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Shomer Tziyon Hane'emon:
The Hundred and Fifty-Third Yahrtzeit of the Oruch Le'ner
By M. Musman
This appreciation of HaRav Yaakov Ettlinger was first published in 1996, twenty-eight years ago, on the occasion of his 125th yahrtzeit.
For Part I of this series click here.
For Part III of this series click here.
Part Two: Heir to the Rabbonus of Altona
The three communities of Altona-Hamburg-Wansbeck (known by their Hebrew initials, AHU), situated in the territory between Denmark and Prussia, had been combined and their rabbonus held by a single rav, since 5404 (1644), shortly after Jews received permission from the king of Denmark to settle in Altona.
Over the years, a succession of some of the greatest gedolei Torah of Europe occupied this prestigious position. In the mid eighteenth century, the town saw the first flare-up of the bitter controversy surrounding HaRav Yonoson Eibeschitz zt'l, over the kameyios which he gave out.
After the union of the three communities dissolved in 5572 (1812), the first rav to be appointed over Altona was HaRav Akiva Yisroel Wertheimer zt'l of Breslau who served there for twelve years.
Several months after his petiroh, a letter of appointment arrived for HaRav Ettlinger, requesting him to accept the position. In richly lyrical loshon hakodesh, the lengthy, ornate letter (it was arranged in the shape of two luchos) provided a detailed survey of what the rav's authority and duties would be, as well as of the salary he would receive and additional remuneration for the other tasks which accompanied the post.
The letter's third paragraph dealt with the Altona beis din, at whose head the town's rav stood, which, for close to two hundred years, had enjoyed a concession granted it by the Danish monarchs of the exclusive privilege to judge monetary disputes between Jews. This meant that the verdict of the dayanim was enforced by the civil authorities.
The letter to the Oruch Le'ner mentions the possibility that, were the Jews to be granted civil rights by the Danish authorities, the beis din's privileges might be curtailed, in which case the rav would automatically be released from the duty of heading the beis din, with no deduction to his salary.
The probable linkage between gaining civil rights and losing the beis din's privilege is not hard to understand. As long as Jews constituted an alien group, whose domicile was tolerated by the monarch, they might be granted the right to adjudicate their own disputes. However, this privilege of a self-contained population group might be deemed incompatible with civil rights that would grant the Jews full citizenship (burgher recht) and entitle them to live wherever they chose. If they were "normal" citizens they might be subject to "normal" civil courts.
Although this did not happen immediately, it did take place during the Oruch Le'ner's tenure, in 5623 (1863). King Frederick VII of Denmark then granted the Jews rights and curtailed the authority of the beis din, which was the last one remaining in Europe that was recognized by the civil authorities. The King's death in the same year precipitated a dispute between Denmark and Prussia over sovereignty over the territories of Schleswig-Holstein, and a brief but heavy war was fought there the following year which resulted in Altona and its environs coming under Prussian rule.
Altona has become a part of the large modern city of Hamburg
Assuming the Rabbonus
HaRav Ettlinger's initial reply questioned a phrase in the part of the letter which prefaced the detailed account of what the position entailed. `We have banded together concerning a three year deal...'
In their response, the leaders of the community explained, `We were happy with his opening comments that he was pleased with the letter of rabbonus, and he was only taken aback by the mention of three years, thinking that this limit had been purposefully set. We are dismayed. How could our teacher suspect us of such a thing? He did not request this appointment of us; we selected him. For we found this text about three years in the community's records... we have found that his Torah, his character and his leadership are like those of the renowned geonim who have served us hitherto...'
The strange phrase would be struck out, wrote the communal leaders, and the Oruch Le'ner's leadership sought for the duration of his life. The letter ended with a prayer that he would accede to their invitation and joyfully accept the leadership of their community.
On the Field of Battle
Dissemination of Torah was the hallmark of the Oruch Le'ner's leadership wherever he was. Even on his way from Mannheim to Altona, he was accompanied by a number of his talmidim and upon his arrival on Lag BaOmer 5596 (1836), he immediately began seeking measures to guard against any further erosion of religious standards and to restore the community's splendor.
In an air of festivity, he delivered his opening address in Altona's Great Synagogue to a packed gathering. He spoke about the necessity of a rav's maintaining sufficient closeness with his community for him to serve as a personal example to them and of his concerning himself with their personal and physical well being.
Besides continuing to teach in his own yeshiva, he saw the establishment of elementary schools as a priority, to ensure that young Jewish children would not have to begin their education in gentile company. He personally supervised the youngsters' progress and the teachers' influence upon them.
When reformist elements began to hound him and tried to have the `old fashioned' institution closed down, he fought them with all his strength, eventually succeeding in obtaining royal recognition for the school. He subsequently opened a similar school for girls. The children were able to meet him themselves and absorb the spirit of holiness that surrounded him, when he presided over the tests on Hebrew studies.
His duties as av beis din imposed yet another burden upon him. He had to devote two or three hours daily to attending sessions of the beis din and, when necessary, further hours would be taken up in clarifying the din. To this day, heavy volumes containing the handwritten records of the beis din's proceedings are preserved in the Central Archives for Jewish History in Yerushalaim.
A view of Hamburg in 1811
According to the work Ivoh Lemoshov, which chronicles the history of the three communities of Altona-Hamburg-Wansbeck, the Oruch Le'ner experienced no little joy when the beis din's civil authority was curtailed in 5623, enabling him to devote more of his time to his talmidim.
The Oruch Le'ner's first wife passed away in 5603, leaving him and his seven children grief-stricken. His father-in-law arranged for his second marriage which was to the daughter of Rav Boruch Meir of Wurtzburg. She bore him another three children and survived him by twelve years.
On a visit to his father in 5609 (1849), the two were engaged in Torah discussion when Rav Aharon Ettlinger suddenly took ill and was niftar. In his introductions to the volumes of Oruch Le'ner which he published in Altona, HaRav Ettlinger explains that one of the reasons for giving his seforim this name is that it contains the names of his parents.
An Echo of Antiquity
The twenty-fifth anniversary of HaRav Ettlinger's rabbonus was celebrated in Altona with great festivities. On Lag BaOmer night, members of the community visited his home bearing specially prepared gifts. The following day, as the rav entered the beis haknesses, a choir burst into a specially composed song of tribute and prayer for his continued strength and success as Altona's spiritual leader.
When the Oruch Le'ner arrived home, he was asked by the rebbetzin whether he had liked the intricate decorations with which the children of the town had painstakingly adorned the beis haknesses. With his customary modesty and grace, he replied, `I didn't see anything of them!'
While it was correct for the community to show their appreciation for the godol beTorah who served them as rav, he himself did not alter his customary manner on that account. Throughout his life, out of holiness and deep humility, he walked looking downwards.
He lived a life of holiness and purity. At a time when even the holiest precepts of Judaism were being mocked, in his personal life he served as an example of the perfection to which authentic Judaism could lead those who followed it wholeheartedly.
He would mourn the churban every night, crying bitterly over Klal Yisroel's troubles and the desolation of Yerushalaim. Although he would only go to sleep at two a.m. he would rise again three hours later. He laid tefillin of both Rashi and Rabbenu Tam, and would remain in tallis and tefillin until after midday.
It was his custom to travel to other towns in the Schleswig-Holstein provinces, in order to survey the communal life and correct any lapses. On one occasion, he returned from a lengthy journey, not having managed to complete his tefillah while on the train. Still adorned in tallis and tefillin, he passed through the streets of Altona, where the gentiles, who were awe stricken by the glorious sight, made way for him.
Even after he fell ill in 5629 and suffered great afflictions, he strengthened himself and held fast to his Torah learning,as well as to the regimen of fasts he would often undertake.
After his victory in 5624 (1864) over the Danes alluded to earlier, the Prussian King Wilhelm I paid a state visit to Altona in the course of surveying his new conquests. He met the Oruch Le'ner in the course of his stay, and he was so impressed with the glowing, saintly personality of the Jewish scholar that he decided to invite him to an official reception which he gave later that day. With tact and refinement, the Oruch Le'ner managed to turn down the honored invitation, explaining that it was Tzom Gedaliah. The King exclaimed, `This holy man is a true prince, in the fullest sense of the word!'
The following story, which appears in the memoirs of a native of Altona, further demonstrates how the Oruch Le'ner successfully maintained his rabbonus on the level of his illustrious predecessors, despite the confusion and darkness that increasingly pervaded the once glorious German Jewry.
The ancient Jewish cemetery in Altona predated the town's community by thirty years. It had been established there by the Jews of neighboring Hamburg, who had not been allowed to bury their dead in their home town. While the Oruch Le'ner was rav, the Altona's antisemitic local doctor plotted to have the cemetery razed by claiming that a drainage problem around the tombstones was causing an effusion of malodorous vapors, which posed a hazard to the public health.
The shock brought upon the community by this threat to the resting place of many great chachomim and tzadikim was deep. The gabbai hurried to the home of the Oruch Le'ner, who suggested appealing to the regional governor, who was a decent man, for his intervention. The governor agreed to send a royal investigator to assess the doctor's claims.
The day of the inspection was proclaimed as a fast day for the whole community. The Oruch Le'ner went down to the cemetery together with ten of his talmidim and located the tombstone of Rav Yechiel Pinchos, who had requested in his will that tefillos should be said by his grave whenever any trouble threatened. As they stood immersed in tefillah, tears flowed from the eyes of the rav onto the tombstone.
When they reached the ground however, they dried up, as did all the mud which filled the surrounding area. When the investigator arrived, he found the ground dry and the ancient cemetery was saved, to the great joy of the entire community.
When the Oruch Le'ner was niftar, the cemetery had already been closed for a number of years. Nonetheless, the government granted special permission for the beloved rav of Altona to be interred there, on the first day of Chanukah, 5632 (1872).
In modern Altona this black form is a monument to Jews
When Silence is Impossible
As long as the first reformers kept to themselves, there was an argument to be made for limiting the scope of the protest against them. The year 5579 (1819) saw two new major reform deviations from halacha.
It is worth noting that this was also the year of the widespread `Hep! Hep!' pogroms, which the Oruch Le'ner narrowly escaped while in Mannheim. This provides a further illustration of the deeper link between modern antisemitism and the large scale abandonment of Torah, the best known reference to which appears in the comments of the Meshech Chochmah in parshas Bechukosai.
The Reform siddur was first published in that year, leaving out some of the tefillos as well as any mention of moshiach or the return to Eretz Yisroel, which the "new generation" of "liberated" Jews felt compromised their patriotic loyalty to their German Fatherland. In addition, October of that year saw the opening of the first reformed Temple, in the free city of Hamburg (which was near Altoona but no longer formed part of the same kehilla). After official persecutions forced the closing of two embryonic reform houses of worship in Berlin, the Prussian capital, one of the Berlin preachers moved to Hamburg and succeeded in influencing some tens of Jewish families to join the Temple which he founded there.
Many European gedolim, amongst them Rabbi Akiva Eiger, the Chasam Sofer, the Maharam Banet and the Nesivos, wrote letters denouncing the new moves. However, the Chasam Sofer was against publishing the letters together in a sefer, for, as he wrote, `They will also put out more such seforim and the plague will spread further, and they will mock Hashem and His Moshiach, and the ones to decide between the two seforim will be the layabouts in the coffee houses and beer rooms... and furthermore, we may merit the matter's demise and disappearance, so why make a permanent record in print, which will last for future generations?' (Teshuvos Chasam Sofer, cheilek VI, siman 85 — such a book did appear however, and, as the Chasam Sofer predicted, there was also a counter publication.)
When the prayer book was reissued in 1842, this time omitting any mention of Eretz Yisroel, the Oruch Le'ner broke the silence he had hitherto maintained regarding the Reform Temple which had been operating in Hamburg for over twenty years. The Temple's membership had grown to some eight hundred souls, who now wished to erect a new, more spacious Temple there and to reissue their prayer book.
The rav of Hamburg, Rabbi Yitzchok Bernays, issued a cheirem against the publishers. They had him denounced before the Senate of Hamburg, which upheld the reformers' point of view and forbade him to publicize his prohibition against the volume, while at the same time advising them not to attack the official leaders of the community.
The controversy was eclipsed by a massive fire which broke out near the city's Jewish quarter. It raged for four days, during which both Jewish and gentile citizens sustained heavy damages. In neighboring Altoona, the Oruch Le'ner issued a letter of protest against the attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting Jews through the new prayer book, addressing himself to the kehillos over which he was rav.
`My purpose in remaining silent,' he wrote, `was [so as] not to add fuel to the flames of the quarrel by mixing in... I confidently hoped that the struggle which has erupted in the neighboring kehilla would reach a conclusion without external interference... for there has been no change in the viewpoints of the parties for many years now. Even the prayer book's general title (`Siddur Tefillah for Public and Private Worship of Bnei Yisroel') which was chosen with the aim of misleading people... did not entice me to raise my voice in an outcry against this attempt to trick the public, for the [Hamburg] Temple organization has already existed now for decades as an institution that is completely separate from the kehilla and their shameful practices have provided satisfactory indication that there is no fear of their spreading amongst you, my cherished kehillos.
`However, one of the parties threatens to disrupt the status quo [this refers to the reformers, who by this time were able to count on the support of several local rabbis and even more in other parts of the country], for which I label it the attacking party, and it is gathering the opinions of rabbonim from outside, by removing the localized struggle from its confined framework and transforming a paltry local struggle into a battle over principles, thus endangering the peace lovers as well. They have even gone so far as to claim that my silence constitutes acquiescence to this prayer book... I fear lest my love of the peace will be annulled, however, I entertain correct suspicions that this misleading opinion will find its way to you, dear men of faith. I therefore feel obligated to make the following declaration, by my love for the truth and by my conscience, and also because I am your spiritual leader.'
The Oruch Le'ner continues by reiterating and confirming the psak of the gedolim twenty-three years earlier against praying in any language other than loshon hakodesh, and against making any alterations in the tefillos, adding that the prayer book's approach to the principles of moshiach and redemption differed from the one which all of Klal Yisroel had understood for over the past two thousand years. `I am certain that every genuine, contemporary rav, except for a few lowly ones, will agree to these consequential words of mine. It is therefore forbidden for every Jew to pray from it...'
Exposing the Dangers
The following year, a radical Jewish organization in Frankfort-am-Main (whose founder later submitted to baptism), called `the Union of Friends of Reform,' decided to `abolish' the obligation for mila.
The Oruch Le'ner was asked by two of the members of the community to express his opinion of the matter in writing. In his letter, he moves beyond the immediate dangers posed to Judaism by the fledgling Reform movement and maintains that the Reform ideology undermines the very basis of order in a Christian country. (The letter was originally published by Rabbi Zalman Trier of Frankfort, in a collection of the replies which he received from twenty-eight rabbonim whose comments he sought in connection with the `Union.' It is reprinted in Binyan Tziyon Hasholeim, Kovetz Teshuvos cheilek III, siman 59.)
`In fact,' writes the Oruch Le'ner in reference to the Union's ruinous agenda, `it is almost a waste of time to discuss an organization like this in terms of being part of Jewry. Anyone with a smattering of understanding of Judaism knows that this is a false and deceitful outlook and a denial of the fundamentals.'
After briefly showing that all the mitzvos are binding for all times unless otherwise stated in the Torah, and that all the prophecies in Nach can only be properly understood if it is accepted that they refer to the future emergence of a personal moshiach who will be a man of great wisdom and righteousness — whom the reformers, without faith in the Jewish moshiach and unable as Jews to accept the Christian one, were forced to misinterpret as merely referring to a universal acceptance of monotheism — the Oruch Le'ner continues,
`However, even in a universal-religious outlook, this organization appears as [one] lacking both religion and faith. Anyone who has the impudence to delve into the rationale for the mitzvos in order to determine, based on the results of his research, how far each mitzvah is binding in a particular age and under its conditions, denies that the Torah was given to us from Heaven and that there was a Divine Revelation on Har Sinai. For how can a mortal be brazen enough to assert why Hashem, in His wisdom, gave us the mitzvos in this [particular] form and not in another!
`However, one who denies what took place on Har Sinai at the same time as he fills his mouth with the word `religion,' sees no more in that word than the religion of human understanding. In the event of such a religion ever gaining power, it would shake the relations between States and would swallow up into its cavernous mouth both Judaism and Christianity.'
The controversy over mila had been fanned by the issue at that time of a proclamation by the Health Council of Frankfort urging Jews who wished to have their children circumcised to call upon specially trained practitioners. The use of the verb `wishing,' lent itself to the interpretation that mila was not necessarily compulsory for all Jews and indeed, it served as the pretext for parents associated with the `Union' who refused to allow their children to be circumcised.
The Oruch Le'ner refers scathingly to this deceitful tactic. `Our obligation, particularly of those versed in halachic ruling, is to intervene wherever men of falsehood are brazen enough to cloak their activities in a mantle of `maintaining the law,' in order to enable them to spread their false faith among a wider circle. We must view them as savage wolves, who wish to decimate the holy flock of the Jewish community.'
`I hereby declare before Hashem, my holy faith that whoever agrees with this organization's corrupt foundations, and especially one who refuses to fulfill the mitzvah of mila on his son, neither [arranging it] himself, nor allowing the religious authorities who are obligated in this mitzvah to do so — such a person denies the law of Yisroel and is an heretic, who may not testify, or have an oath administered to him by beis din.
`However, there is no need for such a declaration to be made by a human. Jewry itself, which is dispersed wherever there is human habitation, testifies that its content is not subject to change. The way the mitzvos are performed, which is the same wherever Jews live, refutes the shameless attacks of those whose own sight is obscured and who wish to obscure the sight of others that they may not see, thereby proving to them that the sun has been extinguished. We, however, wish to pray to Hashem that He open the eyes of these strayers and return them to the embrace of Torah and pure faith, so that all of a united Yisroel may serve Him... until the end of days.'
Just a year later however, the likelihood of seeing the realization of these fervent hopes was to be drastically diminished.
End of Part 2
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