The content of the weekly Torah portion inspired philosophers, writers, poets, composers, and artists in an epitome of creative culture. The creation of culture is a creation of a world. When we speak of the Torah as a source of inspiration for thinkers, writers, and artists, we are in fact recapitulating the words of the Sages, who said that the Torah preceded the world and was the inspiration for all creation... Men and women who have wished to resemble God have looked into the Torah and built their own creative worlds. That is what the Rabbis of the Talmud and the Midrash, Saadiah Gaon, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Hume, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Rembrandt and many others have done.

Philosophers, writers, painters, composers and poets, thinkers and artists have all looked into the Torah and created worlds. The idea of reversing the sequence of events, of the Torah having preceded the world, has deep dialogical roots. The Torah was given at Sinai, but Sinai, according to this approach, is not a one time historical event sublime and momentous, but nonetheless a part of the past. It is rather, a source of hope for the future.

Wisdom by the Week

The Weekly Torah Portion as an Inspiration for Thought and Creativity

THE MICHAEL SCHARF PUBLICATION TRUST OF THE YESHIVA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Yeshiva University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60280-199-8

Contents

Introduction: Culture Creates Culture Naftali Rothenberg..................................................xiParashat Bereshit Hamutal Bar-Yosef on A.B. Yehoshua.....................................................3Parashat Noah David Ohana on Nehama Leibowitz, Yitzhak Danziger..........................................11Parashat Lekh-lekha Gitit Holzman on Elia Benamozegh.....................................................23Parashat Vayera Hagai Dagan on Soren Kierkegaard.........................................................34Parashat Hayei Sarah Eliezer Schweid on Nahmanides, Maimonides, A. D. Gordon.............................40Parashat Toledot Irit Aminof on Rabbi Yohanan, Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish...................................56Parashat Vayetze Yeshaya Steinberger on Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler..........................................73Parashat Vayishlah Erella Yedgar on Nehama Leibowitz.....................................................85Parashat Vayeshev Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar) on Nahman of Breslov.................................101Parashat Vayigash Eliezer Schweid on Isaac Abravanel.....................................................128Parashat Vayehi Yeshaya Steinberger on Yitzhak Hutner....................................................144Parashat Shernot Pnina Galpaz-Feller on Sigmund Freud....................................................163Parashat Va'era Bryna Levy on Samuel David Luzzatto......................................................174Parashat Bo Shlomo Tikochinski on Nahmanides.............................................................185Parashat Beshalah Yehoyada Amir on Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Buber...........................................195Parashat Yitro Yehoyada Amir on Franz Rosenzweig.........................................................205Parashat Mishpatim Yotam Benziman on Martin Buber........................................................213Parashat Terumah Hava Pinhas-Cohen on Shmuel YosefAgnon..................................................223Parashat Tetzaveh Elhanan Yakira on Barukh Spinoza.......................................................237Parashat Ki Tissa Yair Tzaban on Ber Borochov............................................................258Parashat Vayakhel Avi Katzman on Mordecai Kaplan.........................................................272Parashat Pekudei Benzi Schreiber on Avraham Krol.........................................................281Parashat Vayikra Shmuel Wygoda on Emmanuel Levinas.......................................................295Parashat Tzav Warren Zev Harvey on Gersonides............................................................307Parashat Shemini Michael Zvi Nehorai on A.I. Kook........................................................317Parashat Tazri'a Jacob J. Schacter on Joseph B. Soloveitchik.............................................324Parashat Metzora Naftali Rothenberg on the Hafetz Hayim..................................................332Parashat Aharei Mot Avigdor Shinan on an Anonymous Thinker...............................................344Parashat Kedoshim Reuven Gerber on A.I. Kook.............................................................359Parashat Emor Nahum Rakover on A.I. Kook.................................................................375Parashat Behar Benjamin Brown on the Hazon Ish...........................................................394Parashat Behukotai Tsvia Walden on Abraham Joshua Heschel................................................404Parashat Bamidbar Gili Zivan on Rosenzweig, Fromm, Leibowitz.............................................415Parashat Naso Shalom Ratzaby on A. D. Gordon.............................................................427Parashat Beha'alotekha Hanoch Ben Pazi on Yitzhak Hutner.................................................445Parashat Shelah-lekha Yoske Achituv on Hayim of Volozhin.................................................457Parashat Korah Avinoam Rosenak on A. I. Kook, Yeshayahu Leibowitz........................................476Parashat Balak Yossi Turner on Nahman Krochmal...........................................................493Parashat Pinhas Yedidyah Yitzhaki on Spinoza, Locke, A.I. Kook...........................................506Parashat Matot Reuven Gerber on A. D. Gordon.............................................................519Parashat Mas 'ei Michael Zvi Nehorai on I.J. Reines......................................................531Parashat Devarim Hagai Dagan on Hans Jonas...............................................................541Parashat Va'ethanan Marla L. Frankel on Samson Raphael Hirsch............................................548Parashat Ekev Alvin I. Schiff on Ovadiah Sforno..........................................................571Parashat Re'eh Einat Ramon on Judith Plaskow.............................................................577Parashat Shofiim Hannah Kasher on Joseph Ibn Kaspi.......................................................585Parashat Ki Teze Rachel Elior on Dalia Rabikovitz........................................................596Parashat Ki Taro Christoph Schmidt on Hermann Cohen......................................................613Parashat Nitzavim Chaniel Farber on the Hafetz Hayim.....................................................626Parashat Vayelekh Lea Mazor on Shulamith Hareven.........................................................638Parashat Ha'azinu Moshe Sokolow on Solomon Ephraim Luntschitz............................................653Parashat Vezot Naftali Rothenberg on Haberakhah the Meshekh Hokhmah......................................662Biographies...............................................................................................671List of Authors...........................................................................................691

Chapter One

Hamutal Bar-Yosef

Bereshit – In the Beginning

Abraham B. Yehoshua on the Story of Cain and Abel

If thou doest well, thou shalt prevail; and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it (Genesis 4:7).

A.B. Yehoshua is best known in Israel as one of the most important authors of his generation—the generation of the birth of the Jewish state (dor ha-medinah). His approach to Israeli reality is rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis. During the 1960s and 70s, Yehoshua saw an Israeli experience characterized by complexes, a subconscious, pathological repression, and a need for psychotherapy in order to recover its sanity. This approach is clearly reflected in his collection of essays Between Right and Right (Bizkhut ha-normaliyut) (1980), in which he attempts to define Zionist goals in psychoanalytical terms, that is sane Israeli existence, free from Diaspora complexes and all types of spiritual and behavioral extremism. The views that Yehoshua expresses in this series of essays and in another collection entitled The Wall and the Mountain (Ha-kir ve-ha-har) represent the standpoint of secular Israeli Zionism, which aspires above all to afford Israelis the possibility of living quiet and productive lives in their own land, free of the...