Your description reminds one of an old Chasidish Joke. Why do we read one verse in the Megila with the Lamentation cantilation? So the Litvaks also have something to be happy about on Purim. But why only one verse? Because more would already be debauchery.
If the Gra invented the modern yeshiva, then I’m a little confused what was going on beforehand; were Rabbis being trained locally? If so, that seems like the story about the yeshivas constituting a sort of eugenic devshirme where all the verbal talent got scooped up, centrally ranked, and the best were married off to wealthy merchants’ daughters was seriously exaggerated.
The very top are not demographically significant without extreme polygamy. The eugenic theory is that talmud torah provides a path for anyone anywhere to quickly and reliably leverage high IQ+conscientiousness into social status, and strong norms used that status for early marriage into families that would keep away starvation and freezing no matter how many children needed provision. That mechanism works perfectly well when the local rav sets up his star pupil with the local gvir's daughter.
But, of course, for this to work you also need the gvir, which requires Jews to have a reliable economic niche that allows for accumulation of wealth. The usury hypothesis and the talmud-as-social-cache hypothesis are usually looked at contradictory or complementary, but it's probably more correct to see them as working parts of a larger eugenic social model.
I guess my confusion here is something like, I had the impression that centralized ranking, by forcing more overt peer comparisons, would do a much better job at sorting than the sort of heavily decentralized vouching that would have been happening without the modern yeshiva. I could just be wrong about that, or I could be right about that but the old system could have been good enough anyway, or I could even have gotten it *backwards* and a relatively high-slack decentralized prestige culture could be *better* intellectually than the kind of Sort that produces modern meritocracy. (That's pretty much my opinion about finance now; the decentralized networks that enabled Dutch Capitalism were much better capital allocators than the centralized ones that enabled fiat currency, the World Wars, and Late Capitalism.)
I was waiting for this post for a while! Thanks for not paywalling it. Now I'm on terra firma at last I can confirm you blend fact, fiction and fantasy to concoct your articles. A lot of your observations are accurate, many are partially correct but you put an odd spin on them, and a few are straight out nonsense.
It's difficult for me to exactly put my finger on what he's doing, but maskil bina is twisting the evidence in a way that supports his worldview (his usual pattern is bring scandalous evidence, but then totally undermine it by making ludicrous claims not supported by said evidence). His dumb obsession with 'zoharism' is obvious, what's less obvious is the way he focuses on the Vilna Gaons shita in some areas while ignoring his collective contribution. For example he brings the fact the Gaon did textual emendation and insinuates in that respect the yeshiva world is less faithful to the Gr'a then academia. The issue is he has no way of knowing the methodology of the Gaon in making these emendations, he's just making assumptions.
The list of key misnagdic beliefs is weird and selective. Just because some guy decided that defines the misnagdic shita doesn't make it so. Number 1 is more or less true, number 2 is at best a half -truth. Number 3 and 6 are just not true, in that while those ideals are certainly espoused, we really don't make a big deal out of it. 5 is clearly a troll, but I actually found it amusing because it fits in well with the stereotype of Litvaks.
The single, isolated quote from the Gr'a, provided with barely any context is also weird.
The yeshiva world was basically dead after the war. It's revival is nothing short a miracle, especially in America. In Israel in the early 50's there were at most a few hundred yeshiva students of draft age.
I miss Andalusian hashkafah... no Kabbalah, just Rif, Ritva, Rashba, Tur, and Rambam; no Shulchan Aruch; very logical and philosophical. The Moreh, Kuzari, and Chovos Halevavos weren't just boutique niche interests.
Also, much more chilled if you weren't learning all day... opportunity to be a king's advisor and still write one of the most well-known peirushim on Torah... you can be a merchant and not feel like you failed Hashem and yourself...
People actually enjoyed poetry, were very emotionally in tune... perhaps not more than us, but they didn't make you feel weird for it...
They invented flamenco, so... they were better at kumzitzes than we are today...
I don't think we all fully appreciate the great loss of this vibrant Jewish culture...
I got a masters in medieval Jewish history with a focus on Andalusia. Only people with surface level knowledge usually view it as a golden age for Jews.
Undoubtedly, there was a lot of cultural production, but it was no golden age due to significant economic, political, and religious persecution.
Depends how you define golden age. It was a beautiful culture that thrived even in the intense options of the time. A culture that we would benefit greatly from.
The Zohar is evil. The Gra was fooled by it. He was probably autistic. He was not a rationalist. Yeshivishism, especially Brisk, is mental illness. Isaac Luria was a mentally ill charlatan. The Israeli Mizrachi world does not care about halachic research or the truth in general and their connection to Judaism is mostly emotional. Even the yemenites in Israel are stuck in their minhagim and reject research. I hold all collectivist ideologies with equal contempt.
I've never heard "EVEN the Gra believed in Kabbalah/Zohar," but "the Gra believed in Kabbalah/Zohar." According to your girsa, I would explain, per your article, that the Gra is viewed as some sort of rationalist, in part, because he emended texts instead of importing some magical virtues to the "old girsaos."
Your description reminds one of an old Chasidish Joke. Why do we read one verse in the Megila with the Lamentation cantilation? So the Litvaks also have something to be happy about on Purim. But why only one verse? Because more would already be debauchery.
If the Gra invented the modern yeshiva, then I’m a little confused what was going on beforehand; were Rabbis being trained locally? If so, that seems like the story about the yeshivas constituting a sort of eugenic devshirme where all the verbal talent got scooped up, centrally ranked, and the best were married off to wealthy merchants’ daughters was seriously exaggerated.
The very top are not demographically significant without extreme polygamy. The eugenic theory is that talmud torah provides a path for anyone anywhere to quickly and reliably leverage high IQ+conscientiousness into social status, and strong norms used that status for early marriage into families that would keep away starvation and freezing no matter how many children needed provision. That mechanism works perfectly well when the local rav sets up his star pupil with the local gvir's daughter.
But, of course, for this to work you also need the gvir, which requires Jews to have a reliable economic niche that allows for accumulation of wealth. The usury hypothesis and the talmud-as-social-cache hypothesis are usually looked at contradictory or complementary, but it's probably more correct to see them as working parts of a larger eugenic social model.
I guess my confusion here is something like, I had the impression that centralized ranking, by forcing more overt peer comparisons, would do a much better job at sorting than the sort of heavily decentralized vouching that would have been happening without the modern yeshiva. I could just be wrong about that, or I could be right about that but the old system could have been good enough anyway, or I could even have gotten it *backwards* and a relatively high-slack decentralized prestige culture could be *better* intellectually than the kind of Sort that produces modern meritocracy. (That's pretty much my opinion about finance now; the decentralized networks that enabled Dutch Capitalism were much better capital allocators than the centralized ones that enabled fiat currency, the World Wars, and Late Capitalism.)
Are the readers supposed to already know that the letter of the Gra was written to a woman?
Other than that, 'חרד is basically correct in his analysis of this article is basically correct.
It's just some whining about Litvaks while somehow trying to appeal to academic sensibilities.
I was waiting for this post for a while! Thanks for not paywalling it. Now I'm on terra firma at last I can confirm you blend fact, fiction and fantasy to concoct your articles. A lot of your observations are accurate, many are partially correct but you put an odd spin on them, and a few are straight out nonsense.
As someone much less informed I would love to hear you go into detail on this.
It's difficult for me to exactly put my finger on what he's doing, but maskil bina is twisting the evidence in a way that supports his worldview (his usual pattern is bring scandalous evidence, but then totally undermine it by making ludicrous claims not supported by said evidence). His dumb obsession with 'zoharism' is obvious, what's less obvious is the way he focuses on the Vilna Gaons shita in some areas while ignoring his collective contribution. For example he brings the fact the Gaon did textual emendation and insinuates in that respect the yeshiva world is less faithful to the Gr'a then academia. The issue is he has no way of knowing the methodology of the Gaon in making these emendations, he's just making assumptions.
The list of key misnagdic beliefs is weird and selective. Just because some guy decided that defines the misnagdic shita doesn't make it so. Number 1 is more or less true, number 2 is at best a half -truth. Number 3 and 6 are just not true, in that while those ideals are certainly espoused, we really don't make a big deal out of it. 5 is clearly a troll, but I actually found it amusing because it fits in well with the stereotype of Litvaks.
The single, isolated quote from the Gr'a, provided with barely any context is also weird.
The yeshiva world was basically dead after the war. It's revival is nothing short a miracle, especially in America. In Israel in the early 50's there were at most a few hundred yeshiva students of draft age.
That's just a few things off the top of my head.
So, in fact, no substantive objections at all except arguments from your own incomprehension and ignorance.
So what's the difference between us?
My blog is popular.
Sick burn.
I'm currently enjoying your latest podcast btw.
Shameless plug for my Rosh Yeshivah's article In Jewish Action on the Gra which touches on all the main point of this post:
https://jewishaction.com/tribute/incomparable-gaon-vilna/
I miss Andalusian hashkafah... no Kabbalah, just Rif, Ritva, Rashba, Tur, and Rambam; no Shulchan Aruch; very logical and philosophical. The Moreh, Kuzari, and Chovos Halevavos weren't just boutique niche interests.
Also, much more chilled if you weren't learning all day... opportunity to be a king's advisor and still write one of the most well-known peirushim on Torah... you can be a merchant and not feel like you failed Hashem and yourself...
People actually enjoyed poetry, were very emotionally in tune... perhaps not more than us, but they didn't make you feel weird for it...
They invented flamenco, so... they were better at kumzitzes than we are today...
I don't think we all fully appreciate the great loss of this vibrant Jewish culture...
Rambam despised poetry, Andalusia wasn't some golden age monolith.
The Andalusian Jews loved poetry, they learned ramabam…
Bro… I’m not saying you need to like it… but it was a golden age and their culture was incredible and there’s a lot to learn from them…
If it doesn’t move you that’s fine…
I got a masters in medieval Jewish history with a focus on Andalusia. Only people with surface level knowledge usually view it as a golden age for Jews.
Undoubtedly, there was a lot of cultural production, but it was no golden age due to significant economic, political, and religious persecution.
Depends how you define golden age. It was a beautiful culture that thrived even in the intense options of the time. A culture that we would benefit greatly from.
The Zohar is evil. The Gra was fooled by it. He was probably autistic. He was not a rationalist. Yeshivishism, especially Brisk, is mental illness. Isaac Luria was a mentally ill charlatan. The Israeli Mizrachi world does not care about halachic research or the truth in general and their connection to Judaism is mostly emotional. Even the yemenites in Israel are stuck in their minhagim and reject research. I hold all collectivist ideologies with equal contempt.
So is this series going to be exclusively about Orthodoxy or will you get to the Haskalah?
I've never heard "EVEN the Gra believed in Kabbalah/Zohar," but "the Gra believed in Kabbalah/Zohar." According to your girsa, I would explain, per your article, that the Gra is viewed as some sort of rationalist, in part, because he emended texts instead of importing some magical virtues to the "old girsaos."