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| The Burial place of R. Yitzchak Kalisz in Warka, Poland. |
Introduction
R. Yitzchak Kalisz of Warka (or Vorka) (1779-1848) was a friend of the Kotzker Rebbe. Unlike his friend, though, he rose quickly among the ranks of political activists and became the official representative, not just of Chassidim, but of all Polish Jewry in the early nineteenth century.
This article – based extensively on the research by Professor Marcin Wodzinski[1] − deals with how the Chassidic Rebbe, R. Yitzchak Warka (a student of R. Simcha Bunim of Przysucha) suddenly found himself regarded as the most influential Jewish representative in Poland. In those days, Jewish communal affairs and politics were known as ‘shtadlanut.’ From the mid-1830s, Polish ‘shtatlanut’ was dominated by R. Yitzchak Warka and his hometown, Warka, was regarded as the Chassidic capital of Poland.
The new order in Poland
In the past, politics in Poland (and in Jewish Poland particularly) was often settled in back-rooms and the payment of bribes was considered a normal ‘down payment’ and par for the course. After the turbulent period of the Polish partitions (1772–95) and with the advent of political astuteness, much of the old way of negotiating had changed and, at least technically, Jewish-Polish interactions were conducted within the confines of the law − as Poland began to adopt a ‘universal’ legal system and became officially tolerant of all its religions.
Preventing the burning of Choshen Mishpat
Apparently, not everyone bought into the new era of
religious tolerance, and there was an attempt to burn sections of the Shulchan
Aruch (Code of Law), known as Choshen Mishpat. A committee was set
up to determine how to deal with this matter:
“The chairman of the committee, Jan A. Radominski, suggested in the final report that the government should order a list of errata to be printed for all of the 2,380 copies of the book remaining in Poland. According to Radominski, the list should explain that the rules of Hoshen mishpat were not relevant to Christians and it should be signed by the rabbis of Lublin, Kalisz…and Warka… The government did not accept this suggestion” (Wodzinski 2005:295, footnote 18).
Nevertheless, R. Yitzchak Warka stepped in and with his newly amassed team of political advisors and bourgeoning diplomats, managed to intercede and prevent the burning of the books. R. Yitzchak Warka did not work alone. He created what might be called a ‘legal department.’ Poland was now operating according to a modern legal system and to communicate with the authorities, one had to speak the language of law. One of his advisors was Mordecai Motele Michelson who assisted in the matter and succeeded in averting the burning of Choshen Mishpat.
Eruvin, Shabbat boundaries
Shabbat boundaries, or Eruvin, are often constructed in cities with Jewish populations, to allow for carrying on the Sabbath. The boundaries make use of existing structures where possible but inevitably require the use of poles, strings and chains to demarcate and enclose the area. City officials often object to such artificial structures. In 1818, the Polish Ministry of Education determined that not only were aesthetics the issue but that the Eruv was considered the result of a superstitious belief (see Kotzk Blog: 397) Italian Chasidim, coffee, chocolates and Sabbatians). The decision to remove the Eruv, however, only came into effect in 1834 when it was declared that the Eruv was ‘disfiguring’ the city and must be removed.
R. Yitzchak Warka and his aides sprang into action and within two weeks during March 1835, seven letters written by the same scribe were sent to the officials explaining that the Eruv was not a superstition but a requirement of the law. This affected a number of Polish cities and is an indication that R. Yitzchak Warka was speaking on behalf of all the Jews of Poland.
R. Yitzchak Warka was not just appealing for an expression of goodwill from the authorities because he legally argued the case for the Eruv according to Polish law:
“[G]iven that the constitutional statute (Statut Organiczny) guaranteed tolerance and legal protection for all religions, it should be permitted….[and] if the laws that required the enclosure of all vacant properties with fences were to be duly enacted, the displaying of eruvin in the main streets would be unnecessary, as fences would perform that function and eruvin could be constructed tastefully on side streets only” (Wodzinski 2005:296-7).
This way R. Yitzchak Warka argued from a position of strength and placed the legal onus on the government by “claiming that official inaction gave the Jews no alternative” (ibid.). Eventually, the authorities permitted Eruvin to be established in cities and towns not surrounded by a wall or moat. An official ordinance dated June 26/July 8, 1835, became the basis of future Polish legislation surrounding Eruvin.
Kosher meat
Another area where R. Yitzchak Warka acted as the main representative of Polish Jewry was regarding Kosher meat. In 1839, R. Yitzchak Warka petitioned the government to allow for Jewish inspectors, or ne’emanim, to supervise kosher meat. This was to prevent the common occurrence of non-kosher meat being sold as kosher meat because of the requirement to tax kosher meat. Because of governmental revenues from the tax, the Jewish community had no control over its butchers nor the determination of its meat as kosher.
Eventually, the central Polish government, in response to R. Yitzchak Warka, relinquished their control over the kosher butcheries and handed it over to the local governmental authorities. The Government Commission replied:
‘‘[T]he establishment of separate
butcher stalls for the sale of kosher meat as well as the appointment of
inspectors to ensure that non-kosher meat is not sold as kosher meat is a
matter for the police authorities in the city concerned’’ (Archiwum Głowne Akt
Dawnych).
The authorities eventually ruled that only supervised kosher meat be taken to kosher stores. The government, however, was aware of Jewish exploitation of the sale of kosher meat. It declared:
“[O]n more than one occasion the Jewish butchers, for the most part of the low and ignorant classes, have exploited the community’’ (Archiwum Głowne Akt Dawnych).
But R. Yitzchak of Warka strategically played devil’s advocate:
“[He] emphasized that the difference in the price of kosher and non-kosher meat was sufficiently great that it was not possible to place any trust in the honesty of the butchers and allow them to be judges in their own affairs…The Government Commission took into account a number of opinions and, a year later, responded favorably to Isaac’s request” (Wodzinski 2005:303).
Here again, R. Yitzchak Warka did not plead for compassion from the authorities but argued the case of kosher meat on the merits of the constitutional guarantee of religious tolerance in Poland. He also argued, strategically, that better regulation of the sale of kosher meat would: 1) yield a great tax benefit for the government itself; 2) protect Jews from breaking the laws of their own faith and enshrine the constitutional protection of religious rights; and 3) he further suggested that giblets (edible offal of a fowl) be exempt from the kosher government tax to support the poorer members of the Jewish community. R. Yitzchak Warka, a Chassidic Rebbe, had become a statesman. Instead of asking for favours, he boldly and professionally advocated for an increase in government taxes; demanded conformity to constitutional law; and championed social order by exempting the poor from taxes.
The unofficial Polish Chief Rabbi
The discussion over the meat issue dragged out over some years but in the process, R. Yitzchak Warka was granted power of attorney by various rabbis of Jewish communities in different cities, to officially represent the entire Jewish community. In a sense, he became their informal Chief Rabbi. Being a Chassidic Rebbe, this prestige enhanced the image of Chassidim in Poland who had generally been regarded as the lower strata of Jewish society. But now, when the authorities wanted to communicate with the Jewish community, they wrote directly to R. Yitzchak Warka.
Not all rabbis were happy with this state of affairs. There were many Mitnagdim (non-Chassidim) residing in Poland, and they were not all happy with this de facto spokesperson representing them. R. Yitzchak Warka, however, held a trump card. If the Mitnagdim wanted control of the kashrut of the meat and to maintain their Eruvin, they had to tolerate the power of attorney granted to R. Yitzchak Warka, the Chassidic Rebbe, to negotiate on their behalf.
The rights of rabbis to represent their communities
Communicating with a rabbi was most extraordinary and had never been done before as the government had previously contacted the formal Jewish communal authorities:
“In accordance with the law, the rabbi of a provincial town was not a provincial rabbi (no such position existed). Rabbis were only functionaries in their community; they did not represent it, even in religious matters. It was the community board that acted in this capacity. In fact, in 1840 the government still was refusing categorically to recognize the right of rabbis to represent their Jewish communities” (Wodzinski 2005:301).
Yet, from the early 1840s, R. Yitzchak Warka was granted direct access to the Viceroy of the Kingdom, General Ivan Paskevich.
The appointment of rabbis
R. Yitzchak Warka also became quite creative when it came to the official appointment of rabbis. In Poland, the appointment of rabbis was state-controlled and regulated.
“The candidate had to pass an examination before the board of the Warsaw Rabbinical School, win an election process overseen by a magistrate, obtain a certificate from at least two rabbis and the local authorities testifying to his law-abidingness, and cover the cost of the license fee. The state authorities were anxious to appoint a rabbi in every Jewish community, as he was needed to oversee the Register of Births, Deaths, and Marriages and to ensure the proper functioning of the kosher meat tax…[The rabbi also had] to prove his knowledge of the Polish language, as well as of the history of the Jewish people and geography, Hebrew language, Talmud, and Bible.” (Wodzinski 2005:306-7).
The government had threatened the Jewish community that if they did not abide by these regulations, they would simply appoint their own rabbis for the various communities. These requirements for rabbinic positions had often been abused by rabbinical candidates who would send others to take the examinations in their place. R. Yitzchak Warka, however, had engendered sufficient trust that the government relied on his issuing of certificates to those he considered worthy and qualified rabbis.
But sometimes, R. Yitzchak Warka proved quite innovative in his rabbinic oversight. On one occasion he signed a contract as the rabbi of Czyzew. Czyzew was more than two hundred kilometres away from Warka, where he was already the rabbi. He was also the rabbi of Nadarzyn. In his contract with the community of Czyzew, he stipulated that he would not reside in the town and instead, he would appoint Chaim Joskowicz Indes as an honourary rabbi who would not accept remuneration for his rabbinic services. Indeed the community records of Czyzew do not reflect that any money was ever paid to the assistant rabbi. In truth, the assistant rabbi was supported by “an unrecorded, extra-budgetary source,” and since this arrangement worked well, “the government willingly turned a blind eye to it.” The authorities knew that Czyzew had always been a difficult city to allocate a rabbi because it was divided between Chassidim and Mitnagdim who had clashed badly in the past. They had threatened to impose their own ‘crown rabbi’ if the situation was not resolved.
R. Yitzchak Warka, himself, remained within the letter, albeit not the spirit of the law:
“Despite its obviously fictitious nature, the agreement was in accordance with the law…The law…did not require him to be resident in the place of the rabbinate and it did not stipulate whether or not the rabbi of one Jewish community could or could not be the rabbi of another…[also] the honorary assistant rabbi…did [not have] to pass examinations” (Wodzinski 2005:308-9).
The mask is removed
The image of R. Yitzchak Warka as a noble but crafty statesman rubbing shoulders with Polish nobility came at a price. As mentioned, he had a circle of professional and adept advisors who understood law and politics. In many ways, he was the face of a much larger organisation that operated in the shadows.
On one occasion, we see evidence of R. Yitzchak Warka acting entirely on his own without the support of his advisors. In one of his letters, dated July 1841, he clearly is acting independently. The letter is meant for the Government Commission for Internal and Religious Affairs. He asks that the government not transport Jewish prisoners on the Sabbath and requests permission for them to maintain their beards and payers. However, the letter is addressed to the Government Commission for Internal Affairs and Police, a now-defunct department that has not been referred to by that name for ten years:
“[T]he sentences contain grammatical and spelling errors, the handwriting is inexpert, the line of argument loose and lacking in logic and, most importantly, the argument is not supported by legal citations…[T]his intervention did not succeed. The poorly prepared proposal allowed the Government Commission to dismiss it without any major difficulties. The commission replied…that his objections were too generalized and that, because of a lack of information about actual cases of violations of religious freedoms, the complaints could not be investigated” (Wodzinski 2005:310-11).
The letter shows that without his back office of advisors, R. Yitzchak Warka did not know Polish very well nor understand the intricate mechanisms of Polish law as everyone had assumed till now.
“The inexpert nature of the letter also proves that the previously mentioned, and highly successful, letters concerning divorce law or the appointment of inspectors cannot have come directly from Isaac’s hand…The temporary absence of these highly qualified assistants resulted in Isaac’s action failing” (Ibid.).
Chassidim and Mitnagdim
The story of R. Yitzchak Warka cannot be fully understood outside of the context of Chassidic-Mitnagdic relations. Before the 1820s, the Mitnagdim were the dominant group of orthodox Jews in Poland:
“[B]etween the 1820s and the 1840s Hasidism in Poland grew from less than 10 percent to one-third of the total Jewish population and, what was more significant, for the first time aspired to take over positions of power in many Jewish communities throughout the country” (Wodzinski 2005:320).
In the earlier period of Mitnagdic dominance, the Jewish communities were run by the official organisation known as the Kahal. The Poles had succeeded in undermining the autonomy of the Kahal and it became an ineffective organisation representing Jewish interests. The Kahal eventually dissolved, leaving the Mitnagdim – although, at that stage still the vast majority of the Jewish community − quite powerless. In this vacuum, it was:
“the adherents of the Hasidic movement, with their more competent political performance and better grasp of the political realia…who succeeded in securing for themselves the position of political representatives of Jewish society” (Wodzinski 2005:318).
The irony was that the Chassidim were feared by the government as a dangerous source of fanaticism and even as a “potential threat to social order” compared to the Mitnagdim:
“[T]he Hasidim [however] were able to occupy the position of representative of the entire Jewish population in relation to the government, without even revealing their Hasidic affiliation” (Wodzinski 2005:319).
R. Yitzchak Warka never revealed his affinity to the Chassidic movement and simply presented himself as the mainstream representative of the Jewish community. The authorities did not perceive him as a representative of Chasidism but of the whole Jewish population.
Other Chassidic leaders followed similar courses of action and also became successful and effective leaders. In fact, it was the Chassidic leaders, particularly, who:
“turned out to be highly successful political activists, able to manipulate the Polish legal system to their own ends…” (Wodzinski 2005:320).
Analysis
Wodzinski (2005:320) concludes that this adeptness at political activism “became…the most characteristic feature of the Polish Hasidism.” It was because of the ability and willingness of the Chassidim to adapt to new methods of political activism, and to clothe that activism in professional and legalistic garb, that Poland became one of the greatest centres of Chassidism.
Woszinski’s observation is most significant and it seems that one can extend that to apply not just to historical Polish Chassidim but to contemporary Chassidim as well. One notices echoes of this same style of strategic political activism still prevalent, if not perfected, amongst groups of Chassidim to this day. This continues to account for their popular success on the world stage.
I remember hearing that although the Kotzker Rebbe and R. Yitzchak
of Warka were friends, they disagreed on many matters and may even have eventually
fallen out of favour with each other. Perhaps the Kotzker Rebbe’s
uncompromising commitment to the truth did not allow for associations with
those whose forays entered the murky realms of politics and statesmanship where
spirit and letter of the law sometimes diverged.
[1]
Wodzinski, M., 2005, ‘Hasidism, Shtadlanut, and Jewish Politics in
Nineteenth-Century Poland: The Case of Isaac of Warka’, Jewish Quarterly Review,
vol. 92, no. 2, 290–320.
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