Standing at Two Thresholds: A Chasid in Academe

In 1968 I began studying Hebrew Literature and Jewish History at University College London. The course was fascinating, with some leading scholars teaching us. At the same time, I was part of a small group of Orthodox students who would support each other in discussion of issues which came up in class, such as the Documentary Hypothesis, and other challenges to the Orthodox worldview. 

One might ask why people with beliefs which might seem more appropriate to the Haredi enclave of Meah Shearim had chosen to attend a secular university in London. Each field has its own history of Orthodox Jewish takeup (or avoidance). In the 1960s it was quite common for alumni of the esteemed Gateshead Yeshivah to study law or accountancy, which would eventually ensure a parnasah (income) that would give them time for extensive daily Talmud study, their real heartfelt desire. The case of Jewish Studies is somewhat different (especially as regards parnasah!); however, one might say there is much to be gained by developing broader and more extensive approaches to the history and nature of traditional Jewish sources. But the academic perspective also has to be critical, which in practice often means demolishing cherished beliefs. The question for us, as undergraduate students—and also later—was how far one could go in navigating faith and reason together. Would we have to choose one or the other, or could they somehow coexist? 

Of course there are several pathways, going back centuries, which seek to stitch the two modes of thinking together. A midrash says a divine “day” is a thousand years, so the six days of Creation might mean six thousand years, or, taking a step further, six billion years, or as many as you like, in order to fit the latest version of the Big Bang Theory. But the Orthodox “fundamentalist” position is not satisfied with that. The Orthodox want the words of the Kiddush recited on Friday night to be taken literally: “[It was] the sixth day. The heavens and the earth and all their hosts were complete. With the seventh day, G-d completed the work He had done, and He rested on the seventh day . . .”

During my years as a student, the challenge was sometimes presented in a very direct and personal way. One charming lecturer—who, around 1930, had himself made the journey from traditionalist Hungary to Berlin and then on to London—once asked me: “How long will you stand uncertain at the two doorsteps?” quoting Elijah’s plea to the Jews who were uncertain whether to follow the G-d of Israel, or Baal (I Kings 18:21). He meant, why don’t you choose the path of secular scholarship instead of keeping to traditional views about issues such as the authorship of the Torah? I smiled in response, without saying anything. But it was clear to me on which side of the line I wanted to be.

Having gained my first degree, there was a period of uncertainty. Did I really want to be part of academe, with its secular pitfalls at almost every step? Despite these doubts, in 1972, I reluctantly began studying for a doctorate in the field of Chasidism, encouraged by Chimen Abramsky, who became my supervisor. But I was still unsure.

Hence a year later, in July 1973, when I embarked on my first visit to New York, my primary goal was to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and then to ask him what I should do. 

My main question to the Rebbe in my first yechidut, private audience, was: should I continue working on the Ph.D.? As an alternative, I suggested that I should go to Jews’ College (now London School of Jewish Studies) and study to be a rabbi.

I met the Rebbe in his room, at around 2 a.m.; he looked at my written note with my question and encouraged me to continue working on the doctorate. “But what about the apikorsus?” I asked, meaning the critical, rational, secular perspective. 

The Rebbe’s answer surprised me. “You should write all the footnotes you need,” he said. Then he added, with a broad smile, and switching to Yiddish, “and after that you should do teshuvah!” 

I took these words to mean that indeed I should read and assess all the various views I might encounter. But I should know where I belong; I should know, from the point of view of Torah teachings and perspectives, what is inappropriate. The Talmud, although somewhat ambiguous, is critical of the study of “Greek wisdom,” and Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s Tanya is even more negative, although it also gives reasons why one might study secular knowledge, such as to make a living, or to use one’s knowledge to serve G-d, as Maimonides did. 

It was clear that the Rebbe wanted me to write the doctorate thesis. Indeed, some years later he strongly urged me to get it finished. After the doctorate came other pieces of academic research, till the present. 

Despite having attended university himself, the Rebbe did not recommend it for the mass of his followers. People who were already entrenched in the university when they first met the Rebbe were in a different category. It is also likely that he saw in them the possibility of advancing the cause of Jewish observance, which he understood as the need of the time. 

But one does not have to go to university in order to encounter difficult questions about Torah, Judaism, and life. Is there a place for pure rationality in Judaism? 

Maimonides claimed that use of reason in philosophical thought led to greater appreciation of the oneness of the Divine. This oneness was ultimately beyond reason, and beyond any definition, leading the individual to intense love, as Maimonides describes in his Laws of Repentance and the Guide for the Perplexed. He also argued that Talmudic study without philosophical depth was gravely lacking.

As is well-known, Maimonides’ views on philosophy were harshly criticized by many other Jewish sages. For the anti-Maimonists, it was either Jewish faith or philosophical reason. You could not have both. The historical Rambam, as I understand his writings, believed that reason was a path to a deeper faith. As Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneerson, the fifth Lubavitcher rebbe, described it, Maimonides put faith in the center of the circle of reason. Wherever reason might wander, it was anchored to faith at the center. This meant that reason could become a support for faith, rather than its opponent. Many feel the Chabad movement has taken a similar approach. 

Contemporary academe is, on its face, not a realm where reason can lead to faith; instead it is a place where faith will often be challenged. Nonetheless, the Rebbe did encourage some people to enter that realm, just as he encouraged many of his shluchim to live in areas remote from the organized orthodox Jewish community and from kosher food shops, so that they would be able to spread “the wellsprings of Judaism.” For the Chasid in academe, it is not Faith or Science. Somehow, they must coexist.

The Rebbe’s vision was that, at some deep level, they do coexist, and that this will eventually become evident to all. One of his talks discusses a passage in the Zohar, commenting on Genesis 7:11: “In the six-hundredth year of the life of Noah . . . all the fountains of the great deep poured forth, and the windows of heaven were opened.” The Zohar interprets this as a prophecy that, in the future (generally understood as the year 5600 A.M. [1840 C.E.]), the fountains of the great deep, “the lower wisdom,” will pour forth, and the windows of heaven, “the upper wisdom,” will also be thrown open. Through that, says the Zohar, the world will ascend to the messianic age. 

The Rebbe interprets these two types of wisdom as (a) science, the lower wisdom, and (b) the Chasidic dimension of Torah, the higher. The Rebbe firmly believed that the more science advances, the closer it comes to the truths of Torah. He also believed that it is through the lens of Chasidic teaching that those truths can best be understood.

One might say that, in the Rebbe’s view, the Chasidic dimension provides the faith, the center point of one’s being. There then comes science, in every form, including theoretical physics, biology, philosophy, psychology, literary theory, economics, critical history, whatever it might be. One explores, with care. And at the same time, with the sense of a constant quest for the center point of faith, one does teshuvah.

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Naftali Loewenthal is a Lecturer at the Dept. of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. He is the author of Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad School (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) and Hasidism Beyond Modernity: Essays in Habad Thought and History (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2020).