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| Milk urns used to bury documentation form the Warsaw Ghetto as part of the Ringelblum Archives |
Note: This article deals with an unusual and peripheral view that the biblical Sarah committed suicide after she heard that her son Isaac was bound on the altar. Suicide is a serious problem in many communities, and ours is no different. Reference to Sarah’s alleged suicide as a ‘virtue’ must be understood within the historical and literary context in which this idea was fermented, and not in any way as a practical religious sanction of such an act. I deal with it here knowing full well that ideas are dangerous, but equally aware that withholding them is more so.
Introduction
This article—based extensively on the research by Rabbi Professor Daniel Reiser—examines an unusual Chassidic interpretation of the biblical Sarah’s death as a suicide. This idea is to be found in the writings of the Piaseczno[1] Rebbe, Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889-1943), produced while he was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. According to Reiser (2021:7):
“Sarah died in order to demonstrate to God that her excessive suffering in the wake of Isaac’s near sacrifice was absolutely unbearable.”
In Shapira’s lived experience, he seemed to identify with Sarah, whom he interpreted as demonstrating that with the episode of the Akeidah—the sacrifice of Isaac—God had pushed humanity too far.
Background
Shapira came from a respected family of Chassidic Rebbes. His father was R. Elimelekh Shapira (the Grodzisker Rebbe, 1824–1892) and his mother, Chana Bracha, was the daughter of R. Chaim Shemu’el of Chęciny (the Chentshiner[2] Rebbe). Shapira’s father had passed away while he was still a young child, and he was raised by R. Yerachmiel Moshe Hopstein (the Kozhnitzer Rebbe,[3] 1860–1909), who later became his father-in-law when he married his daughter, Rachel Chayah Miriam.
In 1913, Shapira became the rabbi of Piaseczno, just outside Warsaw, and in 1923, he established one of the largest Chassidic yeshivot in Warsaw, Daas Moshe, in honour of the Kozhnitzer Rebbe, Yerachmiel Moshe Hopstein, who raised him. The yeshiva was home to more than three hundred students.
In a previous article, we discussed the radically anti-Zionist letter (which I translated into English) by the sixth Rebbe of Chabad—also in 1923—directed against the Rebbes of Gur and Radzin (the Ishbitzer), who were members of Agudat Yisrael [see: Kotzk Blog: 505) Michtav Oz Shel Torah: A 1923 Anti-Zionist Polemical Letter by R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson]. Adudat Yisrael was an organisation of Orthodox rabbis who encouraged immigration to the Land of Israel. Shapira also belonged to Adudat Yisrael, and he even bought land in Kefar (now Kitryat) Ata. Shapira’s brother, Yeshayahu, was a member of Mizrachi and was known as the ‘Pioneer Rebbe.’ This illustrates some of the internal rabbinic tensions and politics playing out in Poland during the early 1920s.
Shapira’s wife, Rachel Chaya Miryam
Rebbetzin Rachel Chaya Miryam became an iconic female figure for Chassidim, something most unusual for the conservative Chassidic movement. Shapira acknowledges how his wife actively participated in his literary endeavours:
“My spouse, the Rebbetzin, the righteous, Madame Rachel Chaya
Miriam…read this [book], as she read several of my other writings, and made comments that spurred me to expand and clarify”
(Shapira, Mevo haShearim, 21b).
Shapira also describes his wife as extremely knowledgeable in Chassidut and Kabbalah, something, again, most unusual for Chassidim who did not generally regard women as ‘Chassidim.’ In a previous article [Kotzk Blog: 383) Traces of a messianic feminist revolution in Chabad ideology] it was shown that the late Lubavitcher Rebbe was the first to include women in the term ‘Chassidim’—however, Shapira indeed referred to his wife as a ‘Chassidah,’ some decades earlier. It would have been most irregular for Shapira to have praised his wife for studying and mastering Chassidut and Kabbalah, especially since, in those earlier years, that literature would have been “forbidden to women” (Reiser 2021:9).
At her funeral, the Chassidim wept and declared “Mame, di Mame fun ḥasidim is avek (Mother, the mother of the Chasidim is gone).” This was not just respectful praise of Rachel Chaya Miriam, but genuine spiritual reverence, because she actually assumed the stature of a Chassidic ‘Rebbe’ in her own right.
Other acclaimed women in Shapira’s family
Rachel Chaya Miriam was not the only woman to be accorded such lofty religious status in a largely patriarchal society. In the same family, there were other women as well who were deeply revered. Shapira’s maternal grandmother, Sarah Horowitz Sternfeld (1838–1937), became known as the Chentshiner Rebbetzin. When her husband passed away in 1916, she conducted herself as the Rebbe for over two decades. The Chassidim would present her with kvitlech (notes with requests and petitionary prayers), as common with other Rebbes. She also prayed with a minyan (prayer quorum) three times a day and advised her Chassidim on their day-to-day affairs.
Shapira’s great-grandmother was Perl, the daughter of the Kozhnitzer Magid (1737-1814)—a towering figure in the third generation of the Chasidic movement—who was also revered and considered to have spiritual powers exceeding those of men.
According to Nechemia Polen (1992:7-8), Shapira took a positive attitude toward women’s religious activities, including their taking upon themselves certain “masculine halakhic obligations,” usually reserved solely for men.
The Holocaust
During the Nazi Holocaust, Shapira found himself in the Warsaw Ghetto. He hid his writings lest they be lost or destroyed. He was offered a number of opportunities to escape the Ghetto, but he chose to remain with his people. He wrote:
“I will not abandon my Chasidim at such a difficult time” (in Polen 1992:7).
On September 21, 1940, he wrote:
“When others see that I find strength even amid my immense troubles, a fortiori, they, too, will find strength amid their troubles, which are not as bitter as mine” (in Reiser 2017:152).
Shapira was sent to Trawniki work camp, and it is believed he was shot in the forest on November 3, 1943.
The discovery of his hidden writings
In 1950, a fascinating collection of documents that was almost lost to history was discovered by workers on a construction site in Warsaw. They were digging in the ground and happened to unearth two aluminium milk urns. These contained 9 829 well-preserved pages of documentation, including the handwritten manuscripts hidden by R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapira. These writings were later published under the title Eish Kodesh (Holy fire). Reisner published a critical edition of this work in 2017.
Ringelblum Archives
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| Unearthing parts of the hidden archive after the War |
The Shapira documents were part of a broader collection of some 35 000 documents found in what became known as the ‘Ringelblum Archives.’ The historian, Dr Emanuel Ringelblum, was also confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, and he gathered writers, teachers and social scientists and encouraged them to record the history of a world they knew would soon be forgotten. They formed a historical society called ‘Oneg Shabbos,’ because they met on Shabbat to discuss their work. Their goal was to preserve and document anything and everything of their lives, hide it in milk urns and boxes, bury it, and hope that someday in the future their archives would be discovered [see: About the Ringelblum Archive \ Research \ The Ringelblum Archive and the Oneg Shabbat group \ About the Ringelblum Archive \ Żydowski Instytut Historyczny].
Shapira’s writings on the suicide of Sarah
Perhaps, against this background, we can better understand Shapira’s notion of what he describes as the suicide of Avraham’s wife, Sarah, after she heard about the near-sacrifice of her son Isaac (or, on softer readings of Shapira, a “type of suicide” where she chose to let her soul depart). Don Seeman (2008), for example, is reluctant to describe Shapira’s characterisation of Sarah’s death as a suicide. Instead, Sarah “allowed” herself to die of grief. Reiser describes the suicide as follows:
“Suicide here does not mean that Sarah jumped off a cliff, but rather that she actively decided to take the situation to heart and die, although she had the ability to restrain herself” (Reiser 2021:23, n.43).
Later, Reiser (2021:16) builds a stronger argument by stating that these distinctions as to how Sarah died or allowed herself to die do “not seem to make a significant difference.”
“[Shapira’s] disturbing potency is seriously undercut if Sarah’s death is not characterized as a suicide, since it is “performed by her,” “for the benefit of Israel,” and yet she had not “sinned” for cutting her life short. What “sin” would that be, if not suicide?” (Reiser citing Shapira, Sermons, 91).
Reiser goes on to explain—paradoxically—that according to Shapira:
“In her situation, even putting an end to her own life, which is forbidden by the Torah, was an act of virtue” (Reiser 2021:15).
This is because, as Shapira suggests, this suicide was a protest within faith, to impress upon God that the suffering imposed on Israel was intolerable. This is clearly a radical reading (whichever way one chooses to interpret it), as suicide is strictly forbidden under Jewish law—and even if we are careful to say that Sarah committed a “type of suicide,” any type of active suicide is strictly prohibited in Judaism (Reiser 2021:18).
Wider parallel sources
James Diamond points out that there may even be a rabbinic source that suggests that Avraham kept the binding of Isaac a secret for fear that his wife, Sarah, might try to commit suicide if she found out:
מָה אֶעֱשֶׂה, אִם אֲגַלֶּה לְשָׂרָה, נָשִׁים דַּעְתָּן קַלָּה עֲלֵיהֶן בְּדָבָר קָטָן, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן בְּדָבָר גָּדוֹל כָּזֶה. וְאִם לֹא אֲגַלֶּה לָהּ וְאֶגְנְבֶנּוּ מִמֶּנָּה בְּעֵת שֶׁלֹּא תִרְאֶה אוֹתוֹ, תַּהֲרֹג אֶת עַצְמָהּ
“If I tell Sarah all about it, consider what may happen. After all, a woman’s mind becomes distraught over insignificant matters; how much more disturbed would she become if she heard something as shocking as this! However, if I tell her nothing at all, and simply steal him away from her when she is not looking, she will kill herself” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayera 22:6; see also Yalkut Shimoni 98).
The notion of Sarah’s suicide may also have been subtly foreshadowed by Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer (32:8):
וּכְשֶׁבָּא אַבְרָהָם מֵהַר הַמּוֹרִיָּה, חָרָה אַפּוֹ שֶׁל סָמָאֵל, שֶׁרָאָה שֶׁלֹּא עָלְתָה בְּיָדוֹ תַּאֲוַת לִבּוֹ לְבַטֵּל קָרְבָּנוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם. מֶה עָשָׂה? הָלַךְ וְאָמַר לְשָׂרָה: ״אִי שָׂרָה, לֹא שָׁמַעַתְּ מַה שֶּׁנַּעֲשָׂה בָּעוֹלָם?״ אָמְרָה לוֹ: ״לָאו״. אָמַר לָהּ: ״לָקַח אִישֵׁךְ הַזָּקֵן לַנַּעַר יִצְחָק וְהִקְרִיבוֹ לְעוֹלָה, וְהַנַּעַר בּוֹכֶה וּמְיַלֵּל שֶׁלֹּא יָכוֹל לְהִנָּצֵל״. מִיָּד הִתְחִילָה בּוֹכָה וּמְיַלֶּלֶת, בָּכְתָה שָׁלֹשׁ בְּכִיּוֹת כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ תְּקִיעוֹת, שָׁלֹשׁ יְלָלוֹת כְּנֶגֶד שָׁלֹשׁ יְבָבוֹת, וּפָרְחָה נִשְׁמָתָהּ וּמֵתָה
“When Abraham returned from Mount Moriah in peace, the anger of Sammael (an evil angel) was kindled, for he saw that the desire of his heart to frustrate the offering of our father Abraham had not been realised. What did he do? He went and said to Sarah: Have you not heard what has happened in the world? She said to him: No. He said to her: Your husband, Abraham, has taken your son Isaac and slain him and offered him up as a burnt offering upon the altar. She began to weep and to cry aloud three times, corresponding to the three sustained notes (of the Shofar), and (she gave forth) three howlings corresponding to the three disconnected short notes (of the Shofar), and her soul fled, and she died.”
What is unique about Shapira, however, is that he joins the dots and seems to go further than any earlier rabbinic literature had been prepared to go before. He describes Sarah’s suicide as a form of protest against God for allowing insurmountable suffering:
”R. Shapira is the first to comprehend Sarah’s leadership as a spiritual protest” (Reiser 2021:16).
Analysis
There is no doubt that Shapira’s views are not mainstream rabbinic teachings. There is also no doubt that Shapira’s unimaginable experiences in Warsaw in the 1940s shaped his hermeneutics and exegesis.
“Most Orthodox responses to the Holocaust fall into the category of some form of reasoned argument, generally characterized as theodicy, or the age-old enterprise of justifying God’s seemingly unjust governance of the world. That often entailed viewing the Holocaust as punishment “for our sins”… This aspect of theology persists vigorously up to the present day. However…this is not what defines his sermons. R. Shapira’s collection of rabbinic homilies constitutes an extremely rare extant testimony, if not a singular one, of an extended existential struggle, both in a personal capacity and as a communal leader, to wrest spiritual meaning out of steadily eroding circumstances that afforded not a glimmer of salvific hope” (Diamond 2021:56).
There was some evolution in Shapira’s thought because his earlier writing before 1939 engages with the metaphor of God as a healing doctor who sometimes has to apply a “lengthy regimen of toxic medicine” (Diamond 2021:83).
“However, by the summer of 1942, when a miraculous end to the ghetto’s collapse failed to materialize, despite the terminal conditions that should have already triggered it, R. Shapira could no longer sustain that faith. The healer God needed to be jolted out of adherence to an outmoded form of medicine… R. Shapira returned to this specific analogy in order to subvert its traditional use and turn it back on God as a demand for an immediate end to the suffering, rather than a justification of God’s imposition of its application” (Diamond 2021:84).
This may explain Shapira’s radical and unorthodox views of Sarah’s suicide:
“Sarah, he says, in fact intentionally surrendered her life in order to teach God the limits of corrective suffering, beyond which the torment simply becomes ruinous” (Diamond 2021:59).
Reisner concludes rather succinctly:
“I am not aware of any hasidic leaders or, in fact, any rabbinic personalities who chose to see themselves and present themselves by way of a female character. Sarah is not just ’our matriarch,’ but also—after R. Shapira stepped into her shoes—'our rebbe’” (Reisner 2021:18).
If I may suggest a wider literary context to Shapira’s stark views about Sarah, he may have been familiar with similar rabbinic traditions about Sarah’s son, Yitzchak, who is described in some graphic Midrashic sources as being actually sacrificed on the altar [see: Kotzk Blog: 381) Midrashic sources referring to the actual sacrifice of Isaac?].
Within a similar context, my teacher from whom I received Semicha, R. Pinchas Hirschprung, described how he endured so much suffering during the Holocaust that he contemplated suicide—and (although some later biographies intentionally omitted this detail) he wanted people to know this [Kotzk Blog: 174) A TRIBUTE TO R. PINCHAS HIRSCHPRUNG:].
Shapira, also, wanted
people to know this, and that’s why he buried his writings, hoping that someday
they would be found…and spoken about.
Bibliography
Diamond, J.A., 2021, ‘Raging Hasidic Sermons: R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapira’s Halting Retreat from Theodicy’,
Yad Vashem Studies.
Polen, N., 1992, ‘Miriam’s Dance: Radical
egalitarianism in Hasidic thought’, Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish
Ideas and Experience, vol.12, no. 1, 1-21.
Reiser, D., 2017, R. Kalonymus Kalman Shapira:
Sermons from the Years of Rage, Herzog College, Jerusalem (Hebrew). World Union of Jewish
Studies, Yad Vashem.
Reiser, D., 2021, ‘Sarah Our Rebbe: R. Kalonymus
Kalman Shapira's Feminine Spiritual Leadership in the Warsaw Ghetto’, Nashim:
A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, no. 38, 7-24.
Seeman, D., 2008, ‘Ritual Efficacy, Hasidic Mysticism and
“Useless Suffering” in the Warsaw Ghetto’, Harvard Theological Review, 101,
483-487.
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