Book review: Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi

It says, “A thousand enter to study Torah, and one emerges to rule in halacha.” Over the past few hundred years, many thousands of great rabbis emerged to rule in halacha. But of those, it’s a small number whose legacy continues to this day. One of those greats is Rav Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi (c.1656-1718), better known as the Hakham Tsevi.

In Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine, rabbi of The Jewish Center in New York City, has written a fascinating biography of one of those rare rabbis who was extremely influential not just during their lifetime, but until today. His intellectual legacy has proven to be so durable that it animates contemporary halachic discussions that he could scarcely have anticipated.

Hakham Tsevi lived during an extremely tumultuous time. The 17^th century was a time of both struggle and transformation. From a world history perspective, events like the Great Turkish War and the English Civil War created havoc. But it was also the start of the scientific revolution, during which Judaism had to deal with the new reality that emerged in astronomy, physics, medicine, and more.

Within the Jewish world, it was the start of the devastation caused by the Chmielnicki massacres, in addition to the Sabbatai Tzvi debacle, which would linger for over a century. Thus was the reality that Hakham Tsevi found himself in.

Hakham Tsevi was a genius who lived in an era filled with countless geniuses. So what made him stand apart, such that his legacy lives until today? Levine writes about his many positive traits. But the one that made him stand out was his fierce independence.

Some might have considered him a kanai (zealot). But that description does not do him justice. Rav Yakov Kamenetsky astutely said that the difference between Pinchas, the paradigm of zealotry, is that Pinchas saw a problem and took a spear. Rav Kamenetsky noted that too many of today’s zealots walk around with spears looking for problems.

Nonetheless, Hakham Tsevi did have a penchant for becoming involved in public controversies with his rabbinic colleagues. His combative nature and uncompromising stance while facing Sabbatian heretics is what may have earned him a reputation for zealotry.

As noted, Hakham Tsevi was in the minority when he saw Sabbatai Tzvi as a charlatan and false messiah. He saw the increasing access to mystical texts as a threat to the integrity of the halachic process. Among early modern rabbis, Hakham Tsevi was one of the first proponents of minimizing the role of Kabbalah in the halachic process.

Hakham Tsevi’s uncompromising stance was evident in his approach to eliminating minhagim (communal customs), which he felt lacked a halachic basis. He adopted a decidedly oppositional orientation towards minhagim and freely attacked long-standing Ashkenazi traditions.

While Ashkenzim tended to assign enormous weight to minhag, Hakham Tsevi was particularly open to challenging prevailing customs and norms. He was not just an independent thinker; his independence often produced verdicts at odds with long-standing Ashkenazi communal practice.

Of the many different topics in Shaalos U’Teshuvos Hakham Tsevi, Levine focuses on three, showing how Hakham Tsevi’s responses are relevant today. Those three are the case of the heartless chicken, which applies to cardiac death and end-of-life issues, the question of a golem and whether it can be counted in a minyan. This is used today as a basis for issues around artificial intelligence, robotics, and more.

The third area concerns those from the diaspora visiting Israel during a festival. While almost every other posek felt that visitors should keep two days of Yom Tov, Hakham Tsevi argued that observing an extra day was a leniency disguised as stringency since it caused one to neglect mitzvot that one would otherwise be performing were it not a festival day.

Flying in the face of hundreds of years of accepted practice, this ruling represented a radical break with established norms. It constituted a watershed in the recent history of Hakham Tsevi’s responsum.

If there are any complaints about this otherwise fantastic work, it is that it is far too brief. Levine packs a lot into a little over 200 pages. Levine is a superb writer, and Hakham Tsevi is a fascinating personality, such that one ends the book wanting to read a lot more.

There are but a handful of rabbis of centuries past whose opinions live in posterity, and Hakham Tsevi is one of them. In this remarkable work, Levine makes it eminently clear why Hakham Tsevi is as relevant in 2025 as he was during his lifetime.