The Limits of Orthodox Theology III

Menachem Kellner reviews Marc Shapiro's book. I have not yet had a chance to read the review but I'm sure, based on Kellner's hazakah, that it is correct on almost every minor point but entirely wrong on the big picture.

UPDATE: Some first thoughts. Kellner was actually wrong on some minor points as well.

Kellner writes:

Pre-emancipation Judaism was an unselfconscious amalgam of religion and what came, in the nineteenth century, to be called nationality. With very few exceptions (the anusim of Iberia being the most prominent example), Jewish authorities never had to define who a Jew was, since the matter was clear, both to the Jews and to the Gentiles...

In that context [of the Emancipation], Rambam's Thirteen Principles, wholly ignored by poseqim since their publication and ignored by theologians (except in Iberia between 1391 and 1492), suddenly came into their own and began to be used, with increasing vigor, to define the line between "good" Jews and those who must be excluded, those with whom no religious cooperation may be permitted, those who, from the most lenient viewpoint, are tinoqot she-nishbu (uninformed and therefore inadvertent and blameless transgressors), and, from the most stringent, are out-and-out heretics.

One wonders how it is possible that Kellner forgot what he has written in his books: The ikkarim literature was largely written as a response to Karaism. There was a very real need to precisely define who is Jewish and who is not, and the ikkarim served that function. No, not that the rishonim made up the ikkarim because of historical circumstances, but that the situation pushed them to delve into these matters and clarify all of the issues. Not just philosophers but halakhists as well. This was very much a practical matter.

The real question is why investigation into these matters largely ceased between the Expulsion from Spain and the Emancipation. Kellner does not ask this question, but it is a good one. Perhaps there were other problems to deal with and there was not enough curiosity about this matter at that time (people were busy enough dealing with resettlement, kabbalah and Shabsai Tzvi). His question - why did people only start defining who is a Jew after the Emancipation? - is based on a mistaken premise that entirely contradicts his books Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought and Must a Jew Believe Anything?.

A consequence of all this, I believe, is the following interesting anomaly. While Orthodoxy strongly adheres to the notion of yeridat ha-dorot (decline from one generation to the next), it is actually the latest of the aharonim (later, post-Shulhan-Arukh authorities) who really determine what Jewish orthodoxy is.

This is silly. There is no contradiction. Even though we are less than the rishonim, judges must rule as they see proper and we must follow them. Yiftah be-doro ki-Shmuel be-doro.

It will also be argued against Shapiro and my defense of him here that matters of theology are assimilable to halakhah. Whatever the rishonim may have "paskened," as it were, on specific details of theology, we are duty bound to follow the pesaq of the rabbis of our own day. This is a popular position, even though it is historically unsound and conceptually muddled. With respect to the historical reality, Rambam himself, accepted by all as the greatest poseq in matters of theology, explicitly rejected the assimilation of theology to halakhah.

Kellner here continues Shapiro's mistake of misinterpreting the Rambam's statement that there is no method of deciding among opinions when there is no practical implication. Rambam nowhere states that there is no pesak in aggadah. But this is not the place for a long refutation of Kellner and Shapiro. Od hazon la-mo'ed