Luke Ford

In his third lecture for Torah in Motion on the R. Eliezer Berkovitz, professor Marc B. Shapiro says in 2010: “Today Hebrew Theological College wouldn’t even allow Eliezer Berkovitz to speak. If you look at a list of their speakers, they wouldn’t. Berkovitz was a leading figure there and today he wouldn’t be allowed in.”

“In 1964, the Skokie yeshiva (aka Hebrew Theological College) held a banquet at Purim or Hanukkah. Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman, the rosh yeshiva, a genius of geniuses who drove a sports car, is speaking. All the rabbis are on the dais, including Eliezer Berkovitz. In his talk, Rabbi Zimmerman calls Eliezer Berkovitz a heretic. Berkovitz becomes so angry that he picks up a plate and throws it. It smashes into pieces.”

“It created an enormous controversy. The two weren’t going to be speaking anymore. The yeshiva was thrown into a conundrum. The next day, the yeshiva fired Chaim Zimmerman for publicly insulting Eliezer Berkovitz. That allows Rav Ahron Soloveitchik to come to Skokie. Later Rav Ahron would have his own problems with Skokie and be forced to leave. He started holding shiur (lecture) on the lawn. Another big controversy. They haven’t had such good luck with their roshei yeshiva.”

“So what issue did Chaim Zimmerman have with Berkovitz? It was the issue everyone had. It wasn’t with his theology. It was his view of the halachic (Jewish law) process. Tied in with this was his refusal to be tied down by the gadolim. He had a great sense of confidence.”

“When Reb Moshe Feinstein was referred to as one of the gadolim (great ones), Eliezer Berkovitz replied, ‘If he’s a gadol, I’m a gadol also.’ Very similar to Nathan Kamenetsky.”

Marc Shapiro published here R. Eliezer Berkovitz’s ruling on a Jew going into a church.

Letter of Rav Eliezer Berkovitz, 1984 (to be published
by Dr. Marc Shapiro in Millin Havivin)
אגרת הר’ אליעזר ברקוביץ
And if one were concerned about the beauty, etc. of the
churches – there is no question that the Jewish people
have already conquered the desire for avodah zara many
generations ago. In particular this is true regarding
Christianity, from which we have suffered over hundreds
of years – it is obvious that the vast majority of the people
do not feel even a hint of an inclination in its direction.
The situation was completely different in the Middle
Ages. Jews at that time were under constant pressure
from the Church to convert. Through conversion to
Christianity they would have been able to escape
persecution and killings. In such a situation, it was
possible to understand that Jews in those days who visited
churches would have been – even unwittingly – exposed
to constant seduction, and similarly there was a concern
that they would be influenced by the glory and wealth of
the Church.
Today the situation is completely different. It is only a
tiny minority of the Jews who find any value in
Christianity, for example, the terrible group “Jews for
Jesus” in the United States. Jews today are not influenced
at all from the glory and the icons in the churches. It is
exactly that glory and all that is connected to it in modern
life that is an abomination to them…

Marc: “Emmanuel Jacobvitz, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, would go to various chuches with the approval of his Beit Din (Jewish law court) and to various ceremonies. The Lockerbie disaster [memorial] was in a church and Jacobvitz went there.”

“The Chief Rabbi of Poland went to a church [for the memorial of the late president of Poland — a great friend of the Jews — who died in a plane crash in 2010]. There’s no question that you can find a heter (permission) for something like this, but not for the average person, but for the official representative of the Jewish community.”

“Berkovitz hated Christianity. Unfairly, I think. He argues that if you are going in to look at the art work, it is permitted for a Jew to enter a church. Perhaps because he hated Christianity so much he did not think that any Jew could find anything attractive in Christian theology.”

In his books (Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha (1983) and HaHalakha, Koha V’Tafkida (1981) [Hebrew] – expanded version of Not in Heaven), Eliezer Berkovitz argues that today’s rabbis don’t show the same ethical sensitivity of previous generations of rabbis.”

“There was a symposium in Judaism magazine. Robert Gordis (a thinker in Conservative Judaism) publishes an essay on the halachic process. What’s more interesting than Gordis’s essay are the responses from the Orthodox. You have J. David Bleich, as only Bleich can do, totally denying everything that Gordis says, putting forth a vision of halacha that no one in history has ever agreed with. Bleich is this legal-positivist. His vision of Jewish law is so incomprehensible. Then you have people on the [Orthodox] left like Emmanuel Rackman who agree with Robert Gordis. Immanuel Jacobvitz agrees with Gordis but argues that we no longer have the authority to change Jewish law. Chaim Soloveitchik is clearly in agreement with Gordis’s understanding.”

“If you look at volumes one and four of Bleich’s Contemporary Halachic Problems, not only does he attack people to the left, he also attacks those to the right. He says policy considerations don’t affect Jewish law. Everything is done according to the system.”