Monday, December 27, 2010

Two golden pillars - the Strashuns

Biographical sketch of Rashash and his son RMSH - written by a grandson of Rashash.

Of note:

Rasash spoke a fluent Polish. A story of a Kanoi threatening (predicting?) that Rashash's house would burn down for possessing heretical books. RMASH exchanged letters with Zunz and various other stuff.

8 comments:

S. said...

Perhaps he learned it from תלמוד לשון פלאניא. He's not listed on the פרענומעראנטין, but naturally that doesn't mean he didn't own it. (It's not listed in לקוטי שושנים though.)

Of course, he probably really learned it through business dealings.

Wolf2191 said...

He couldn't have learned to speak Polish fluently through a dictionary?

S. said...

Sure he could have, but I can't arbitrarily decide that he did. If I knew he owned the dictionary that would be one thing.

LazerA said...

If my understanding is correct, the "kanoi" was not upset about the content of the Rashash's library. He was upset that the Rashash had come out in support of the government decree that communities could only appoint rabbis who were graduates of the government approved rabbinical seminaries run by the maskilim.

(See http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1123&letter=S:
"Strashun['s...] piety did not prevent him from sympathizing with the progressive element in Russian Jewry, and he was one of the few Orthodox leaders who accepted in good faith the decree of the government that only graduates of the rabbinical schools of Wilna and Jitomir should be elected as rabbis.")

While I don't approve of the intemperate language supposedly used by this "kanoi", I can certainly understand why he, and others, were very upset about this. I'm rather surprised that the Rashash came out in support of this law, and I am curious if there is any additional information on why he did so.

S. said...

LazarA, is your surprise because with the hindsight of 150 years you know that the Czars were violently antisemitic and were not promoting things which would be first and foremost good for the Jews? Or simply that he took a minority position among Orthodox rabbonim?

LazerA said...

S., well, both of those points and more. Requiring that all rabbinical positions could only be filled by the graduates of two (new and controversial) seminaries is a very extreme demand and it is hard to understand how any Orthodox rabbinic figure could endorse it.

Again, from the Jewish Encyclopedia:
"[Zhitomir and Vilna] were... chosen as the seats of the two rabbinical schools which were established by the government in 1848 in pursuance of its plans to force secular education on the Jews of Russia in accordance with the program of the Teutonized Russian Haskalah movement."
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=118&letter=Z

The anti-semitism of the Russian czars was hardly a hidden matter to the Jewish population during the middle of the 19th century. The reign of Czar Nicholas I was an extremely difficult period for the Jews of Russia.

So, yes, perhaps hindsight adds to my surprise, but it doesn't explain why the Rashash was apparently either unconcerned by or oblivious to the issues that concerned the majority of Orthodox rabbis.

S. said...

>S., well, both of those points and more. Requiring that all rabbinical positions could only be filled by the graduates of two (new and controversial) seminaries is a very extreme demand and it is hard to understand how any Orthodox rabbinic figure could endorse it.

You have to consider the climate. Many if not most Jews, rabbis included, knew very little or nothing in the way of secular things. They didn't know a language besides Yiddish and an ungrammatical Hebrew. They didn't know what was going on in the world, what had happened in the past, they didn't know multiplication. It's very easy to stand here now, where even very Chareidi people know these kinds of things, and think "But they had so much yiras shamayim and Torah" and think that an honest assessment of the state of the Jewish people (including the rabbis) was really quite good. What of the petty crimes that Jews were involved in? I may not have seen the Russian police archives, but I've seen plenty of 18th early 19th century British legal papers to know that when Jews were not at their best they were not acting their best. Getting back to Russia, as you know, the day to day life of many Jews was utterly miserable. Is it so difficult to think that a little education would improve the physical and even spiritual condition of their lives?

As for the antisemitism of the Czars, while I agree that it was no secret, consider that when the Jews have real shortcomings (as all peoples do) it is not so hard to assume that some of these shortcomings actually worsen if not cause the antisemitism. It wasn't so difficult to think that if the Jews improved themselves their situation would improve - even despite the antisemitism. Why is antisemitism a reason not to become a little better? The mussar movement didn't only seek to improve people's middos, but also things like hygiene. But why? Would it make the Czar's less antisemitic? No, but it would be better for the Jews. So perhaps even though it was understood that the Czar had bad intentions, he was presenting an opportunity to improve the Jews. Indeed, many of the things which "improvers" of the Jews were trying to accomplish then eventually came to pass. Chareidi Jews - at least in America - are in much better shape.

The Rashash was a shtickle maskil, so why so surprised? But even if he wasn't, when is there ever a united view on an issue? And why should there be one? When a Beis Din is united in seeing a killer's guilt he will not be executed.

Law Article said...

I agree with this:

Perhaps he learned it from תלמוד לשון פלאניא. He's not listed on the פרענומעראנטין, but naturally that doesn't mean he didn't own it. (It's not listed in לקוטי שושנים though.)

Of course, he probably really learned it through business dealings.

And this:

Sure he could have, but I can't arbitrarily decide that he did. If I knew he owned the dictionary that would be one thing.

 
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