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| Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum 1868-1943. |
INTRODUCTION:
There is almost no literature in English on Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum
(1868-1943) who was one of the early ideologues of religious Zionism. R. Yitzchak Nisenbaum was a leader of the Mizrachi movement in
Warsaw and he died in the Ghetto during the Holocaust.
Not wishing to dwell on politics, I shall ignore any
political overtones (remembering that R. Nissenbaum passed away five years
before the establishment of the State of Israel) and focus primarily on his
theology and Hashkafa (world view) which is rich, refreshing and
very relevant.
I have drawn from the research of Rabbi Dr Amir Mashiach of
Bar Ilan University who presents us with probably the first academic study of
R. Nissenbaum in the English language.
R. YITZCHAK NISSENBAUM’S STORY:
R. Yitzchak Nissenbaum was born into a Chassidic
family. His father passed away when he was still young and Yitzchak was raised
by his uncle who was a mitnaged, an opponent of the Chassidic
movement. With time R. Yitzchak also adopted his uncle’s worldview, although he
continued to study Chassidic literature. Notwithstanding his connection
to Chassidism, his writings reflect no elements of Chassidic
thought, and he never quotes any Chassidic masters. In fact, his
writings are void of any mysticism whatsoever.
He studied at
Volozhin Yeshiva and when the government forced the closure of the yeshiva, he
joined the yeshiva’s secret nationalistic association called ‘Netzach Yisrael’.
The society demanded that all its members declare their allegiance to Eretz
Yisrael.
HIS MENTOR, R. SHMUEL MOHILEWER:
R. Nissenbaum regarded R. Shmuel Mohilewer as his mentor,
and he called him Admor (a term usually reserved for a Chassidic
rebbe). R. Mohilewer, who received his ordination at Volozhin Yeshiva in 1842,
is regarded as one of the founders of the religious Zionist movement. R.
Mohilewer tried to persuade the rabbis to "combine the Torah and
[secular] wisdom as the time is appropriate."
R. Mohilewer was once refused funding - for creating settlements in the Holy Land - from a philanthropist, because the
donor suggested that he would be creating “12th-century Jews” and not Jews who were capable of building a new country.
He responded:
“You are mistaken... we want to create...Jews who, on the one hand, will
belong to the 30th century, but on the other, will hail from periods preceding
the counting of centuries. Jews from the period of the Prophets and the
Hasmoneans…”
Thus we see how R. Mohilewer was
already thinking of a nascent model of Jewry looking towards the future but
with precedent firmly rooted in the ancient - but not immediate - past.
ANOTHER MENTOR, R. SHIMSHON REFAEL HIRSCH:
R. Nissenbaum was also familiar with
the writings and philosophy of another spiritual mentor, R. Shimshon Refael
Hirsch (1808-1888), the founder of Modern Orthodoxy, who taught the principle
of Torah Im Derech Eretz, and quoted from him with great respect.
However, he felt that R. Hirsch had downplayed the notion of Jewish
nationality.
REDEFINING
REDEMPTION:
The ultra-Orthodox camps especially
during R. Nissenbaum’s time were averse to interfering with the anticipated
redemptive process of the Messiah. R. Nissenbaum, however, was of the opinion
that the redemption of the Jewish people lay within their willingness to create
a redemptive era by their own actions. This was one of the reasons why he felt
that creative work and labour was so important. The Jewish people must no sit
by idly waiting for some miraculous event to take place but must do whatever is
within their physical power to create the change they want to see.
Dr Mashiach writes very poignantly
about how, as an overriding rule, passivity had actually become a 'Torah virtue' in post-Temple times:
“After nearly 2,000 years of exile and inaction, which
had largely been dictated by contemporary realities, passivity had become part
of the Jewish way of thinking, to the point where it was accorded a theological
standing by Orthodox leaders.”
R. SHALOM DOV-BER SCHNEERSON’S VIEW OF REDEMPTION:
To best way to understand just how radical R. Nissenbaum’s
view on taking Jewish redemptive destiny into individual hands, is to contrast
his thinking with the views of another contemporary rabbinic leader, R. Shalom
Dov-Ber Schneerson of Lubavitch. He was the fifth Rebbe of the dynasty and (surprisingly)
an outspoken promoter of theological passivity!
R. Shalom Dov-Ber believed that any attempt at
interfering in the redemptive process was certain to be futile if not have an
adverse effect. He argued that any human interference could only be temporary
as even Moshe and Aharon could not bring about a permanent state of redemption
other than the partial process of the Exodus from Egypt. And even when the
kings and prophets built Temples but they did not last forever.
Therefore the Jews should do nothing other than wait for the total Redemption which will be brought about through “the
Holy One, Blessed Is He, Himself” without human interference. Only then
will “our Redemption be complete” and everlasting.
Dr Mashiach writes:
“The Rebbe not only argued against taking practical
measures; he even placed a vehement ban on spiritual activism. He said that a
believer is not permitted to pray earnestly for the coming of the Messiah, for
in earnest prayer for Redemption, one infringes upon the prohibition against
‘urging the end.’ One is ‘not permitted to urge the end, to engage in extensive
supplication about this, especially with bodily powers and stratagems.’”
These teachings of R. Shalom Dov-Ber were published in
1900 and many rabbis began to view Zionism as a threat and a theological
problem.
By contrast, R. Nissenbaum writes:
“Elijah, awaiting the day of Redemption together with the
Messiah, is busy, according to aggadic midrash, writing Israelite history. But this
is not the writing of our passive history: our troubles and our
suffering, our affliction and our ordeals; our Redemption will not come of these.
This is rather the writing of our active history, the deeds and actions
performed so as to strengthen the spirit of the people and to bring closer its
Redemption … all is as per the deed of the nation as a whole moving toward its
Redemption and the ransom of its soul – so will the Holy Spirit descend upon
it.”
Thus R. Nissenbaum extends his notion of
the importance of work in general to the importance of work to end the exilic
slumber which had taken hold of the Jewish people and to replace it with a
pre-emptive approach. This was, in his view, the only way to escape the curse
of the exile which was the belief in the necessity of Jewish passivity.
R. NISSENBAUM’S THEOLOGY OF WORK:
On the notion of work in general and its elevation to a
noble and theological status, R. Nissenbaum believed it was a Halachic obligation for a
Jew to work. By work, he
meant not just to make a living but even work for its own sake. Work was, as Dr Mashiach puts it: “[an] independent religious Torah
value”.
R. Nissenbaum wrote:
“The Torah of Israel detests idleness and loves work. In
accord with this was Adam brought to the Garden in Eden, not to enjoy its
choice fruit … but “to work and to guard it” [Gen 2:15]. The it is
emphasized by the grammatical addition of the special dot in the letter heh at the end
of each of these two verbs. The work is literal work, and the guarding is
literal guarding.”
Interestingly, R. Nissenbaum admits
that work is not one of the 613 commandments. However, that fact does not deter
him from maintaining that, nevertheless, by incorporating work into the first
story of the humankind, it was clear that it was the basic vision of the Torah.
Thus work, like breathing and walking, did not require a specific command.
Humans had to perfect the world and bring it to a state of technological
advancement.
R. Nissenbaum believes
that, over time, we had lost the Torah’s original vision of work - to the
extent that our Judaism as presented today is unbalanced and not reflective of
the totality of Torah thought.
Although it was not a
specific commandment, R. Nissenbaum argued that work still has a Halachic
imperative because when the Torah mentions ceasing from work on the Sabbath, it
writes:
“Six days will you
work and do all your special tasks, and on the seventh day is the Sabbath.”
As Dr Mashiach puts it:
“Thus, in his view, according to the Torah and halakhah, work during
the six days of the week is no less a positive value than refraining from work
on the Sabbath.”
THE ‘IDLENESS
WIDESPREAD AMONG OUR PEOPLE’:
R. Nissenbaum does not mince his words
when writing sharply about his coreligionists in his day:
“[T]he idleness widespread among our People, a large part
of whom earn their keep
by the spirit alone, without any labor, is utterly in
opposition to our Torah, for “just as the Torah was given in covenant, so was
skilled work given in covenant” (Avot
Thus, according to R. Nissenbaum, it is the person who works
and contributes to society, not the person who just ‘sits in learning’ who is
closer to the original ideal of the archetypal Torah human being.
‘RELIGION OF LABOUR’, ‘LABOUR OF RELIGION’ OR ‘LABOUR AND
RELIGION’:
R. Nissenbaum positions himself somewhere between the secular
left and the ultra-Orthodox right.
His
theology obviously created waves within the traditional community of which he
too was a part. He was openly critical of anyone who tried to separate the then
secular Zionism from ultra-Orthodoxy – to the extent that he referred to both
extremes as “assimilationists.” :
“The Left proclaims a religion of labor and sees work as
the forefront of everything.
The Right
proclaims a labor of religion and treats practical physical labor with
contempt.”
Dr Mashiach encapsulates this ideal as follows:
“[R. Nissenbaum] endorsed an approach of ’religion and
labor,’ not ‘religion of labor.’
Bodily practical work, then, was required as part of the
national religious identity, the original Judaism:
[H]e promoted not another uni-dimensional notion of
Judaism as ‘either … or,’ but one of ‘both.’
R. NISSENBAUM BREAKS FROM HIS MENTOR:
It is on this point that
R. Nissenbaum parts theological ways with his mentor R. Mohilewer.
Dr Mashiach explains:
“Nissenbaum and Mohilewer’s views differ in essence:
Mohilewer saw work as a means of sustenance, while Nissenbaum treated labor as
a part of theology; in his view, making a living, however important, was
marginal by comparison.”
JUDAISM LOSES A VITAL COMPONENT:
R. Nissenbaum points out that in biblical times, Judaism incorporated both a
component of physical and practical enterprise as well as a corresponding
component of religious and spiritual endeavours. Jews were primarily traders
and farmers who did not shy away from extreme physical activity.
However, as a result of the exile following the destruction of the Temple,
that primary physical component was lost. With time, it was as if Judaism’s
integral affinity and connection to the physical world had never even existed.
THE ‘NAIVE JUDAISM’:
According to Dr Mashiach:
“As Nissenbaum
saw it, exilic Judaism proceeded to develop with nothing but spiritual
concerns.”
R. Nissenbaum writes in his own
forthright words in Masoret veCherut:
“Little by little
did the exile eat up not only the Jews … but also Judaism … instead
of the complete, historical Judaism, a naïve religious Judaism arose before us,
one which had nothing in its universe except for the God of Israel and His
Torah.”
THE ‘NEGLECT OF THE BODY’:
And in his Ketavim Nivharim he writes:
“[In the exile,
Jews] began to look on simple labor with disdain … and so it was that we
came to neglect concern with the body.”
In other words, as Dr Mashiach puts it, we have
transformed from a Judaism which had a “bi-dimensional, physical-and-spiritual
character” to a “uni-dimensional, or exclusively spiritual,
exilic Judaism.”
‘CLIPPING THE REACH OF THE SPIRIT’:
R.
Nissenbaum wrote:
“[T]he nature of the body is now taking its revenge upon
us for having abandoned it, and clipping the reach of our spirit.”
‘TRADITION IS NOT JUST THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE FATHERS’:
In
R. Nissenbaum’s words, the original Judaism taught a “holistic worldview”
with a “spiritual-material outlook”
where work and spirit were two sides of the same coin. When R.
Nissenbaum observed the Judaism of his day, he felt that it was missing a vital
component – a positive attitude towards labour. Therefore Judaism was
incomplete and no longer in balance because concern for the spirit had become
the sole and dominant purpose of Judaism. For Nissenbaum, the attitude towards
and involvement in the material world for its own sake, was just as important.
R.
Nissenbaum writes:
“’Jewry’ is a
people living in the tradition of its fathers. But this
tradition is not only in
the spiritual life of the fathers, but also in their bodily life … This
we must remember
well. The first principle of this life was work: manual
labor producing simple bodily
values. They tilled
the land, raised sheep and cattle, worked in every trade and dealt
in commerce
… and airiness was foreign to them...
Therefore the Jews committed to Jewry need first of all
to arrange their personal
lives and raise their children on the basis of labor, constructive
and productive work,
like our fathers … as
was the reality in olden times.”
R. NISSENBAUM’S PASSING:
During the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, he refused to leave
the city because he wanted to share the fate of Warsaw Jewry. Apparently the
Germans shot him on January 1, 1943, when he refused to stand in the wagons
transporting the Warsaw Jews to Treblinka. He is said to have yelled out to the
other Jews just before he died: “Do not go to Treblinka!”
Holy Letters (Hebrew; New York: Kehat, 5742 1982]),
Part 1, Para. 122.
From an address to the Second Congress of Mizrahi Youth in Poland (1922), cited
in Nehemiah
Aminoach,
ed., The Religious Labor Movement (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Hahanhala Harashit
