Torah & Rationalism: Understanding Torah and the Mesorah by Rabbi Dr. Aaron Chaim HaLevi Zimmerman [edited by Moshe Avraham Landy] (Feldheim, 2020)
Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim
Klein
For the uninitiated, Rabbi Aharon
Chaim Zimmerman is known as an eccentric Rosh Yeshiva and Jewish intellectual
who flourished in the second half of the twentieth century. Rabbi Zimmerman was
born in 1914 into an illustrious rabbinic family, as he was a nephew of Rabbi Baruch
Ber Lebowitz (1862-1939)—the famed Rosh Yeshiva of Kaminetz and author of Birkas
Shmuel. As a young teenager, Rabbi Zimmerman, already recognized as a
prodigy, was sent to study under his venerated uncle. Afterwards, he studied
under Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik (1879-1941) at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological
Seminary of Yeshiva University, where he received rabbinic ordination in 1939.
At the tender age of 24, Rabbi Zimmerman became the youngest member of the RCA.
He was later tapped to serve as Rosh Yeshiva of the Hebrew Theological College
(Skokie Yeshiva) in Chicago until his controversial dismissal in 1964.
Subsequently, Rabbi Zimmerman served as Rosh Yeshiva in various other
institutes, finally making Aliyah in 1972 and opening a Yeshiva in
Jerusalem. Rabbi Zimmerman passed away in 1995, but his student Moshe Landy
undertook to print some of his Rebbe's unpublished works posthumously.
Rabbi Zimmerman penned numerous
books and monographs, both in English and Hebrew, on various intricate topics—mostly
relating to Halacha and Jewish Philosophy. Many of his Hebrew articles were
published in the scholarly rabbinic journal HaPardes (originally edited
by Rabbi Shmuel Aharon Pardes, and, from 1947, by Rabbi Simcha Elberg). Most of
those articles concern various minutiae in the Halachos regarding ritual
sacrifices and related laws of ritual purity/impurity. Rabbi Zimmerman also
famously penned an important work entitled Agan HaSahar concerning the
placement of the international dateline in Halacha. He also wrote extensively
about Zionism and how the ideal Jewish State should be structured. Many of
Rabbi Zimmerman's English essay were originally published in the Jewish
Press and were later culled together and republished as complete books.
Besides Rabbi Zimmerman's prowess
in Torah Studies and Halacha, he was also quite well-versed in the sciences,
including advanced mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Dr. Harry Maryles
relates that it was said about Rabbi Zimmerman that he understood quantum theory
as well as Niels Bohr did at a time when most of the scientific community had
barely even heard of it yet! Nonetheless, this eclectic Torah Scholar focused
his energies and devotion to Torah Studies, and viewed that discipline as the
most important of all.
This newly-published book
represents only a small part of the greater edifice that makes up Rabbi
Zimmerman's approach to Jewish theology/philosophy. The basic premise of this
book is that Halacha and Talmudic study are built on a precise logical system,
which is akin to the systems of reasoning behind any of the hard sciences, like
mathematics. Rabbi Zimmerman offers a thorough epistemological defense of this
staunchly traditionalist view, buttressing his arguments with philosophical
terms and ideas.
As mentioned above, Rabbi
Zimmerman was quite at home when discussing philosophy. In this book, he cites
such classical philosophers as Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, and Machiavelli to
bolster his assertions, while he also references later philosophers like Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russel, and even Ayn Rand.
Another recurrent theme in Rabbi
Zimmerman's new book concerns the idea of insiders versus outsiders. In fact,
Rabbi Zimmerman treats this idea at greater length in two of his previous
books, Torah and Reason (1979) and Torah and Existence (1986).
This aspect of Rabbi Zimmerman's weltanschauung maintains that the true
study of Torah must follow the time-tested traditional methodology of the mesorah,
and Torah content can only be assessed through that internal logic. He makes
the point that just as other disciplines can only be understood from within
their own ontological system, so can Torah only be truly understood by the
insider.
To illustrate this point, Rabbi
Zimmerman draws an analogy in which he cites the following anecdote: Zionist
leader Zeev Jabotinsky once proclaimed that as intelligent as Albert Einstein
might be, he cannot understand the situation of the Jewish people "unless
he understands two languages that are read from right to left—Hebrew and
Yiddish." In the same way, Rabbi Zimmerman argued, one who is an outsider
to the notion of Torah Study and has not been initiated in its inner
logic/methodology cannot grasp the ideas and concepts discussed therein.
The brunt of Rabbi Dr.
Zimmerman's criticism is levelled against people in the mold of Heinrich
Graetz, Leo Strauss, and Gershom Scholem. He polemicizes against these Jewish
scholars for imposing their own "manmade" framework on the Torah's
Divine structure, and then framing the Halacha and Jewish tradition through
subjective considerations rooted in history, politics, sociology, and the like.
Rabbi Zimmerman reserves his harshest condemnations for Levi (Louis) Ginzberg,
one of the founders of Conservative Judaism. In fact, a 40-page section of this
book is devoted to outing Ginzberg as a plagiarizer and falsifier.
In this work, Rabbi Zimmerman
argues time and again how these outsiders and others like them misunderstood
the original intent of the traditional rabbinic authorities and misconstrue
their words to fit with their own preconceived (biased) notions. Such Jewish
scholars often attribute Halachic rulings or positions to the machinations of political/social
engineering, instead of to the learned conclusions of applying a traditional
methodology of study.
This book, like most of Rabbi
Zimmerman's previous books, is actually a sort of apologetic defense of
traditional Judaism. The drawback of his style is that he often makes very
strongly-worded assertions without actually backing them up. In this reviewer's
opinion, the entire book feels like it consists of off-the-cuff remarks that
Rabbi Zimmerman made without meaning to actually get into the topics he
broaches. It sometimes feels as if Rabbi Zimmerman could have written an entire
chapter to explain just one single sentence in this book. The reader must bear
in mind that Rabb Zimmerman did not originally prepare these essays with the
intention to create the book at hand, so the ambiguities and vagueness are more
the editor’s doing than the author’s.
Furthermore, in this book, Rabbi
Zimmerman makes many general, sweeping statements, without going into more
detail about how they play out and what exactly he means, or what examples of
those ideas we can find. For example, in several chapters throughout this book,
Rabbi Zimmerman variously claims that many parts of the Aggadah, Kabbalah,
and Rambam's philosophy are all just meshalim (parables), but he fails
to tell us what the nimshal is. This comes from Rabbi Zimmerman’s
aversion to spoon-feeding his readers/students with information. He instead tries
to make certain points, but leaves the reader to do the “leg work” and work out
the exact details. In this way, the assertions he makes are really just
starting points from which the reader can begin his own personal exploration
and intellectual inquiry into the subject matter.
This reviewer feels that if Rabbi
Zimmerman would have buttressed his name-dropping and supped-up appeals to
authority with more substantial arguments to prove his points, then this book
could be an important guide to understanding Judaism from the inside.
Similarly, if this book would have provided more examples of how the Halacha is
based on a logical system instead of having us take his word for it, it could
have a far greater impact.
In this reviewer's final
assessment, Rabbi Zimmerman's new book is a great introduction to some of the
sophisticated ideas behind traditional Judaism, and how it ranks knowledge/rational
thought. The editor of this work graciously took the time to locate and provide
us with footnotes that contain the exact Hebrew text for most of the sources
that Rabbi Zimmerman quotes (as well as Hebrew excurses probably deemed too provocative
for the English reader). Indeed, Rabbi Landy prepared for publication another
small part of Rabbi Zimmerman's greater overarching philosophy, and we hope to
see more of his unpublished writings see light in the future.
For other reviews of this work that
take a different approach, see:
http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2020/08/torah-dogmatism.html
