Thursday, August 28, 2008

Politics in Ponevezh:The Patriotic Rebbetzin




From Benny Brown - Rabbi E.M. Shach: Admiration of Spirit, Critique of Nationalism, and Political Involvement", Neri Horowitz, ed., Religion and Nationalism in Israel and the Middle East (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Publishers, 2002; Hebrew), 278-342


When dealing with personalities that were involved in sharp controversies, historians occasionally fall into the trap of allowing the controversies to obscure the richness and beausty of other aspects of their thought. (I am thinking specifically of Mortimer Cohen's "biography" of R' Yaakov Emden , Allen Nadler's articles on the Munkatcher Rebbe, and the Satmar Rebbe (the last being a bit better) and there are others as well.) Prof. Brown is to be greatly commended for avoiding this and I believe his study really reveals the depth and beauty of R' Shach's philosophy.


I will end with a quote from R' Shach (from the same article) that I think even his opponents must concede to:


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't suppose you have a pdf of this article to send to people ?

Anonymous said...

my email is on the side

 
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