[Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah – Ki Tavo
5772 – translated by R. Blumberg]
Question: There’s an
increasing tendency in the yeshivot to introduce the academic/scientific
approach to Tanach study. In other words, to make comparisons with various
sources, to provide historic elucidation, style analysis, moral criticism and
even to highlight aesthetics. Ostensibly there should be no problem with this
approach, for ultimately our goal is to increase knowledge. Am I right?
Answer: Certainly
our desire is to increase knowledge, wrote Rabbenu Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook in
his article, “The Scientific Approach to Jewish Sources” (Li-Netivot Yisrael vol.
2, p. 242): “After all, that’s what we do in yeshiva day and night. We seek to
know Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud and Jewish law. We are men of science, toiling to
learn and to analyze, to increase knowledge and wisdom. Surely we are
interested in knowing and understanding our Jewish sources. Could we possibly
approach them without the goal of knowing them?”
Yet it all
depends on one’s starting point. Do we believe that the corpus before us is Torah
from Heaven, from the first letter to the last, or do we think that it
constitutes something man-made? There are scholars who ponder Tanach as a
fabrication of man - just some historic literary text. They view themselves as
standing above it, and they decide based on their own considerations whether
this text is worthy of entering the canon of truth and morality. This is an
“entirely illegitimate approach to studying Jewish sources, Tanach, Talmud or
Aggada.”
This
illegitimate approach they call “science”. They arrogantly claim a monopoly on science,
and they pronounce that what is learned in yeshivot is not science.
With this
kind of Torah study, we do not say that the light it contains will return them to
the proper path, for the student is locked in a place where the light cannot
reach, since he relates to the text disparagingly. It is the researcher who
decides whether or not the text has worth (see Rambam, Hilchot Talmud Torah
4:1; Shulchan Aruch Ha-Rav, Hilchot Talmud Torah 4:17; 4:3).
Out of
this separatist, ostensibly objective approach, the student will understand nothing.
The gates of Torah will be locked before him, because he will not believe in
its divinity. Blocked before him will be the divine gate of infinite wisdom
that preceded the world, into which G-d gazed before He created the universe.
“If we
long for knowledge in its fullest sense, knowledge built on delving deep, with the
presupposition that the Torah before us is the truth, the absolute truth, the uncontestable
truth, the truth from Heaven and not from mankind, and our entire purpose is to
reveal that truth, to understand that truth, with our being believers,
convinced that the truth is before us, but that it presently is
concealed from us – then our longing is positive and sincere.
In this
longing, we are duty-bound to engage in all the spheres that find expression in
our sources.
We must
devote our efforts to the Tanach, to the words of the prophets, to their manner
of speech, to examining the truth concealed within the aesthetics, the truth
within the historical stories, the truth within the moral ideas, and all the
more so, in the truth of our holy mitzvot.”
We strive
to uncover the truth, not to create it. It’s not for us to accord the truth a stamp
of approval. Rather, we humbly stand before the divine truth and wish to understand
it. We believe and are convinced that we are standing before an infinite,
divine intelligence.
We believe
that G-d, in His kindness, teaches Torah to His people, Israel, and gives us
the Torah which we can study and delve into, absorbing it into ourselves.
Everything
must start with reverence for G-d. Whoever’s reverence does not precede his
wisdom will never taste the taste of Torah. That same researcher, ostensibly
objective, has set himself apart from G-d’s word, and he decrees what for him
is the truth and what is primitive. This approach “forgets the first principle
of faith that the Torah’s words are from Heaven. This approach does not
distinguish between divine writ and the writings of man, and its approach to
both is the same. This being the case, any idea that seems impossible to understand
is deemed illegitimate, since everything is judged by a human yardstick.” The result
is that this approach offers its adherents no possibility of being spiritually
elevated and basking in the light of a higher truth.
Everything
depends on one’s point of origin. One may ask questions, but he must do so
out of faith and reverence.
When the
illustrious Rabbi Akiva Eiger does not understand Tosafot he writes, “This requires
further analysis.” Who requires further analysis? The Tosafot? No! Is the
Talmudic source too difficult and impossible to understand? No! It’s we who
have the difficulty. It is we who don’t understand. Tomorrow, a Torah scholar
will come along and explain the source to us, and then everything will be
clear.
“We
approach Jewish sources as sources that were imparted from Heaven, and their words
are the words of truth, an uncontestable truth. Our entire goal is thus to
uncover that truth, to uncover it – not to create it. For the sake of
uncovering it, we thus use all the means at our disposal.”
