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| Epitaph on Tombstone of Rabbi Eliezer Don Yahya in Ludza (Lutzin) |
צנא מלא ספרא
כלו ספרא מבעל —-מגזע רבני מחבר אבן שתיה הרב הגאון ר’ אליעזר בהרב ר’ שבתי דון יחייא
ויאסף אל עמיו ד’ ימים לחדש תמוז שנת תרפו
from the SefarimBlog
by Bezalel Naor
In 1901 there appeared in Vilna a 32-page booklet entitled, Ha-Tsiyoniyut mi-nekudat hashkafat ha-dat (Zionism from the Viewpoint of Religion). The author was Yehudah Don Yahya. The final eight pages of the work contain a supplement (Milu’im) by one Ben-Zion Vilner, criticizing the anti-Zionism of the Rebbe of Lubavitch. (One ventures that “Ben-Zion Vilner” is a pseudonym.)
What is remarkable about this manifesto that argues that Zionism is totally compatible with traditional Judaism, is that the author, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, was an intimate student of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, a most outspoken opponent of the Zionist movement.
To add to the intrigue, Don Yahya’s grandfather, Rabbi Shabtai Don Yahya of Drissa, had been an ardent Hasid of Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Lubavitch (known by his work of Halakhic responsa as “Tsemah Tsedek”). Yehudah Leib himself would go on to serve as rabbi of the Habad Hasidic community of Shklov. Although, as we shall see, within the Habad community, there were differing responses to Zionism along the fault line of the Kopyst—Lubavitch dispute.
Today, students who immerse themselves in the Torah novellae of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik may come across the name of Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, but they have no idea who this disciple was. Appended to Hiddushei ha-GRaH he-Hadash ‘al ha-Shas (issued upon the ninetieth anniversary of Rabbi Hayyim’s passing in 2008) are Don Yahya’s memoirs of his beloved mentor in the Volozhin Yeshivah. In 2018 (coincidentally a century since Rabbi Hayyim’s passing) there appeared in print a Tagbuch or diary, in which Rabbi Hayyim jotted down his insights on Talmud and Maimonides’ code In his introduction to the volume, the editor, Rabbi Yitshak Abba Lichtenstein, notes that Rabbi Hayyim would allow some scholars to copy down entries from the journal. Indeed, one such scholar was Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya. Two novellae that appear in the Tagbuch were previously published in Don Yahya’s Bikkurei Yehudah (1939).
One asks: What would prompt such a devoted disciple to break from his master’s ideology concerning Zionism?
To understand how such a phenomenon as Yehudah Leib Don Yahya was possible, one needs to trace his membership in Nes Ziyonah, the underground proto-Zionist movement that existed in the Volozhin Yeshivah from 1885 until its disbandment in 1890.let
This was the era of Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), a Russian Jewish movement to settle the Land of Israel that predated Herzlian political Zionism. Nes Ziyonah, which blossomed independently within the ranks of the student body of the famed Volozhin Yeshivah, interfaced with Hovevei Zion, presided over by Rabbi Samuel Mohilever of Bialystok. Members of Nes Ziyonah were sworn to secrecy. The membership included such illustrious scholars as Moshe Mordechai Epstein of Bakst, Menahem Krakovsky, and Isser Zalman Meltzer. Moshe Mordechai Epstein would eventually become Rosh Yeshivah of Slabodka. Menahem Krakowsky would one day assume the position of “Shtodt Maggid” of Vilna. Finally, Isser Zalman Meltzer would become Rosh Yeshivah of Slutzk and later ‘Ets Hayyim of Jerusalem. It was through the last-mentioned disciple, who was especially close to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik, that Rabbi Hayyim was able to discover the identities of the students who belonged to Nes Ziyonah
Nes Ziyonah had sprung up without the knowledge of the elder dean of the Yeshivah, Rabbi Naftali Tsevi Yehudah Berlin (NeTsIV). In fact, according to Israel Kausner, who wrote a history of Nes Ziyonah, the members of the secret society prided themselves that they had been able to prevail upon Rabbi Berlin to join the greater Hovevei Zion movement and to assume a role of leadership alongside Rabbis Samuel Mohilever and Mordechai Eliasberg of Bausk. In 1890, somehow Nes Ziyonah came to the attention of the Russian government authorities. One of its leaders (Yosef Rothstein) was arrested but subsequently released. When Rabbi Berlin learned that such a society had sprung up in the Yeshivah under his very nose, he was aghast. He feared that Nes Ziyonah might jeopardize the existence of the Yeshivah, which was under constant government scrutiny. Leaving aside pragmatic considerations, in principle, Volozhin had always been a bastion of pure Torah learning; there was no room in it for Zionist activism. Nes Ziyonah ceased to exist. (Hovevei Zion, with its office in Odessa, was legalized by the Tsarist government in 1890.)[
The idealistic young men who had formed Nes Ziyonah were not ones to easily give up. Nes Ziyonah morphed into Netsah Yisrael, whose express goal was to advocate on behalf of Zionism and religion. (Nes Ziyonah had restricted its activities to settling the Land of Israel.) Most prominent in this reincarnation of Netsah Yisrael was—Yehudah Leib Don Yahya.
It is against this backdrop—the publicistic activity of Netsah Yisrael—that one must view Don Yahya’s tract, Zionism from the Viewpoint of Religion.
Let us briefly sum up some of the more salient points of the booklet.
Don Yahya begins by clarifying that the return of the nation to its land can in no way be viewed as the complete redemption prophesied in Scripture. The prophets’ vision, while including the ingathering of exiles, extends beyond that to global mankind’s acknowledging God and embracing His Torah.
On the other hand, Don Yahya is flummoxed by various rabbis who adopt an all-or-nothing attitude to the Zionist organization’s striving to secure from the Ottomans a safe haven for Jews in the Holy Land. Just because the Zionist dream does not encompass the comprehensive vision of our prophets of old, is no reason to reject Zionism. Granted that the Zionist goals are much more modest in scope; that still does not justify opposing the movement. Don Yahya’s own reading of the sources—Biblical and Rabbinic—is gradualist. He anticipates a phased redemption. The Jews’ return to the Land is certainly the beginning, the first installment in a protracted process which will eventually—upon completion of “the full and encompassing redemption” (“ha-ge’ulah ha-sheleimah ve-ha-kelalit”)—culminate in the restoration of the Davidic dynasty in the person of King Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple.
The author adopts as his paradigm the Second Temple period. Taking issue with those who construe the return from Babylonian captivity as a “temporary remembrance” (“pekidah li-zeman mugbal”), Don Yahya maintains that the Second Commonwealth had the potential to develop into full-blown redemption. With that model in mind, he writes that return from exile and settling the Land can evolve beyond that to greater spiritual dimensions.
After having made his case for the compatibility of the nascent Zionist movement and Judaism, Don Yahya tackles the painful question why some of the great Torah geniuses oppose Zionism.
Don Yahya has a couple of explanations. First, knowledge of Torah is divided into Halakhah and pilpul, on the one hand, and matters of belief and opinion, on the other. Contemporary ge’onim (unlike their medieval predecessors Maimonides and Nahmanides) have devoted their lives to Halakhah, to the exclusion of emunot ve-de‘ot (beliefs and opinions). “In regard to the portion of Torah which is beliefs and opinions, their view does not exceed the view of an average Jew.”
Rather conveniently, Don Yahya holds up as examples of recent Torah authorities who plumbed the depths of the beliefs contained in the Aggadah, and who concluded that the redemption shall begin with the Jews receiving permission to settle the Land of Israel—Rabbis Naftali Tsevi Yehudah Berlin and Mordechai Eliasberg—two rabbis who stood at the helm of Hovevei Zion.
A second reason for the opposition of some ge’onim to Zionism is that they have been fed misinformation (or disinformation) by those of lesser stature who surround them. As the great men eschew reading newspapers, they must rely for information on extremists (kana’im) who skew their perception. They are told that the leaders of the Zionist movement are men who are not simply unobservant in their private lives, but furthermore, intent on uprooting Judaism.
According to Don Yahya, the Zionist leaders profess no proficiency in matters of religion and are amenable to working with the great rabbis in matters pertaining to religion. He cites the example of a responsum from one of the great halakhic decisors of the generation to accommodate the Colonial Bank so that the prohibition of charging interest (ribit) be not transgressed. Don Yahya personally witnessed both the question from Zionist officialdom and the responsum issued by the elderly ga’on. (Undoubtedly, “the elderly ga’on” [“ha-ga’on ha-yashish”] was Don Yahya’s own father-in-law, Rabbi Shelomo Hakohen, the dayyan or chief justice of Vilna.)
Don Yahya points out the democratic character of the Zionist congresses. If more religious Jews would join the ranks of the Zionist movement, they would be able to turn the tide and steer the movement in a more religious direction.
The author chides those religious elements opposed to Zionism not to gloat and say, “We told you so.” In the event that Zionism deviates from Judaism, this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom; the anti-Zionist agitators will then be held responsible for bringing about that outcome by instructing observant Jews to stay clear of the movement.
II.
As stated above, the Milu’im or Excursus of the pamphlet is a harshly worded rejoinder to the Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer Schneersohn (1860-1920), who had made public his vehement opposition to Zionism on religious grounds
Again, one asks: How is possible that a staunch Habad Hasid such as Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya appended such an excursus to his work? From a remove of more than a century this seems inconceivable.
We need once more to place this pamphlet within the context of the times. Today, Habad has assumed a monolithic character, but at the turn of the twentieth century there existed a great divide between two competing “courts” within Habad Hasidism: Kopyst and Lubavitch. When Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch (author of the responsa Tsemah Tsedek) passed in 1866, a dispute erupted over succession to the throne. The youngest son, Shmuel (Maharash), remained in Lubavitch and inherited control of that city. An older son, Yehudah Leib (Maharil), moved to the city of Kopyst, taking some of the Hasidim with him. When within a year of the Tsemah Tsedek’s passing, Yehudah Leib passed, his son Shelomo Zalman (author of the Hasidic work Magen Avot) became the Kopyster Rebbe. And when in 1900 the Kopyster Rebbe passed, he was succeeded by his younger brother Rabbi Shemaryah Noah Schneerson (author of the Hasidic work Shemen la-Ma’or). Though there was a brief attempt on the part of Rabbi Shemaryah Noah Schneerson to establish himself in the city of Kopyst, eventually he returned to his rabbinate in Bobroisk, which then became the center of this branch of Habad Hasidism. With the passing of the Rebbe of Bobroisk in 1923, this branch ceased to exist, leaving only the Lubavitch faction. At that point, remnants of the Bobroisker Hasidim transferred their allegiance to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
In the early years of the twentieth century there erupted a major financial dispute between Bobroisk and Lubavitch regarding control of the purse strings of Kollel Habad in Erets Yisrael. (One may find evidence of the dispute in letters of Rav Kook from this period, when as Rabbi of Jaffa he offered guidance how to come to a compromise.). The tension arose because each Rebbe wanted his representative in Erets Yisrael to be responsible for disbursement of the funds raised by the Hasidim in Russia for the support of their brethren in the Holy Land.
Thus, there are historians who would explain the tension between Bobroisk and Lubavitch as being purely financial. Truth be known, there were ideological issues dividing the two cousins, Rabbi Shemariah Noah of Bobroisk and Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer of Lubavitch. In general, it may be said that the Bobroisker was more progressive, more forward-looking. The Lubavitcher was more old-school, more conservative in outlook. These different Weltanschauungen found expression on many fronts.
When the Russian government sought to demand of the rabbis proficiency in the Russian language, the Bobroisker (as Rabbi Meir Simhah Cohen of Dvinsk) found this a reasonable demand; the Lubavitcher (as Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk and Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan [a.k.a. Hafets Hayyim]) fought against this proposal tooth and nail.
When it came to deciding which city should serve as the center of Habad Hasidism in Erets Yisrael—Hebron or Jerusalem—Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer militated to retain the center in the provincial town of Hebron rather than allow the center to shift to Jerusalem.[33] In this way, the Lubavitcher Rebbe believed he could shield the Hasidim from the distractions of urban civilization. The Bobroisker did not think it realistic to keep the Hasidim “down on the farm.” Willy-nilly, establishment of a lending library in Hebron would bring secular literature to the curious eyes of Hasidic youth.
And finally, we arrive at the issue with which we began: Zionism. While Lubavitch would have no truck with Zionism, out of the “Kibbutz” (study-hall for advanced rabbinic students) of Bobroisk there would emerge prominent rabbis of the Mizrahi or Religious Zionist movement.
The answer to the question how Rabbi Yehudah Leib Don Yahya, a fervent Habad Hasid, could oppose the Rebbe of Lubavitch is simple:
Don Yahya was a Kopyster Hasid, not a Lubavitcher Hasid.
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