Rabbi vs. Rabbi - Lichtenstein on Feldman

Back in April, after reading an article by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein in Jewish Action, critical of the thinking of Rav Aharon Feldman, I sent them this letter:

The review essay of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein ("Hands Across the Ocean", Spring 2010) is, I fear, less a critique of the ideological outlook of Rav Aharon Feldman than an exhibition of the unwillingness or perhaps even uneasiness of Rav Lichtenstein to debate with an intent to win on the issues that posit him not in agreement with Rav Feldman. Feldman writes with "gusto"; Lichtenstein with "interest". Feldman displays "anger"; Lichtenstein "warmness". While Rav Lichtenstein firmly disagrees with the tone of the book, he provides an inadequate substance of his own in arguing with Rav Feldman's outlook.

This is all the more apparent in his lukewarm defense of Zionism and the political and religious reality of the state of Israel. If Lichtenstein is "befuddled", he has not assisted his own camp to be clear, convinced and certain of our own shared path within Torah Judaism in Eretz Yisrael. He first shares the vision of the "vacuity of Zionist theology", then the "priorities" of Rav Feldman. The rest of his lukewarm defense is phrased almost entirely in question marks. This line of a disappointing path of argumentation is not what many would expect from a Rosh Yeshiva in Gush Etzion or the son-in-law of the author of Kol Dodi Dofek [see here]. No references to the Gra and his talmidim from Lithuania, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and his followers from the Ukraine nor to the Tzuf Dvash and his community from North Africa. No mention of Rabbis such as Tzvi Kalischer or Yehudah Alkalai not to mention Mizrachi Rabbis. It would seem that those childhood memories of shared sled rides have instilled too much of a coldness in Rav Lichtenstein.

It wasn't selected for publication but you can those that were here.


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