בראי ההיסטוריה – פרק 1: זכור ימות עולם | פרק מבוא

Tell me, are you also tired sometimes of all the little dramas and petty troubles of the present? Do you also find it hard to dedicate yourself and invest in things that are here today and gone tomorrow? So come, let’s set out together on the series "Through the Lens of History." We will trace the events, the secrets, and the great names that shaped all of our history. For our journey, we need an expert and professional guide. A combination of a Torah scholar on one hand and a researcher on the other, so I chose for us Rabbi Professor Maoz Kahana: a Jew who has written books on the connection between history and the Torah world, and is also considered a leading, groundbreaking researcher in his field. And we are going together in the upcoming series of episodes to return to history—this time in depth— trying not only to know the details but also to understand and delve into the historical, sociological, and perhaps even philosophical significance—all through a Torah lens and perspective. So here we go, we are starting right away. Let’s set out together on the series "Through the Lens of History"; We will trace the events, the secrets, and the great names that shaped all of our history. " Through the Lens of History": Professor Maoz Kahana sets out on an in-depth journey through the fascinating chapters of Jewish history. Host: Rabbi Yisrael Alter Gervais. So, I am happy and excited to sit with someone who is, as they say, a man of great wisdom, Rabbi Professor Maoz Kahana, a famous author of books. And what we want to do in our series of meetings is to embark on a journey through Jewish time and do it in a different, professional way. That is why I am here. We have plans, God willing, to talk about very ancient periods and put things in order, but for this meeting, we want it to be an introductory session—essentially what is called "Torah about Torah." If I may , I want to understand a question that surely gnaws at many Jews who sit in the Beit Midrash or elsewhere: What is our actual relationship as Jews—we are now on the eve of Sukkot—we are the people who remember the most, our whole lives are a memory, every Shabbat is a memory, and every prayer is a memory, and yet, one cannot say that we are a people who, at least in our early years, recorded every event that happened and wrote down our history. How do we explain and understand this paradox? So, hello and it is a pleasure to meet, and for a start, I will say something—a simple argument, perhaps a bit simplistic, as formulated by the American Jewish historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. [ Self-correction/Pause] Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who said the following: "Remember the days of old, consider the years of ages past"—the verse is actually speaking about memory . And Yerushalmi said: Memory is not history. They both deal with very similar and very close content, but their intent, he argued, is almost opposite. So, the Jewish people—you are almost right—did not write chronicles of their deeds by years and periods. But the Jewish people remember . They remember; on Tisha B'Av, they remember the five things that happened to our ancestors. They remember on the 17th of Tammuz, they remember days of Megillah, and fasts. They remember through the Yizkor prayer, they remember through the Memorbücher— that is, the memorial books used in Ashkenazi communities during the High Holy Days. From there evolved what we know today as the ceremony of...of Yizkor, where everyone, everyone gathers in the...But this is an Ashkenazi ceremony where there is actually a real handwritten book, in which every year they record the departed, they also record the tragedies that befell the community and read them right there from the bimah. I mean... In the prayer before the Musaf prayer, I mean, and so Jews in the year 1700, 1800...During these periods they hear about what happened to the communities in the Crusades, think about the Chatam Sofer for a moment. I...I just want to explain to people who aren't used to our Yizkor today, a prayer where a few orphaned Jews whisper their own relatives 'names quietly. But the moment the entire community has a book that is essentially the book of the community’s story, a book of the specific community—not of all the People of Israel, but of "in our community two years ago people were killed and we speak about them, we mourn them"—that is completely different. Exactly, exactly so. And this thing is indeed a special development of Ashkenazi Jewry, which during the Crusades certainly had a special connection to its dead, to the souls that—we will talk about this. That accompany it, but actually it is also, as I hinted earlier, it is also ...it is actually very fundamental. This model is found in the Mishnah, it is found in the Talmuds. Yes, days, the Fast of Gedaliah, we remember through the act, and through the act—and this is the important distinction—the act connects experiences from different periods. Yes, on the ninth we remember the first destruction, the second destruction, on the same day; and even if it’s a day to the right or a day to the left, we connect, because the act comes to...the act contains history within it, but because of the experiential nature within it, it connects the periods through the special theme, the spiritual sensitivity that is in that day or in that thing. I want to return to this little book you mentioned earlier by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, the little book is called " Zakhor," and the first time I encountered it was when I studied with you, and actually this book is very jarring because it creates a tension between those who remember and those who tell history. That is to say, the modern person, if I manage—and you will correct me shortly—the modern person writes, he knows that it happened in such and such a year and it was then such and such, divisions came from here to there. The religious person remembers, it is something much more...he doesn't know how to say exactly in which year the Great Revolt happened and such, but he knows that he sits on the floor and cries on Tisha B'Av, he might not even know who Hadrian was and who Vespasian was, he has no clue, but he actually remembers much more than the historian. His body remembers, his experiential nature remembers through the act he remembers, it is embedded in him, yes yes, even in the Ponevezh Yeshiva today , I am not sure how many students know exactly where the city of Ponevezh is located. Yes? But as Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in a very beautiful speech after the Holocaust, he said Opatów and Berdychiv have become holy names. I mean, yes, it carries that thing; I mean, it is so full of content, and so many towns, some large, some small, in Eastern Europe, they are holy names carried from place to place, and it’s all there. I mean It happened to me the first time I arrived in Kotsk, and for us, Kotsk is —you arrive, you see some sleepy town with people, with dogs and cats, and this is Kotsk? Kotsk is an idea, it’s not that thing itself at all, and that, I think, is what Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi identified—who, by the way, was he? I—I don’t know enough about him; I think he was the first Jewish professor at an American university, Columbia, if I remember correctly, in the north, New York City; I think—no, he wasn’t the first, I don’t think he was, maybe he wasn't the first, but in any case, truly in an era when Jews were not...not... Were not in academia. They were not in academia, certainly not, and in the United States, with all the baggage of hatred that existed there in the 20th century, so he lived there, truly as a professor of history and Jewish history, uh. He wrote a lot about those topics. True, that was his center, uh, Jewish experience, the history of it, but he wrote in other fields as well, and I will mention here a book that is actually relatively marginal in his writing but very central to understanding who he was, which is his book about Freud and his Jewish faith, yes, or what Freud says about Moses our teacher, for Freud had a totemistic theory. Strange. Yes, strange, that’s an understatement, and Yerushalmi succeeds —and this was really the work he did on the side, it’s not Yerushalmi’s historical work—but there you see how he connects very strongly to the figure of Freud and to this understanding of what causes a Jew to say certain things that sound strange, but they express some kind of Jewish memory or Jewish lack or Jewish longing, yes, the big framework that Gershom Scholem—I don’t remember who coined this phrase —but Yerushalmi is really there in that book, the "fallen," like fallen angels, fallen Jews, yes? I mean, a kind of sense that specifically such Jews—and the 20th century is full of them to this day—Jews who, precisely in a certain way because of the distance that the circumstances of their lives created from traditional Judaism, let’s call it that— precisely because of that, there is in them some kind of deep intellectual and emotional longing that creates creativity and innovation, uh, even professionally and sometimes even spiritually, that are fascinating. I think he draws a parallel between the modern Jew and the Anusim [Crypto-Jews] ; I mean, if I remember correctly, somewhere he is trying to say that something inside him bursts out, even though he doesn’t look very Jewish, but inside him churns some... Exactly, there is some, there is some echo here, an echo that is certainly true about, again, about that stratum of these Jews. When he thinks about Freud and when he writes about him, he writes; it’s all, there is some, some foundational framework there that is very, very preoccupied with such questions. And you are right, the relationship between the revealed— what is seen—and what is not seen; in a certain sense, what is less visible is more true of the Jew for whom it is taken for granted; he doesn't need to be so...he doesn't need to, he doesn't need to experience, he doesn't need to think about it that much either. So there is, you’re right, there is some personal baggage here. This is certainly connected to a very dichotomous picture he describes, which you rightfully described on his behalf, between the modern historian—the student of Ranke—the positivist history of the [19th century?] that deals with events as they are in themselves, supposedly. A...and the traditional Jew. He doesn't know exactly when he became a Vizhnitz Hasid, and he has no idea at all what year the Rebbe passed away; he doesn't care. My whole life, in a sense , is based on this. It’s very... it’s not disparagement. There is some interesting and non-explicit discourse here within the book: on one hand, he stands awestruck before the intensities , the depths of memory of the traditional Judaism he encounters left and right, and he is fascinated by it. He has a very...a very appreciative sentiment toward it, and on the other hand, yes—as a Jew, as a person, even as a civilized man looking at the phenomenon itself. I assume we will get to this later, but I think part of the story is, for example, the Haredi vs. non-Haredi debate over Holocaust remembrance. Yes. Meaning one group goes around saying, what do we need to remember, dates? We are the Holocaust, we are the remembrance, we are the memory, we are the...we are...yes, but that’s interesting, and with your permission. I’m only saying, allow me the other side, because Yerushalmi, on one hand, looks at this phenomenon. And he...You can feel that he is truly awestruck, and he manages to put it into words—something that we perhaps experience every day, but in the synagogue, we don't always understand it. How much internal happiness there is here that the tradition carries through its performance toward a memory that, as you said, is memory—it is intentionally mixed and, it is intentionally undirected and unclear, and not historical and not...He ties things to some specific entities, but he preserves them in a way that, who in the world knows where Breslov is? Who has even heard of this place? Yes, except for...lots and lots and lots, and who reads and who hears and who... And on the other hand, it is important to say that it is also very important to Yerushalmi, as a modern, enlightened , educated, academic Jew, to draw a clear line at the beginning of the 19th century between tradition and its supposedly secular heir, which is this cold and factual positivist history, which in a certain sense, according to his description, even acts against memory because it creates distance or is driven by distance. Meaning, in order to remember something , in order to remember something, you need to distance yourself a little from ... According to his description, yes, you have to distance yourself from it and not identify with it in any way in order to... Only then can you be a historian. Because only then, precisely, is history as it is in itself. What I will say at this stage, which is not just my opinion but also that of quite a few reviews, is that while this book is truly wonderful in its ability to describe original and interesting thought, the book received very sharp criticism. I understand. And I am among the smaller critics, but first of all, one can simply admire the argument, which is certainly a very thoughtful argument and holds truth within it. I really want to take a leap to present the other side, and to present the other side I am going to a city, a city that some of our listeners know, but some do not, a city that you are very connected to, somehow you are there a lot and you have also written a lot about it. I’ll just say you’ve written endless books, and I want to talk to you about Prague. You’re saying I’m close to it because of the Golem. Yes, that may be, but also because of the deep research. You wrote the book on the Nodah B'Yehuda, from the Nodah B'Yehuda to the Chatam Sofer, and yes, an amazing, amazing book, and there are other books of course, but what I want to talk about is a small stone located in the cemetery of Prague. I think one of the special things about this stone is that it has the Star of David symbol on it. And this is the tombstone of a Jew who was a student of the Maharal. His name is Rabbi David Gans. He is, as we call him, Rabbi David Gans. I think there is also a drawing of Gans in the book. Right? I think there is a drawing in some of his writings. Because that is what it signifies, David Gans and...Correct me, I think he is almost the first Torah-observant Jew who sits down and says, "Okay, the time has come to also write history, not just to write memory ." And then he writes the book*Tzemach David*, which is with us to this day, and I think that this is perhaps a moment that brings a bit of history into the Beit Midrash. Am I correct? To a large extent. Yes. And to truly understand him, the deed of David Gans, of Rabbi David Gans, one really needs to understand the period a bit and the background a bit. But you are right that despite...Historical writing, Seder Olam Rabbah, the period of the Tannaim... Sefer HaKabbalah at the end of the Geonic period, and so on and so forth in that vein. Despite this, this moment where Rabbi David Gans sits in Prague and finishes in 1592...(In the year 352 ) his chronicle, Tzemach. David, is a moment, it is a special moment. And indeed, this book is quoted by those who rule in Halacha, yes, quoted...In the documents of Beer Sheva, and of the Nachalat Shiva, excuse me, not Beer Sheva, of the Nachalat Shiva. Documents of Nachalat Shiva, quoted a lot in the responsa of the Chatam Sofer , who uses it to build Halachic structures. A book that also went and grew (*tzamach*), as he called it, * Tzemach David*. When you say "went and grew," what do you mean? One of the things regarding the awareness that David Gans was a merchant—one must also remember this —although a student of the Maharal, a student of Rabbi Sinai, the Maharal's brother, perhaps more importantly, what I think is more prominent is that he was a student of the Rema. A student of the Rema of Krakow. Yes, meaning he comes from Krakow to Prague. He arrives. It is very important that this whole story is a bit out of his place of origin. He was born in northwest Germany, a part that is called to this very day Westphalia, and that is where he received his education , and that is quite important in my opinion. The German language, the Reformation that took place exactly during the years he grew up in those regions—we will surely get to that later. Anyway, that is his region of upbringing. From there he wandered to a place of Torah, like many German Jews, arrived in Krakow and studied under the Rema. Under the Rema, under the Rema, of course, excuse me. Yes, yes. He arrived, he arrived in Krakow, maybe arrived in other places too. In the end , he really did arrive in Prague and also received Torah from Rabbi Sinai and the Maharal, his brother. He was certainly a Jew who was undoubtedly a scholar, a Torah student. On his tombstone, it is written "Moreinu HaRav HaChasid." Expressions which "HaChasid" —not expressions, but expressions that people took seriously during that period. That distant period. Uh. But he , but surely the motif, one of the strong motifs in him, is that he is a merchant. You asked about Tzemach David , the book Tzemach David Gans, one must remember, he was born in Westphalia, wandered to a place of Torah, studied under the Rema in Krakow, studied under the Maharal and his brother Rabbi Sinai also in Prague, and yet he was a merchant—And with the logic, with the cleverness of merchants that is well evident in his book. He also says: I wrote a chronicle that covers from the creation of the world—an amazing undertaking, from the creation of the world until this year, which is 1592, The year of the book's printing; he really updated it until the very last moment. He says: But I know that if I succeed, and this form of thinking enters into my audience, the educated Jewish audience of the 16th century, then the book—the book will continue to grow. Meaning, someone will have to continue to update it. Yes. How will I—he says, how will anyone remember if the book will continue to grow? I will call it in advance "Tzemach David." Meaning, that which David began will continue and grow. And this is perhaps the note—he also had more exalted intentions in the book's name. We will also talk about that, surely. Yes. He also hinted in it to redemption, to the redemption of the "shoot of David"(Tzemach David), which is also deeply connected in his eyes to history. His perception of history is steeped in the anticipation of redemption and connected to it, but he also—even if it is in the high heavens—in that same name, he also hinted at the simple fact that says that if this logic of the chronicle is accepted by my readers, then the book will continue to grow, and indeed, exactly 100 years after he passed away, in 1692, a new and updated Tzemach David was released in Frankfurt. It was exactly Tzemach David with another 100 years of additions, and that is an important thing to say. The chronicle Tzemach David has two parts: history of the Jewish people from the creation of the world until the Prague of the Maharal. Meaning, I...I am pausing for a moment. What he does in the first part has already been done, it has already been for ages, to describe...not in a way... come on, let's get to that later. Right now, let's complete the point about the "growth." I already started to mention the editions, so let's...so it was released in Frankfurt in 1692. Uh, with another 100 years inserted, and it was published importantly in the 18th century three or four more times, with the history continuing inside the book each time. Actually, one of the most fascinating and revolutionary editions of Tzemach David was published in 1847 in Lemberg, Eastern Europe, by an educated Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Mendel Mohr, who released it. The innovations were already there: he included the Baal Shem Tov, he included Spinoza, he included figures who were certainly not in the original author's horizon, but history kept growing. So in that sense, yes, the book really did keep growing. It kept growing when Agnon, in the early 20th century, came to portray a character of a scholarly Jewish idler in a town, in a town in Eastern Europe, he says—he talks about Moshe Aharon who was not one of the great scholars, that's how he marks it, but was a denizen of the study hall and among those who voiced opinions within it. Yes. He says, "And for his wedding, his uncle gave him the Tzemach [David]." That’s how you signal in two words, for Agnon, that’s how you signal in two words a Jew who probably won't be, he won't, he won't be the head of the yeshiva. But he is in the know. But he is really in the know and he is part of the scene of the Eastern European study hall where every now and then he says "ah, where..." Now, it's not just that—it means this is a literary character that, yes, Agnon manages in two words to define a character who is a scholarly and rabbinic figure. With some kind of spark, and you, you find these characters of course, even today, may the Holy One, Blessed be He, protect us, and idlers in every... Study hall after study hall. Yes, even today, even in the most [ religious] places, there is that guy who knows a little bit of the introductions of books. But there is also a very scholarly side to it, as I said a moment ago. Because the Chatam Sofer, who was one of the greatest lecturers in the Jewish people ever, he does look at Tzemach David. He says: To understand something about the question of head covering—a question that also troubled, as you know, the... his, the head of the community, didn't bother the face of the period, the...to understand our question of head covering, we need to read through Tzemach David when the emperors and the Christians began to cover their heads, uncover their heads, cover their heads, and from that we will understand. Meaning, it’s also for this Jewish side, it also tells, even the Torah scholar. Has something to gain from the book. He has keys here for delving into details that are sometimes of great importance: the invention of language, the status of the first Hebrew language , the letters, and so on and so forth. One could give many examples. Now, what is amazing, and you pointed me to look at this, is his introduction to the second part. Meaning, he understands, Rabbi David Gans understands that he is doing something a bit revolutionary. He understands that this book is supposed to absorb some criticism and he tries to cope. Yes. Correct. But just a moment to place him. Wait, let’s place him within the... The historian. It is also important to place historians within the, within history, within history. So David Gans was born in 5301 and died in 5373, meaning 1541 to 1613 by their count. He passed away in Prague and is buried there; as I said, he moved between a few places and eventually settled and worked primarily in Prague. On one hand , as you noted, it is indeed new, but on the other hand, the power of its innovation is also connected to the fact that it is both the first and the last of 100 years of very comprehensive historical work that feeds into it. In those 100 years, between the expulsion from Spain and—exactly 100 years— and the publication of Tzemach David, a wealth of material was published or written, or rather printed (and printing is also a new art), works that did not exist before. Think, but think about the Sefer Yuchasin by Rabbi Avraham Zacuto, or Abarbanel's commentaries on the Bible; both of these works were written mostly, for the most part, before the expulsion from Spain and reflect a very deep contact of immense Torah scholars with the humanistic culture and the royal courts, meaning the Spanish and Portuguese courts of their time. Let us not forget, for example, Abarbanel, he comes from this region, he is between, he moves within the palace and also within the scholarly world of the palace, yes, in Latin and in the search of the humanists of the period, the very early Renaissance, in their search for the ancient world, its secrets, the great knowledge embedded in it, and this thing is very, very evident in the Hebrew works they write and bequeath to the world—a vast wealth of universal historical knowledge that did not exist before. Yes, in Sefer Yuchasin in the sixth chapter, we have a synchronization of history, even of the Bible and onwards, with the history of Greece and Rome, and the emperors and the founding of Rome. I will just explain that someone is trying for the first time to check when Abraham our forefather lived and what we know about the parallel period, meaning the first time attempting to compare the Bible with sources, World culture, yes? What actually happened since the Flood? It happened, it happened, it happened—not only to the Jews, it happened to everyone. And what happened from there onwards, yes? Basically what, from the Flood and onwards: when were cities founded? And which, and what? What of this happened? Sometimes it is really related, yes, Noah? His sons were scattered across the earth; where did they arrive? What happened there? Who founded what? Now, for them—for them, if I am still talking about them for a moment—it is not just questions, it is of such synchronization of history. The non-Jewish history they describe, which needs to correspond with the Bible and with later periods, is also the history of the places where they live, because they live, and yet, they were certainly in Spain at that time a European power —that their local memories also, yes? Don't ask how many cities in Italy and Spain attribute their founding to Noah or one of his sons. Amazing. Yes, it is as if these are local memories too, which means—it is a self-understanding as well of the period, of the community, of the period , of the region. So this thing, I mentioned both of them here out of context. Haibri, they were later expelled with the rest of the Jews and operated in other places, but I will mention here even if just a short list: Gedaliah ibn Yahya writes*Shalshelet HaKabbalah*, yes, uh, uh, Azariah dei Rossi who writes*Me'or Einayim*. Wait, here you need to stop when you talk about dei Rossi, but wait, before dei Rossi, when it comes to the expulsion from Spain, because Yerushalmi indeed takes the expulsion from Spain as some kind of crisis moment that actually suddenly creates historical consciousness, yes. You—I see from your face that you don't really agree with him, yes. No, first of all, I am impressed, because it really is part of the power of belief. We spoke earlier about the slightly less obvious contexts, really, because Yerushalmi's description is so dichotomous, and it actually started in the 19th century, and then suddenly it has precursors, like many precursors or harbingers, in the language of— The historical language I don't like— people who herald something. Yes, a herald, so because of that, he has—he really identifies such a moment and he tries to explain it, the moment I have now started to talk about : the moment of the 16th century that truly combines*Shevet Yehudah*of Ibn Verga and*Shalshelet HaKabbalah*of Ibn Yahya. You're throwing out a ton of— we all, maybe each one—I mean, what you're saying, a breadth of works—and then it, as you say, suddenly at a certain stage in history. Jumps. Starts a lot, a lot of books that can be called historical books or. You can, you can certainly, definitely, and also Yerushalmi in his positivist definitions, Yerushalmi, and then he says what happened there, he says. Pay attention to what happened, what, what happened. He says: There was the great shock of the expulsion from Spain, and that had an impact. And then he says: And that caused one such moment of, of, of, of, of, of historical awakening, of suddenly also redemptive longings, but also, also questions, like, about, about history and the hand of God in history, how we write it and how we— the hand of God in history and the sense of history. And he, according to his description, it really jumped to the moment of the great trauma of the expulsion from Spain and then resurfaced, until, until it would reach the stage, in his, in his time. So let's leave that for a moment and I intentionally want you to talk for a moment about Azariah dei Rossi, yes. Ah, because he is interesting, because not only is David Gans familiar with him, the Maharal is also familiar with him. Right, well, that's a fascinating story that needs its own dedicated chapter, uh, uh. Uh, Azariah dei Rossi is a very learned Jew, a Torah scholar by any measure, uh, who lived in the northern Italian cultural sphere in the 16th century. If you spoke earlier about Rabbi Abraham Zacuto and Rabbi Isaac Abravanel who lived in the Iberian world, he was born in the Italian world like other figures I mentioned in this long list. And of course, in Italy, the scholarly culture of Renaissance humanism is very , very, very developed, and he draws a lot from it, and that motivates him to compose, uh, really, uh, his great work , which is a complex work that is published in 1574 in Mantua. And it is called*Me'or Einayim*. Basically it's called—it has several parts, you can say in general you can call it*Me'or Einayim*, it comes to enlighten. Open your eyes, open your eyes Of the Jewish people, really, if we talk for a moment about history, then Rossi offers us something in a way that is always very ambiguous and hidden I will just say one word: in books, we don't call him Rossi, but "Min HaAdumim " Min HaAdumim, right, right, because "Ro "-Rossi, Rossi, yes, that's it It's from the word "adom"(red), yes? So , Azaria Min HaAdumim. Uh, he actually proposes a new concept of historical truth, as you spoke of, a distinct concept that I think echoes the Greek or Hellenistic world in a way that, since Josephus Flavius, and perhaps at all, has not been heard. He comes and says, he comes and says, why, he comes and says why really, uh, he asks frontally, he says: why should we care about all this history? What good is it ? What happened, happened, right? Like what, what does it matter? And then he says. He says it is the nature of truth itself, and it is good that the soul yearns for it; he is formulating for the first time something that really corresponds with historical concepts, you could say Hellenistic and you could say modern, that say truth is for its own sake, that is In other words, I am interested in the truth. I am not asking about the meaning; history is not subject to its moral meaning, or to its spiritual meaning, or to its stage on the way to redemption, or even to the understanding we hinted at earlier of the communities themselves and their Jewish depth. No, history is a truth like any other truth; it is a truth that needs to be known because it is the truth. And this is a strong and unapologetic claim that he makes; it reflects the reason that stirred the great conflict against him from the Maharal and Rabbi Yosef Caro and others . The Maharal is so angry, the Maharal really mentions him and fires in the other direction; the reason is not that , it is not this phrasing that he also always knows how to do, to say something and take a step back; there is also some dimension in it, you can call it humanist rhetoric, and you can call it a kind of caution, slash a certain hypocrisy in his way of arguing When you say hypocrisy, you mean The intention, I am looking for the right word in Hebrew, uh, learned insincerity You understood, he wants to say something and he doesn't want to say it Wants to say something and also doesn't want to say it to the end, yes, he wants to hint at it, so maybe you could say it's a world of allusion, but in this field, he always phrases himself in a very traditional way and always says he doesn't come to contradict the Sages, and he doesn't come, but actually he is laying down a lot of explosives And the Maharal identifies it And the Maharal identifies it, but it is especially important to say that his anger erupts because he hints in several places that the Sages' calculation of the years is not accurate. Anyway, the Maharal's anger really came out over the identification of the Maharal. Uh, it is important to say it this way, Maharal Is also sitting here in Prague. Very famous is the Maharal's visit to the palace of Rudolf II. And who mentions it is Gans himself. And who mentions it is Gans himself with great admiration. What does he say about the Maharal meeting Rudolf? Rudolf II, the great emperor of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire, a third of the world, who resided at that time in Prague. Meaning, both Rabbi David Gans and the Maharal lived in close proximity to the world empire, a short walking distance to the ruler of the great world. And that is very, very influential. And they know him and they enter his room. By chance. Yes, he knows the Maharal. David Gans is a much more anonymous person, and he truly is what he is. David Gans meets the professionals of the Maharal—of, of Rudolf II. Rudolf II brings, not far from Prague, creates a special star observatory where Tycho Brahe arrives with Johannes Kepler as his assistant, yes, the greatest scientists, astronomy scientists of the period, who sit there under the support of Rudolf II and produce, ah, a theory, theories—not one theory, new theories about the rotation of the planets, things that will change the world. David Gans is invited there and spends three weeks there, not in the capacity of a journalist for Mishpacha, ah, although that is what he ends up doing —he brings us news from there and describes what he saw. He is invited there to, again, as an educated and learned man, it comes back again, to translate observation charts written in Spain in Hebrew, to translate them into German so that they could rely on data, on additional information that was not accessible to them. That was not accessible to them. Yes. He is brought there as someone who will help them by the fact that he brings. I will really mention that he mentions in his book that Tycho Brahe tells him that the Sages admitted to the wise men of the nations of the world regarding who rotates around what? The sun, the celestial spheres around the sun or vice versa. So he tells him, the Sages did not need to admit, the Sages were right. Yes. Correct. Correct. That is how he presents it in the book. Correct. Correct. And David Gans also writes a work about this, a work that is much less famous than Tzemach David, a work called Nechmad VeNaim, a work primarily on, on. Astronomy. Astronomy, yes. And it, it was printed only in Jesnitz in 1743, but it, but, but yes, he writes in this genre as well and creates in it. I am coming to say: The Maharal is also a figure deeply embedded in the humanistic discourse of his time. Ah, my friend from Oxford, ah, Joanna Weinberg, ah, wrote a lovely article following a page that she found, a page, in a short letter in Hebrew that she found at the end of a book by a Huguenot, a French sage, ah, who essentially in Prague, who was exiled, exiled from his place. The King of France was there, the persecution of Catholic France pursued them, and two such humanists, scholars, one of them an advisor to the King of France, are forced to flee. They flee to Prague, it is a tolerant place, Catholic but tolerant, and they stop there for a few months and they have time. They say: What shall we do? As was the way of deep Christian scholars in the 16th century, to meet. Shall we learn Hebrew? No, they say: We will learn Hebrew. How does one learn Hebrew? They approached—and this is testimony we receive from them firsthand—they approached the yeshiva , met the Maharal, entered his room, and told him: "We want someone to teach us the holy tongue, the language of the Torah, of the prophets." He appointed a teacher for them from among the yeshiva students, and he studied with them for three months; they learned Hebrew, moved on, and wrote a letter of thanks. We have even more impressive documentation than that of meetings between the Maharal and the mayor of Görlitz—not very far away— discussions that were again preserved by him, by the humanist, regarding the Hebrew calendar and the Maharal's work. He is familiar and Mordechai Breuer, in his article "Gola, " says—he explains why the Maharal chose specifically these legends to polemicize over, to bring explanations for in "Be'er Hagola," and it is almost explicitly written in the Maharal, but he very quickly found the list, the ecclesiastical lists of the "offensive" legends in the Shas that the Maharal read and... In other words, I will explain it in simpler words: Mordechai Breuer identifies that the Maharal is actually addressing the legends of the Shas; he has legends that he really takes the trouble to explain, and he says this choice is not random. These legends are threatened at that time, meaning the Church identifies them and writes about them and condemns them. Condemns them as false, as superstitions, and it is important to the Maharal to show the hidden light of these legends. So the Maharal confronts these claims, but he also knows them deeply, and therefore the Maharal is likely very sensitive to what other sages in this period were less sensitive to, and that is the feeling that Azaria dei Rossi does something similar to him, but also terribly, very different; because Azaria dei Rossi somehow internalizes this viewpoint— let's call it the distant, Christian objectivist one—and not even that; even that objectivity irritates him. The Maharal writes, this is also a paragraph, he says: "When the Gentiles do this, the [Jewish] law is considered holy books to them." He says: "I understand why they do it, they are learning, it is nothing more than that, " he says: "It is part of their religious passion." Christian humanism is Christian. Wow. One cannot be confused about this. It is not secular. It is amazing. It is amazing. It is secular in the sense that it opens additional ways of approaching God, but it is not secular. I assume that we will talk about all these things more thoroughly because I just want to jump ahead. We aren't saying the main thing. And that is what happens in conversations with those who know. The introduction to "Tzemach David," where he tries to explain to us—I think— 11 reasons why it is important for him to write this book, why it is important for him to tell Jewish people what is happening with emperors and what is happening with that. And each reason is more interesting than the last. And I think as a lead-in to what we are going to talk about regarding history, I think it could be...he calls it " benefits." By the way, this is also language found in the Gersonides, it's all those who try to explain to us what we will gain if we know this knowledge. Right, so he truly brings 10 reasons, and several more scattered throughout his introduction, and some of them are simple reasons, one might even say human, he says people are curious about history, it’s something that homeowners want to know. Yes, and here he echoes, of course, and he also mentions it explicitly, the Terumat HaDeshen which is cited by the Rema in his teacher’s work, the Rema to the Shulchan Aruch in Orach Chayim, as you said. That says that stories and innovations, is it permitted? Is it permitted to read them on Shabbat ? To read them on Shabbat. After all, you could ask this question about weekdays as well; he asks about Shabbat and says that those people, those individuals for whom it is a pleasure, it is permitted for them because of Oneg Shabbat; those for whom it isn't, he says [regarding] the Terumat HaDeshen. And the Rema cites this as Halacha, and here his student David Gans cites it himself and says there is pleasure in it, there is curiosity in it. There, my Rabbi also thinks so. Yes, I have, I have someone to rely on. There is some human aspect of people, and he describes in this context—David Gans —it is really the, the birth of printing, a relatively new story of less than 100 years that he is a part of, and he says: we have a new kind of reader, people who are not great Torah scholars, not sitting hunched over manuscripts in the Yeshiva, they are reading in a sort of secular way, and so, this is good reading, this is interesting reading. He adds and says there are, there are words of morality in this reading, which is ostensibly reading that deals with pleasure and things everyone is interested in. There is also morality to be learned, for example, and this is still at the, again, at the simple human level. Do not quarrel with someone stronger than you. Which I think the State of Israel of the 21st century can also think about sometimes from a realistic approach, do not quarrel... I think that the Sages, when they come to tell us the story of the destruction , they open like this. Right. " Happy is the man who always fears," don't get involved; you need to know history because sometimes a small thing leads to a big thing. And he continues and says: Do not provoke the wicked, for the hour is currently playing in his favor. And on the other hand, while still on this level, he says: When a person rises to greatness, like those glorious emperors —and this is history, it is part, history is always fascinating to us because it is reading about great people and great events and things that we provincials might not experience in our own lives—he says, and on the other hand: when you read these things that I am writing to you, see how always when a person rises to greatness , ah, it is important that he be humble . And that he should not...and he says: And that he should not despair of the retribution, because look, we have found more...he says: Here I am going to tell you the order of the emperors, and again, sitting in Prague, emperors of the Romans that the people of Austria-Hungary, it is very central for these lists. And he says: We have found more than 50 emperors who were killed by the sword, and how many received the poison of death, and how many took their own lives. And he continues, detailing in a picturesque and horrifying way: yes, they were blinded, their eyes were gouged out, some had their noses cut off, some were skinned, some were drowned in water. So learn from this, he sees this, this horrifying imagery of history, and says : learn from this that even when a person rises to greatness, perhaps even in the shtiebel, he should remember, take to heart–there is a simple and deep moral message learned from a sense of history. But it is very interesting because what we notice in this period, by the way, is that they don't just write the history of the common man; they write about kings, the common man is not interesting, and we see this also when Chazal speak about the laws of kings, meaning they are the story, right? We can only learn a parable for a king from this. True, but this parable touches every person, because another one of the benefits he writes, of the benefits he writes for the study of history that he will write for, for instance, is Divine Providence that gives the wicked their due, and he writes also in this world. Meaning, in the dispute between the Ramban and the Rambam, he says: also in this world, that most of the cruel emperors and kings were killed and lost from the world. From this emperor, one can also learn about me, the little one , that Divine Providence regarding retribution, regarding reward and punishment, exists in this world. And he says: sometimes we learn from this. And now we are ascending upward, perhaps to a layer of somewhat more words of wisdom. That is, you will find ...and he says here in an almost amused way: when words of morality are said by emperors, they are more accepted by the ears of the masses. Right, if I say this wise thing, this profound thing that is said, because that emperor said it, it enters the ears, so there is an educational tool in it for us to educate our hearts. He is still speaking with this educated merchant class, but at other points, he hints to layers–not just hints, but writes to higher layers. Of course, the first benefit he says: the manifestation of the Almighty’s Providence over His world. If you understand world history and you understand the... The history of the Jewish people within it, among them you, do you see? Yes, for all, all a, and he especially refers here really to the last 100 years, which he describes in detail. In many places he says, in one place, that they were killed. More than 1,000 thousands of Christians, meaning more than a million Christians in Europe during this period–this is, of course , a huge number. In the religious wars, only in the religious wars from the rebellion of Luther and until his time, meaning a time span of less than 50 years. Ah. No, he is referring first and foremost to the main rebellion in 1525 in Germany, and after it to the wars between the various kingdoms throughout the 16th century. Actually, from the 1520s, there is the appearance of Protestantism, fueled by religious division within Europe and by wars that continued long after the period of David Gans. But he says, even until my time he says, and he says in contrast to this: the Children of Israel are not shaken, and find rest in various places , in various forms. And there is here, that is to say, a sense of this providence, and facing the Gentiles who went mad and are killing each other, he says, over nonsense, yes, over one detail or another, the Jews are privileged with the providence of the Name. Meaning, it is also a very comfortable moment for the Jews in Prague. True, it is some kind of moment that also creates a feeling—the word is not just comfortable but "at ease," that is, it creates a sudden ability to look aside and... For the first time, we are not being attacked. And to acknowledge? Yes, exactly. Such a different description, and it is very different. And in this, by the way, he is different from the group of profound writers he also summarizes and is influenced by; he is influenced by Abarbanel and also by, and by Rabbi Abraham Zacuto, and also by the Kabbalah literature, and so on and so forth, and also with*Me'or Einayim*— we will talk about that another time— he is influenced by them all. But unlike, for example, Ibn Verga's*Shevet Yehudah*, which is a book about persecutions, a book that is truly the trauma of the expulsion, the trauma of the expulsion he drags along, he lists dozens of persecutions the Jewish people went through, and the music is of what they called again there at Columbia: Salo Baron’s "Lachrymose conception of Jewish history." Yes, yes, yes, Salo Baron, Shalom Baron on the lachrymose history. In contrast to that, with David Gans, he does—he describes all the events, but he really does not dwell on the persecutions and ...The Jewish history, and the global history that he describes, the Jewish history he describes, is not traumatic in its essence; in a certain sense, even a bit the opposite. It acknowledges, no, it acknowledges the difficulties and, but it also experiences very strongly the wonders, and the existence, and the, and the flourishing, and the, and the scholarship, and the depth. And, and truly something in the moment, in this moment, what is it? The experience is a completely different experience. He is able to admire and boast of bloodthirsty emperors and to see, specifically, the survival of the Jewish people, and also the successes of the Jewish people, which he expands upon more than on the, than on the failures or on the persecutions. And he has reasons that are very, very surprising. Wait, but first of all, he has the matter of—is there, here, a bit for him, too, that history leads to redemption? True, truly the tenth reason. The tenth that he details, after we skipped over a few reasons here (maybe we will return to them in a bit, but we spoke here about such reasons), he talks about providence. But in the tenth reason, the concluding one—he concludes as is the custom of the wise, but here with a special depth regarding the anticipation of redemption. He says , the tenth reason that he is: he says when a reader reads of the sheer greatness of the kings and emperors— again, he is experiencing Europe in its depth, the emperors of his time, he knows what a palace is, he knows what an emperor is. They carry deep experiential weight for him, he says, but when you internalize this thing, yes, even today one can go and enter a palace in Europe, the sense of—the spiritual sense is different, he says. And for us in our exile, no king and no ruler, we will pray to the Name to restore our judges as before and to cause the scion of David to flourish—here, the scion of David takes on an exilic meaning. He says, he says we, we, we are not inside the game; we are outside this big, amazing thing that We are outside, but the history is also a negative history. Meaning, it also highlights inside us the lack and the longing, which are not just abstractly for redemption and the Temple, but are also concretely for us. And if you want , you can hear in this not a king and not a ruler; you almost hear here the yearning for sovereignty. I will say state sovereignty; it is indeed for sovereignty and a king and a ruler. What is, uh...again, an expression that can be debated a lot, but what they called in the century: the return to history. Yes, a king and a ruler, but the Jewish king, the Jewish ruler, is the Messiah. Yes, in his eyes this is not an expectation of secular history, this is an expectation of a history of redemption, Of sovereign redemption, but its colors are truly taken or deeply experience the power of imperial rule. I think the Sages, the Sages, just as they say: "A person should always run to see the kings of the nations of the world, so that if he merits, he will discern," meaning they also talk about this: learn first of all what royalty looks like and then you will start to long for it, you will start to want royalty. Yes. There is here some, right, some sentiment as you say that he comes to awaken. Some sort of yearning. Uh, a yearning that he says, but we learn about it specifically from, and usually people like to tell what is similar to them. Indeed, most of the Jewish historiography we mentioned deals with Jewish history. About that, yes, and we mentioned here, we mentioned here De Rossi, yes, and Menachem Azariah, and the history that interests him is only Jewish. Yes, a Jewish environment that needs to be understood, a Jewish one; he uses many external sources to clarify it, to question it, to investigate it, but even they are more traditional—we are all dealing with the past, with ourselves, we are dealing with history that touches us, touches us, and David Gans. Again, and this is the thing you spoke about at the beginning, what is moving about this moment, because in many ways it summarizes previous things, but in another way, the moving thing is here suddenly that you see a second part, a huge part of history from creation, a non-universal history, down to the details, which gets its own attention; we haven't finished all the benefits. We haven't finished, and this is, I want this benefit—you said we should read. Yes, but we have more benefits. We don't have to go over the whole thing. We spoke here about the—we started here from the everyday and we spoke about the sublime, but there are more benefits he mentions; I will mention them briefly, for example he says that a good understanding of Jewish tradition requires knowledge of history . Which is interesting. And here he relies on his teacher, the Rema, who actually wrote—and he refers to this, it is in our hands— the Rema himself wrote glosses on the book Yesod Olam. These glosses were brought in the book Yuḥasin, which was published only in the time of, of the Rabbi, yes? Very good, we are talking here really about years of life , but he already sees it in print and he comes and...sorry, he sees the Seder , he sees Yesod Olam, and he knows there are glosses on it. The Rema writes something fundamental; he says that the Rema says that one may take proof from the scholars of the nations for our own sages of blessed memory. Meaning. That is to say, it is not entirely clear, honestly, what the Rema actually meant. One must study it in depth, and his arrivals there on the subject are interesting and important in their own right. David Gans understands this arrival of the Rema as a broad statement that says: in order to understand the world of the Jews, you must always understand the world that surrounds them. You cannot understand Rabbinic history without understanding the global history that surrounds it. These are truly the words of the Rema; he does not say it in his own name, he brings it in the name of R... He brings it in his name, and in his eyes this is another point of view, which already touches not just the idler who wants to pass the time with things that are not sins, but rather for a person who wants to learn ethics, even divine providence. Here he is really speaking to the Torah scholar to understand statements taken from the sayings of our Sages. An additional benefit that he mentions, and it is also in my eyes very fundamental, and one must dedicate its own time to it; it concerns what are called amazing phenomena. Well, you wrote an article about that. Yes. It's worth talking about that. Yes. I will just note here that another one of his benefits is the amazing phenomena in history. That is to say, there are moments in the world where strange things happen. For example, a comet. A comet. Signs in the heavens. A child born with six fingers. A fish 30 meters long. Yes. All wonders and marvels, and that is part of the fun in reading Tzemach David. He does not just offer you dry history; sometimes you might read some historical work that is very correct and very accurate, but also very uninteresting. And with the history of Rabbi David Gans, there is a lot of flavor. He is basically full of history ; he experiences history like an amazed child, very scholarly but also amazed. And this amazement in his eyes, even when he talks about a fish in the sea in France, it has a religious significance, because this very excitement, the wonder, the wonder before the amazing phenomena in nature, is itself part of the depth and understanding of history. And here he offers us a perspective that has perhaps been forgotten to some extent. It is so interesting to see the article you did, and it is amazing, like a novelty, the discovery of America in his eyes, it is a less "novel" novelty than a child with six fingers. Exactly, exactly, because it is just— okay—a continent, another beautiful continent. But a child with six fingers that is exactly in synchronization with the wars of the Ottomans on Rome, in Rome, that is to say the whole world. And here it is important to say: at this point, Rabbi David Gans the historian is integrated with Rabbi David Gans the astronomer, who visits the [unclear], because even astronomy in his eyes is not a secular science, it is not a...let's call it, it is not a transparent science. It also tells about the wonder and about the...that is to say, the...yes, one can use the words of the Ramban, yes, that is taken from the wonders, from the miracles, let's take. To learn the Let's take to learn the commonplace, but it is actually even sharper for him ; he sees both the ordinary and the miraculous as parts of the same system. It is very important to expand on this matter because it is a different color perception. We will get to all of this. One, we will get to this, after all these he suggests one benefit. That the ninth benefit, I think, surely . The ninth benefit, the ninth benefit is a benefit that you wouldn't have thought a Jew in the Beit Midrash would be the one to say, and then he writes like this: Since we are among the nations, and are strangers and residents with them, and when they tell or ask us about early days, about the ancient kingdoms, we put a hand to our mouth, we do not know what to answer, and we seem to them like beasts that do not know their right from their left. He says we, you are in the area, you cannot be a donkey, you need to be involved, you need to know. He writes they look at us as if we were all born yesterday or the day before, but by means of this book the respondent will be able to answer and say a little bit about every time and time, he says, and by this, grace and good sense will be found among them, and even if it is not a benefit for the purpose, in any case, it is something that is amazing. Yes. So I don't know, I don't know which benefit we are going for now in our series. I estimate that every Jew, one will study ethics, one will study Jewish law. I can, I know from the halachic projects you did, from the second book, "A Rooster Without a Heart ," that you also find halachic angles sometimes within all these things, but this is actually an introduction; maybe we will even expand on it next time. But what we will do, with the help of God, we will focus on history and try to touch upon some of its benefits. I really, really want to thank you, Rabbi Maoz, I had great pleasure and I hope our listeners did too. Our listeners. We will continue to thank you very much , so a good and sweet year, may we be inscribed and sealed for years to come, may history be much more, much more Interesting. Interesting. Yes, let there be, yes, good news in large letters. You have been listening to "Seeing History" from Mishpacha Podcasts. I am Israel Alter Gruweis, with me was Professor Rabbi Maoz Kahana. Thanks to content editor Tehila Siton, production manager Ayala Goldstein, and sound and video editors Avri Wiesel, Daniel Levin , and Hila Vilav. All series and episodes await you on the Mishpacha website, on all podcast apps, and on the phone line 077. 2022 extension 75. See you in the next episodes..