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Knowledge Justifies the Difference Between Jews and Other Nations

Regardless of who’s at the helm, perhaps one God, perhaps a lot...
[additional-authors]
June 8, 2023
Photo by Rabbi Zachary Hepner

Regardless of who’s at the helm,

perhaps one God, perhaps a lot,

or even none perhaps, each realm

in life should stand alone and not

be governed by another’s rules.

Our economy demands

efficiency, but different tools

are needed when we join hands

in politics, while we attain

as individuals the relief

which makes us seem to some insane,

our very personal belief.

 

These realmsin  which all Jews must stay

within defined halakhic borders

are found in havdalah  Jews say

after Shabbat, a text that orders

a paradigm which sanctifies

the vital differentiation

on which each faithful Jew relies

to regulate their mindful nation.

This paradigm all Jews defend

when saying havdalah requires

s to explain just why we end

Shabbat before its farewell fires.

 

As the Pahad Yitzhaq’s daughter

explained, the reason that we handle

havdalah in a version than that is shorter

than one recited with a candle,

in a portion of a prayer

that praises God for the great favor

of knowledge, is that it makes fair

 our difference, knowledge’s sweet flavor,

in atah honantanu, you have favored

us with knowledge, explaining this.

for if by knowledge we aren’t flavored,

why should we after Shabbat’s bliss

bless  difference between all the Jews

and all other nations? Knowledge is

what makes Jews willing to refuse

to give up  all their kollel colleges!


Rivka Press Schwartz writes in ““Rebbetzin Bruria Hutner David, 1938–2023: A former student remembers the blazing intellect who revolutionized Haredi women’s education,” Tablet, 6/1/23:

If people know of Rebbetzin Bruria Hutner David, who passed away in Jerusalem on April 9, but did not know her, they probably know two things about her: that she played an important role in the production of her father, Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner’s, masterwork, Pachad Yitzchak, and that she earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Both of these facts of her biography have been retold often, frequently by those who imagine that they are relaying the frisson of a gotcha or perhaps conveying a note of hidden feminism: The scion of rabbinic royalty, born in New York City in 1938, was a learned woman in ways both secular and religious, which she did not trumpet or demand credit for. But as a way of praising her or summarizing her life’s accomplishments, it fails, for it defines her on others’ terms. Others, often men, may have been impressed primarily by her contribution to her father’s Torah work, or her academic doctorate. But that was likely because they either did not know of, or did not respect, the bold undertaking in Haredi women’s education that was her life’s work.

Her teaching was buttressed by a stream of supports and examples that ranged widely: citations from a broad array of Torah sources, as well as citations from contemporary newspapers and books and instances from prevailing culture. She kept abreast of American newspapers and was well-read in contemporary academic literature in both Israel and the United States.

While she admired, enjoyed, and was drawn to raw processing power, intellect was not ultimately granted for its own sake, or to enable parlor tricks. Above all, she cited a dictum that began as a narrow halachic statement about the placement of the Ata chonantanu prayer in maariv on Saturday night but that she took as a mission statement for life: “I?” “Without discerning intellect, how can one make distinctions?” Those distinctions—between the holy and the mundane, between different gradations of holiness or importance—were characteristic of everything about her teaching and her ethos.

This is the shorter version of the Havdalah in  the  text of  אתה חוננתנו, atah honantanu, which is recited in the Amidah of maariv  after Shabbat, whose rationale inspired this poem after I read  the explanation by Rebbitsin Rivkah Bruriah David, the daughter of the Pahad Yizhaq, Yitzchak Hutner (1906-1980),  for the place atah honantanu  occupies in the Amidah:

,

 אַתָּה חוֹנַנְתָּנוּ לְמַדַּע תּוֹרָתֶךָ, וַתְּלַמְּדֵנוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת בָּהֶם חֻקֵּי רְצוֹנֶךָ, וַתַּבְדֵּל יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ בֵּין קֹדֶש לְחוֹל בֵּין אוֹר לְחֹשֶׁךְ בֵּין יִשְׂרָאֵל לָעַמִּים בֵּין יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי לְשֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי הַמַּעֲשֶׂה. אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ הָחֵל עָלֵינוּ אֶת הַיָּמִים הַבָּאִים לִקְרָאתֵינוּ לְשָׁלוֹם חֲשׂוּכִים מִכָּל חֵטְא וּמְנֻקִּים מִכָּל עָוֹן וּמְדֻבָּקִים בְּיִרְאָתֶךָ.

נוסח אשכנז: אַתָּה חוֹנַנְתָּנוּ לְמַדָּע תּוֹרָתֶךָ, וַתְּלַמְּדֵנוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת חֻקֵּי רְצוֹנֶך, וַתַּבְדֵל יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ בֵּין קֹדֶש לְחוׁל בֵּין אוֹר לְחֹשֶׁךְ בֵּין ישְׂרָאֵל לָעַמִּים בֵּין יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי לְשֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי הַמַּעֲשֶׂה. אָבִינו מַלְכֵּנוּ הָחֵל עָלֵינוּ הַיָּמִים הַבָּאִים לִקְרָאתֵינוּ לְשָׁלוֹם חֲשׂוּכִים מִָּכָּל חֵטְא וּמְנֻקִּים מִכָּל עֲוֹן וּמְדֻבָּקִים בְּיִרְאָתֶך.

“Kollel” is a term that denotes a  “collective” of Torah scholars who engage in advanced scholarship of the talmud.   In  the last line of my poem I use the term adjectivally to allude to the Hebrew verb כלה, kalah, in וַיְכֻלּוּ, wayekhullu, meaning “were completed,” in Gen. 2:1:

 א  וַיְכֻלּוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-צְבָאָם. and the heaven and the earth were completed, and all their host.

The adjectival use of the word “kollel” poetically implies that  the link between the havdalah in the ata honantanu of the Amidah to the praise we offer God for favoring us with knowledge echoes the praise of God implied in Gen. 2:1  for having completed the whole universe before Shabbat in a process of creation that began with a havdalah, separation,   that God Himself made between light and darkness, according to Gen 1:4:

ד  וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר, כִּי-טוֹב; וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ.    4 And God saw the light, that it was good; wayavdel,and God separated, the light from the darkness.


Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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