heading “Demonlogy.”
The Rambam didn’t believe in the existence of demons.
Dienstag might have added to his list of publications in this section R. Mordecai Plungian’s biography of Rabbi Menashe of Ilya (Ben Porat, Vilna, 1858).
Plungian mentioned (PP. 44-46) several Halakhot in Maimonides Mishneh Torah whose formulations reflects the Rambam’s view about demons (see also Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishna, Avoda Zara, chapter4).
Plungian states, inter alia: In tractate Shabbat 151b we read: Rabbi Hanina said: “It is forbidden to sleep in a house alone. Whoever does so, Lilith grabs him.” Maimonides did not incorporate this saying in his code, for he didn’t believe in the existence of demons.
R. Mordecai Plungian was a great Torah scholar. He was employed by the Romm publishers of Vilna.
The second part of Dienstag’s Maimonides bibliography, which will include sections on Mathematics, Matter, Motion, Music, Nature, Physics, Probability, Superstition and more, will appear in the next issue of the Torah UMadda Journal.
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, Sept. 8th 1995
Dienstag’s Maimonides bibliography is followed in The Torah UMadda Journal by a beautiful and very erudite essay. “The Study of Science and Philosophy Justified by Jewish Tradition.”
Writing in a precise and lucid style, the author, Abraham M. Fuss, an international lawyer, formerly of New York, who has made his home in Jerusalem, acquaints us right at the outset with the thesis of his essay.
“There is an ancient tradition that the forefathers mentioned in the Bible and some of the sages mentioned
in the Talmud were learned in the sciences and speculative philosophy,” Fuss writes in his opening paragraph. “In fact, this idea was frequently linked with the notion, originally found in Greek rather than Jewish sources, that the Greeks learned science and philosophy from the Jews. These views were combined to serve as a useful and frequently relied upon justification for the study of secular subjects by various rabbinic scholars from the 10 century until the 18th century.”
“It is the object of this paper,” Fuss continues, “to analyze the sources of the claim that the Greeks learned
these disciplines from the Jews, to trace the route of transmittal of this claim and to study some of the uses made of it.”
Fuss cites and examines a host of statements by ancient and medieval Jewish and non-Jewish writers attributing to the great figures of the Bible as well as to later Jewish sages knowledge in the sciences and in philosophy.
King Solomon is described in the Bible as the wisest of all men. According to an old Midrash be was acquainted with the therapeutic qualities of plants, having acquired this knowledge— via oral tradition — from Shem and Ever (see also Rashi on Kings I, 5:13; Maimonides’ commentary on the Mishna, Pesahim, 4:9, and Nachmanides’ introduction to this commentary on the Torah. T.P.).
Philo writes that Moses learned mathematics from the Egyptians, astronomy and astrology from the Chaldeans and other subjects from the Greeks. He soon surpassed them in knowledge and they became his disciples. According to Philo, Heraclitus snatched certain ideas from Moses “like a thief.”
Josephus and the early Church father quote Greek writers according to whom the Greeks were greatly indebted to the Jews for their knowledge; Pythagoras, particularly, is said to have learned much from Judaism.
Stories abound about Aristotle’s association with the Jews. Josephus, citing a Greek writer, relates that Aristotle met a Jewish sage somewhere in Asia Minor and was greatly impressed by him. In a late Jewish source we read that Aristotle embraced Judaism.
To Saadia Gaon is attributed the view that King Solomon mastered all disciplines; mathematics, philosophy, engineering, science, music, medicine, astronomy and more.
Famous is Yehuda HaLevi’s statement in the Kuzari (2,66; as put in the mouth of the Haver): What is your opinion of Solomon’s accomplishments? Did he not, with the assistance of divine, intellectual and natural power, converse on all the sciences? The inhabitants of the earth travelled to him to carry forth his learning, even as far as India. Now, the roots and principles of all sciences were handed down from us first to the Chaldeans, then to the Persian and Medians, then to Greece, and finally to the Romans. On account of the length of this period and the many disturbing circumstances, it was forgotten that they had originated with the Hebrews, and so they were ascribed to the Greeks and Romans …” (translation according to H. Hirschfeld).
R. Meir Aldabi (14th cent.) states in his Shevilei Emuna, I read that when Alexander the Great captured Jerusalem, Aristotle — who was Alexander’s teacher — seized Solomon’s treasures, studied Solomon’s books and
copied them in his own name. He added errors of his own and suppressed the works of Solomon in order to
mislead the world.
According to Fuss, not only did Jewish and early Christian writers claim that the Greeks were greatly
indebted to the Jews, Moslem thinkers, such as Averroes and Ghazali did so as well. The latter is quoted by Don Yitzhak Abravanel as having written that “the Greeks stole their science from Israel.”
(Continued next week )
The Jewish Press, Friday, Sept. 15, 1995
Conclusion
We have cited only a few of the many statements assembled by Fuss to prove his theses. Additional Hebrew works quoted by him include Derekh Emunah by Abraham Bibago, 15th century philosopher and preacher. Rabbi Moshe Isserles’ Torat HaOlah and Nehmad VeNaim by David Gans, chronicler and astronomer, who was a student of R. Moshe Isserles and the Maharal of Prague. Gans writes in his Nehmad VeNaim which is an astronomical work, about the knowledge in astronomy of Abraham, King Solomon and a number of Talmudic sages.
According to Gans, the Egyptians learned astronomy and other sciences from the Jews, developed them and passed them on to the Greeks.
For almost 30 years, Rabbi David Nieto was the Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in London. He died in 1728. He studied medicine, which he practiced in Livorno, Italy before coming to London, was proficient in languages and knew astronomy. In his Matte Dan he tried to show that the rabbis of the Talmud were acquainted with all the sciences and maintained that mankind’s knowledge of those was derived from the Jews.
The last author quoted by Fuss is R. Barukh Schick of Sklov, who translated Euclid’s geometry into Hebrew. He was encouraged in this enterprise by the Gaon of Vilna who told him, “that to the extent man is deficient in knowledge of the sciences, so is his knowledge of Torah deficient.” In his introduction to his translation, R. Barukh bewails the loss of the knowledge of our forefathers as a result of the tribulations of the exile.
Summing up, Fuss states:
“As we have seen, the tradition of the Jewish transmittal of scientific knowledge goes back to ancient times and finds support from non-Jewish sources as well. This does not necessarily mean that it is historically correct. It does indicate, however, that Jews from time immemorial, have been seekers of the rational meaning of life and that they were perceived to be an important link the chains of transmission of the ancient Near Eastern wisdom. It is well known that there was a constant struggle throughout the generations between those who saw the value of non-Torah study and those who would exclude any disciplines other than Torah. Yet the students of science and philosophy were able to find comfort and refuge in an old tradition to justify their position.”
Fuss quoted statements according to which the sciences “were stolen from the Jews.” May we add here a similar claim with regard to the art of music? The medieval Hebrew poet Immanuel of Rome writes in his Mahbarot (Sixth Mahberet_ “What says the art of music to the Christians? I have been stolen from the Land of the Hebrews.”
The late Dov Yarden refers here in his edition of the Mahbarot, to Immanel’s commentary on Mishlei 26:13 where he says the art of music was once completely ours. It was fostered and taught by Assaf Heman, Jeduthau, David, Samuel and other divinely inspired persons. Now we have no knowledge of it. It is entirely in the possession of the Christians.”
[Immanuel also writes in his commentary that Solomon authored books on the natural sciences. The King of other nations and their wise men came from afar to hear his wisdom. After his death they copied his book. Our people lost Solomon’s books and other books of wisdom during the exile. The nations remained in the possession of Solomon’s knowledge of the sciences and expanded it. Immanuel wrote this in opposition to those who maintained that Jews should not study the sciences.]
Several centuries later these sentiments about the Jews’ having forgotten the art of music, were echoed by Rabbi Judah Aryeh Modena of Venice in his introduction to Salomone de Rossi’s Hashirim Asher LiShlomo and in his commentary on Ein Yaakov (See Shmuel Nehemia Libowitz book about Rabbi Juday Aryeh Modena, New York, 1901, pp. 94-96. Rabbi Judah Aryeh Modena, too writes that in the past all sciences flourished in Israel.
The Jewish Press, Friday, September 22, 1995
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