New York - No, I don’t applaud the now-infamous YouTube– but I do
not agree with much of the criticism leveled against it.

To co-opt the phraseology of another writer on the topic, I am
a “maximalist” regarding the reverence and honor due to the
Avos. I’ve gotten into heated and public debate with those who saw
the Avos as just ordinary people who happened to be the first kids
on the Jewish block. The Avos are the very foundation of Am Yisrael,
the ones who uncovered certain midos of HKBH and made them part of our
world. We invoke their names in davening not because of their primacy,
but because of their spiritual accomplishment.

My beef with the video is that it was predictable that some people would
– quite inappropriately, I believe – see it as a swipe at the Avos,
or at those who choose to take the words of Chazal literally unless
guided to an allegorical approach by a Torah giant of the past. We ought
not to take chances and liberties with the respect owed to the Avos,
or to large numbers of yerei’im u-sheleimim. The video was creative,
smart, and fun – but I would not have the risked the reaction.

I almost always find Rabbi Yair Hoffman’s writing to be intelligent
and engaging. Jews were perhaps destined to disagree with each other;
on this issue I will have to disagree with several of his points. I
don’t believe that the video denigrated either the Avos or those who
take the “maximalist” approach to Chazal in general. The target of
the video was people who do not stop and think. If I were asked for
input into planned additions to the cardinal sins of Torah Judaism,
I too would put disengaging the brain on the short list.

There is not a single question addressed by the skeptic in the video
that has not been asked by talmidei chachamim of the past, starting
with the question of how Yaakov could marry two sisters if he kept
the entire Torah. (Ramban’s answer – that he observed Torah law
only inside Israel, but not outside – is well known. Fewer know of
the Maharal’s approach: the Avos only kept mitzvos aseh/ affirmative
obligations, but were not bound by any prohibitions.) Those who tended
towards taking Chazal literally were faced with more questions than
those given to allegorical interpretation. They met the challenge and
answered the questions.

Now, some people might find some of those answers elegant, and others find
them strained and unattractive. The point is that talmidei chachamim asked
the questions. They were aware of the difficulties, and had grappled with
them. The yeshiva bochur in the video, however, meets every question with
– silence. He shows a triumphalist attitude towards his interlocutor,
but he has never thought of the questions, and is left speechless. The
video, I believe, mocks those who uncritically absorb without stopping
to think of the implications and the difficulties. Torah is too complex
and too precious to treat that way.

Moreover, the so-called “traditionalist” approach (a misnomer, since
the older works dealing with aggada – and probably the majority who
have directly considered the issue – take an allegorical approach)
works best for people with a surfeit of emunah peshutah. By now,
most of us wish we had a way to mass-produce and bottle that precious
commodity. Alas, we are hearing more and more of our children ask more
challenging questions about more fundamental issues at earlier ages. Three
things are guaranteed to turn them off: angrily suppressing questions,
not validating their questions, and giving them bad answers. The video
not only raises a good point, it should sound an alarm. If that yeshiva
bochur winds up in a classroom, we don’t want our children to be there.

I find the word “maximalist” problematic when linked to a more
literalist position. I understand where Rabbi Hoffman is coming from,
but I think there is much merit in reversing the designations of
maximalist and minimalist. At least the Maharal believed so. Contrary
to the assumption of those unfamiliar with Maharal, he did not help the
student of Chazal by successfully allegorizing difficult ma’amorei
Chazal. More often than not, he allegorized as well the passages that do
not strike people as difficult! He did so because, he says, Chazal’s
words are far more profound than people think. Taking their words at face
value obscures the deeper meaning contained in them. That meaning becomes
accessible only when you uncover their allegorical sense. To Maharal,
the allegorists are the maximalists in wringing out the most enlightenment
from the words of Chazal, while the literalists are the minimalists!

The swipe at YU (included in the Voz is Neias version, but not in the Five
Towns text) will hopefully not cause too much grief to bnei Torah from
that institution. They should see it as a compliment. After all, Rabbi
Hoffman argues that those involved in kiruv should present three different
general approaches to Chazal. Graduates of YU can pride themselves in
having access to rabbeim who have experience with, and can offer guidance
in, all three of those approaches. If people versed in Emunos V’Deos,
Moreh Nevuchim et al (not to mention the works of figures like R Dovid
Tzvi Hoffman and the Sridei Aish) are magidei shiur in American yeshivos,
their identities are being hidden very well from the rest of us.

Rabbi Hoffman writes that “the overwhelming majority of Torah
authorities, however, clearly and completely hold of the maximalist
position.” I hope that he doesn’t mean that they hold the maximalist
position in general, not just regarding the particular issue of the Avos
observing all of the Torah. That would put them in the second category
that the Rambam talks about in his introduction to Perek Chelek. (About
those literalists Rambam writes that instead of the nations praising us as
a “wise and comprehending nation is this great people,” they instead
point to “a foolish and degraded nation is this small people,” for
believing inanities.) More likely, they hold what the Rambam writes in
his Introduction to Mishnah, that Chazal hid their true intention in
parables and stories, so that children would be able to grasp them. The
plain-sense meaning of Chazal is important to reach the greatest number of
people. We should not confuse them with sophistication that they cannot
understand. (Even in this there are exceptions. R Yaakov Kamenetsky
zt”l spoke many years ago to a yeshiva principals’ convention. He
mentioned the dispute between Rav and Shmuel whether the “new king”
at the beginning of Shemos was a different person, or merely the same
monarch who had adopted radically new policies. R Yaakov opined that
neither of the two opinions had a mesorah as to the “facts.” Rather,
they disputed whether a person who had benefited from someone as greatly
as Paroh had from Yosef could later turn on his legacy completely, and
bathe in the blood of his descendants. The dispute was about the human
personality, not about the succession of Egyptian rulers. One principal
asked R Yaakov whether this was the way to teach children in elementary
school classrooms, and he responded affirmatively!) We should also,
however, remember the next words of the Rambam, which state that the
early, literal approach to Chazal is justified until such time as their
minds mature and they can understand the nimshal – the real, deeper
intent of Chazal!

The “maximalist” position that Rabbi Hoffman detects may also reflect
a different subtlety. It is difficult to believe that those with whom he
is acquainted are simply unaware of just how many in our mesorah were not
literalists. That would be tragic. To believe that they are aware of them,
and have “paskened” that they are now to be considered beyond the
pale would be even worse. To take shitos of beloved rishonim and acharonim
and ban them from use would be unparalleled in Torah history. (The words
I have heard from my own rabbeim about such a position are the closest
to “expletive deleted” that you can get from talmidei chachamim.)

The bottom line is that I fully agree with Rabbi Hoffman. He states
that all three of the positions he culls from Torah literature should be
presented to certain people. We simply disagree about who those people
are. I believe that in communities that are hermetically sealed off from
outside exposure, it might be that only the “maximalist” approach
should be used, in order to preserve the beautiful presence of emunah
peshutah. Those of us reading the Five Towns Jewish Journal and Vos Iz
Neias online, however, may need more weapons in our holster against the
inevitable depredations of Amalek, whose modus operandi is the creation
of safek, of doubt and uncertainty, in our minds. If we take the time
to think, unlike the cartoon bochur of the video, Hashem will surely
guide us to the proper insights from within Chazal.

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