When they had finally defeated Binyamin in their civil war,1 the other tribes swore they wouldn’t allow any of their daughters to marry the 600 survivors from Binyamin (Judges 21:1). But when they realized withholding their daughters would lead to the extinction of the entire tribe, they regretted their oath.

What exactly was the problem here? Even if those 600 survivors couldn’t marry girls from other tribes, what was wrong with all the girls back home in Binyamin? Demographics following every war I’m aware of featured more female survivors than male, so there should have been more than enough girls to go around.

From everything I’ve seen, there’s a near-total silence on this subject.2 The verse (Judges 20:48) does tell us that the victorious Jewish army destroyed and burned the cities of Binyamin. What can we conclude but that there was a mass slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Jewish women and children?

That’s disturbing. But it gets much worse.

The first proposed solution involved attacking the Jewish communities of יבש גלעד on the pretext3 that they hadn’t joined in the civil war (Judges 21:10-11). After all the men and older women from that population had been exterminated, the remaining 400 young girls were “given” to Binyamin survivors.

But what could be done for the final 200 unmarried survivors? It seems (Judges 21:16) that the nation’s elders stepped in to propose a new solution. They would wait for an upcoming festival in Shilo where young girls would go out to dance. The remaining single men from Binyamin would hide in nearby vineyards and, at a good moment, leap out, forcibly grab the girls, and drag them back home (Judges 21:21).

When the girls’ fathers or brothers would protest, those in charge (presumably the elders) would explain (Judges 21:22): well, they’re married now and, since the marriages happened by force, you can’t be accused of transgressing our oath.

Strangely, that series of events, as I’m sure you recall, seems to be the source for (R’ Yehuda in the name of) Shmuel’s explanation for the Mishna’s assertion (Taanis 30b) that the fifteenth of Av is one of the two happiest days in the Jewish calendar.

The mass civilian slaughter and (what amounts to) mass rape associated with Binyamin were far from the only horrifying acts from those days.

Members of the tribe of Dan felt constrained by the limited land available to them. So they stole an idolatrous icon (the infamous pesel Michah) on the assumption that God would bless their endeavor (Judges 18:6). They then marched on the Tzidoni city of Layish, destroyed the city, and murdered all of its inhabitants.

Don’t think of Layish as some kind of Gaza filled with psychotic killers eager to live stream the mass murders they carefully planned and executed. On the contrary, the Navi himself testifies (twice: 18:7 and 18:27) that the Tzidonim in the city of Layish lived peacefully and had no argument with their neighbors. Also: Tzidonim aren’t among the seven nations the Jews were required to forcibly remove from the land.

How should we understand the presence of such moral failures and atrocities in our history?

R’ Raphael Breuer’s translation and commentary to Yehoshua and Shoftim contains an essay by R’ Joseph Breuer originally written in 1917. I don’t remember ever reading anything so dark from the pen of a ranking Torah scholar. Perhaps the pain of the First World War contributed to the tone. But the sad subject came by it honestly.

R’ Breuer mourns the near-absence of references to Shilo through the entire book of Judges. How was the mishkan so shamefully ignored? And how was Shilo’s nation able to behave so shamefully despite the mishkan’s presence?

R’ Breuer refers to this (Judges 21:19):

ויאמרו הנה חג ד’ בשלו מימים ימימה אשר מצפונה לבית אל מזרחה השמש למסלה העלה מבית אל שכמה ומנגב ללבונה

…Noting:

Multiple times through those chapters, Judges repeats how there was “no king in those days, each man did what was straight in his eyes.” It’s as though a king guiding his people could have prevented those abominations - as dangerous as monarchy itself could become (see Shmuel 8:11-18).

Perhaps the Jewish people - as a group - were still ill-prepared for moral national life. It was still possible for the complexity of national life to lead them in awful directions. There was still an unrefined residue of savagery remaining that needed removal.

As a rule, that savagery is no longer a feature of Jewish life - and hasn’t been for many centuries.4 But in those early days, there was still a terrible potential.

Perhaps what eventually made the difference was the ascension of a king like David who introduced the world of Psalms into Jewish thinking. Stylistically and thematically, there was really nothing quite like it before. It’s possible that only as king, could the David the poet change the way an entire nation understood their God and responsibilities.

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One more note: I know that I’ll be criticized for the crime of trying to understand Tanach without using the lens of Chazal. Well the problem here is that - as far as I can tell - Chazal have absolutely nothing to say.

Still in the mood for a good read?

Right off the top, I’ll state the obvious: whatever I’ll say here should not replace the personal halachic guidance you receive from your own rav. But there’s no reason we can’t seriously discuss some of the possible intersections of AI and halacha.

Now I know that some of you already have fingers poised over your keyboards (or phones) ready to scream/type “CLINTON YOU IDIOT! Don’t you know that AI models make mistakes???”

As it turns out, I do know that AI models make mistakes. But did you know that human shatnez testers also make mistakes? And did you know that it’s pretty much impossible to ever be 100 percent sure there’s zero linen somewhere in your wool suit? The goal is to sufficiently minimize the odds that you’re non-compliant.

The modern shatnez testing industry relies on their strong understanding of manufacturing trends and on their knowledge of where, say, linen is likely to be found in a garment. That, and their ability to visually identify fabrics allows them to confidently tell us that we have no halachic requirement to search further.

There’s one more wrinkle here. With the exception of some specialty fabric blends that combine both wool and linen in the weave itself (a possible interpretation of שוע/טווי/נוז), there’s a strong argument to be made that even wool suits that do contain linen components are forbidden only rabbinically. That could alter the way we approach the problem.

So an Orthodox Jew’s job is to ensure he never wears garments where there’s a high likelihood of shatnez. One way to achieve that is through traditional testing centers. But it’s not the only approach. Here’s how AI might help:

Step One: confirm you don’t have a wool-linen weave.

Using an AI chat model, I uploaded a high-resolution, well-lit picture of the fabric of a suit I’d just purchased:

…Along with this prompt:

I removed the name of the supplier because you don’t have to know how cheap I am when it comes to buying suits. I will tell you that it wasn’t Walmart. After a couple of throat-clearing paragraphs filled with disclaimers and stern warnings to consult my rabbi, the AI replied:

That is a fairly strongly synthetic/poly-viscose fabric with only 9% wool. The photograph is consistent with that: the weave looks very fine, smooth and uniform, without the somewhat irregular, dry/slubby appearance that one often sees in linen-rich fabrics.

I honestly have no clue what a “dry/slubby appearance” might be, but I’m definitely glad my suit doesn’t have one.

Step two: assess the credibility of the label’s ingredients

AI models know an awful lot about retail and wholesale markets. As a rule, they’re familiar with the contents of both current and historical websites and they’re also up on the latest public discussion sites (like Reddit). That knowledge can add important context to an assessment. For example, here’s what I was told:

There’s another useful clue. **** currently distinguishes its suit fabrics into categories such as Wool Blend, Structured Stretch, Comfort Blend, Pure Linen, and Cotton Linen Blend; it explicitly markets its linen fabrics as such. Your composition sounds much more like a synthetic/wool blend than one of ****’s linen fabrics.

All of that, of course, doesn’t tell us anything about the possibility that there could still be linen components somewhere in the lining or padding.

Step three: assess the garment’s construction

My AI told me that cheaper suits built using “fusible synthetic interlinings” are far less likely to use linen components than more expensive traditional manufacturing operations. To confirm the construction, I uploaded a second image - this time showing the inside of collar area:

Here’s what I was told:

The collar area appears to have a very clean, thin, uniform construction. I don’t see the characteristic bulk or layered appearance that I would expect from a traditional sewn-in collar canvas. The white line along the collar edge appears to be a narrow seam/piping or edge construction, rather than a substantial canvas layer.

More importantly, the inside of the collar appears to be covered by the same kind of smooth synthetic-looking lining seen elsewhere in the jacket. There is no obvious exposed woven canvas

That is consistent with a fused or otherwise modern lightweight construction.

Step four: assess the likelihood of non-compliance

At this point I’m confident that there’s a very low chance my suit contains shatnez. But is that enough to skip the human tester?

That’ll largely depend on how you define the halachic term: מיעוט שאינו מצוי (“an unusual minority occurrance”). It seems that the poskim disagree: the Rivash would (in some circumstances at least) ignore anything less than 50 percent. More recent poskim (including Mishkanos Yakov) require odds lower than ten percent. And others prefer to assess things on a case-by-case basis.

Based on what I’ve seen and heard, I’m personally comfortable where the risk of forbidden content is lower than ten percent. In other words, in the real world, you will be unlikely to find actual shatnez in one out of every ten suits of this construction and origin.

So for this particular case, having worked through those four steps - and assuming it’s inconvenient to have the suit physically tested - I am comfortable relying on my AI model.

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That’s not to say I don’t pay attention to the opinions of Torah Scholars, both contemporary and historical. And you shouldn’t imagine that I’m trying to minimize the value of building strong personal relationships with great Torah scholars. I continue to enjoy the many benefits of all that I learned and absorbed from my own rabbaim.

And I would hope that my enduring love for all things R’ Hirsch should be obvious by this point.

But efforts to promote a “gedolim” class of Jew that somehow possess innate authority mystify me. Let me explain why that is.

Assessing Greatness

For one thing, we human beings are incapable of accurately assessing the personal qualities of complex people. Don’t take my word for that, it’s what God told the prophet Shmuel (I Shmuel 16:7):

And God said to Shmuel, do not look at his [i.e., Eliyav, the brother of David] appearance, nor his height; for I have despised him. For it is not the way a man would look [at things], for a man sees with eyes, but God sees to the heart.

So even the great prophet Shmuel - sent by God to select Israel’s next king - failed to properly assess the people standing right in front of him. And God Himself explained how that failure was a product of universal human limitations. Do you really think there’s anyone alive today who’s better informed and better qualified? Perhaps, instead, we should show some humility and leave such judgments to God.

Assessing Scholarship

Perhaps you’ll argue that Shmuel’s failure was limited to understanding people’s righteousness or, even more specifically, the unique set of qualities demanded for the monarchy. But maybe assessing just someone’s Torah scholarship in relationship with the rest of the generation is something we can do well.

For that, I’ll draw your attention to some snippets from R’ Hirsch’s second letter to R’ Seligman Bamberger (on the matter of their strange dispute over rabbinical authority in Frankfurt).1 The letter is printed in Collecting Writings Vol VI (see page 262).

And all that assumes that we’re able to accurately quantify the objective academic value of all of one rabbi’s shiurim and writings against the similar value of all of his contemporaries. Given that - by definition - we’re trying to find someone greater than ourselves, we’re constitutionally unqualified to make those judgments.

Assigning Authority

The Gemara (Berachos 55a) has something to say here, too:

“Rabbi Yitzchak said: one should not appoint a leader over a community unless he has first consulted the community.”

What form that consultation should take - whether it involves heads of households voting for a council (ז’ טובי העיר), taxpayer votes, or general elections - some level of interaction appears to be necessary.

Since neither I nor any proxy acting with my consent was ever asked for an opinion on appointing binding leadership at any level, I think I’m safe assuming that any loyalties I profess are purely voluntary.

Gedolim in Chazal

To my memory, the only place where Chazal used the term גדולי הדור happened in Sukkos 47a.

Rav Yosef said: take Rabbi Yochanan’s words [that one wouldn’t make a beracha when sitting in the sukkah on Shemini Atzeres] in hand, for Rav Huna var Bizna and all the gedolay hador entered a Sukkah on Shemini Atzeres [outside of Israel where the status of the eighth day is unclear]. They sat but they did not make a beracha.

According to Rashi, Rav Huna bar Bizna and his colleagues had been so busy all week tending their animals that they hadn’t had the opportunity to sit in the sukkah until the eighth day. And those were the gedolay hador.

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Sadka suggests that the cultural status of diamonds will soon look a lot like pearls. It wasn’t just the introduction of low-cost cultured pearls into the market a century ago that changed the way women think about the jewel. It was more the fact that folks in lower income brackets could now wear long strands of them. If the maid had them, then there’s no way her employers could be seen with them ever again.

Sadka has been advising friends to get out of the diamond market while it’s still possible. And, in as much as my opinion on such things has any value, I’d tend to agree…up to a point.

I wrote about diamonds a few years ago:

That earlier post went on to quote a fascinating statistical analysis that seemed to show a strong correlation between higher spending on either engagement rings or general wedding costs and failed marriages. In other words, the odds are that expensive engagement rings - not to mention imitating-the-crowd-out-of-fear bracelets, watches and other economically destructive “minhagim” - might actually reduce the odds of successful marriages.

Eliminating such pro forma gift giving before weddings could drop the cost of many chasunas by ten to twenty thousand dollars. Given how many chasunas are at least partially paid for through charitable funds, that would significantly reduce the burden on Jewish communities - and permit the redirection of funds to more pressing causes.

And eliminating such pro forma gift giving would motivate young people to use their creativity and sensitivity to choose gifts that are personal and meaningful representations of a young couple’s growing feelings for each other (rather than a stress test of the parents’ wealth).

Does all that sound like a step in the right direction? It doesn’t really matter. Because I’m pretty sure it’ll never happen. And that’s where I diverge from Sadka’s thinking. If I remember correctly, my mother’s engagement ring - purchased in the 1950s - was a sapphire. Diamonds eventually replaced other stones because the De Beers cartel released brilliant advertising campaigns that convinced gullible consumers that only “diamonds are forever”.

De Beers had a great run, but it’s clearly winding down now. And whatever new product will eventually replace it is probably already winding up. Tomorrow’s gullible consumers are about to be shown their future.

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• “Every word of Torah you learn brings the geula closer.”

• “Perform the mitzva of challah so singles will find shidduchim.”

• “Recite the Shema to ‘unite’ God” (as the Zohar would have it)

When such people hear how R’ S.R. Hirsch opposed such thinking - considering it virtually pagan - they’re shocked. To such ears, it all seems so sterile. Where is the meaning in such a Jewish life?

The question would have left Hirsch himself dumbfounded. And the most concentrated expression of that reaction can be found in the essay called Jewish Joyfulness that’s printed in his Collected Writings Volume VIII page 249.

In fact, Jewish Joyfulness is a powerful description of the profound joy, satisfaction, and meaning that come with thoughtful Jewish observance. It’s so powerful - and so easily accessible - that I’m going to do my best to summarize it here.

Happiness as a precondition for Judaism

Hirsch - quoting a Midrash - wonders why anyone would be curious about reward in the next world when you consider just how pleasant Torah life is right here! And it’s not like enjoying life is discouraged by Torah values: physical success is the explicit consequence of observance.

Shabbos is so intensely pleasurable that “No lips, no pen have been able to put it into words” (i.e., מתן שכרה דלא עבידא לאגלויי)

The laws of טומאת מת teach us that even thoughts of death work against the ideal Torah environment. The laws of קרבן שלמים teach us that the highest expression of our grateful relationship with God is to be performed in our homes and enjoyed in the presence of our families. The laws of קרבן תמיד teach us that we’re to seek the greatest possible exposure to cheerful sunlight as part of our self-definition as Torah Jews.1

And the Torah itself (Devarim 28:47) expects nothing but joy in our personal and national lives.

Could our nation have possibly possibly survived centuries of oppression, slaughter, and humiliation if there had been no inner joy of Torah welcoming us from within our homes?

Benefits of restrictions

It’s true that there are many pleasures forbidden by the Torah. But rather than leading to dark and boring lives, the existence of restrictions adds meaning to everything else. No matter how mundane and repetitive, all acts performed through loyalty become Godly - on purely rational and common-sense level.

The mitzvos are sources of joy:

Note also Hirsch’s translation of רצה הקב”ה לזכות. You’ll usually hear it interpreted to describe how mitzva performance generates rewards for us in the next world. That, in and of itself, is true of course. But it’s by no means the simple reading of this passage. Why shouldn’t we read it Hirsch does: God’s mitzvos provide endless joy right here and right now!

The fact that the Torah and Chazal offer detailed guidance alongside expectations for the way you earn your living means that God cares about your choices. Sure, there are professions that just won’t make sense for a frum Jew. But that gives everything else meaning.

Limiting yourself to just kosher foods and surrounding them with berachos adds sweetness to every bite. That’s this-worldly “sweetness”, not some strange godly power over cosmic forces.

Or, as Zechariah put it (14:21): “Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah must be dedicated to the God of Hosts”

Our special relationship with God

Hirsch takes the familiar verse: דִּרְשׁ֥וּ ד’ בְּהִמָּֽצְא֑וֹ קְרָאֻ֖הוּ בִּֽהְיוֹת֥וֹ קָרֽוֹב (Yeshaya 55:6) and refreshes it with a perfectly straightforward translation:

Not “when He is to be found” but “because he is [always] found”. Who could resist that offer?

Torah learning

Learning Torah, in Hirsch’s view, is a core pillar of Judaism. But that’s largely because it’s a means to an end. And part of that “end” involves Jewish joy.

Note, in this formulation, the significant role played by Tanach. And note where Torah study leads:

And there’s room for every Jew in the world of Torah study:

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The best place to begin is Ramban’s introduction to his commentary to Chumash. Specifically, I’m interested in Ramban’s understanding of the origins of Shlomo’s worldly wisdom:

“And King Solomon - to whom God gave wisdom and knowledge - all that he had came from the Torah. And from it he learned [everything] up to the end of generations, even the energy of plants and their qualities until [the point where] he wrote about them, even the Book of Cures.”

There are a few things to unpack here. First, it doesn’t say “all knowledge came from the Torah”, but “all knowledge that Shlomo had came from the Torah”, which is not the same thing. On the other hand, the Ramban does insist that Shlomo knew everything “up to the end of generations” - which could be taken to imply complete knowledge.

I would suggest that תולדות shouldn’t be translated as “generations” - as that’s a mismatch with “even the energy of plants and their qualities”. Those clearly refer to physical constants rather than anything that would require knowledge of future events. Instead, perhaps תולדות means consequences, as in “the consequences of the use of this seed over that seed.”

That doesn’t completely rule out the possibility that Ramban believed that all possible knowledge is somehow in Torah, but it’ll make it a lot harder to prove it from that passage.

Now what about that Book of Cures? Associating the work specifically with Shlomo is an interesting innovation. The Gemara that references the book (Pesachim 56a) doesn’t discuss its origins. It’s only mentioned in the context of how Chizkiya had it hidden and how the sages approved the move.

But what’s really fascinating is Rambam’s observation (see his Perush Hamishnayos at the end of the fourth perek of Pesachim).

Rambam begins by offering two possible descriptions of what the Book of Cures might have looked like. The first of those proposes that it contained talismans (i.e., mystical cures) for various diseases. Since the Torah forbids the use of such talismans, the book only existed for its theoretical knowledge. But when subsequent generations began to actually use the cures, Chizkiya correctly had the book removed.

But the Rambam also (hilariously) attacks a different approach to understanding the events - and it turns out that that other approach belongs to Rashi (Pesachim 56a). In Rashi’s telling, the book was made up of cures that were guaranteed to work for (all?) diseases. The problem Chizkiya sought to address was that people would have such confidence in the book that they wouldn’t seek help from God.

Rambam disagrees. And I paraphrase only modestly:

You’re a doctor whose patient is complaining of serious discomfort and weakness. Given that he hasn’t eaten in three days, you diagnose him with the condition: “hunger” and prescribe 3,000 calories of the medicine: “food”.

“Stop!” cries Rashi. “If you provide patients with medicine that’s guaranteed to work 100 percent of the time, they’ll neglect to seek help from God!”

Rambam is adamant that removing access to guaranteed therapies - which involve no Torah prohibitions - would be just as crazy.

In any case, Rambam rejects the idea that the Book of Cures contains miraculous, Torah-based knowledge of the physical world. So Ramban’s position is now reduced to one opinion out of many.

The Ramban’s introduction continues:

Ramban quotes - and translates! - three passages from what he describes as an Aramaic translation of a book called The Great Wisdom of Shlomo.1 Those passages describe how Shlomo used the Torah to gain knowledge in some specific areas:

Here’s the list (using the Sefaria translation):

• structure of the world

• activity of the cosmos

• beginning and the end and the middle of times

• changes of ends and the action of times

• running of the year and the fixing of the stars

• nature of livestock

• temper of beasts

• powers of spirits

• thoughts of humans

• genera of plants

• strength of roots

• everything hidden and everything openly known

You’ll note that there’s no qualification claiming this is just a partial list. You’ll also note that there’s no reference here to, say, nuclear fission or to quantum encryption. So I don’t see how this could be used as a proof that all knowledge is contained in the Torah.

But in fact, I don’t see how this could be used for much of anything. R’ Chavel, in the notes to his Mosad Harav Kook edition of the Ramban, quotes R’ Naftali Weisel (Wessely) saying that this Ramban is the earliest known historical reference to the Great Wisdom of Shlomo book.

In other words, in the fifteen hundred years between Shlomo and the Ramban, there was no known mention of the existence of such a book. And, apparently, even now we have only the three translated fragments quoted by the Ramban. Considering how the thirteenth century saw many new manuscripts appear alongside claims of ancient authorship, we’d have to say that it would be difficult to rely on this book as definitive proof of Shlomo’s opinions.

So while it’s possible the Ramban believed that all human knowledge is somehow contained in the Torah, I don’t believe that there’s any clear proof of it. And it is clear that such an opinion would be far from universal.

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“And the root of this matter seems to be that the Torah includes all wisdom - besides the sweet simple meaning and the powerful foundations of its mitzvos. And it’s possible that it's for this reason all of its parshiyos and letters must be exactly where they are. All is organized by the Master of wisdom blessed be He. And this is sufficient explanation.”

The author seems to be suggesting two interesting things:

1. That the placement of content within the Chumash itself represents a layer of meaning in the Torah text that’s independent of both the narrative and the legal details. The meanings behind this layer are effectively inaccessible to human beings (i.e., the author has no explanation for why any mitzvos appear uniquely in Devarim).

2. That besides the narrative, law, and placement layers, “all wisdom” is also somehow included in the text.

These ideas are fascinating because the Chinuch is not particularly drawn to mysteries and transactional frameworks like those found in the various flavors of kabbala popular in subsequent centuries. In other words, seeing such things attributed to the Ari or the Shela would hardly be surprising. But the Chinuch’s “brand” isn’t noticeably mysterious.

And then there’s the old question: If by “all wisdom” the Chinuch meant literally all wisdom - medical cures and the physics and engineering necessary for nuclear energy projects that heat and power entire cities - then why would Torah scholars have condemned the world to centuries of unnecessary suffering?

Maybe you’ll say that the wisdom is there but no human can access it. So what’s the point? And even if there is some hidden reason justifying planting “invisible” secrets through the Torah text, what value is there in telling us humans about it? Is a blind guy any safer for knowing there’s a security webcam feed playing on a screen next to him?

All of which leads me to suggest that the “all wisdom” passage shouldn’t be read literally. Instead, I think the Chinuch probably meant something like “the Torah includes much wisdom” that can lead scholars to beautiful and even unexpected insights.

Similarly, it’s possible that the Chinuch wasn’t envisioning a Torah whose sequencing hides magical formulae controlling the cosmos. Rather, I’d say it’s much more likely that he’s assuming that closer human research will likely uncover perfectly logical insights into how the text is ordered the way it is.

It’s true that I can’t prove my reading is correct. But the literal approach would be highly unusual in the context of everything we know about the Chinuch. And unusual claims require unusual evidence of their own.

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If you would have asked me about my silence on the subject during those years, I would likely have said something about not knowing enough Torah and, in general, being unqualified. Well I’m happy to report that I’m still every bit as ignorant and unqualified. So don’t expect any (nauseating) “tznius and smartphones are responsible for war X or natural disaster Y” announcements from me.

However, just because I’m unable to deliver, that doesn’t mean signs of God’s hand in history aren’t there. So I thought it would be worthwhile to share an excellent example of what’s possible from Rabbi S.R. Hirsch’s Collected Writings Volume IX.

Beginning on page 185, we read an address delivered by R’ Hirsch on the 50^th anniversary of the 1813 Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. In Hirsch’s eyes, that battle, along with the French Revolution that had set key events in motion a quarter century earlier, were a fulfillment of the words of Tehilim (67:5):

“The governments of the nations will rejoice and jubilate; for He sets in order the nations in a straight and righteous manner.”

Hirsch began with an appreciation of the French National Assembly’s 1789 law recognizing the rights of all citizens to liberty, equality, and fraternity. This, Hirsch saw as an echo of God’s choosing to establish a direct and equal relationship with every Jew. From the time we stood together at Sinai, neither prince nor prophet was necessary as an intermediary for anyone to reach God. All - no matter their birth or power - stood equally under God’s law.

Hirsch was fully aware of the tragic Reign of Terror that followed that brief flash of moral light. And he similarly recognized how, even once social order was restored in France around 1799, foreign powers continued to “wage war against the principles of truth and justice.” Napoleon - “himself hostile to justice and liberty” - unwittingly served God as “the one to spread the seeds of freedom and justice among all nations.”

Why, though, even many decades after the concept of universal justice was introduced, were European governments still so reluctant to relinquish their power? Hirsch saw it as a failure of will: “princes and nations did not yet possess the full measure of courage and responsibility to accept the truth.”

Yet over time, the Jews, too, won their freedom:

Hirsch was even then under no illusion. He understood that new freedoms did not come from anyone’s love of the Jews:

And he was fully aware of the risks that come with full emancipation:

But Hirsch was convinced that, for all its risks, Europe’s turn to justice was a critical step forward in humanity’s greatest mission. And he powerfully supported his conviction with passages from Tanach that we tend to recite without serious thought.

In a modern context, all this is noteworthy for the existence of:

• A ranking Torah scholar who’s even aware of subtle details of historical events going back 50 and 75 years

• A ranking Torah scholar with thoughts about God’s incremental guidance of historical events towards transitional1 moral milestones

• A ranking Torah scholar with nuanced yet fulsome praise for non-Jewish moral leadership

• A ranking Torah scholar who considers the moral needs of non-Jewish society

I certainly won’t say that there’s been no 21^st century Torah scholar who’s shared opinions in any or even all of those areas. But they’re rare and hard to find.

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What I would like to talk about is the institution of protests: both its evolution and how it fits into Torah and, in particular, halacha.

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A Jewish History of Protest

The odds are that early charedi protests from the years between 1948 and around 1980 were consciously modeled on the Gemara in Rosh Hashana 19a:

“On the 28th (of Adar) good news came to the Jews that they wouldn’t be forcibly separated from the Torah. For the monarchy had decreed that they should not engage in Torah or circumcise their sons, and that they should transgress Shabbos. What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Shamua and his friends do? They went for advice to a noble woman who was often visited by all the Roman aristocracy. She said to them: ‘Go and cry out at night.’ They went to cry out at night saying: ‘Where are the heavens? Are we not your brothers, the sons of a single father and a single mother? We should we be different from every other nation and language that you impose such harsh decrees.’ [The decrees] were annulled.”

Facing a harsh decree? Head out to a place where decision makers can hear you and plead your case. Based on the text, there are some limits, however:

• There’s no indication that Rabbi Yehuda ben Shamua and his friends were in any way disruptive or violent.

• The plan was to use emotional arguments to appeal directly to government leadership as an attempt to evoke their good will.

• The arguments were relatively sophisticated and targeted (rather than needlessly provocative “bumper sticker” slogans).

• We don’t know how long the protests lasted nor how much longer Rabbi Yehuda ben Shamua would have kept them going before giving up.

I’m sure that R’ Amram Blau was thinking about this Gemara as he planned his Friday night demonstrations outside movie theaters in the early years of the State of Israel. I also understand that R’ Blau considered himself a “disciple” of Gandhi’s non-violent philosophy of civil disobedience. Dr. Martin Luther King was also part of that tradition.

And that’s important. Because you only occupy the moral high ground of civil disobedience when your protests are peaceful and when the protesters are willing to take legal responsibility for their actions. There’s no blanket exemption from the law just because you’re unhappy with something the government’s done.

Arguably, Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail had a greater impact on the success of his cause than the actual demonstration where he was arrested.

A General History of Protest

The mass-participation demonstration is a relatively modern phenomenon. There have been riots for many centuries, but they were mostly spontaneous, violent, localized, and aimed at overthrowing officials or resisting taxes rather than persuading governments to change policy. In some ways, the American and French Revolutions could be seen as the first mass movements aimed at influencing governments.

Today, protests around the world are so common that there are entire academic institutes devoted to tracking them. What changed? New modes of governance - including legal protections for freedom of assembly and speech - provided the legal and practical space that let it happen.

Consider the consequences of staging a mass demonstration in the Soviet Union or any Eastern European country where the authorities felt free to react with violence. So many young Orthodox Jewish men were drafted into the Russian army that the Chofetz Chaim wrote an entire book (מחנה ישראל) as a guide for them. Yet there’s no record of even a single public protest against the draft. Israel is not Poland.

Modern protests would have been unthinkable. But even if they had been possible in theory, sometimes the costs outweigh the (deeply unlikely) benefits of a victory.

Is Disruptive Protest Democratic?

Absolutely not. The democratic form of protest is voting. Assuming votes are properly counted, the winners get to decide how the country is run. As I’ve written elsewhere, majority rule has a solid foundation in Halachic sources - although it probably never took quite the same forms we’re used to in the 21^st century.

Having said that, democracies need to find ways to accommodate minority voices so we don’t fall into a tyranny of the majority. That’s a very difficult balance to achieve. At the same time, in large countries everyone is unhappy about something. Logically - and logistically - it’s not rational to expect everything to go your way.

Regardless of how many people and movements engage in protest in Israel and around the world, a Torah Jew must assess his actions against Torah values. Blackmail - using threats to force someone to unwillingly change his behavior to suit your needs - is an ugly thing. And in many ways, it’s not compatible with halacha.

• Blocking public access to roads and buildings is the classic בור ברשות הרבים. As every twelve year old cheder boy knows, anyone who is significantly inconvenienced by the blockage has the right to destroy it and forcibly remove the people associated with it.

• Even accidentally damaging private or public property is explicitly forbidden and actionable (אדם מועד לעולם). Those responsible are required to fully reimburse all damages caused by anything from setting fire to buses or overturning police cars to damaging municipal crowd control barriers. (Until you do, good luck with this coming Rosh Hashana.)

• Preventing ambulances and first responders from doing their work is pretty much synonymous with murder.

• Intentionally causing traffic congestion is - effectively - kidnapping (לא תגנוב - see Rashi to Shemos 20:13). After all, kidnapping involves forcing someone to be somewhere he doesn’t want to be. No one wants to sit in traffic. While I doubt any bais din would ever prosecute based on such logic, between God and man (לצאת ידי שמים), how would this not be a problem?

Over the past few years, the nature of protests has changed yet again. It’s often no longer about using persuasion to change minds by appealing directly to voters or governments. I can’t picture anyone experiencing a charedi riot and being attracted to the beauty of God’s Torah.

Instead, more often than not, it’s about the exercise of raw power. The not-so-subtle message delivered by tens of thousands of people shutting down movement through a busy city is: “Give us what we want or we’ll destroy everything.” Or in other words, blackmail. Ugly blackmail.

I understand that, in many ways, I’m not quite like most frum Jews. But I’d guess that I’m not the only one who struggles to stay calm and non-violent during event speeches - especially after decades of repeated exposure.1

You can be sure that I feel guilty about this: it really isn’t fair to the speakers who are, after all, putting themselves out there for one good cause or another. And there’s never any excuse for public criticism of a speech you’re not enjoying.

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In fact, not every speaker wants to speak, and most speakers are trying their very best. My rebbe, R’ Naftali Friedler ז”ל once confessed to me that he found preparing chasuna speeches immensely - unreasonably - frustrating. And I can recall few experiences from my own teaching years more painful than the hours spent trying to think of something remotely useful to say about each member of that year’s graduating class. But appreciating how important it was for the grads and their families, I soldiered on.2

Nevertheless, human nature is human nature. Enduring speeches can be a challenge

So here’s a fun game we can all play: Buzzword Bingo. Some years back, Buzzword Bingo was all the rage at endless, soul destroying business meetings. Rather than silently endure the pain, participants would create digital cards containing the awful examples of corporate jargon they expected to hear. You know what I’m talking about:

• Operationalize

• Forward thinking

• Win-win

• New framework

• Right-size

• Solutioning

• Secret sauce

• Change agent

The participant who filled his card first, won. The game has two benefits:

1. It relieves the boredom.

2. With a little luck, future speakers will find out and commit to actual communication.

Well just imagine what a game changer this could be on the siyum circuit.3 If essentially meaningless words like these fall out of fashion, people might be forced to spend more time thinking about what they’re saying.

• Nitzchiyus

• Gevaldige zechus

• Yiddishe spark

• Klal Yisrael needs your learning

• Shteig!

• …

Of course, it’s important that outsiders - including the speaker - don’t realize at the time what’s going on. דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה and all that. But with a little luck, word will gradually get out, the professionals will up their game,4 and standards will improve.

Now that’s simply untrue. R’ Hirsch’s translation of הלל is on the record and it bears no resemblance to the translation reported in the speech.1 It’s not as though there are any political points to be made here one way or the other, it’s just incorrect. I said nothing at the time, but I quietly wondered why that rabbi would have said such nonsense.

Some months later, I heard that that scholar was suffering from dementia and, in all likelihood, was already in the early stages of the disease at the time of the speech. This put things in an entirely different light.

Many people in dementia-fueled states scream obscenities or repeat embarrassing secrets. This rabbi also spouted gibberish. But his brand of gibberish reflected what had obviously been the passionate focus of his life. He might have created some bizarre pairings, but his mind - as it had always been - was still occupied with Torah.

My attention was recently directed to some chapters in R’ Chaim Vital’s Eitz Chaim. The writing is famously dense but, in isolation, the individual words and sentence fragments all make sense (at least within the context of Lurianic kabbala). However, the distinct stream of consciousness style of the writing and the loosely-framed conceptual connections contained just a hint of that dementia-inspired speech.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to waste everyone’s time with a silly attempt to diagnose a medical condition from the distance of centuries. But the stylistic similarities do suggest another possibility.

First though, here’s a brief example of what I’m talking about (from Eitz Chaim 49:3):

Therefore, there is fat below the chest of animals, some tameh and some tahor: good and evil corresponding to the female quality mentioned above…And these are the leftover kings who died without yet having been refined. They are called 11 incense ingredients. This is the secret of the earth altar in the mystery of the kings of the land of Edom…This is the secret of ‘everything came from the dust’ and this is the secret of ‘dust of the ground’…

I understand that the passage contains external references with which readers are expected to familiar (consult an AI model for details). I understand that סוד can be translated as “secret” - implying that we’re not even supposed to understand what’s going on. I also understand that kabbalists claim that the conceptual connections in these works are actually the products of a divine revelation of one kind or another (although they provide no evidence, and I’m reluctant to take their word for it2).

Nevertheless, I’m just not inspired by the many apparently unfounded parallels contained in this short passage.

• In what way are the “tameh and tahor” of fats (where, in context, the words really mean “forbidden” and “permitted”) comparable to “good” and “evil”?

• In what way are those comparable to the (eleven) kings of Edom?

• In what way are those (unrefined) kings of Edom comparable to the eleven ingredients in the incense used in the Mishkan?

• How does the fact that Edom (אדום) and earth (אדמה) share some letters connect the kings of one to the altar made from the other?

• How does earth (אדמה) connect to soil/dirt (עפר) - which are completely different words?

Besides the claim that Eitz Chaim - along with its conceptual connections - is effectively the result of divine inspiration, there are a few other explanations for the apparent lack of intellectual vigor.

Perhaps people in that time and place thought and wrote in a style that’s more lyrical than analytical. Maybe they were aiming more for feeling and impression than logic.

Or perhaps the style was influenced by the consumption of psychoactive substances. I think I can “hear” a certain hallucinogenic flavor to the writing. The problem there is that, while psychedelics were definitely popular at that time and place, there is exactly zero evidence of anyone associated with the Ari and his students ever using them.

However, there’s one more possible explanation that’s a much better fit with everything we know about the early kabbalists. By their own accounts, the people who produced so many writings of this style were keen on fasting, meditation, and sleep deprivation.

Is there a plausible biological pathway between such practices and vivid visions? I asked an AI model for some ideas:

1. Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation is probably the most powerful factor.

Even moderate sleep loss can produce:

• Heightened emotional salience

• A sense of significance attached to ordinary events

• Visual distortions

• Auditory phenomena (hearing voices, words, music)

• Dream-like imagery intruding into waking consciousness

After prolonged sleep deprivation, people can experience genuine hallucinations.

The Safed kabbalists frequently practiced:

• חצות (midnight vigils)

• All-night study sessions

• Repeated disruptions of normal sleep cycles

A person studying sacred texts until dawn, night after night, can enter a state where the boundary between dreaming and waking becomes unusually permeable.

Modern researchers sometimes call this REM intrusion—dream mechanisms partially activating during wakefulness.3

2. Fasting

Fasting contributes in several ways.

Extended fasting can produce:

• Lightheadedness

• Altered sensory perception

• Heightened concentration

• Reduced inhibition

• Emotional intensity

Historically, fasting has been used by mystics in many traditions because it tends to narrow attention and increase absorption.

Combined with expectation and religious devotion, a faster may become more likely to experience:

• Inner voices

• Symbolic imagery

• Powerful intuitions

• A feeling of direct revelation

3. Intensive meditation

Meditation can induce states that resemble some aspects of psychedelic experience.

Researchers studying experienced meditators have documented reports including:

• Loss of self-boundaries

• Feelings of unity

• Brilliant inner imagery

• Perceived encounters with entities

• Distortions of time

The Lurianic system demanded extraordinary concentration on:

• Divine names

• Letter permutations

• Complex symbolic structures

• Multi-layered visualizations

Hours of concentrated attention can produce a state psychologists call absorption—the mind becomes so immersed in an internal representation that it acquires a quasi-perceptual quality.4

In other words, one no longer merely thinks about an image; one experiences it.

I’m not claiming to know that such kabbalistic writings are the products of “psychedelic” experiences. But it does seem at least plausible. The real question that I think we should be asking is whether the material generated by people in such impaired5 emotional states has any scholarly value.

Perhaps it’s finally time to fully accept R’ Hirsch’s thoughts on modern kabbala:

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For a non-kabbalist (like me), there aren’t a lot of obvious options.

Learning Mishna

Is there a connection between mourning and learning chapters of the Mishna? I’m not sure. But popular Jewish practice certainly assumes that there’s something going on. We’re confidently told to recite carefully chosen chapters during the course of shiva and then to gather participants in an effort to complete larger segments before key subsequent milestones.

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But why? Some will note that the words נשמה and משנה share the same letters. But then, so do השמן and מנשה (not to mention the verb “meshaneh” – to change). Others will quote “ספרים הקדושים” extolling the power such study has in positively improving one’s status in the next world. But I’ve never seen references that pre-date recent generations. Gesher Hachaim mentions the custom but, uncharacteristically, quotes no sources at all.

How, exactly, are those chapters meant to be recited? There’s apparently a highly ritualized process involved: the name of the departed soul is to be verbally mentioned before study (but not necessary after). The chapters chosen for each day of the shiva should begin with the corresponding letter of the departed soul’s name. Entire chapters should, ideally, be recited (during shiva), and optimally during the break between mincha and ma’ariv.

Perhaps the deal involves transferring the merit of your learning to the dead relative. But then why just mishnayos? And if there’s any traditional Torah source indicating that it’s even possible for human beings to transfer their merits, I’ve never come across it.

Lighting Candles

Somewhere, there’s a busy factory devoted to the exclusive production of candles for the shiva market that burn for seven full days. I’m glad that people are able to earn a living this way but, like the learning of mishna, I’m not sure what it’s all about.

Of course, as Gesher Hachaim (20:1) points out, it’s not difficult to see candles as a fitting metaphor for life and, indeed, for the close relationship all humans enjoy with God Himself. And there’s no lack of ancient and powerful sources (see, for example, Mishlei 20:27) formalizing that connection. So adding a candle to a shiva house (or a yahrzeit) has the potential to add substance to the serious and introspective mood.

But why, ideally, must the (shiva) candle burn specifically in the room where the death occurred? And why should we prefer a candle that burns olive oil (even if very few people still use oil)? This suggests magical thinking; where there’s an expectation that performing an approved ritual will somehow force God’s hand to deliver benefits we’d otherwise miss.

Is there any source for this in traditional Torah literature?

The Gesher Hachaim notes the custom and quotes unnamed “acharonim” associating it with a Gemara in Kesuvos 103a. I’ll assume he’s referring to Rabbi Yonason Eybeschutz, who indeed writes that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s deathbed request for a candle to be lit in his place might have inspired the modern shiva custom. Of course, as Rabbi Eybeschutz subtly acknowledges, in its simple reading, that request would have specifically applied only to the rabbi’s plans to return home each Friday evening after his death, and not to the week following that death or subsequent yahrzeits.

Fasting

This is a practice that’s at least (sorta kinda) hinted to in Chazal. The Gemara (Nedarim 12a) discussed the validity of a vow to abstain from meat and wine on a day that should be “like the day his father died”. Mefarshim explain that we’re talking about someone who vowed to not eat meat and wine on the actual day his father died and then, years later, associates a new vow with the original one-day vow.

However, there’s no suggestion in the Gemara that this is something that:

• Would have been done each year on the yahrzeit

• Would have extended to a full fast (rather than just meat and wine)

• Would even have been done for a mother

Giving Tzadaka

I certainly can’t find fault with people giving more to tzadaka. But I’m not sure how this connects to a yahrzeit. People often say that it’s somehow a “merit” (זכות) to a parent when his or her children do such a mitzva. But how could that work?

Isn’t God a דיין אמת who, at the moment of a person’s death, already knew exactly what reward he’d earned? And that would not only be true for the things he’d done while alive, but also for how he had inspired people (like his children) to act in the future. So there’s no obvious way to add to (or detract from) someone’s merits after his death.

Nevertheless, demonstrating a parent’s positive influence by performing mitzvos like tzedaka is certainly meaningful. And I suppose standing before a tzibur and inviting them to join you in a campaign of kiddush Hashem (i.e., leading the kaddish) could be done as an expression of ones parents’ own aspirations.1 But is that it?

Well, you could just take a few minutes to remember their fine qualities and all the things they did for you. And learning Torah, davening for the amud, or saying kaddish could - rather than an attempt to force God to issue some unearned reward - be considered an act honoring ones parents by extending their life’s goals. After all, doesn’t everyone want to see their (positive) influence outlive them?

The Judean king Assa devoted considerable resources to building up a peacetime army. II Divrai Hayamim 14 contains the full details:

And he built fortified cities in Judah for the land was quiet and there was no war in those years for God had left him [at peace]. And he said to Judah: build these cities and surround them with walls, towers, and supports, for the land is still before us for we have sought God and He has left us [at peace] and we should build and be successful. And Assa had a force carrying shields and spears from Judah of 300,000 men, and from Benjamin 280,000 who carried shields and drew bows. All those were soldiers.

Even though Assa’s nation was then at peace, he nevertheless saw fit to draft an enormous army to prepare the nation’s defenses for future needs.

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Tanach (Kings 15:11) is outspoken in its overall appraisal of Assa:

And Assa did justice in the eyes of God like his father David

There were a few possible exceptions to that assessment, including (I Kings 15:23):

However, in his old age his feet suffered illness.

Assa was certainly great, but he was just as certainly imperfect. Nevertheless, even though Assa had failed to remove forbidden private altars (במות) from his territory (I Kings 15:14) and controversially sent tribute to the the king of Aram (ben Haddad) to deflect the Northern Kingdom’s military pressure (I Kings 15:18), the Gemara (Sotah 10a) attributes his suffering to his national service draft:

Rabba darshaned: Why was Assa punished? Because he used talmidai chachamim for national labor…even a groom from his room and a bride from her canopy.

Must we therefore conclude that Torah scholars may never be drafted? Perhaps not. For one thing, Assa was criticized only for drafting תלמידי חכמים and newly married brides and grooms - and not for the draft in general. I don’t doubt that many - if not most - of the remaining hundreds of thousands of draftees were serious about learning Torah, even if they didn’t achieve the rare status of תלמיד חכם. And yet the Gemara had no problem with their service.

But there’s someone else we should consider: Assa’s son Yehoshafat. Just like his father, Yehoshafat constructed fortified cities (II Divrai Hayamim 17:12) and built up a large army. Although Yehoshafat’s force was more than double the size of his father’s, boasting more than 1.1 million soldiers (II Divrai Hayamim 17:14-18 - assuming that Tanach’s numbers are meant to be taken literally).

And here’s the thing: as far as I can tell, there’s no criticism of Yehoshafat in either Tanach or Chazal for building up his armies.

That being the case, what did Chazal not like about Assa’s actions? Well, if we take them at their word, it was the fact that he drafted specifically תלמידי חכמים and newly married brides and grooms. But regular Jews who learned (seriously) and observed Torah were justifiably subject to the draft.

Today’s anti-draft charedim offer multiple (weak) arguments to support their bizarre position. But their “we-need-Torah-students-learning-all-day-to-protect-the-nation” claim in particular is historically incoherent.

More reading:

These days I work on the assumption that the world is a very complex place and absolute clarity is the exclusive domain of prophecy. I’ve known great Torah scholars over the years, and I never heard any of them claim infallible insights into how things work and how events will play out.

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The fact that there’s been nothing close to unanimity among (people promoted as) gedolim on most of the big issues I’m aware of gives my observation some credibility. How can there be debates over “Sinai-level truth?”

Still, there’s certainly value in learning how Torah scholars think about the issues that face us. The problem is that, unless you’re fortunate enough to have a personal connection to such people, there’s no reliable channel for accessing their thoughts.

So why isn’t there more top-down communication - especially when the internet makes it so easy? Besides the fact that busy rabbis tend to be - busy - I think there are some particularly pressing reasons we don’t hear more:

1. With very few exceptions, roshei yeshiva don't "present" well using modern media. It takes a combination of excellent communication skills and an intuitive grasp of the medium you're using to make this work. R' Moshe Feinstein and R' Yakov Kamenetsky had skilled “interpreters” working with them in the Jewish Observer. I don't see anything like that these days.

2. I don't think contemporary Torah scholars want to communicate at that scale. Stepping into the dirty, noisy, and chaotic public eye on controversial topics comes with a tremendous cost, besides being a distraction from their core tasks. And it could easily harm the relationships they rely on to get their real work done. I know one Torah scholar with an extraordinarily clear mind and broad knowledge. He has lots of fascinating thoughts about what the Jewish world needs. But his first instinct is always to avoid even indirect public exposure. There were exceptions, of course, but not all of them ended well.

Could people lower down the chain replicate a communication channel "on behalf" of their gedolim? Plenty have tried.1 But such efforts lack the credibility that would make them useful. An echo just doesn’t sound the same as the real thing. Over the years, there were projects that roshei yeshivos encouraged me to pursue, but I could never have claimed that I represented them. Because (in most cases) I didn't. 

Some people might claim that Torah scholars effectively endorse surrogates by giving their haskamos on other people’s books. But even a weak understanding of the history of haskamos over the past few decades should put that idea to rest. For a lot of reasons, haskamos rarely represent meaningful statements about a book’s fine details.

Don’t the frum magazines have rabbinic advisors? I doubt that any ranking rabbi is actually reading all that content week after week. I also doubt that any serious halachic authority would officially stand behind a magazine whose business model relies on Jews reading commercial ads on Shabbos (which is what drives industry revenue).

Perhaps there is an approach that could be useful. And, if played right, it could generate some serious revenue for an institution that chooses to host it (either locally or online). I’m referring to staging public debates between intelligent and credible opponents on hot button topics (like the Israeli draft).

By “debates”, I don’t mean “panel discussions” where two or three roshei yeshiva engage in what amounts to a press conference. Such discussions are usually designed to rationalize controversial rabbinic positions rather than debate them. No matter how honest and smart the participants are, more often than not, the real questions boiling away in the hearts of their followers are largely ignored.

Instead, I’m visualizing recorded debates between Torah scholars who think differently from each other and are willing to openly confront ideas in a formal (though friendly) forum.

You can sometimes see something similar on the Halacha Headlines podcast. So it is possible to find articulate players who think differently from each other. I’d bet that putting them in a room together and letting the public know about it could generate some real noise.

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More reading:

At street level, by and large, I’ve personally found the folks populating Orthodox communities to be remarkably open and tolerant of unconventional (although Torah-loyal) ideas and behavior. I know there are significant exceptions among, for instance, the chassidishe. And I know that private institutions like yeshivas and Bais Yakov schools can sometimes make life difficult for those enrolled - or begging to enroll. But the people around me at least have been both generous and welcoming of variety.

Having said that, as long as you take them seriously, Orthodox communities can be a lot harder to live with. That’s to say, what you’ll read in official announcements and approved publications1 tends to present a narrower party line than the stuff that’s being practiced on “the street”.

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But as I said, on the street, there’s a lot more space for eccentricity.

To illustrate what I mean, let me tell you about a new(ish) sefer - טעימה מתורת רבי הירש - containing thoughts from Rabbi S.R. Hirsch that was recently published in Lakewood. Yes. THAT Lakewood. In New Jersey.

Not only was it published in Lakewood (by a descendant of R’ Hirsch himself and featuring haskamos from BMG roshei yeshiva), but the author’s preface singles out Rabbi Aharon Schustal - the son of the rosh yeshiva Rabbi Dovid Schustal - for particular gratitude. The author notes how R’Schustal’s “broad knowledge of the Torah of Rabbi Hirsch was a guide and a help” in his work.

There’s nothing unusual about frum Jews maintaining an affection for more than one Torah ideology. Given how rare it is to have a true רבי מובהק these days and how frequently - while still young - we move between yeshivas, most of us probably feel some loyalty to multiple systems.

Nevertheless, it’s curious how a serious Lakewood ben Torah can balance both Hirschian and mainstream yeshivishe thinking.

It’s not like there are no substantive differences between the contemporary popular culture in Lakewood and the Hirschian worldview. The conflicts go far beyond the “work-for-a-living” subset of תורה עם דרך ארץ. Sure, some might argue that I take Hirsch’s rejection of modern kabbala2 a bit further than most people would. And others strangely minimize the influence of נפש החיים on Lakewood. But the differences go deeper.

Someone who has spent time learning R’ Hirsch sees a different world than his neighbor might. The constant search for ways to infuse the most secular environments with בכל דרכיך דעהו becomes second nature. And, by contrast, it would be hard to argue that the median Lakewood yungeman doesn’t share R’ Aharon Kotler’s preference for using Torah as a tool for maximal isolation in his life choices, both large and small.

Moving freely back and forth between those worlds requires some real flexibility. And I’d assume a genuinely open mind, too. After all, anyone who’s spent serious time with Hirsch’s writings will have encountered ideas that, in 2026, would be difficult to publish or share too widely.

So I’ll take the fact that such multi-dimensional people exist as an indication that even the most yeshivishe of streets is more intellectually varied than one might expect.

Which also suggests that the official yeshivishe/charadi party line you read in print (and hear in shmoozin) isn’t necessarily all that popular.

• Existed alone before the physical universe

• Created everything

• Shares power with no other entity (although He might delegate capabilities)

• Is uniquely aware of all events and human thoughts

• Is able (where He chooses) to interfere and direct any events

• Has the right to demand compliance in human behavior

• Is the only acceptable (and rational) address for human prayer

Now I’m aware of how many complex doctrinal booby traps I’m setting for myself. So I should note that this isn’t an attempt to conform with the Rambam or with any other ideological framework. I’m just trying to offer some simple standards to establish a baseline for the discussion.

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Moreover, I’m not aware of anything in that definition that the Ramban or other mainstream rishonim would disagree with.

Before I introduce some relevant sources from the Zohar, I should offer a couple of important ideas.

“Those are just meshalim”

The first - which I’ve addressed elsewhere - is the popular argument that you’re not meant to take the words of Zohar literally; they’re intended as meshalim.

I simply don’t understand that argument (translation: I believe it’s wrong). That’s never how meshalim work, right? Normally, an allegory is a tool for presenting a complex or challenging idea in a form that’s easier for the listener to understand and accept. The point is to help people understand things that they otherwise would have missed.

But according to the argument, the Zohar’s “meshalim” are the exact opposite. They use borderline-heretical ideas to mask what’s claimed to be a perfectly acceptable idea whose details, for some hidden reason, must never be shared! What evidence can you offer to support such an argument? And what possible good could come out of such a system?

The bottom line is that people who insist the Zohar is an authentic part of Torah and acknowledge that their heroes (like the Ari, R’ Chaim Vital, Ramchal, Nefesh Hachaim, etc.) fought to popularize its contents are constrained: they can’t defend difficult Zohar passages by telling us we should never have taken them seriously in the first place.

“You’re confusing different roles with different gods”

The second idea is a claim that deserves to be taken seriously. Many Zohar passages that, on the surface at least, appear to be referring to multiple gods, could simply be referring to multiple aspects or roles of a single god.

In some instances, careful attention will make it clear that that doesn’t fit the words themselves. But not every case will be so obvious.

Nevertheless, the bar proving compliance with mainstream halacha will be pretty high. After all, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai himself (Sanhedrin 63a) famously forbids treating anything as a partner with God (משתתף שם שמים בדבר אחר). And from the Gemara in Sukkah (45b) we learn that the principal applies to human prayer, which may only be directed to God.

If something is “distinct” enough to be an exclusive target for one or another type of service, then it’s probably also distinct enough to be considered דבר אחר.

This seems to be a high-priority issue. From the Gemara (Sanhedrin 38a) we can see that God rearranged the very order of creation itself (at least in part) to prevent the heretical idea that He had partners in His actions:

“Man was created erev Shabbos [i.e., at the end of the six days]. Why? So that heretics should not say that [man] was God’s partner in creation”

“You should only learn Zohar in-person from someone with a mesorah”

I can’t argue with that. The Rema himself (ספר תורת העולה) stressed in-person learning as an absolute requirement - while asserting that no such teacher existed even in that generation. In fact, that’s the problem. Every kabbalist alive today has - directly or indirectly - gained his knowledge from books rather than a living mesorah. By the Rema’s standard, there simply is no living mesorah.

So the current widespread and enthusiastic popularity of kabbala in its various forms is all (at best) book-based. The text is the only medium through which Zohar is understood and followed. Since that’s what lies behind every claim of authenticity, I have no choice but to work with the text to assess those claims.

“But so many great rabbis accepted the Zohar.”

That’s another legitimate point. In fact, I’ve written about this previously. Here’s a brief summary:

• Who said those rabbis were deeply familiar with the entire Zohar text?

• Do we have a direct and unambiguous record of those rabbis’ precise thoughts on the topic?

• Does “accepted” have to mean “I believe it’s literally true”?

Now we’re ready to explore some sources.

Zohar Parashas B’shalach 31

Here’s my translation:

Rabbi Aba said: why does it write (Shemos 17:7) “Is God in our midst or not?” Were the Jews such fools that they didn’t know this? Did they not see the Shechina before them, and did the clouds of glory not cover them? How could they say “Is God in our midst or not?” Men who saw the precious shine of their King on the sea, and (about whom) it’s taught that a slave girl saw on the sea things that Yechezkel didn’t see; could they have been such fools to say “Is God in our midst or not?”

Rather, this is what Rabbi Shimon said: they wanted to understand (the difference) between the Ancient One, hidden from all that’s hidden, which is called “Ayn,” and between Zeyr Anpin which is called God. And for that (reason), it doesn’t write “Is God in our midst or not (אם לא) – as it writes (Shemos 17:4) “Will they follow in My Torah or not”, but “Is God in our midst or Ayn”.

If so, why were they punished? Because they acted distant and because they tested God, as it says (Shemos 17:7) “And because they tested God.” The Jews said: “Should one thing happen we will ask using one approach, but should something else happen we will ask using a different approach.” For that it says (Shemos 17:8) “And Amalek came.”

That text clearly distinguishes between אין סוף - who, in Zoharic literature, was frequently associated with transcendence beyond partzufim - and the partzuf זעיר אנפין which is apparently the “elohim” to which humans should pray. That’ll give us a sharp distinction between two entities - each of which could be uniquely dominant (and approachable?) depending on external conditions - that will be difficult to square with our simple definition.

It’s true that concerned rabbis like the Shem M’Shmuel and Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (in the second volume of his עלי שור in the chapter entitled עמלק) offered inoffensive alternative readings of that passage. But neither reading is visibly reconcilable with the words themselves.

Zohar Parashas Teruma 125

(Text and translation from Sefaria)

At the time when Israel is proclaiming the unity-the mystery contained in the Shema-with a perfect intention, a light comes forth from the hidden supernal world, which divides into seventy lights, and those seventy lights into the seventy luminous branches of the Tree of Life.

Then the Tree and all the other trees of the Garden of Eden emit sweet odours and praise their Lord, for at that time the Matrona prepares Herself to enter under the shade of the canopy, there to unite herself with her Spouse; and all the supernal potencies unite in one longing and one will to be united in perfect union, without any separation soever. Then the Spouse makes ready likewise to enter the Canopy in order to unite Himself with the Matrona.

Throughout Zohar, “husband” is pretty much synonymous with Tiferet, Ze’ir Anpin, or Kudsha Brikh Hu. While “matrona” corresponds with Malchut or Shechina.

In that framing, אחד doesn’t mean the adjective “one”, but the noun “unification”. It’s not a declaration that there is only one God, but a belief that the recitation will unite two distinct divine entities.

Just a bit later (133)

The reunification here is further described as including Abba (partzuf of chochma) and Ima (partzuf of binah) and allowing only now for “him” to “feed her”. What the imagery makes clear is that at least the divine elements we’re describing are not equal to each other and at least the female element is not complete. Which, obviously, is not compatible with an all-powerful God - and hardly monotheistic.

In the very next section, they’re also depicted as quite separate and impacting mutually exclusive domains:

As He united Himself above according to six aspects, so also She unites Herself below according to six other aspects, so that the oneness may be completed, both above and below

Zohar Parashas Bo 5:126

And it is written “[Three times in the year] all your males should be seen before the face of the Lord, God.” Who is “the face of the Lord, God?” That is Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. For only the most manly of men need to be seen before him

I can’t think of any reasonable interpretation for those words that won’t cause some trouble. Apologists will claim that the passage is nothing more than a metaphor, hyperbole, or theophany. But the words say what the words say. And those words have been used to justify horrific practices.

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I think it’s fair to conclude that those Zohar passages aren’t a good fit with my working definition of monotheism. Perhaps you’ll prefer to work with an adjusted definition that can encompass the Zohar’s language. Or maybe you’ll argue that “monotheism” is an arbitrary construct that the Torah doesn’t actually require.

But all that’ll make arguing against Christian missionaries…awkward.

What do you think?

That new building you’ve long hoped for that would allow you to add a hundred new seats? Well could you prove that the children occupying those seats would receive a measurably better education as a result? How about doubling pay for all your rebbaim and teachers - or doubling their numbers? Done, except that you’ll need to show that it made a difference.

How would you even go about measuring the quality of the education you currently provide? As I’ve previously written, I’m not aware of any Torah schools that currently address this problem. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could know which curriculum and scheduling combinations actually worked? Why wouldn’t donors want their tzedaka to have the greatest impact possible?

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Measuring outcomes wouldn’t be easy. This is an area where even public schools struggle. They’ve got some minimal standardized testing, but it’s actively opposed (and sometimes sabotaged) by teachers unions.

I could imagine a world where all Torah schools tracked their graduates along with (confidential) assessments of what their post-graduation lives looked like. Ten years later, how many still devoted significant time and energy to Torah learning? How many reported being in stable marriages? How many were still frum? With enough data, we could correlate outcomes with policy choices (what real-world impact follows an extra hour of learning each day or starting Gemara a year earlier?).

The problem is that I couldn’t imagine a world where schools would agree to participate.

Perhaps, however, that world is closer than we think. I started thinking about this because there’s talk about upwards of $50 billion hitting the philanthropy world in the very near future. Many of the founders and engineers who stand to become fabulously rich from the coming OpenAI and SpaceX IPOs have pledged to donate a large percentage of their new wealth to charity.

Sure, not a lot of that money will find its way to Jewish causes. But the second order effects probably won’t be negligible. And in any case, there’s already an awful lot of tzedaka money cycling through the Jewish community with more coming.

This might be counter-intuitive, but spending millions of dollars is hard. Large charitable foundations often employ multiple professionals who are expected to identify potential projects, develop funding frameworks, oversee and audit program spending, and track outcomes. A charity law expert once told me that he’s suspicious of foundations that don’t spend at least 20 percent of their budgets on administration.

This is about more than just chinuch institutions. If I had $25 million a year to spend on tzedaka (spoiler alert: I don’t), I would want to make sure there weren’t any unmet needs being ignored in my community. That might mean hiring frum social workers to search for disadvantaged and marginalized individuals that no one else sees. It could also mean coming up with entirely new and innovative programs to solve problems no one knew we had.

There’s no end of opportunities out there for people of means, but the consequences of getting it wrong are scary.

One thing that does make sense for the rest of us is to anticipate what might be coming. I would expect that various roles adjacent to charitable project consulting will see high demand in coming years. The ability to deeply understand community dynamics, analyze data, and quickly cut through financial documents should prove valuable.

And a charitable organization that can demonstrate fiscal responsibility, self-awareness, and a desire to improve deserves attention and support.

But if you’d ask me, the best-known rationale for the custom is even more interesting than the custom itself. Here’s how the Magen Avraham (Orech Chaim 494) puts it:

“It’s said in the Zohar that the early chasidim would remain awake all of that night and engage in Torah study. Most Torah scholars now (follow) this practice. It’s possible to offer a straightforward reason for this: because the Jews (at Mt. Sinai) slept all that night and God had to wake them up - as is found in a Midrash - therefore, we need to fix this”

There are three distinct elements to this statement:

1. The Zohar identifies individuals who stayed up and learned.

2. There’s a Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabba 1:12) that suggests that the Jews slept the night before the Giving of the Torah.

3. It’s important, possible, and required to fix this (through a “tikun”).

From the Torah passage itself (Shemos 19:16-17) - along with Rashi’s comments - there’s no indication that the Jews’ had slept or done anything wrong. That God was portrayed as arriving before them is understood as an act in their honor. And the fact that Moshe needed to encourage the Jews to come out is expected: who wouldn’t be reluctant to just stroll out under such circumstances?

And if the Jews did sleep the night before, is that a problem? God created us with the biological need for sleep. Doing so before an important day so you’ll be fully alert just makes sense.

Even though that one Midrash hints at its mild disapproval of the sleeping Jews, I’m aware of no other source that shares the sentiment. And there’s certainly no suggestion of negative consequences.

Which brings us to the Magen Avraham’s final point. Somehow, by remaining awake and learning year after year, we’re fixing something that’s otherwise broken.

He doesn’t frame the issue in terms of overcoming any latent laziness that might impact our personal behavior. Nor does he suggest that it’s a matter of some lack of Torah knowledge that we’re meant to address (especially given the kabbalists’ preference for the ritualized and limited text of the תיקון ליל שבועות).

Instead, the Magen Avraham seems to claim that there’s some primal imperfection lying deep inside creation itself that needs exorcising in a transactional (theurgic) way. Apparently - like all tikkunim - the only way get the job done is through this exact performance.

This is interesting because it implies that all those Shavuos nights mentioned in the Zohar and the Shela - in fact, all the Shavuos nights through all the centuries - failed. After all, why should we still engage in fixing something that’s no longer broken?

So it seems that people stay up to learn on Shavuos night to correct for a night’s sleep that was by (nearly) all accounts entirely appropriate and to do it through the medium of a transactional ritual that’s proven to have failed when done by history’s greatest kabbalistic practitioners.

Odd.

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The primary source seems to be the Gemara in Bava Basra 12a. Let’s work through it one step at a time.

“Rabbi Avdimi from Haifa said: from the day the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from prophets and given to wise men (חכמים).”

Which Temple was that? It can’t refer to the first which was destroyed by Nevuchadnezer. That’s because Tanach contains prophecies delivered many decades subsequent to the destruction through individuals like Yirmiya, Yechezkel, Ezra, Chaggai, and Malachi. And there’s no record of prophecy anywhere near the end of the Second Temple period.

The Maharsha (a bit later in the Gemara) assumes that this Gemara uses “from the day the Temple was destroyed” as a figure of speech that’s to be understood to mean that prophecy didn’t exist through most of the Second Temple.

“Prophecy was taken from prophets and given to wise men. Is a wise man not a prophet? Rather, this is what was said: even though prophecy was taken from prophets, it was not taken from wise men.”

This implies that there were prophets during the prophetic age who were not wise. However, the Ramban points out that another Gemara (Nedarim 38a) sets wisdom as a prerequisite for prophecy:

אין הקב״ה משר׳ שכינתו אלא על חכם גבור ועשיר

“God only rests His Presence on someone who is wise, strong, and wealthy.”

Some (see Maharsha) answer by claiming that that restriction is only applied to ongoing prophecy, and not ad hoc revelations. The Ramban himself rejects that.

Instead, according to the Ramban the Gemara isn’t suggesting that non-chachamim were ever given prophecy, but that post-prophecy experiences came through wisdom (בדרך חכמה) rather than through visions and images. Ramban characterizes this as a temporary רוח הקדש שבקרבם event.

This Ramban is often referenced by people explaining various miraculous narratives. But it’s not at all obvious how that would help for specific claims of revelations from Eliyahu or maggidim. Those events (and many like them) don’t fit the descriptionרוח הקדש שבקרבם or דרך חכמה.

“Abaya offers proof [that prophecy is still available for wise men - Rashi]: a great man will say something that was also said in the name of another great man.”

According to Maharsha, the proof lies in the fact that two rabbis will independently arrive at the same halachic conclusions.

“Rava said: why is that a problem? Perhaps both (wise men) shared a single mazal.”

It’s difficult to be completely sure what role mazal plays here, but I’ve seen the suggestion that Rava is referring to a person’s basic nature and personality. The implication would be that it was their similarities that led the two wise men to the same conclusions rather than miraculous intervention.

“Rather, Rava asserts [that the proof for the ongoing existence of prophecy comes from] a great man whose conclusions align with Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef.”

Since it’s assumed that there’s no way that a later sage “shared a mazal” (was sufficiently similar) to the great Rabbi Akiva, the only explanation for similar logical outcomes is prophecy.

“Rav Ashi said: [how can you attribute such events to prophecy] perhaps [the two chronologically-distant sages] shared a mazal [only] in this particular matter.”

“Rather, Rav Ashi asserts [that the proof for the ongoing existence of prophecy comes from] a great man whose conclusions align with halacha l’Moshe m’Sinai [for which there certainly can be no shared mazal]. But perhaps [a matching conclusion is simply the result of] a blind man [finding the right way down from] an attic [which could occur accidentally from time to time]. But doesn’t [the later wise man] offer a logical explanation [for his conclusion]?”

In other words, the fact that later tanaim and (perhaps) amoraim were sometimes מכוון to incidents of הלכה למשה מסיני - and added their own logic - forces us to acknowledge that some measure of prophecy still existed at least in Talmudic times.

It’s obvious though that the Gemara itself makes no further explicit claims. Incidents of even “ניתנה לחכמים” inspiration are, by definition, extremely rare.

Well, there is one more claim:

“Rabbi Yochanan said, from the day that the Bais Hamikdash was destroyed, prophecy was taken from prophets and given to idiots and children”

But it’s reasonable to assume that the Gemara isn’t suggesting that whatever idiots and children might hear is seriously comparable to actual prophecy.1 In fact, the Maharsha wrote that such revelations are likely coming from demons (shadim).

There are obviously events described by Chazal where individuals communicate with Eliyahu Hanavi - and there’s no reason to assume that more recent interventions of that kind aren’t also theoretically possible. However, there’s also no “official” mechanism that would provide service-on-demand access to divine secrets outside of prophecy. And, as we’ve seen, prophecy is currently off the menu.

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But what happens when an authoritative meaning appears to be completely unstuck from its source? Why is it, in other words, that Chazal so often connect ideas to verses in Tanach even though there’s no obvious literal relationship?

I obviously have no problem with Chazal making derashos for halachic or didactic purposes. And the authority of those derashos doesn’t depend on whether or not I understand them. In fact, I’m comfortable with Chazal’s authority whether or not they associate a particular derasha with Tanach at all.

What I’m struggling to understand is where that leaves my ongoing relationship with Tanach. I’ve heard some people going so far as to say that we should assume our reading of Tanach verses is wrong and accept only what we hear directly from Chazal and the canonical commentators. I’m not a fan of that approach. In many cases, all you’d be doing is following the commentators’ curriculum and effectively ignoring the words of the prophets1 themselves.

Let me use some examples of this disconnect (from Chumash) to show you what I mean.

Health

The Gemara (Berachos 32b) famously quotes the Torah (Devarim 4:9 and 4:15) to suggest that there’s a mitzva for a Jew to protect his health. Although to be sure, as you’ll soon see, that Gemara is quoting a presumably non-Jewish official as its source:

“A chasid was once praying on the street. An officer approached and greeted [the chasid who] didn’t reply. [The officer] waited until [the chassid] finished his prayers and then said: Empty person! Does it not say in your Torah ‘Take great care and guard yourself’ [and it’s also] written ‘And guard yourself very carefully’”?

As it turns out, neither of those frequently invoked verses is discussing healthcare of any sort. Here’s the complete text of Devarim 4:9.

“Just take care and guard yourself carefully lest you should forget the words that your eyes saw and lest [those words] should be removed from your hearts all the days of your life. And you should transmit [those words] to your sons and grandsons.”

The care and protection required here is clearly referring to the Torah that the Jews had learned at Mt. Sinai and the events they had experienced. Here’s Devarim 4:15.

“And you should take great care for yourselves, for you did not see any image on the day God spoke to you at Chorev from the midst of the fire.”

Again, this is explicitly unrelated to health concerns and entirely focused on the Jewish national experience at Mt. Sinai. But that’s not the way ונשמרתם מאד לנפשתיכם is generally quoted in casual conversation (even the Rambam uses it in that non-literal way).

Astronomy

The Gemara (Shabbos 75a) asserts that there’s a Torah mitzva to use astronomical observations to calculate seasonal cycles:

“Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: How do we know that it is a mitzva for a man to calculate seasons and constellations? It says ‘And you shall guard and perform them, for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations.’ One would say: this [refers to] calculating seasons and constellations.”

However, from the verse itself, it’s difficult to see the connection. Here, for context, are both Devarim 4:5 and 4:6.

“See how I taught you statutes and judgments as the Lord my God commanded me, to act accordingly in the midst of the land that you are coming to possess.”

“And you shall guard and perform them, for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations that they should hear of all these statutes and [should] say: ‘What a wise and understanding people is that great nation!’”

The clear subject of “you shall guard and perform them” is not astronomical calculations, but all the details of all the laws of God that Moshe had taught us. And the kiddush hashem that will follow that general mitzva observance will come not from our astronomical expertise, but from the wisdom of a lived Torah law in daily practice.

Self Preservation

The Gemara (Bava Metziya 61b-62a) is where Rabbi Elazer and Rabbi Akiva argue over whether a court can force the return of interest that’s already been illegally paid (רבית קצוצה יוצאה בדיינין). Rabbi Elazer used the words וחי אחיך עמך (“so your brother shall live with you”) to teach that we must “return the interest [to the borrower] so he should live”.

The Gemara then asks what Rabbi Yochanan - who holds that courts can’t force the return of such interest - will do with those words:

“And what does Rabbi Yochanan do with ‘So your brother shall live with you’? He needs [those words] for the beraissa: Two people were walking on the road and one had a jug of water. If both drink, they’ll both die. If one drinks, he will reach a settlement [and survive]…Rabbi Akiva taught ‘So your brother shall live with you’ [to mean] your life comes before the life of your fellow.”

Now here’s the full text of Vayikra 25:36.

“Do not take from him usury or interest and fear your God so that your brother shall live with you.”

There’s little doubt that the “so that your brother shall live with you” part of the verse is meant to be the result of your consideration in not charging interest on your loans. And that leaves very little room for Rabbi Akiva’s derasha.

Sukkah

The Torah (Vayikra 23:42) teaches us who must live in the Sukkah and when the requirement exists.

“In huts you will live for seven days, every citizen in Israel will live in huts.”

Famously, the Gemara (Sukkah 6b) uses that verse in very non-literal ways to define the precise minimum dimensions that a sukkah must have:

I won’t bother translating all that - most of you are already familiar with the material. But there’s no obvious literal connection between the words themselves - even taking into account the defective and plene spelling variations (חסירות ויתירות). A Hebrew language expert of galactic renown who just dropped in from the Planet Mars would never be able to find any indications to those hints in the text.

Coins

As I recently wrote, the halacha follows a decidedly non-literal reading of Devarim 14:25. Here’s the verse itself:

And here’s a literal translation:

“And you will give it as silver and wrap up the silver in your hand and travel to the place that God will choose”

However, the Chachamim and Rabbi Akiva (Eruvin 31b) interpret וצרת הכסף to mean:

“Silver that has (been stamped) with an image”

In other words, state-authorized coins. But that, once again, would seem to run counter to the simple reading.

Those examples all come from Chumash. But my confusion has, if anything, been stronger in the context of learning the prophets. There may be fewer halachic considerations in Nach, but finding structure and big-picture coherence in, say Yirmiya, is hard. And being restricted to just the (often contradictory) commentaries doesn’t make it easy.

This is something I’ve written about elsewhere. And more than once. And the odds are that I’ll be back for more some time in the coming months and years.

But I would like to recommend some tools that can really help:

• Uncovering Sefer Yirmiyahu: An Archaeological, Geographical, Historical Perspective by the late, great Rabbi Yehuda Landy. This is a magnificent presentation of the background to Yirmiya relying on modern archeological, geographical, and literary tools. Rabby Landy’s Uncovering Sefer Yehoshua is also excellent.

• As I’ve written, Professor Joshua Berman’s The Book of Lamentations is an excellent example of the value of insights from modern scholarly work.

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