About Eulogies...

R' Adin Steinsaltz (Wiki)

I have been asked – or perhaps more accurately criticized - by both the right and the left for not mentioning the Petirah (passing) of two prominent religious figures. Both of whom deserve to be eulogized properly. They are Rav Adin Steinsaltz and more recently Rav Chaim Dov Keller. Perhaps my critics are right. 

Both of these great rabbis contributed much to the Jewish world each in their own way. Although I have an explanation for why I didn't eulogize them (which I will share shortly) it is really no excuse.to all who feel that I have somehow slighted these two greats. It was not because I had disagreements with them on some issues. It has nothing to do with that. It is rare if not impossible to agree with everything a great Rav has said or done, no matter how much one admires them. 

I did not eulogize them for one very simple reason.  I do not do eulogies for even great religious figures - unless I knew them personally or they had somehow impacted me personally in some significant way. There are for example some very prominent Chasidic Rebbes that have died recently that should be eulogized too. 

Just recently (for example) the Sadigerer Rebbe passed away. He was the head of a dynasty that stemmed from the Mezritcher  Magid, the Baal Shem Tov’s greatest disciple – and traces his lineage directly to him. I’m sure that his many Chasidim believed that he was among the greatest religious leaders of our time – if not the greatest. 

However, I did not eulogize him and many others for the reasons I just stated. That is my policy and in the future I will basically adhere to it. This blog is not really a source for news. It is an opinion blog.

That being said, as long I am talking about them I will say a few words about both R’ Steinsaltz and R’ Keller. 

Rav Steinsaltz is a Baal Teshuva extraordinaire! He was raised on an anti religious Kibbutz and with his brilliant mind found the truth of Judaism fairly early in life. He then proceeded to educate himself about it. 

He succeeded well beyond even the most optimistic expectations that anyone can imagine. He mastered Talmud Bavli better than the vast majority of students born into a lifetime of Torah study. He then published a Bavli Shas with punctuation and his own notes in Hebrew making it easier for students to study. 

That was later taken to the next level when his elucidated shas was published in English which many illustration  and brief biographies of the Talmudic figures mentioned therein. He was also respected by the wider Jewish community and would often accept sepakinh engagements in secular or heterodox environments.   

R' Chaim Dov Keller (TMA)

R’ Keller was involved early in the building of Telshe Yeshiva in Chicago. He joined them early (at the request of his brother in law, R’ Avrohom Chaim Levin, the founding Rosh HaYeshiva). 

R’ Keller began his advanced Talmud study at Yeshiva University (YU) and for a short while was a student of Rav Soloveitchik. He left YU  to join the more traditonal Yeshiva, Telshe in Wickliffe, Ohio. Together they built ‘Sniff Chicago’ (as they called this branch of Telshe) into a powerhouse Yeshiva that in my view outdid it’s parent Yeshiva in Wickliffe.

Unfortunately he lost his first wife, Rebbetzin Debbie Keller (R’ Levin’s sister) to cancer at a relatively young age (in her 50s if I recall correctly.) She was an iconic 1st grade teacher in Arie Crown Hebrew Day School whom 3 of my 4 children had. 

(On a personal note… when Arie Crown decided to separate the boys from the girls starting in 1^st grade instead of 5^th grade - she told me that she objected. Even though Torah u’Mesorah of which it was a member did not require it, Arie Crown was pressured do to it. But Rebbetzin Keller believed believed it a bad decision because the girls were a calming influence on the otherwise rowdy boys at that age.) 

R’ Keller’s forte was  in the written word (in English).  He was a frequent contributor to the Jewish ObservorJ on a variety of subjects. He was erudite, articulate, and critical of Orthodox movements  he believed were veering off his view of the  ‘straight and narrow’ path of Judaism. I recall one of his earlier pieces (dating back over 50 years ago) rejecting the arguments for ordaining women made by Orthodox Jewish feminist movements (which at the time was called ‘Women’s Liberation’). 

At the time I wrote a rebuttal to that which was published in the Sentinel (a local weekly Jewish news magazine - long since defunct). Yes, in my youth I once believed that female rabbis were OK and made an argument for it. But I have since realized I was wrong and am now firmly opposed for reasons beyond the scope of this post. 

There were other critical pieces. 

One was against the views expressed by R’ Aryeh Kaplan who defended the view of an aged universe as being on concert with both science and the Torah using sources from Torah, the sages of the Talmud, Rishonim, Achronim, and Kabbalah. 

He wrote a critical piece against the Theory of Evolution

He also wrote a crtical piece about some of Aish HaTorah’s Kiruv methods. 

Perhaps his most severe criticism was against Lubavitch’s obsession with their Rebbe. I recall one essay was titled something along the lines of ‘God Centered – Not Rebbe Centered’. 

He also strongly encouraged Rabbi David Berger in his crusade against Lubavitch Messianism.

The last of the great rabbinic figures of the 20^th century are slowly disappearing. They are being replaced by rabbis that prove the ancient adage of Niskatnu HaDoros - that each successive generation since the revelation at Sinai is of lesser stature than the previous one. This does not mean we don’t have leaders. What it does mean is that they do not measure up to the last generation. The era of the Rav, R’ Moshe is soon coming to en end.  Which is a sad realization for me.