Between 1902 and 1983, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) was the leading institution of academic Jewish studies in the world. Its faculty included such luminaries as Profs. Solomon Schechter, Louis Ginzberg, and Israel Friedlander in the first generation; Louis Finkelstein, Saul Lieberman, Mordechai Kaplan, and Abraham Joshua Heschel in the second generation; and H.Z. Dimitrovsky, Israel Francus, and David Weiss Halivni in the third generation.
The common denominator among most of these scholars is that they were born and raised in Europe before the Holocaust, spoke multiple languages, and knew the Talmud by heart before they began to study Wissenschaft des Judentums, the academic study of Judaism.
One of the last members of this elite group was Rabbi Prof. David Weiss Halivni (1927-2022). Born and raised in Sighet, Romania, he was recognized as a prodigy at the age of five, knew the Talmud by heart at a young age, and was ordained as a rabbi at the age of 15.
He was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 16, in May 1944, and within a short time all the members of his immediate family were murdered. One week after he arrived in Auschwitz, he was transferred to the first of various forced labor camps.
Upon arriving in New York in 1947 and being placed in an orphanage, he was introduced to Saul Lieberman, rector of JTS, and one of the leading Talmud professors in the world. Lieberman took him under his wing.
Over the next decade, Rabbi Halivni completed high school and earned a BA in philosophy from Brooklyn College, as well as an MA in philosophy from New York University, and finally a doctorate in Talmud at JTS.
Rabbi Halivni served as a professor of Talmud at JTS until 1983. Then he served as a professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University until 2005, when he retired and moved to Israel, where he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University.
Full disclosure
In the interest of full disclosure, I studied with Rabbi Halivni at JTS in the late 1970s. He gave me an oral exam in Talmud as part of my doctoral studies, and I had the pleasure of speaking to him every week at the National Library of Israel.
Rabbi Halivni’s magnum opus is Mekorot Umesorot (Sources and Traditions), a monumental 10-volume, source-critical commentary on the Talmud in Hebrew, which shows that the Talmud consists of layers, from the teachings of the tannaim (rabbinic sages in the Land of Israel, circa 10 to 220 CE); the sayings of the amoraim (rabbinic sages in Israel and Babylon, circa 200 to 500 CE); and the anonymous material by the editors of the Talmud, who sometimes misinterpreted the sayings of the amoraim.
Rabbi Halivni was awarded the Bialik Prize in 1985, the National Jewish Book Award in 1997, and the Israel Prize in Talmud in 2008.
But what could a Talmudist possibly teach us about the weekly Torah portion? As it turns out, plenty.
Thanks are due
We can thank Rabbi Ronald Price for this new posthumous book by Rabbi Halivni. Nearly every week, from 2008-2012, Rabbi Price would meet with or speak to Rabbi Halivni and record his divrei Torah (commentaries on the Torah). The result is this new book, consisting of some 200 brief midrashim on all the weekly portions. Price and the staff at Gefen Publishers should be complimented for laying out the book in a very clear fashion, and for including all verses in the Hebrew original.
There are two outstanding features of Rabbi Halivni’s commentaries on the Torah – one that did not surprise me, and one that did.
Through his eyes
The first feature is that, to a large extent, the author does not explain the Torah through the eyes of the Midrash or of classic commentators such as Rashi, but directly. As he writes on page 357: “In this volume, our style is to find an incongruity in a verse on which we may base a moral lesson.”
To put it differently, Rabbi Halivni is basically doing source criticism. He juxtaposes two similar verses or two identical verses next to each other and derives important lessons from that juxtaposition.
The first example is very much in keeping with his approach to Talmudic source criticism.
When Abraham asks his servant to go to his birthplace to find a wife for Isaac, he says (Genesis 24:7): “The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me…” But when the servant repeats the story, he says (24:42): “And I came today to the spring, and I said: the Lord, the God of my master Abraham…” The servant’s doubtfulness about God as the God of heaven is expressed in the words he uses.
Similarly, Abraham told the servant (24:4): “But you shall go to my country and to my birthplace and take a wife for my son, for Isaac.” Yet when the servant repeats the story, he says (24:40): “And you shall take a wife for my son, from my family and from the house of my father,” never mentioning “my birthplace,” since he has no connection with his master’s “old country.” Rabbi Halivni says that these are two examples of maculation – the creation of textual impurities.
“The detailed repetition of the commission to Eliezer… highlights the underlying principle that human transmission naturally results in unintentional maculation. In this case, we can compare the original with the later version.
“In areas where we have only the latter (i.e., the later version), we must employ our intellect to uncover the direct (i.e., the original) source.” In other words, Rabbi Halivni uses this example of maculation in Genesis Chapter 24 to explain his life’s work in trying to recreate the original sources for each Talmudic passage.
'Why did you come to me?'
In the second example, the author juxtaposes a verse from Genesis with a verse from Judges. In Genesis 26, after Avimelech, the king of the Philistines, banishes Isaac from his kingdom out of jealousy, he follows Isaac all the way to Beersheba. “And Isaac said to them: Why did you come to me?”
In Judges 11, Jephthah has been shunned by the Gileadites because he was the son of a prostitute. But, when attacked by the Ammonites, the elders of Gilead visit Jephthah to ask for his help: “And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead: ‘… and why did you come to me now when you are in distress?’”
Both Isaac and Jephthah use identical language: “Why did you come to me?” and reach agreements with their guests, but that is where the similarities end. Jephthah makes a deal that is entirely mercenary for both parties; he will become the leader and ruler over Gilead.
Isaac’s covenant with Avimelech, on the other hand, is purely spiritual for him. They make a covenant, and Avimelech leaves in peace. Jephthah disappears from history, while Isaac lives on as one of our forefathers.
The second outstanding feature of this commentary was the one that surprised me – Rabbi Halivni’s psychological insights about human nature. Below are two examples.
Appreciation and regret
Why did Jacob (Genesis 48:14) place his right hand on the head of Ephraim the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, the firstborn? And why did he bless them, saying (48:20): “In you the people Israel will bless, saying: ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh’”? Yet we know from Deuteronomy 21 that a firstborn always takes precedence over his brother.
Rabbi Halivni suggests that Jacob was reacting to what Joseph had said when his two sons were born (41:51-52): “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, ‘for God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house.’ And the name of the second he called Ephraim, ‘for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.’”
Manasseh represented the pain and embarrassment of Joseph’s past, while Ephraim represented gratitude to God for his success in Egypt. “Jacob crossed his hands in order to put the son of appreciation [Ephraim] first and the son of regret and erasure [Manasseh] second.” This is a brilliant insight. We frequently do things and phrase things in a certain way for psychological reasons.
Joseph and his brothers
The second example relates to Joseph and his brothers. When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he says: “And now, do not be sad, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45:5). Joseph understands that everything that happened to him as a result of his brothers’ actions – the sale into slavery, the imprisonment – was to preserve life.
On the other hand, 17 years later (Genesis 50:15), after Jacob’s funeral, Joseph’s brothers say to one another: “It may be that Joseph will hate us and will fully repay us all the evil that we did to him.” Their view of what had occurred as a result of their actions was all the evil that they did to him.
As Rabbi Halivni observes: “Two people or groups of people, both looking at the same events, may see them in completely opposite ways.” Joseph “was well satisfied with the way events had turned out, regardless of his brothers’ original intentions,” but “for the brothers, their actions would always be the evil for which they would ever carry guilt.”
These are just two of the outstanding features of the rabbi’s new thoughts on the weekly portion. The book also contains fascinating thoughts on Torah study, observance, ethical sensitivity, the Holocaust, and Zionism.
At the end of the book, the author reflects on the death of Moses (Deuteronomy 34). The weeping and the mourning lasted for 30 days. After that, life went on. This did not mean that Moses was now forgotten. In terms of history for the generations, Moses remained permanently ensconced in the memory of the people.
When brilliant Torah scholars such as Rabbi Prof. David Weiss Halivni pass away, they are not forgotten. They continue to speak to us through their deeds and their books.
The writer, a rabbi and professor, is president emeritus of The Schechter Institutes, Inc. in Jerusalem, where he also serves as a professor of Talmud and Jewish law. His latest book is Responsa in a Moment, Volume VI.
DIVREI HALEV
THOUGHTS OF RABBI PROF. DAVID WEISS HALIVNI
ON THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION
By Rabbi Ronald D. Price
Gefen Publishing House
426 pages; $28