By Rabbi Ozer Glickman

Torah Currents is honored to present a series of letters by Rabbi Ozer (Tony) Glickman, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, an adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law, as well as a successful hedge fund manager.

Rabbi Glickman studied for a Ph.D in Talmud at JTS before, in his words, rejecting the approach and the institution and studying instead at Yeshivat Merkaz haRav. He studied privately with several rabbanim, both in Israel and the U.S., including Rav Moshe David Steinwurzel zt”l, the late great rosh yeshiva of Bobov, and heard shiurim from the Rov zt”l, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, zt”l. At YU, he credits Rabbis Moshe David Tendler and Zevelun Charlop, shlit”a, as the mentors who have eased his road into the world of Roshei Yeshiva.

Rabbi Glickman makes a point of maintaining contact with his students even after their time in his shiur. The letters presented here provide a window into the worldview of this thoughtful, new voice in the Jewish world.

To my beloved talmid:

I enjoyed the news of your move very much and am very much relieved that everything went so smoothly. It is supposedly a good idea to move when the weather is nice and the days are long and sunny. By the time winter comes, you should all be well-adjusted to your new surroundings.

The questions you posed are very important and I have taken the time to frame my answers very carefully. Your intuition regarding the kashering of the stove is correct. I myself discussed this question with my Rebbe Rav Steinwurczel z”l when we moved into our home. I will forward the relevant sources in a separate message; as ever, it is important that you understand the basis of this p’sak so that you can render coherent answers to similar questions posed by your baalei batim. Halacha is not an exercise in memorization but in thinking. I know you are smiling when you read these words since I am certain you expected them to appear at least once whenever I write you.

Your other questions I attempt to answer herein. You wrote: “After years of preparing for my rabbonus, I’m not certain what I’m actually supposed to do. It’s not that I don’t know what a rov is supposed to do every day. I watched my own rov at home and I have been a rabbinic intern. It’s more a question of what my mission is supposed to be. It’s very daunting and I’m a little bit unnerved by it. I don’t want to become a hack who just goes through the motions. I need to invest something into my rabbonus. It has to be something other than just enthusiasm. What is my ideology? What is my mission? Torah u’Mada seems like a pretty empty slogan here in suburbia. For some reason, the words ‘Modern Orthodoxy’ do, too. I worry about this every day.”

When I read your words, I was overcome with emotion. Although I can take little credit for your thoughts and feelings, I was filled with pride. The very fact that you raise such questions, that you are profoundly thoughtful about your new position makes me proud to be your teacher. Learning begins with questioning. We will not answer your questions toch k’dei dibbur but together we can work on the right answers. We stand on the shoulders of giants who will help us.

It has taken me a long time to ask myself some of these same questions; you’ve gotten there much more quickly. Although I don’t serve Am Yisrael as a congregational rabbi, I have thought about my mission in teaching both in the Yeshiva and in the broader community in some of the same terms. What is the essence of what I am trying to convey to the talmidim I am fortunate to teach? Is it just a certain method in learning halacha?

Once one leaves the New York area, the words “Modern Orthodox” lose a lot of their force. Qualifiers to the word “Orthodox” only ever make any sense in a crowded community of Orthodox Jews. Unfortunately, it is often used to justify a lack of observance. Recently, a Satmar friend from Williamsburg asked me what makes me Modern Orthodox and not him. He wanted to know if it only pertains to appearance since that is only difference he could detect between us. Every attempt to explain our differences weakened under his sincere questioning. I first explained the notion of Torah u’Mada, secular knowledge in the service of Torah. He couldn’t understand how this made us essentially different. Did I really define my Yiddishe neshoma by the secular books I sometimes read? Isn’t Torah the ikar? Why define myself by the tafeil?

Unless, of course, being Modern Orthodox means something else, i.e., that Torah isn’t the ikar but the tafeil. If that is what it means, then I am not Modern Orthodox. You and I discussed Ronald Dworkin and his notion of the relationship between ethics and law. Our objective was always to enhance our understanding of Torah. If I had to choose between Law’s Empire and Seder Nezikin, the latter wins hands down.

When I think about the general readership of Law’s Empire, I realize that I have much more in common with my Satmar friend than I do with the fraternity of legal theorists and law professors who have also learned from Professor Dworkin. My day is framed by k’riat ha-Shema morning and evening just as his is. I strive to fulfill thereby the requirement to be cognitively engaged with Torah my entire day, sometimes more, sometimes less. But as the G”RA observed in Sh’not Eliyahu, the Jew’s mind is always focused, even if sometimes only subconsciously, on Torah every waking moment. If there is a sudden storm, our minds instantaneously serve up the b’racha we must recite. When the shadows lengthen in the afternoon, we are reminded of t’filat mincha. Even if we are not privileged to be learning Torah, our entire existence is preconditioned by its mitzvot. The primacy of this commitment overshadows, l’fi aniyut daati, any predilection for intellectual diversity.

It suggests to me, then, our mission as teachers of Torah, is to promote this same cognitive involvement among our own students. Everything else is secondary.

You have complained to me that there was not a lot of discussion of Modern Orthodoxy within the Yeshiva. I never take lightly anything that you say and so I won’t respond to this flippantly. My perspective is somewhat different. If we assert the primacy of Torah, then the Yeshiva’s primary function is to teach Torah. The differences you note between my approach and that of your other rebbeim, you yourself say, are only stylistic. Vocabulary is an external. I may pepper my shiurim with terms from jurisprudence and philosophy but this is only in order to achieve greater precision in understanding the sugya. The major difference between our teacher sh’lita and me is in knowledge; he is a gadol and I am not. We are both concerned with understanding how the sugya lends itself to diverse approaches among the rishonim and how that plays itself out in halacha.

Perhaps the Yeshiva needs to cultivate a deeper conversation with its talmidim on matters of hashkafa. That is for others to decide. My perspective is that we did not do enough Torah learning during the time we were together. I worry about whether my talmidim are adequately prepared for a lifetime of independent Torah study. I also worry whether they will have the strength of character to pursue serious limud ha-Torah in the context of their crowded schedules.

The same observation can be made about all the other commitments that define me as Modern Orthodox. I am certainly a supporter of M’dinat Yisrael and find accessible spiritual content in that commitment. Is my primary mission to teach others to share that view? I think not. I also believe that promoting Torah knowledge among Jewish women is important. Can I relate to Jewish men who do not share that commitment? I mostly certain do (if I were a woman, I would clearly feel otherwise).

My point is not that we need to compromise these beliefs or commitments; it is that they do not define our primary mission. I hope you will actively promote Jewish learning opportunities for women in your community. I hope you will actively promote support for the State of Israel in your community. The essence of your career as a teacher of Torah, however, is more primary and global.

I have always been candid with you and so I must observe that I am uncomfortable with some of what I’ve written. I am struggling to find the language to explain the difference between what is primary to our lives as Jews and the particular policies that we accept in order to achieve that objective. I’m suggesting that you should never define your career, or your life as a Jew for that matter, by any particular policy but should keep the primary objective of yirat ha-Shem through observance of the Torah always central.

I await your reactions so that we can study these questions together. As ever, you may write or call me at your convenience. With profound respect for my student and prayers for his success,

Ozer Glickman
—-

To my beloved talmid:

Thank you for your very quick response to my initial letter. As ever, I am uplifted by your comments and new questions. I have responded immediately as well since I sense the urgency in your message.

Your tone was very deferential and respectful. I would like to restate your message in blunter terms: you found my suggestion that you focus on promoting yirat Shemayim and the primacy of Torah observance and knowledge to be so general as to be platitudinous at best and worthless at worst. Please do not apologize. You know that I prefer candid exchange of ideas and am very discomfited by deference and polite acceptance.

You wrote: “The Rosh Yeshiva counsels me to focus on the essential which the Rosh Yeshiva defines as the primacy of Torah. Everything else is merely a policy, a means to that end. But I live my life in the details of those policies. How can I use the Rosh Yeshiva’s advice in any practical way?”

I hope you won’t be offended when I remind you again that you may use the second person when addressing me. You remember what I said in shiur: those who want to honor me can do a little less standing and a little more preparing. Your chavruta once pointed out to me that I address Rav Tendler Sh’lita in the third person and that your relationship to me is like mine to him. I’m not nearly so logical when it comes to human relationships. I feel my rebbe is deserving of this respect for his stature in the Torah world and for what he has done for me in the Yeshiva. I don’t qualify on either basis. On a more practical level, I have trouble figuring out the antecedents and referents in letters from talmidim when they don’t address me directly.

You write: “Conversations with the Rosh Yeshiva after shiur helped me develop my own understanding of rabbinic theology and philosophy. Will this play no role in my rabbonus? How does the Rosh Yeshiva’s personal philosophy impact his teaching? The implication seems to be that it is only style and not substance. This is very disappointing to me, I think. I want it to be more.”

I recall our discussions in the Rubin Beit Midrash very clearly. We discussed the relative authority of Rambam’s halachic corpus versus the Moreh Nevuchim. Do you remember my comments on Aristotelianism? I told you that Rambam does not enjoy the same authority as a philosopher that he does as a poseik. We always deal seriously with anything Rambam writes. Since Kant, however, we know the error of Aristotle’s ways. Since the Rambam accepted many of Aristotle’s conclusions that we now believe erroneous, it follows that Rambam is not the last word in philosophy.

My rebbe Rav Tendler Sh’lita is quoted famously to the effect that the Torah accords with science since they share the same Author. Since the Author does not contradict Himself, our mission is to understand the Torah in the light of the current state of scientific knowledge.

We can say more or less the same thing regarding philosophy and metaphysics. Philosophy attempts to assert truths about human existence and the world in which we live. The Creator of the Universe studied by philosophers is the Author of the Torah. We should therefore use the most current understanding of truth in order to understand the world the Torah describes. It may not be ultimate truth but it is the best we have.

And that understanding will change over time. Just as scientific knowledge changes. I am hesitant to arrange my hashkafa around any philosopher’s writings no matter how coherent his conclusions appear to me today. There is very little of which I am certain. I can assert with perfect faith that Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu intervened in human history at Sinai. As a party to the brit between H”KBH and Am Yisrael, I am obligated to observe the terms of that agreement as stipulated by the Torah. I am not certain of much more. My entire life is organized around the responsibility to observe the Torah and its mitzvot that flow from this agreement. That I use the language of Western philosophy to frame my place within this structure in no way makes my observance contingent upon Western philosophy just as Rambam’s belief in the Borei ha-Olam was not contingent upon the cosmological proof for His Existence.

So what is ikar and what is tafeil? I cannot help but form ideas about how the world works and what it means to believe in its Creator. And I want those thoughts to be coherent and logically consistent if possible. My starting point is Torah, not Aristotle, not Kant, not Popper, and not even Rambam.

I do not seek to make my talmidim intellectual clones who think exactly as I do. I have had three or four talmidim in the past few years much more inclined toward the mystical aspects of the Jewish tradition than I am. I claim no privileged position for what one has called my “Ivy League Litvish derech.” I am no less a seeker of understanding than any of you and view myself as permanently in transition intellectually. But certain commitments are fundamental and I can no less see them change than I can imagine the end of civilization. These commitments are the bedrock upon which I build my interior and exterior lives.

When policies set the agenda, then we become politicians. I intend that description to be as pejorative as it sounds. The best way to avoid this, I think, is to focus constantly on fundamental principles. The Shulchan Aruch begins not with a specific procedural law but a global principle that preconditions all contexts of life: “Shiviti ha-Shem l’negdi tamid.”

I haven’t answered at all how to translate this into practicalities. It is something about which I need to think some more. I hope, though, that I have been helpful in advancing your thinking.

With profound respect and love,

Ozer Glickman

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