Part I
For a generation, HaGaon HaRav Chaim Shaul zt'l stood
on, spiritual vigil. With clarity of mind, he transmitted the
tradition of our masters in every subject that came to the
fore. In the fulcrum of his battle, stood the basis of the
chareidi public's collective adherence to the word of our
Gedolei Torah. To this end, he organized something he
called "The Bloc for Compliance and Actualization" (Hagush
Letzi'us Vehagshamah). As a sort of extension, he founded
and stood at the helm of the Shearis Yisroel Beis Din until
the end of his days. For the third yahrtzeit, on 20
Tammuz, three years of a palpable vacuum, we are publishing
some sparks of light from his teachings and philosophy, whose
vibrant relevance has not waned.
Concerning the Study of Tanach in Our Days
Ever since the rise of the accursed Haskoloh movement in the
world, its avowed goal was to swallow up the holy Tanach
and desecrate it by stripping it of its holiness, G-d
forbid. The Maskilim established themselves, as it were, as
guardians over the Tanach, just as their heirs and
followers instituted themselves as guardians over Eretz
Yisroel, and they defiled that study as a holy
undertaking.
They related to the holy figures depicted in Tanach as
if they were picayune peers, our own contemporaries, more or
less, paralleling the ancient Biblical times to our latter
days. The brunt of their work was to reduce the greatness of
those ancients and place them on par with our own generation
and times, as if they were equal to us, without the vast
generation gap.
All of ancient history, including its illustrious figures,
was reduced to mere tales, novel material, newspaper items.
They allowed themselves a free hand to putter around, to stir
up the soup of history which they concocted and doctored, and
then to ladle it out according to their desired degenerate
distortions, devoid of all spirituality. They critiqued and
analyzed Tanach as if they were newspaper commentators
of our times, removing the dividing parameters between holy
and profane, and consequently between Jewry and the nations
and all other such demarcations.
The written Torah was reduced, G-d forbid, to mere literature
which they rewrote and redefined according to their own
standards. (See Rambam on his commentary on Ovos, Chapter
One, on the Mishna: Antignos of Socho.)
This approach to our sacred Torah roused the gedolim
of recent generations throughout the Diaspora to denounce
them categorically and to deny them any say on religious
matters. Our leadership insisted on forbidding the teaching
of Tanach to the children of our ranks before they
were fully versed in the Oral Tradition and had gained the
due reverence and appreciation for Torah, the teachings of
Chazal and their exegeses upon the Scriptures, so that they
would thus be well-grounded in the proper approach towards
the study of the Written Torah Text.
The Recognition of the `Rishonim as Angels' is Necessary
For our Modern Times
There exist in the ranks of authors and historians, people
who are G-d-fearing and Torah-observant but whose works do
not reflect the vast distance and spiritual span that lies
between the ancients and our present day. Thus, in their
ignorance, they serve the purposes of the other camp
admirably, to our dismay.
Anyone of this latter day who does not correctly recognize
his place and status as a `donkey' in comparison with the
ancients who were considered `men' worthy of that epithet, is
reducing the entire Torah, G-d forbid, to inanity. Whatever
is left after his dealing with the Tanach -- if he
makes no differentiation between them and us -- is totally
irrelevant because of its irreverence.
How can one presume to approach Torah as a G-d-given document
and blueprint if he does not draw that differentiation
between the ancients and us, lowly latter generations? Under
that approach, the Torah loses all significance and
substance!
In our times, in this era of sophisticated cameras and
recording devices, any child can create the figure of a so-
called angel with wings and cherubic countenance and yet
subscribe no holiness to that configuration. There has been a
devaluation of the concept of "angel" in our times. And who
knows, if there has perhaps not been a far worse devaluation
regarding the third of the basic Thirteen Principles by those
lightheaded people who bandy about holy concepts wholesale
without meaning, who attribute powers to some gross
machination of their imagination, "Who say to the wood, `You
are my father,' " a totally idolatrous concept which does
nothing to obligate man to anything -- values or ethics.
I heard from a late Torah scholar that a melamed who
is incapable of teaching the episode of Yehuda and Tomor or
the sale of Yosef with the same simplicity and wholesomeness
as sefer Vayikra and the subject of leprous lesions
and impurities, is not qualified to teach innocent and pure
young children altogether, since it is unavoidable for him
not to inject the spirit of Haskoloh into this child even
inadvertently. For whoever expels or transmits anything,
expels it from within himself and who knows what far-reaching
damage this can cause!
He also remarked that the gentiles of the ancient generations
were of a much higher caliber than those of this present one,
with a parallel comparison between them as angels vis-a-vis
men. They were, however, angels of the sinister kind,
avenging angels so to speak, but even avenging angels are
celestial creatures as compared to the mortals of today.
The Obligation to Study in Bais Yaakov
It is the obligation of every G-d-fearing Jew, loyal to
Hashem's Torah, who desires the good of his fellow Jew, to
explain to whoever is willing to hear the simple truth:
Whoever seeks to educate his daughter to a genuine love for
Torah in the manner of our mothers and grandmothers, and to
inculcate in them a boundless reverence towards Torah
scholars from a clear recognition that they are the purpose
of the world and they are the true protectors of the Jewish
people -- has only one option, which is to send his daughters
to study and receive instruction and outlook in any of the
many Bais Yaakov institutions.
These schools are the sealed cruses of oil that bear the
stamp of the Kohen Godol, so to speak. They bear the
seal of approval of the leaders of the generation and only in
these institutions are they sure to grow as a Jewish daughter
whose whole aspiration and purpose in life is purely
spiritual, steeped in the true love for Torah and in total
submission to the Torah leadership of our generation. There
they will learn to aspire to cleave to the Torah and to its
followers and to continue the chain of generations of Klal
Yisroel who choose the way of Torah and to adhere to its
leaders of generation to generation.
This cannot be said of private institutions which do not bear
the seal of approval of our Torah leaders. The teachers and
educators in such places are, themselves, far from submissive
to our gedolei hador and are greatly removed from a
love and reverence towards those who teach and study Torah.
They are under the misguided inferiority complex that Torah
scholars do not do enough for the people and for the homeland
etc. What, if so, can one expect from them?
Those who toe this line are not ashamed of their philosophy,
and present it proudly for all to see, for their readers to
read. Wise was Rabbenu Elchonon Wasserman ztvk'l Hy'd
who said that it is pointless to be angry at a mirror that
portrays a distorted image of the one looking at it -- if
this is a distorted image to begin with!
It is noteworthy to repeat wherever one can what the Brisker
Rov zy'a said once to a male nurse who cared for him
during his final illness. The Rov inquired about his family
and the man said that he had a daughter studying in a secular
school, since he considered himself a secular Jew. Said the
Rov, "I want to do you a favor. Listen to my good advice:
Enroll your daughter in Bais Yaakov. Then you will know that
you have a daughter!"
Every person should be made to realize that anything less
than a Bais Yaakov education will not guarantee for a person
that he actually does have a daughter. Anyone who is
interested in the happiness of the next generation has only
one choice: To send his sons to the holy yeshivos and his
daughters to Bais Yaakov. For only this way can he hope not
to be disappointed, not to be shamed before Moshiach
Tzidkeinu.
