Jewish History: 18 Controversies (Part 2/2)

Sturgeon: In 1798, Jeremiah Mattersdorf (Jeremiah Rosenbaum), chief rabbi of Santov (Abaújszántó, Hungary), participated in the halakhic controversy (mahloket) regarding whether the sturgeon (shtirl) species of fish—whose caviar is prized—is allowed according to Judaism’s dietary laws (kashrut); he prohibited it, in contrast to his disciple Aaron Chorin/Choriner, chief rabbi of Arad (Romania), who permitted it. Sturgeon, a fish that possesses both fins and scales—the biblical requirements for a kosher fish (Leviticus 11:9)—and that is endemic to the waters of southern Hungary, had already been permitted for consumption by the leading sage Ezekiel Landau, Aaron’s other master. Aaron, who earned a reputation for his heterodoxy and combative personality, attempted to justify religious innovations within the traditional framework of halakhah, which generated controversy. Although he based his reforms on Talmudic rulings, his proposed innovations were strongly opposed by most of his rabbinical colleagues, including Isaac Grieshaber, chief rabbi of Paks (Hungary), and Mordekhai Benet, chief rabbi and head of the academy of Nikolsburg (Mikulov, Czech Republic) and chief rabbi of Moravia (eastern Czech Republic). Aaron’s pamphlet Imrei No’am was refuted by Isaac’s Makkeil No’am, which prompted Aaron’s rejoinder Shiryon Kasskassim.

But if sturgeon possesses both biblical requirements for a kosher fish, why was there ever any controversy to begin with? Two supplemental factors—one concerning halakhic strictures, the other concerning the fact that not all fish scales are created equal—must be taken into consideration to understand the dispute.

Flash back to the Middle Ages. After preeminent sage Moses ben Nahman (Ramban/Nahmanides) immigrated to the Land of Israel, he indited a Torah commentary combining rational and mystical exegesis, wherein he introduced a rabbinical stringency (humrah) regarding the interpretation of the biblical Hebrew word for a fish scale (kasskesset): he ruled that for Judaic dietary law purposes, a scale must be removable from the fish either by hand or with a knife, without tearing the underlying skin; if the scale underneath the skin would tear upon removal, the fish is nonkosher. This stringency was universally adopted as the halakhah. Later halakhic authorities Israel Lipschütz (Tiferet Yisrael) and Yehiel Mikhael Epstein (Arukh HaShulhan) added the proviso that scales must be visible to the naked eye from a normal distance.

Scientifically, there are five different types of scales: placoid, cosmoid, ganoid, ctenoid, and cycloid; cycloid and ctenoid scales are those found on most kosher fish (although scientific classifications of scales are not by themselves halakhically determinative). Instead of the permitted cycloid (circular) and ctenoid (serrated/toothed) scales, a sturgeon has rows of ganoid scales, which are usually dense and fit together more like a jigsaw puzzle as opposed to overlapping like other scale types. In the sturgeon’s case, its ganoid scales—covered with ganoin (akin in texture to fingernails)—are enlarged into scute-like armor plates: scutes are similar to scales and serve the same function. But whereas fish scales are formed from the epidermis, scutes are formed in the skin’s lower vascular layer and produce a horny outer layer that is superficially similar to that of scales; in other words, scutes are embedded and cannot be removed without tearing the skin…which is why sturgeon are nonkosher per halakhah.

Napoleonic: In early 19^th century Europe, the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) raged and turned much of the continent and beyond into a battleground. According to Hassidic tradition, Israel Hapstein (Maggid of Kozhnitz) construed the 1812 invasion of Russia by Emperor Napoleon I of France as the legendary war of Gog and Magog, which would ultimately usher in the messianic redemption, and joined his colleagues Ya’akov Yitzhak HaLevi Horowitz (HaHozeh MiLublin/The Seer of Lublin) and Menahem Mendel Torim of Rimanov in praying for the emperor’s victory. Despite this, their prominent disciple Naphtali Tzvi Horowitz of Ropshitz (Admor of Ropshitz/Ropshitzer Rebbe) dissented from his Hassidic masters’ positive attitude toward Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, owing to his wariness of the negative repercussions for Polish Jewry that might attend a French victory, such as military conscription, attendance at non-Jewish schools, and the proliferation of unbelief.

In 1812, according to Hassidic legend, David Biderman of Lelov (Reb Dovid Lelover) was consulted at his home by Napoleon, who happened to pass through Lelov (Lelów, Poland) as he was embarking upon his fateful invasion of Russia and who inquired whether he would succeed in conquering the Russian Empire, only to be informed that he would suffer total defeat; after this came to pass, the routed emperor fled westward and again passed through Lelov, where he acknowledged David’s saintliness and gave him as a keepsake his imperial red velvet cloak, later inherited and brought to the Land of Israel by David’s son Mosheh, who had it trimmed and sewn to serve as a curtain for the holy Ark in the synagogue he founded there.

Force-Fed Geese: A well-known delicacy among gourmands, foie gras was originally beloved by ancient Egyptians then by classical Greeks and Romans. One theory claims that Jews adopted its preparation technique during the Roman occupation of Judea, and subsequently brought it with them during their diasporic migrations northward into western and central Europe. There the majority of Jews were resigned to a simple diet of basic foods (e.g., noodles, cabbage, and potatoes) and faced challenges in obtaining an appropriate fat for meat (fleishig) preparations. Although readily available, neither lard, which is nonkosher, nor butter, which is a dairy product whose combination with meat products is proscribed per Judaism’s dietary laws (kashrut), were acceptable options. Mediterranean Jewry employed olive oil and Babylonian Jewry sesame oil in their local cuisines, but neither of these fats were commonly available to Ashkenazic Jews in their new environs, so instead they resorted to poultry fat (schmaltz), which could be plentifully produced by overfeeding geese. Migratory waterfowl were deemed ideal for force-feeding (gavage) because they lack a gag reflex, have an extremely flexible esophagus (unlike chickens), and possess a natural ability to gain much weight in short periods of time before cold seasons. Indeed, goose fat’s lower melting point resulted in a creamier consistency, so it was often preferred over duck or chicken fat. Thus for Ashkenazic Jewry, among whose communities extreme poverty prevailed and goose fat was inexpensive, foie gras served as an important source of numerous nutrients; it was often fed to children so they would benefit from the supplementary fat and calories, and became a staple even among the most pious Jews in Europe.

Yet despite the widespread production and consumption of foie gras in Europe, Tzvi Elimelekh Shapira/Spira of Dinov (Mahartza/Ba’al HaBnei Yissakhar/Dinover Rebbe), chief rabbi of Munkatch/Munkács (Mukacheve, Ukraine) for a time (1825–1829), proscribed the fattening of geese by means of “stuffing”, i.e., force-feeding thrice daily (which usually causes wounds and punctures in the goose’s esophagus, thereby rendering the bird nonkosher), which elicited opposition from the trustees (parnasim) of Munkatch and precipitated his departure therefrom. Later halakhic authorities in the Land of Israel, including Tzvi Pesah Frank and Abraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (Hazon Ish), affirmed the abrogation of this practice and product. Thereafter, however, improvements in the force-feeding method were implemented in Israel, including using a much shorter pipe than previously employed and feeding the geese soft rice meal, which does not cause holes, scars, or blemishes in the goose’s esophagus (the principal dietary law concern), and some experts conclude that this indeed causes the animal less suffering. For this reason, there is room for halakhic leniency in this matter, although in 2003 the Supreme Court of Israel ordered the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture to ban the force feeding of geese (the ban was meant to come into effect in 2005, and has been enforced since 2006).

Nowadays, foie gras is a luxury, not a necessity, but most contemporary halakhic authorities remain hesitant to reissue or enforce a ban on it since doing so might create the impression that in this regard Ashkenazic Jews were lax in their observance of halakhah. And for some gastronomes, foie gras continues to exemplify refined cuisine.

Machine-Made Matzah: For millennia, matzah (unleavened bread) had been baked by hand for the Passover festival to commemorate the hasty flight of the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt (c. 1313–1273 BCE). But in mid-19^th century central and eastern Europe, while the Industrial Revolution was under way, new mechanical technology was developed that upended the traditional matzah preparation method and automated the production process by means of a machine, which kneaded the dough then rolled it through two metal rollers whence it emerged thin, perforated, and round before placement within an oven. While novel and ingenious, this innovation brought with it several socio-economic and halakhic implications, and prompted a heated dispute that exercised the orthodox Jewish world at the time, and indeed for generations thereafter, especially in America and in Israel.

In 1838, a Jew from Ribeauvillé in Alsace (France), Isaac Singer (not to be confused with the non-Jewish Isaac Merritt Singer, American innovator of the sewing machine), invented the original machine for baking matzot; by 1845, the machine was in use in Frankfurt, Germany; in 1852, there was a machine-made matzah factory in Posen (Poland); around 1857, the machine first appeared in Austria and most major Jewish communities had adopted the innovative production process; and in 1857/1858, it reached Galicia (southeastern Poland/western Ukraine)—which is when the dough hit the fan, so to speak. What ensued was to some extent a contest between German Jewry and Galician Jewry—between western European and eastern European Jewish communities and sages—and also between Hassidim and traditional Talmudists (Mitnagdim), but certainly between religious conservatives and progressives.

In 1859, the views of prolific sage Solomon Kluger (Maharshak/Maggid of Brod), a religious judge (dayyan) on the rabbinical court (beit din) of Brod (Brody, Ukraine), were quoted in Moda’ah L’Beit Yisrael, a compilation of responsa regarding machine-made matzah, which he opposed in order to preserve for the poor—mostly women, and often widows—a necessary income source. However, his rabbinical colleagues Israel Lipschütz (Tiferet Yisrael), chief rabbi of Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland), Jacob Ettlinger (Arukh LaNer), chief rabbi of Altona (Germany) and a leader of orthodoxy in Germany, Joseph Saul Nathanson, chief rabbi of Lwów/Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine), and Abraham Samuel Benjamin Wolf Sofeir (Ktav Sofeir), chief rabbi and head of the academy of Pressburg (Bratislava, Slovakia), permitted the use of machine-made matzah; in 1859, Joseph indited Bitul Moda’ah, a tract defending its use, which generated controversy. Solomon’s opposition was rehearsed by the eminent Hassidic Rebbes Yitzhak Meir Alter (Yitzhak Meir Rothenburg/Rim/Hidushei HaRim) and Hayyim Halberstam of Tzanz (Divrei Hayyim), and by Israel Elijah Joshua Trunk of Kutna (Reb Yehoshua’leh Kutner), chief rabbi of Kutna (Kutno, Poland) and in time the foremost Talmudist of Poland.

Those who prohibited the machine argued that: matzah production required the proper, conscious intent (khavvanah) that it was being done to fulfill the Torah’s commandment (mitzvah), per Joseph Karo’s Shulhan Arukh and Israel Meir HaKohen/Kagan Poupko’s Mishnah Brurah; the intricacy of the machinery made it extremely challenging to ensure no dough lingered within its wheels, crevices, grooves, or gears, and if any dough remained in the machinery it would render subsequent batches leaven (hameitz); because the machinery parts were made of metal and generated friction, the heat could speed fermentation of the dough; the longstanding Jewish tradition that fermentation occurred if the dough was left unworked for 18 minutes applied to dough prepared by hand, but there was no tradition regarding when this would occur in dough prepared by machine, and such dough might ferment faster; if machine matzah was fashioned in the traditional round configuration, excess dough pieces that would be excised might have time to become leaven and rise before being recombined with the general dough mixture, thereby compromising it; and using such matzot disadvantaged the indigent, who highly anticipated employment in the bakeries during the busy period before Passover wherein they could earn sufficient income to supply their families with all of the festival’s requisites, and who would be rendered redundant by the use of machines.

Those who permitted the machine controverted the aforementioned arguments seriatim and counterargued that: machine-made matzot were in fact preferable because the automated process was quicker than the traditional handmade method, thus reducing the possibility of the dough becoming leaven—provided that special care was taken to ensure the machinery was adequately cleaned so that no dough remnants lingered therein between the processing of each batch; the machine would be easier to clean than rolling pins and human hands; the machine was just another technological tool, no different in this regard than a rolling pin, thus it sufficed if the machine’s Jewish manual operators possessed the proper intent to fulfill the Torah’s commandment; round-shaped matzot indeed would be problematic, thus machine-made matzot would be square-shaped instead, so that there would be no leftovers; and machine production could substantially reduce the cost of matzah, a great benefit to the indigent.

Subsequent machinery enhancements expedited the production process, engendering a general acceptance of the modern method (formerly mechanical, now electrical). And yet, although among the majority of Jewry (less so among Hassidim) it has become acceptable to satisfy the biblical obligation to consume matzah on Passover with machine-made matzot, the ease with which handmade matzot can be obtained nowadays almost throughout the world makes it convenient for Jews to use traditionally made and closely supervised unleavened bread (shmurah matzah) at least for the night(s) of the Seider, thereby authentically reenacting the ancestral act annually commemorated.

Tzanz-Sadigora: In 1830, Hayyim Halberstam of Tzanz (Divrei Hayyim) became chief rabbi of Tzanz (Nowy Sącz, Poland), a position in which he served for 46 years. He developed his Hassidic court (hoif/hatzeir) at Tzanz, where he assumed the role of a Hassidic righteous saint (tzaddik). There he also established an academy, which attracted both Hassidim and traditional Talmudists (Mitnagdim) and which became one of the leading Talmudic institutions in eastern Europe. Under his guidance, Tzanzer Hassidism accented traditional learning and ecstatic expression in religious life. Hayyim conducted his Hassidic court with modesty and discretion, and eschewed the pomp and splendor customary at the courts of some of his contemporary Hassidic righteous saints (tzaddikim), most notably that of a certain great-grandson of Dov Bär (The Maggid) of Mezhirech.

Despite being, by his own candid admission, an illiterate boor, Israel Friedman of Ruzhin (Ruzhiner Rebbe), beardless but mustached, became known for his naturally keen mind and pompous comportment. He claimed to be a descendant of the royal Davidic dynasty, and lived accordingly. He resided in a splendid palace and led a majestic Hassidic court marked by luxury and grandeur befitting a ruling monarch. He sat on a throne, dressed in expensive clothes in the manner of the Russian nobility, and wore a hat embroidered with gold. He rode in a carriage with silver handles and drawn by four white horses, surrounded by his retinue. He also hosted visitors in ostentatious fashion. His extravagant lifestyle aroused the contempt of Enlightenment secularists (maskhilim) among Jewry, and the ire and jealousy of Czar Nicholas I of the Russian Empire, who incarcerated him for 22 months upon the unsubstantiated suspicion of complicity in the murders of two Jewish informers, Isaac Ochsman and Samuel Schwartzman. In 1840, he was released from solitary confinement in Kiev, Ukraine but was placed under continual police surveillance. As a result, he moved from town to town, seeking to escape persecution. In 1845, he received permission from Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria to settle in Sadigora (Sadhora, Ukraine), where he acquired an estate, resumed his opulent way of life, and attracted myriads of adherents. The Jews of Sadigora soon became Ruzhiner Hassidim. In 1850, Israel died, but his regal way outlived him and engendered tension among the more conservative Hassidim of Galicia (southeastern Poland/western Ukraine), especially Tzanzer Hassidim.

In 1869, Hayyim became embroiled in a bitter ruction between the Hassidim of Tzanz and those of Sadigora, which generated controversy that ramified beyond Galicia and even involved leading sages among traditional Talmudists. Burning hatred flared between the inimical rivals, who attacked each other with excommunications, recriminations, polemics, and even violence.

The spark that ignited the conflagration was a bizarre if ephemeral episode featuring disillusioned scion Dov Bär Friedman of Leova, one of Israel of Ruzhin’s six sons, who published a manifesto in the Jewish press wherein he abjured Hassidism and expressed his support of the Haskhalah (Enlightenment) movement. Although this sudden crisis was short-lived—after just a month and a half, Dov Bär repented his actions and returned from self-imposed exile in neighboring Tschernovitz (Chernivtsi) to his brother Avraham Ya’akov’s court in Sadigora—it scandalized much of Galician and Hungarian Jewry…and offered Tzanzer Hassidim an irresistible cudgel with which to clobber the Ruzhiner Hassidim of Sadigora.

To that end, Hayyim publicized in a widely circulated epistle his grave misgivings regarding the regal mannerism and ostentatious materialism of Sadigora Hassidim, and called for the imposition of a ban of excommunication (heirem) upon them. The epistle circulated across Galicia, eventuating in a tempestuous dispute between the rivalrous sects. In Ukraine, a rabbinical convention issued a call for his excommunication and insisted that he be delivered into the hands of the governmental authorities. In Jerusalem, his opponents imposed a counterban against him at the Western Wall (Kotel) of Temple Mount. The feud also affected the distribution of eleemosynary contributions from Jews abroad (halukah) for the collective Jewish community (yishuv) in the Land of Israel. Several sages tried to effect a rapprochement between the opposing parties, albeit in vain. The quarrel intensified and lasted seven years until Hayyim’s decease in 1876, though tensions endured for decades. Gradually the conflict abated and was relegated to the realm of history.

Etrogim: In large part, this controversy is the story of the rise and fall of the Corfu etrog in the modern era, yet it is a story whose roots run much deeper.

The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) requires Jews to take “the fruit of the hadar tree” (“pri eitz hadar”) for ritual use as one of the four species pertaining to the Sukkot festival (Leviticus 23:40). The sages of the Talmud identified this fruit as the etrog (Sukkah 35a), and in the late Middle Ages eminent sage Moses ben Nahman (Ramban/Nahmanides) equated the Hebrew word “hadar” with the Aramaic word “etrog”. The citron fruit species (Citrus medica) is believed to be native to the Far East (namely India or China), and may have been depicted on the walls of the botanical garden at the Temple of Amun in the ancient Egyptian capital of Waset (Thebes; modern Karnak), dating to the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III the Great (1458–1425 BCE). King Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) and his forces are often credited with its spread northwestward into Europe during the Hellenistic era (332–167 BCE). Romaniot Jewry claim to have availed themselves of Greek citrons in Greece and in Anatolia since at least the Second Temple era; following the expulsion of Spanish Jewry in 1492, Sephardic Jews who settled in Italy or the Ottoman Empire (including Greece and Turkey) benefited from these fruit.

The etrog tree is frail and delicate, susceptible to frost and disease; it bears its first fruit only after four or five years, and has a relatively short lifespan of 10–15 years—hence the persistent temptation for horticulturalists to engage in grafting. Yet for a citron to be ritually fit per halakhah, it cannot be grafted or hybridized (murkhav) with hardier and more resilient citrus varieties (e.g., lemon, lime, or orange) for various halakhic reasons related to the fruit’s wholeness, purity, and authenticity, thus only a few traditional varieties were used. Etrog grafting first became prevalent in the early 1500s, which stimulated halakhic discussion and debate among Jewry’s leading sages and decisors including Moses Isserles (Rama) in Poland, Meir Katzenellenbogen (Maharam of Padua) in Italy, and Moses Alshekh in the Land of Israel.

Since the era of the earliest tosafists (sages of France and Germany, c. 1100–1328, who wrote additional glosses on Solomon Yitzhaki’s Talmud commentary and/or glosses on the Talmud itself), Jews of northern Europe imported the Diamante citron (a.k.a. the Calabrian or Yanova etrog), grown in the Calabria region of southwestern Italy and exported northwards via the northernwestern Italian seaport of Genoa and widely regarded as the earliest known variety of etrog used by Ashkenazic Jewry. Despite being characteristically scrawny and speckled with spots, it became highly popular. The growing demand for, and occasional scarcity of, Calabrian etrogim prompted Genoese merchants to compensate for such shortages by supplementing their shipments with etrogim from the Genoese (later French) island of Corsica, where they were not farmed and cultivated but rather grown in the wild, which reduces concerns regarding grafting.

But in the early 19^th century, the symmetrical and splendid etrogim from Corfu, Greece—beautiful and unblemished, always topped with a sturdy style and stigma (pitam), and abundantly available—began dominating the citron market when distribution of other varieties was troubled by supply chain disruptions during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). From 1809, the Corfu etrog proliferated throughout the Jewish communities of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania. In subsequent decades, farmers among the collective Jewish community (yishuv) in the Land of Israel began marketing their own indigenous citron crops to European Jewry, but many Ashkenazic communities still favored etrogim from Italy, Greece, Morocco, or Yemen. The sage and halakhic authority Ephraim Zalman Margoliot (Beit Ephraim) preferred the Italian variety but accepted the Greek variety as ritually suitable.

In 1846, however, Ashkenazic merchant Alexander Ziskind Mintz claimed that only the citrons from Parga (Greece)—whose orchards he conveniently monopolized—were guaranteed to be ungrafted. This assertion was refuted by Judah Aryeh Leon Bibas, chief rabbi of neighboring Corfu, then by Hayyim Palaggi (Maharhaf), chief rabbi (hakham-bashi) of Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey). Solomon Kluger (Maharshak/Maggid of Brod), a religious judge (dayyan) on the rabbinical court (beit din) of Brod (Brody, Ukraine), weighed in to ban all Greek citrons, although Joseph Saul Nathanson, chief rabbi of neighboring Lwów/Lemberg (Lviv), soon countered this measure by permitting all Greek citrons bearing certification from the local rabbinate. The prized Corfu etrog remained most attractive and abundant, and its gentile growers incorporated themselves into a cartel in 1875 and engaged in price gouging, drastically increasing the cost of each etrog to six florins—an extortionist price. This was done partly because they mistakenly believed that superstitious Jews feared they would not survive the year if they were unable to procure a Corfu etrog. Greed and delusion went hand in hand. But the unprecedented monopoly the Greek farmers were counting on was already on the wane.

Hayyim Elazar Wax (Hayyim Elazar Gerymter), chief rabbi of Kalisch (Kalisz, Poland), fostered etrog agriculture in the ancestral homeland with the financial support of Moses Montefiore. He purchased land west of Tiberias, near the Horns of Hattin (Karnei Hitin), and from the 1870s invested large sums of money to establish etrog orchards that would produce preferable local etrogim in commercial quantities and thereby develop an important income source for the collective Jewish community in the Land of Israel; in 1875, 600 etrog trees were planted (which produced more than 40,000 etrogim by 1883). These citrons, known as “balady” (“native” in Arabic) etrogim, until then cultivated in a primitive and limited manner and only minimally exported, now became the favored variety among eastern European Jewry, as a result of which the Greek citrons radically declined in popularity.

Also in 1875, Gershon Hanokh Heynekh Leiner (Radziner Rebbe), soon to become the third Rebbe of the Izhbitza-Radzin Hassidic dynasty, was among the few sages who advocated using Corfu etrogim, due to his concern that etrogim from the Land of Israel were produced from compound trees; he even traveled to Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) to meet with Isaac Elhanan Spektor, chief rabbi and head of the academy of Kovno—who had imposed a ban on Corfu etrogim because of both price gouging and concerns about their ritual fitness—and to convince him to retract the proscription, but his mission was unsuccessful. This controversy also engendered tension between Gershon and Hayyim Elazar Wax, whom he excoriated, and a bitter ruction ensued. In 1886, Hayyim visited the Land of Israel with his father-in-law Israel Elijah Joshua Trunk of Kutna (Reb Yehoshua’leh Kutner), chief rabbi of Kutna (Kutno, Poland) and the foremost Talmudist of Poland, to superintend his etrog orchards. After touring a local etrog orchard planted by his son-in-law, Israel issued an enthusiastic call for Jewry to prefer etrogim of the Holy Land to those of Greece (Corfu) and of Italy (Calabria or Florence).

Yet what truly doomed the Corfu etrog trade was something far grimmer: in 1891, a blood libel (the outrageous and spurious claim that Jews use Christian blood when baking matzah for the Passover festival) followed by a barbaric pogrom against the 5,000 Jews of Corfu, which left 139 Jews dead, forever sealed the fate of the Corfu etrog, thereafter boycotted because blemished by the bloodletting (a punishment meted out by the inimical Greek growers against the Jews for their refusal to pay exorbitant prices). The Corfu etrog variety, however, endured: its seeds were transplanted by Sephardic Jews to the southern Coastal Plain region of the Land of Israel, and these Greek citrons grown around Jaffa became so commercially successful that they soon nudged the Balady citron out of the market. Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook (HaRa’ayah), chief rabbi of Jaffa, promoted intraspecific grafting of the transplanted Corfu citron upon the native Balady citron rootstock—which is halakhically permissible—and granted his rabbinical certification for this procedure, believing that it presented a practical solution for growing etrogim both beautiful and suitable for ritual purposes. Predictably, the move induced suspicion in alert consumers who wondered why the Balady citron, formerly unprepossessing, was suddenly lovely. Hayyim Elazar Spira (Minhat Elazar/Munkatcher Rebbe), chief rabbi of Munkatch/Munkács (Mukacheve, Ukraine), became aware of the enhancement, which he conjectured was the result of grafting or interbreeding with a local lemon variety, but to no avail. To this day, the Corfu-Balady etrog variety is the main citron cultivated in the State of Israel, which is the globe’s leading supplier of etrogim for the Sukkot festival, and the majority of Jewish communities worldwide pride themselves on their usage; local cultivars are also employed in Israeli cuisine for jams, juices, and alcoholic beverages.

Azure Dye: Renowned as a genius from a young age, Gershon Hanokh Heynekh Leiner (Radziner Rebbe) studied Talmud, rabbinics, and kabbalah, but also sciences including medicine, chemistry, and engineering, and was well versed in several languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, German, Polish, Russian, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French). Although not a physician, his medical prescriptions for others were accepted and filled at local pharmacies. He earned a reputation for his erudition, prolificacy, unconventional character, and tempestuous temperament. After becoming the Radziner Rebbe (the third Rebbe of the Izhbitza-Radzin Hassidic dynasty) and chief rabbi of Ostrova (Ostrów Mazowiecka, Poland), he decided to indulge his enduring fascination with a certain biblical mystery in the hope of solving it.

From 1887, he traveled four times to the then largest aquarium in the world—Acquario della Stazione Zoologica (Aquario di Napoli)—at a research center in Naples, Italy to investigate its diverse marine species—among which he sought to identify the particular sea creature (hilazon) specified in the Tosefta (Menahot 9:6) and in the Talmud (Menahot 42b-44a) as the sole permissible source of the azure dye (tkheilet) that formerly colored, among other things, strings of the ritual fringes (tzitzit), until all knowledge of its production was lost early in the Geonic era (c. 600–1050 CE), probably around 650, once the shellfish dyeing industry ended in the Land of Israel in the wake of the Muslim conquests. His aim in this regard was to renew usage of the azure dye in ritual fringes so as to fulfill the Torah’s commandment (mitzvah)—in abeyance for more than a millennium—and to hasten the messianic redemption. Based on his studies, he concluded that the original and authentic azure dye derived from the black secretion of the common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis), which generated controversy and elicited opposition. Despite this, in 1889 he began producing azure strings from the dye he purchased during his visits to Italy, and claimed that by 1890 some 12,000 Polish Jews were donning ritual fringes with azure-colored strings. He also composed three tracts on the topic of the azure dye, Sfunei Tmunei Hol, Ptil Tkheilet, and Ein HaTkheilet.

Nevertheless, Israel Elijah Joshua Trunk of Kutna (Reb Yehoshua’leh Kutner), chief rabbi of Kutna (Kutno, Poland) and the foremost Talmudist of Poland, was among the leading opponents of the investigation conducted by Gershon, whose research findings were not widely accepted. In fact, they were later challenged by the young scholar and remarkable polymath Isaac HaLevi Herzog, later chief rabbi of the Irish Free State and eventually the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of the State of Israel, who obtained from the Hassidic court (hoif/hatzeir) of Radzin both the dyeing recipe and the dyed strings themselves, and subsequently demonstrated that the color of the dyed strings was actually Prussian blue, a synthetic dye that can be manufactured from a variety of other sources and that in this case derived from the iron filings and potash added to the cuttlefish ink. His conclusions constituted a fascinating part of his doctoral dissertation, The Dyeing of Purple in Ancient Israel (1913). In response, Radziner Hassidim implemented a new dyeing process without any chemicals introduced into the compound, thereby refuting the claim that the color is not that of the natural secretion, and to this day Radziner and Breslover Hassidim dye their ritual fringes accordingly.

In his dissertation, Isaac had identified the most likely candidate—a sea snail—for the source of the azure dye: although his candidate satisfied many of the Talmudic criteria, his inability to consistently obtain azure dye (occasionally the dye was purple) from the snail prevented him from officially declaring it the dye source. In 1983, Otto Elsner, a dye chemist at Shenkar College of Fashion and Textile Technology, experimented with shellfish dyeing beside an open window (due to the accompanying fetor) and thereby discovered that ultraviolet energy—such as that obtained by exposure to sunlight—stimulated photochemical processes in the trunculus dye solution that produced an azure color. In the 21^st century, scientific analysis of a small piece of dyed fabric dating to the first century BCE and discovered by Israeli archeologist Yigal Yadin at Masada in the 1960s determined its chemical breakdown and allowed researcher Zvi Koren, professor at the department of chemical engineering at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan and director of its Edelstein Center for the Analysis of Ancient Artifacts, to confirm that the snail Hexaplex (Murex) trunculus (banded dye-murex) was indeed the source of the ancient dye, extracted from its hypobranchial gland, and this mollusk is now widely accepted as the original and authentic dye source. Two related dye-producing snails, Bolinus (Murex) brandaris (spiny dye-murex) and Stramonita (Thais) haemastoma (red-mouthed rock shell) might have been used as well, though some researchers speculate that the trunculus tends to blue more naturally. Interestingly, because they constitute variations of the identical indigotin molecule that acts as the coloring agent, the azure dye from the trunculus sea snail is the exact same color as that of the dye from the indigo plant (kala ilan)—a fact already noted in the Talmud. While plant-derived indigo was much cheaper to produce than shellfish dye (and the identically-colored blue dye extracted from leaves of the woad plant later became cheaper still), only the genuine blue dye extracted from the scarce sea creature could legitimately be used for sacred purposes.

Sabbatical Year: The Torah mandates that the Land of Israel must lie fallow every seventh year (shvi’it)—the sabbatical year (shmitah)—for it to experience “a complete rest, a Sabbath to the Lord” (Exodus 23:11, Leviticus 25: 2-7). Sowing, pruning, reaping, plowing, and harvesting grapes are biblically proscribed, and rabbinical prohibitions against irrigating, weeding, fertilizing, and removing stones were added to these forbidden activities.

In 1889, when the collective Jewish community (yishuv) in the Land of Israel was vulnerable and starvation a genuine danger, eminent sages Isaac Elhanan Spektor, Ya’akov Sha’ul Elyashar (Yisa Brakhah), Israel Elijah Joshua Trunk of Kutna (Reb Yehoshua’leh Kutner), Joseph Engel/Angil, and Samuel Mohilever issued permission to Jewish farmers in the Land of Israel to cultivate the land during the sabbatical year. This was effected by devising a halakhic mechanism known as a sale permit (hetteir m’khirah), by means of which land could be temporarily sold to a gentile for the duration of the sabbatical year before reverting to Jewish ownership when the year ended. This rabbinical leniency afforded Jewish farmers a practical alternative that would allow the land to be worked, with certain restrictions (usually including that only gentiles perform most agricultural labor), during the seventh year; it was an emergency measure implemented during a time of duress (sha’at hadhak) as a temporary provision (hora’at sha’ah) necessitated by dire circumstances and not necessarily intended to remain in effect under normal conditions.

But this halakhic device was not accepted as valid by other eminent sages such as Naphtali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (HaNetziv), Joseph Dov Bär Soloveichik (Beit HaLevi), Yehiel Mikhael Epstein (Arukh HaShulhan), and the leading Ashkenazic sages of Jerusalem, Samuel of Salant and Moses Joshua Judah Leib Diskin (Maharil Diskin/Brisker Rov). An epistle signed by more than a score of sages was issued to Jewish farmers in the Land of Israel, imploring them to sedulously observe the sabbatical year laws, expounding on the divine blessings promised for such adherence, and reminding them of the negative consequences suffered by Jewry as a result of failing to observe these laws: per Solomon Yitzhaki (on Leviticus 26:35), the 70 years (586–516 BCE) between the destruction of the First Temple and the completion of the Second Temple corresponded to the exact number of unobserved sabbatical and Jubilee (yovel) years from the time the Israelites entered the Land of Israel until the Babylonian Captivity. Jerusalem’s leading sages hoped that if Jewry properly observed the sabbatical year laws, this would constitute a collective penitence (tshuvah) for its transgressions and usher in the messianic redemption.

For the next two sabbatical years (1896, 1903), the Ashkenazic sages of Jerusalem endorsed a limited version of the sale permit; they even suggested to the kabbalist Naphtali Hertz HaLevi Weidenbaum, first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Jaffa (and of most agricultural communities involved), who was ambivalent and conflicted on the matter, how to implement this leniency in a manner most conducive to halakhah. The reason for their about-face was pragmatic: while formerly they had felt that since Jewry had merited to repatriate to the Holy Land it was incumbent upon Jews to fully observe the Torah’s commandments (mitzvot) pertaining to the Land of Israel, they subsequently acknowledged that few Jewish farmers had properly observed the previous sabbatical year; without the sale permit option, most would conduct business as usual and completely disregard the sabbatical year laws. Thus it was preferable to allow the sale permit option while simultaneously encouraging farmers not to depend upon it. The limited sale permit was reluctantly allowed by Elijah David Rabinowitz-Teomim (Aderet), upon whom leadership of the collective Jewish community in the Land of Israel had devolved, but under his nephew-in-law (and former son-in-law) the controversy was soon renewed.

From 1909–1910, Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook (HaRa’ayah), chief rabbi of Jaffa, continued the practice of the sale permit, and even expanded it to include nonobservant Jewish farmers who had not explicitly authorized such a sale, although he still encouraged proper observance of the Sabbatical year laws. This lenity elicited opposition from eminent sages and halakhic authorities Jacob David Willowski/Wilovsky (Ridbaz/Slutsker Rav) and Solomon Eliezer Alfandari (Maharsha/Mercado Alfandari/Sabba Kaddisha). In 1910, Jacob founded a charity fund to assist those who refrained from such agricultural toil.

In 1937, after Abraham’s decease, Abraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (Hazon Ish), leader of the separatist orthodox (hareidi) community in the Land of Israel, strongly opposed the sale permit and instead helped found a fund, Keren HaShmitah, to support properly observant Jewish farmers during the sabbatical year. In 1945, he also revived an alternative previously proposed by Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook, namely the Talmudic arrangement of a rabbinical court’s storehouse (otzar beit din), under which said court supervised a collective harvesting process by hiring workers to reap the fields, store the harvest in communal warehouses, then distribute it to community members, who paid the court with the understanding that this payment represented only a contribution for services rendered, not a produce purchase/sale. In 1952, Abraham Yeshayahu Karelitz’s opposition to the sale permit was affirmed by Isaac Ze’ev HaLevi Soloveichik (Brisker Rav/Velvel Brisker), who also raised funds to assist Jewish farmers.

Thereafter further stringencies were added to make the sale permit stricter, though the device’s contemporary use may be eclipsed by a newer measure, premised upon a rabbinical court’s storehouse, known as Otzar Ha’Aretz—a unique program involving the advance purchase of vouchers (worth various amounts) for the entire sabbatical year and the redemption thereof at discrete points of sale. Another modern aid in this matter are hydroponics (plants disconnected from the soil and instead grown in greenhouses), which are not subject to sabbatical year laws and therefore offer an increasingly popular alternative nowadays for benefiting from agricultural produce during the seventh year of the agricultural cycle.

Yemenite Jewish Education (Darda’im-Ikshim): This controversy—a tale of two Yihyas—may be construed as yet another climax in the famed Maimonidean Controversy, or as an extension of the Zoharic controversy.

In 1909, Yihya Qafih/Kapah (HaYashish), former chief rabbi (hakham-bashi) of Yemen, became headmaster of a new Jewish school, known as al-Maktab, built in Sana’a by the Ottoman Turks; therein he instituted educational reforms such as the curricular inclusion of Turkish, Arabic, arithmetic, and geography, and the exclusion of kabbalah. In 1912, he became embroiled in a controversy over the study of the masterwork of kabbalah, the Zohar. A staunch rationalist, he disapproved of Yemenite Jewry’s disposition to superstition and its neglect of halakhah in favor of kabbalah, and sought to restore the rational approach to Judaism as exemplified by earlier sages Sa’adiah ben Joseph and Moses ben Maimon. In contrast, his much younger counterpart Yihya Yitzhak HaLevi, chief rabbi and chief justice on the rabbinical court (beit din) of Sana’a, favored the curricular inclusion of kabbalah in Jewish schools.

Both Yihyas were disciples of Yihya Qafih’s cousin Hayyim Korah. Despite being the senior sage and former chief rabbi, Yihya Qafih continued to serve as a religious judge (dayyan) on the rabbinical court of Sana’a under Yihya Yitzhak HaLevi, and their signatures appear together on numerous rabbinical court documents and responsa issued in the first quarter of the 20^th century. They frequently prayed and studied together, but their differing perspectives (hashkafot), and perhaps the generational gap between them, engendered tension and a communal clash.

Yihya Qafih was soon recognized as the leader of what had become known as the Dor Dei’ah (Generation of Knowledge) movement to counter the influence of Lurianic kabbalah and to expunge what were deemed gnostic heresies from Judaism; in effect, its aim was to return Yemenite Jewry to the earlier Maimonidean understanding of Judaism that obtained in Yemen prior to the 17^th century. The Dor Dei’ah movement’s adherents were labeled by Yihya Yitzhak as “Darda’im” (“Dor Dei’ah members”), while his own adherents were referred to in turn as “Ikshim” (“obstinate ones”). Yihya Qafih indited his masterwork Milhamot HaShem, a critique of the Zohar. He argued that the Zohar was inauthentic and idolatrous, and that Lurianic kabbalah promoted polytheism through the worship of both the demiurge Zeir Anpin and the 10 divine emanations (sfirot). This schism divided Yemenite Jewry, and the intracommunal dispute was referred to the Third Shari’a Court of Sana’a in 1914; the resulting fatwa of the presiding qadi Muhammad ibn Abbas al-Houthi, and the appended verdict of Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din of the Zaidi Imamate, vindicated Yihya Yitzhak but later that year precipitated the shuttering of the new Jewish school al-Maktab (just five years after it had opened) and the incarceration of Yihya Qafih by the Ottoman authorities, who released him in 1915.

The two Yihyas died six months apart (1931–1932); they were succeeded as chief rabbi of Yemen by their longtime colleague, and Yihya Qafih’s disciple, Yihya al-Abyadh. His successor, Yihya Qafih’s disciple Amram Korah, last chief rabbi of Yemen, requested of the imam that he be allowed to abdicate his formal role because of the ongoing dispute raging between Jewish community members over the acceptance or rejection of the Zohar; his request was granted after he had served the community officially for about two years.

Definitionally, controversies unsettle the communities wherein they occur, yet there can be meaning and value derived from the friction between disputants whose arguments help the participating opponents to define and refine their tenets and limits. Conflict can be constructive.

This was well known to the sages of the Mishnaic era, who recorded in Ethics of the Fathers (Avot 5:17) the following: “Every argument for the sake of heaven’s name is destined to endure. And those not for the sake of heaven’s name won’t endure. What is an example of an argument for the sake of heaven’s name? The argument of Hillel and Shammai. And what is an example of an argument not for the sake of heaven’s name? The argument of Korah and all of his congregation.” The Talmud (Eiruvin 13b:10-11) further explicates that “for three years Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed… A divine voice emerged and proclaimed: both these and those are the words of the living God. However, the halakhah is in accordance with Beit Hillel. Since both these and those are the words of the living God, why were Beit Hillel privileged to have the halakhah established in accordance with their views? Because they were agreeable and forbearing, and taught both their own statements and those of Beit Shammai, and indeed prioritized the statements of Beit Shammai over their own.”

For Jewry, then, worthwhile controversies are those premised upon a genuine desire to get to the truth of a matter, not upon selfish impulses and pursuits (whether overt or covert). Always stimulating, debate and dispute are distinguishing characteristics of a healthy civilization, so long as they are conducted at all times with respect, decency, and civility, and without animus, rancor, or ulterior motives. When polemics deteriorate into inimical interactions, the participants diminish both themselves and the process of discourse itself, which—history attests—often invites the intervention of outsiders eager to exploit internal divisions, with consequences unforeseen and detrimental.

* For the prior article on this topic, please visit Jewish History: 18 Controversies (Part 1/2).