Tehillim as cannon fodder for Yeshivism

 Tehillim as cannon fodder for Yeshivism

 The following is a citation from a Rosh Yeshiva with yeshivist tendencies who in a hespid was as usual waxing on about the greatness of the niftar’s Torah learning (and saying nothing else about him). He cites Tehillim 119 but leaves out all the parts that I underline in the English translation below. See if you can find a theme in what he leaves out:

 דוד המלך אומר בתהלים קיט, במה יזכה נער את ארחו לשמור כדבריך. בכל ליבי דרשתיך. בליבי צפנתי. בשפתי סיפרתי. בדרך עדותיך ששתי. בפיקודיך אשיחה. בחוקתיך אשתעשע לא אשכך דבריך

Selective Citation	Actual Tehillim	Translation with redactions underlined
במה יזכה נער את ארחו לשמור כדבריך?	בַּמֶּ֣ה יְזַכֶּה־נַּ֖עַר אֶת־אָרְח֑וֹ לִ֜שְׁמֹ֗ר כִּדְבָרֶֽךָ:	In what manner should a youth purify his way? To observe according to Your word.
בכל ליבי דרשתיך.	בְּכָל־לִבִּ֥י דְרַשְׁתִּ֑יךָ אַל־תַּ֜שְׁגֵּ֗נִי מִמִּצְו‍ֹתֶֽיךָ:	With all my heart I searched for You; do not cause me to stray from Your commandments
בליבי צפנתי.	בְּלִבִּי צָפַ֣נְתִּי אִמְרָתֶ֑ךָ לְ֜מַ֗עַן לֹ֣א אֶֽחֱטָא־לָֽךְ:	In my heart I hid Your word in order that I should not sin against You.
	בָּר֖וּךְ אַתָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֗ה לַמְּדֵ֥נִי חֻקֶּֽיךָ:	Blessed are You, O Lord; teach me Your statutes.
בשפתי סיפרתי.	בִּשְׂפָתַ֥י סִפַּ֑רְתִּי כֹּ֜֗ל מִשְׁפְּטֵי־פִֽיךָ:	With my lips I recited all the judgments of Your mouth.
בדרך עדותיך ששתי.	בְּדֶ֖רֶךְ עֵֽדְו‍ֹתֶ֥יךָ שַׂ֗שְׂתִּי כְּעַ֣ל כָּל־הֽוֹן:	With the way of Your testimonies I rejoiced as over all riches.
בפיקודיך אשיחה.	בְּפִקּוּדֶ֥יךָ אָשִׂ֑יחָה וְ֜אַבִּ֗יטָה אֹֽרְחֹתֶֽיךָ:	Concerning Your precepts I shall converse and I shall look at Your ways.
בחוקתיך אשתעשע לא אשכך דבריך.	בְּחֻקֹּתֶ֥יךָ אֶֽשְׁתַּֽעֲשָׁ֑ע לֹ֖א אֶשְׁכַּ֣ח דְּבָרֶֽךָ:	With Your statutes I shall occupy myself; I shall not forget Your speech.

He leaves out all the parts about mitzvos and sin. Thus, “With all my heart I searched for You do not cause me to stray from Your commandments” becomes “With all my heart I searched for You.” “In my heart I hid Your word in order that I should not sin against You” becomes “In my heart I hid Your word.”

You want to say that he was talking about Torah learning so he just kept those parts? I want to answer that Dovid didn’t separate learning from doing so why should we?

Well, we should if we want to turn Jewish life into an intellectual game. This hespid had just mentioned that the deceased was asked if he was afraid after the war broke out. He answered that his only fear was being an Am Ha’aretz. What, he didn’t fear God? He didn’t fear that he may have hurt other people in his life? Koheles says, “the sum of the matter is to fear God and keep His commandments.” Try telling that to some people. They’ll tell you that they just go by what their rebbes taught them. Doesn’t matter what Koheles said, Heaven forbid. They just follow the rebbes that just happen to teach at the yeshiva that they attended probably mostly because of status.

The Gemara Tractate Sukkah 48B tells the story of a Kohen Gadol, a Sadducee, who openly mocked the mitzvah of nisuch hamayim, the water libations, by pouring the golden pitcher of water on his feet rather than on the altar. The incensed crowd who were composed mostly of Perushim [according to Josephus most of the common folk were Perushi] began pelting him with their esrogim and damaged the corner of the altar.

תנו רבנן, מעשה בצדוקי אחד(! ) שנסך על גבי רגליו ורגמוהו כל העם באתרוגיהן ואותו היום נפגמה קרן המזבח והביאו בול של מלח וסתמוהו וכו'" (סוכה, מח' ב')

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that the Sadducees rejected the Oral Torah because they approached Torah with intellect only. They believed that the Kohanim and scholars could replace kabbalas ol, the heavenly yoke, with intellect. They rejected the water libation because it represented acceptance of the heavenly yoke. He poured the water over his feet in a symbolic act which said that the common people (metaphorically the feet), whose intellect was weak, should just follow the dictates of the leaders. (Remind you of anyone?)

Alternatively, the Sadducee wanted to indicate that lowly personal matters (feet) need kabbalas ol, but that the higher powers, the intellect and emotions, are above it.

“All the people pelted him” – a priest and Torah scholar cannot answer this claim; as an intellectual person, he does not feel the need for obedience so deeply. Only a simple person “all the people” senses that the Sadducee’s claim is baseless and opposes the Divine will.

They pelted him with esrogim, the highest of the four species, representing the intellect, the highest of the spiritual faculties. By pelting him with esrogim, the people were saying that they also understood intellectually that his claim opposed the Creator’s will. Kabbalot ol had informed their intellect so that they had come to understand intellectually what they accepted originally out of obedience.

“The top of the altar was damaged.” The choicest part of the sacrifice, the fat and the blood, is offered on the altar. The inner meaning of sacrifice is to subdue and harness the intellect (the choicest part of the person) to serve God, so that altar represents kabbals ol. Heaven arranged for the Sadducee’s claim to be answered. When there is a flaw in the altar (kabbalas ol) there is a flaw in the sacrifices, intellectual service; for all offerings offered on a damaged altar are disqualified.

“They brought a handful of salt and stopped it up.” Salt, which has no nutritional value, also represents kabbalas ol, service without intellectual rationale. When the altar was damaged, what was lacking was supplied by salt, which represents kabbalas ol.

Kabbalas Ol is the part of Tehillim that this Rosh Yeshiva cut out.

Who was this renegade Kohen Gadol? According to Josephus, it was the Hasmonean King Alexander Yannai. Josephus in Antiquities describes the episode:

As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere related. They also reviled him, as derived from a captive, and so unworthy of his dignity and of sacrificing. At this he was in a rage and slew of them about six thousand.

Wikipedia tells us more about him, “Like his brother, Alexander was an avid supporter of the aristocratic priestly faction known as the Sadducees.” The Sadducess weren’t some fringe group in the forest. “Josephus, writing at the end of the 1st century CE, associates the sect with the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society. As a whole, they fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles, including maintaining the Temple in Jerusalem. The group became extinct after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.”

And JewishHistory.org:

"John Hyrcanus came under the influence of the Sadducees in the latter part of his reign and the government of Israel officially became a Sadducee government. He removed members of the Sanhedrin who were Pharisees and replaced them with Sadducees. He also did away many of the rabbinic ordinances and replaced them with the ways of the Sadducees – and imposing them with a police force and the army."

But are they extinct, or have they returned in the form of the yeshivists who now run Orthodoxy society, even at YU, even in their influence among Chassidim and Sefardim.

You will ask, how can the yeshivists be Sadducees? They haven’t rejected the Oral Torah. It’s their main focus.

So they say. But they have turned the Gemara into an intellectual game. They don’t study halacha or aggadata. They pilpul around. They may CLAIM that they are the opposite of Sadducees but that’s a cover, like a liberal saying he’s all about compassion when his compassion is so selective, really for his own causes only. The yeshivists don’t cherish the Gemara. They don’t teach their son a trade, marry at 16, let students study the parts of Torah that interest them, don’t learn from a cat, don’t take the good parts from the goyim, don’t learn from the Gemara about the Sadducee. If they study Tanach or Kabbalah at all, it’s only to take the parts that promote their Brisker Lomdus, as we see in this rabbi's selective quoting of Tehillim.

Side note, I have heard it said that the Sadducces were essentially Hellenists. "The Sadducees, who were the heirs of the Hellenists, formed a very potent and powerful force in Jewish society, but they subscribed to a philosophy that was essentially non-Jewish, to a Greek view of the world." JewishHistory.org

How fitting that the yeshivists came originally from 19th century Hellenist Europe and really hit their stride in America and Zionist Israel where they militarized Litvish Judaism into what we face today Yeshivism.