Rabbi Shagar’s view of Judaism

Maggid Books, an imprint of Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd, published the Hebrew edition of Rabbi Shagar, Living Time: Festival Discourses for the Present Age, in English in 2024. Maggid Books considers it an important book. It is part of Maggid’s “Modern Classics.”

Many people agree.

But not all.

Rabbi Shagar (1949-2007) is Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, an Israeli yeshiva leader with a large following in Israel. More than twenty-five volumes of his lectures have been published, and his followers plan to publish more using his unpublished writings. His speeches and writings focus on his view of Jewish philosophy, Jewish mysticism, Hasidism, and analysis of the Talmud.

His name, Shagar, is formed by the acronym of the initial letters of his name.

He fought from inside a tank in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His tank was hit during a fierce tank battle in the Golan Heights. Two fellow soldiers in the tank were killed. He was severely wounded and burned.

He was ardently Orthodox but differed from other right-wing religious groups. Many Haredi, far-right religious groups, emphasize the hope for a miraculous coming of the Messiah. They teach that Jews need to stop devoting themselves to improving themselves and must subjugate themselves to the project of bringing the Messiah. They strongly oppose Western culture, secular studies, and political liberalism in any form.

While many ultra-Orthodox had this ideology and taught it in their houses of learning, their yeshivot, not all did. It was not the view of New Israel Rabbinical College under the Rosh Yeshiva, the Dean, Rabbi Jacob Ruderman. Boys who wanted a secular education, like me, were allowed to attend Johns Hopkins University at night, as I did.

Rabbi Shagar also allowed and encouraged his students’ secular education. He even quoted from the works of non-Jewish writers. I like this idea, but I disagree with others that he teaches.

This volume contains a 32-page introduction to Rabbi Shagar’s thinking and 300 pages of eight sermons on the benefits he sees Jews getting from observing the High Holy Days, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, the Month of Iyar, Shavuot, and the Three Weeks. His teachings are mystic, Hasidic, and otherworldly.

Yet, one can learn much from his writings, even if one is a rational thinker like me.

I cannot accept his idea that divine providence means personally seeing the workings of the infinite divine in the complexity of one’s life and the need for humans to seek a relationship with God. I prefer Maimonides’ idea that divine providence is the human mind, the “image of God” that God placed in humans and that humans should not rely on God’s help but should use their intelligence to solve their problems.

However, I agree with his view, one expressed long before him in Plato’s depiction of Socrates as a man who understood he did not fully understand anything. Rabbi Shagar wrote that we must live with doubt and without certain knowledge yet affirm a life of Torah.

I also agree with Rabbi Shagar, who, despite his use of Hasidic texts, rejected their view and argued that the correct path for Religious Zionists is to embrace the world.

I am not a Hasid, but I agreed when Rabbi Schneerson requested that I help the Lubavitch program teach Noahide Commands to all people, even non-Jews. I did so even though I told him I couldn’t entirely agree with his interpretation of Maimonides because I thought he was right about the Noahide Commands. I did so because I believe what Maimonides taught, “The truth is the truth no matter what its source.”

As a US Army Brigadier General, I gave well over a dozen lectures worldwide on Noahide Commands, even in Japan. The lecture can be found in various places, not only in one of my books but also in Lubavitch’s books. Today, some readers of my blog booksnthoughts.com are non-Jewish Noahides.

This is why I do not reject Rabbi Shagar’s book. Even if a reader disagrees, it is thought-provoking.