Inside ArtScroll - Season 3 Episode 2: Famed Historian Rabbi Berel Wein

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Inside Art Scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today we are honored to be joined by the one and only Rabbi Barl Wine, the author of a new book called Staying the Course and the author of many popular historical works. I would call Rabbi Wine the preeminent Jewish historian of our time. I hope you don't mind if I say that. You can say it, but it doesn't say much about our time. But it so it's an honor to spend a few minutes with you talking about the new book. Okay. And also to hear I know you've told your story many times you've spoke about your about the people who have influenced you but perhaps you could give us today a unique perspective as well. So let's start with the new book. Well, the new book uh Staying the Course uh is uh the book about the response of uh traditional Judaism, orthodoxy to the challenges of modernity from 1820 to 1940, that 120 year period when really the Huskala and reform and other Zionism, all of that began. and and it goes country by country because the response differed from Germany let's say to uh Hungary to Poland to Lithuania to the United States to the United Kingdom there were different responses now is that a period of time that you did not address in any of your prior books only generally this is much more detailed U if I say say so myself, the book uh the book is very relevant to now because in effect it shows us how did we get to here now? I mean all the fights that exist in the Jewish world today are not new. You're fighting battles that are 150 years, 200 years old. Many of the battles that you're fighting have long been decided, but Jews never let go. So we keep on fighting them. But you have to know what was the fight about, what was the response, which response worked and which was less successful. And uh the interesting thing that I found from all of this, you know, an author also learns something from from his own book to to a certain extent to a successful book writes itself. Uh what I learned is that uh all of the responses were valid, but none of them were completely successful. which is uh really human nature and it also gave me an understanding. It always bothered me. You read in Tanakh for instance, Jewish people are pagans. They're worshiping idol. What? How could it be? How could it be? uh Akov the king of Israel uh has a kosher glat kosher kitchen eats from his kitchen and he's promoting a zora when you read this book you understand that how that happened how Jews became socialists and communists and reform and all sorts of things atheists and agnostics and and kept a kosher home. Kind of a dichotomy of sorts. It's a because the human the human being is capable of uh enormous contradictions within one's personal life. Now in in writing the brand new book, did you have to engage in new research? Is this material that you already had kind of compiled over the years? Fortunately, my my eyesight has disappeared. So, it's difficult for me to do brand new research. Though, what I do is I listen to a lot of lectures from other from from historians, from Jewish professors, from other and I get a flavor from it. I get an understanding from it. Mhm. There was one book that I had read to me called Genius and Anxiety which deals with uh uh that period of time and uh a lot of it is from memory. I mean thank God uh I still remember and uh then I put it together but I got a I received a lot of it. If you think about things, you receive new insights. You see things that you never you knew the facts, but you never were able to put it together. And in writing a book, the facts become secondary to putting back together the entire pattern of what's involved. I want to talk about you mentioned the flavor of the history. I will say myself as a 20-year-old bacher I undertook to listen to your set of history tapes at that time they were tapes right tapes and um many people will say that there's no other such recording set that we possess in the from world of a documentation of from history and what I noticed and I I I think you'll concur that so much of what you give over is not just a historical fact but the flavor of the time. That's right. And I think that's what I always try to do because I think well facts are uh that's what makes history boring. And there's no uh word that's a greater curse for an author than boring. You hear it from your children, right? Daddy, I'm bored. What can you do? you know, but the flavor makes it uh makes it uh less boring. It makes it relevant. I mean, that what I tried to do with all history is to make it relevant. You I try to put the person into that period of time. How would that person feel? And that's what this book does. What would I have done in the 1840s in Lithuania when my great great greatgrandfather was there? Would I have become a balmuser? Or would I have gone to Slabotka or would I go to the teacher seminary in VNA? I don't know. How do you know it also uh removes an element of judgmentality that exists within the Jewish world. It's easy to be judgmental judgmental about uh things that happened a 100 years ago because you're looking at it in perfect hindsight. I mean that's the Gomorrah. Gomorrah says the uh that uh the great king Manasha came to an amora in a dream and the amora asked him he said in the yeshiva we study today this and this thing and uh how to make a brook when you cut the bread etc. Nobody knew how to do it. And he Manashi in the dream explained to him this complicated Allah one two three. So he said to him, I don't understand if you're such a great scholar and you can interpret the so easily, how did you uh worship idols? You know that it's some to bow down to metal and to wood. And Manasha answers him in the dream, "If you would have lived in my time," he said, "you would have picked up the hem of your garment to run faster to worship the idol." So how could person be a communist, right? After 75 years in the Soviet Union, after 80 million dead, after chairman Mao, after all of that, somebody how could it be? You see it can be right. You can see that socialism hasn't worked in any country in the world. We're going to be a socialist country. So if you have that sense of uh relevancy and you're not judgmental about people and about things. I I always uh tell uh one story that Leon Trosky, the uh Russian communist leader who was assassinated by Stalin. So Trosky's Hebrew name was Bronstein, his Jewish name, and he was uh his family always married Jews. No intermarriage. Uh, Frosky had a great a grandson that immigrated to Israel and was uh interviewed on Israeli television. I saw the interview. Not that I have a television set, but I saw the interview. So, he's a Jew with a beard with a big raon kit. He's the real deal. So the Israeli interview where they were talking about this and everything and he took the back uh they took back the name and they so she said, "What would your grandfather say if he saw you now?" And he answered her as follows. He said he would understand me completely because he was a believer and I'm a believer. He simply believed in the wrong thing. But he was a believer. And to me that was so touching. He could have said, you know, he was a Russia, which he was, and he destroyed Jews that he did. You know what I mean? He said he was a believer. He believed in the wrong thing. If you believe in the wrong thing, then everything is possible. But you have to realize that it's possible to believe in the wrong thing. And uh I think that that would be the value of reading this book. You would see how many Jews believed in the wrong thing. But I think you would have an empathy with them as to how they got there, what happened. The book also has great pictures in it. Did you ever see a picture of yourself? No. Well, if you buy the book, you'll see one. I had a a wonderful woman who is an archivist for the Israel Museum do the research on pictures for the book. Dug it up from the Russian files. They had a picture of him. You see the aristocracy? I mean he well you see it you know Muser how the beard and the hat the whole thing but speaking of people who believed in the wrong things we don't have to go back to the 1800s I know in many of your lectures and articles and books you speak and discuss your youth growing up yeah in Chicago right if you could take a moment to speak about that where you didn't expect to become a rabbi or a historian and also those who impacted you like Rendel Kaplan for example who I know you've spoken about many times if you could take a moment to speak about those who at that time didn't believe in the right things and those who did who were from the minority it wasn't even a question of belief as much as it was a question of societal pressures I there were 100 Jewish boys on the block my friends in Chicago I was the Shamishabas. I was ashamish because my father was a rabbi and my mother was a very forceful woman. And uh when I was 9 10 years old and my friends would come Saturday afternoon and knock on the door and say can barrel come out and play. What else? She would say no come tomorrow. And how did you feel about that at the time? I felt terrible. But I had two redeeming features. I had my zeta Rabbi Rubenstein who was aerid and it was love incarnate. And I could never imagine doing anything that would hurt him. and he would explain to me that uh how important it was Torah and observance etc. So that was one thing that one anchor in my life because I think grandparents can be of greater influence than parents. It's part of the dichotomy in our world that we have, you know, we put the grandparents away, they should just give gifts goodbye. And the second thing was that I had all Eastern European Rabam Isa put me into the yeshiva when I was 11 years old. Now, that was an educational and social disaster, but it saved me cuz I was this year with 16 year olds and 17 year olds. So, I'll tell you a story. It's not a nice story. So, you maybe you can edit it out if you don't want it. But the first day I wasn't there and the kids were making fun of me daughter Brim before the Rebi came in the Rebi was a wonderful Jew by the name of Rabid Silver who later I knew in your Shaliman was an outstanding wonderful person. So, I was so embarrassed and I felt so badly that you'll excuse me, I vomited in the classroom, which is a great way to start your educational career. The Rebi came in and he saw what happened. He came over to me and he took me in the bathroom and cleaned me off and got the janitor to clean up the room. And he said to me, he said, Barl, don't feel bad over what happened. It happens. He said, I'll tell you my story. He said, "I was 11 years old and my father brought me to the Mina in Slabotk." So the Mgak said before we give him the Bina etc. first let him hang up his clothes in the closet and uh eat breakfast and after breakfast we'll see where to put what to do. So he said, "Okay." So I hung up my coat. She said, "I hung up my coat the way an 11-year-old kid hangs up a coat. One sleeve in, one sleeve out, the backwards, forwards. Okay. Hung it up on a hook. Not on a hanger on a hook." After breakfast, the masg came over to me and said, "That's the way you hang up a coat." He said, ' If that's the way on the outside, can you imagine what's doing on your inside? That was my introduction. He said to Slabotka. Well, he told me that. So, the Rebi and I had a connection, right? He hung up the coat wrong. I spat on the floor, whatever. And they were so compassionate and they understood every ber and they let the ber be the ber. They didn't then there was no such thing as you do what the rebi says. They didn't say they never told you who to go out with. They never told you who to marry. They never told you what to do with your life. They taught. But they were an overriding influence on your life. I mean, if you sat by a mendle as I did for two and a half years, you never again could read a newspaper the way it was printed, he invented fake news before Trump ever thought of it. Or if you were by Rabbi Chrysworth. So, uh, you had the the whole Torah unroll, you know, it was like going hagba every day on the whole Torah, right? You didn't know what you never knew what was coming. But it was all with a warmth and an enthusiasm and a love. So, you know, that's that that's what saved me. So, I I I never thought I'd be a rabbi because the old uh Orthodox apparatus in Chicago collapsed in 1948 when the neighborhood changed. There were 42 Orthodox synagogues. Only six survived and many of them became semiconservative. All sorts of things. But what you're saying it may be somewhat of an anomaly to some because people's perceptions of the Rabam of old were not the warm endearing characters that you're because there were people who were not that I was lucky. M there undoubtedly were there were people who were uh Rabim who should not have been Rabam who were bitter people it's it so to speak was a luck of the draw right you didn't know so I I wasn't going to be a ro my father told me when I was 21 years old he told me he said I have no money to give you and you have to earn your way in life. Nobody in my time nobody knew that the father-in-law was going to support you. That that secret was not revealed to us. And uh there were no column that paid. I mean Rabar had 27 students in Lakewood. So he so he I went to law school at night. I stayed in the yeshiva till 5:30 every day. And then I went to the Paul Law School at night and I passed the bar and I got a job as a lawyer. And I was going to be a lawyer. I hated being a lawyer. A lawyer sees people at their worst. Never sees them at their best. They're all, you know, they come to you that you should be able to outf fox fox the other guy or you get the deal or you do, you know, and I had almost all religious Jews as clients. And I look back at it and I I think that that was a miracle that it didn't uh push me over the edge because I have terrible stories. Money is money is a uh terrible challenge. So what what ultimately moved you in the rebbitic direction? So what happened was that Rabbi Chryworth always uh I don't know how to put it. He used to call me my mind barrel there. I mean I he liked me. He gave me a personal and uh he believed in me. So he would even when he was the rabbi in Antworp he would communicate with me especially when he came to Chicago on the occasional visit and he would say Mirham Ganoo lawyers they're enough for lawyers in the Jewish world you should be a RV and I would tell him rebby you know I got right now I'm I'm married already I have four little kids I got to make a living when there no raonas kaiser out of town with Muvok, Rabbi Ary Rottman who founded was the head America's Torah in Shalimadic Good. So one day I so as part of my law I was an investor in a business and it was there of thanksgiving and I went to the business to give empire turkeys to the workers and I'm sitting in the office and Rabbi Rottman shows up. I said what are you doing here? Said I came to see you. I flew in all the way from Miami Beach. I came to see you. What do you want from me? So he says, I'm leaving Miami Beach. I'm going to Long Beach. Ra Chrysler told me that you should be the rabbi in Miami Beach. You should be my successor. I said, "What are you crazy? How can that be?" Now, if you knew Rabbi Rottman, the word no did not exist in the English language. He would wear you down. See, I said, "I got to go home. It's Chicago. It's air of Thanksgiving. The traffic my I got to help my wife." He said, "I'm not going to leave until you give me your hand. Give me a kasc that you'll be a candidate. So there was no way for me to escape. So I I did it. I never thought anything would come of it. This was Thanksgiving, November. In the middle of May. Yeah. Nothing happened in the interim. In the middle of May, I get a call from Miami Beach from this little congregation that would I come down and be the scholar and residence for them for Shivus. And that would be the probate. And they even offered to pay to bring me down. Now my wife knew that I would didn't like being a lawyer. She knew it. And it was always it was always tension in the house. I mean it was you come home, you're tense, you know, it it communicates itself. So she said, "Well, why don't I said, you know, she said, we'll try it. Why not? You know, you always wanted to be. You could be, you know, her father was a rabbi in Detroit and my father's a rabbi in Chicago. they do, you know. So, I went down there and I liked the people very much, but it was a a storefront jewel. They had 39 families. Rabbi Rottman and his genius arranged that he had he had proxy votes in his pocket to make sure that I got elected. So I was elected by the overwhelming I think vote of 21 to 18 and we moved down there August 1. who certainly couldn't meet the payroll. We had a little some savings left from Chicago to survive. But then I put myself into that shel and we got members and we I raised money and we built a building that still exists and I taught uh gratus at the uh Miami Beach mifa 11th grade every day. I have Tom Medium until today for Miami Beach and our whole lives changed. And one of the highlights of being in Miami Beach for those who have read and heard from you is is that I knew all the good all the great rea cuz uh the rich people came then in the winter Miami Beach then there were kosher hotels. It wasn't like today condos etc. And uh so I was a driver for the ponovir. I had many conversations with the smerb the capishneter rib raia. I mean if I would have stayed in Chicago and they wouldn't know me I wouldn't know them. So to me it was a uh so I'm I'm very uh I'm great grateful to heaven that uh they pushed me that way. And one of the special people you knew you actually alluded to before was your rabbits and Jackie's father Lavine the r of Detroit. He was uh could you talk about him for a moment? He was the ultimate litish rabbi about Muser was the calmst man I ever met. Never got angry no matter what. Only saw him angry once in all the years that I knew him. And he uh he was he he was a cloud Israel Jew. So as long as he was a rabbi in Detroit, for instance, the conservative rabbi there did not allow Giten to be given by anybody else except except my father-in-law, which is a remarkable thing. And uh he uh he had in himself again that that that uh Lithuanian Jewish ability to be self- aacing and not to pursue honor to love people. He really loved people. Now he was to learn by he learned by Did he ever share with you reminiscences of of when he was with the Yes. A few stories. I don't know what I should tell you the story because it'll ruin the reputation of [Music] Ars. that he told me once told me a few things but I'll tell you one story that he said it was some gdalia and had no official position in the yeshiva he wasn't the maj and he wasn't the rash yesa he had no official position but he was the domin so After dening son Gadalia, he went to the lectern and he said, "Uh, there's a town three miles from here, four miles from a littleetle and the mikvah there is not in order and the balabont there are not they're they're not moving with elacrity to fix it and it's a big mish people, you know, it's it's a can't go on like that. So he said, I would like a volunteer that would be willing to go Yum Kipper to be in this town and to speak to them on Yam Kipper that they should hurry up and fix the mikvah right away. And then he sat down My father was nearby uh one of the students in the yeshiva came over to and he said you know this I have a problem with this dosus and they would discuss the tossus for 10 15 minutes and then as the young man was turning to believe the said to him, "Did you hear what I said? Did you hear my announcement?" He said, "Yes, Rebe, I heard it." He said, "Maybe you'll go." So, he said, "Rebi, how can I leave the yeshiva and yum to go to a dwarf to go to a town of where the balabatim don't even care about the mikvah?" So, turned away from him and spat on the floor. He said, "Pon your taste." Okay, that's how Jews thought. That's the cloggy soil you so you know I was I was very fortunate. I was fortunate in the family that I was born into. I was fortunate in the family I married. The Lord has fulfilled my wishes. He brought me to your shalam. I never dreamt I'd be a ro in your shalime. Can you imagine? You know that to tell you that 150 years ago you're going to be a raal you have a fine in a Jewish state me so I have no regrets but the book uh the book is a valuable book naturally every author thinks thinks all of his books are valuable and maybe they are and books have mausle like everything else say for so maybe a book has immediate masle maybe has masle 100 years later maybe never has masle but at least at least I got it out there well your books have had tremendous masle and you're talking about being grateful gansclro is grateful to you for infusing our history with the flavor that we mentioned before with giving us a gishmach to appreciate where we come from. In order to know where we're going, we have to know where we're going. You have to know who you are, right? And who we are. So the motto of my foundation is telling the story of the Jewish people to the Jewish people. You got to know who you are, right? You know, the people are the book. They don't know what book you're talking about. And perhaps in a different conversation, at a different time when there's more time, we could discuss what we could do to give the younger generation an appreciation for history. But perhaps we'll leave that for another discussion. I want to thank you, Rabbi Wine, for my pleasure. And thank you, Rabbi, for being here. Be well. It's an honor to speak to you and we give you a bra. You should continue inspiring us for many more years amidst good health. Amen. And you too cold to sell. Thank you. [Music]