Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi – RabbiKaganoff.com

Rav Yitzchak Halevi Herzog

The yahrzeit of Rav Yitzchak Halevi Herzog (1888-1959) is on the 19^th of Tamuz. As I have already written articles on aspects of his life, this article will discuss neither his election as Chief Rabbi of Israel nor his research on techeiles.

Rav Herzog was born in Łomza in Russian Poland, the son of Rav Yoel Leib and Liba Herzog. His father was a talmid chacham of note, and very Zionistic. He had intended to attend the first Zionist conference called by Theodore Herzl, but at the last minute, he was unable to attend because of illness in his family. The Herzog family moved to Leeds, in the United Kingdom, where Rav Yoel accepted a rabbinic position. Many decades later, Rav Yoel Herzog was appointed rav of the largest and most prominent Ashkenazi community in France.

The younger Rav Herzog never attended yeshiva. His early Torah learning was with his father, and, from that point on, he was self-taught. After mastering Shas, Shulchan Aruch etc. at a young age, he corresponded with many of the gedolim of his time, including Rav Chayim Soloveichek of Brisk (after whom he named his older son), the Ridbaz (whom he considered his greatest rebbe other than his father, and after whom he named his younger son, Yaakov), Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (the Ohr Somay’ach), Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer (the Even Ha’ezel, Rosh Yeshiva of Slutkz and later Eitz Chayim in Yerushalayim), Rav Chayim Ozer of Vilna, and many others.

When Rav Yoel Herzog moved to Paris to assume his rabbonus, the son accompanied his parents and attended the Sorbonne. He later returned to the United Kingdom to complete his doctorate at the University of London. A brilliant linguist, he was proficient both in many ancient languages and in numerous modern languages. His multi-disciplinary doctoral dissertation, which has since been published, was on the source of techeiles, which he felt was a sea snail.

Upon completing his academic studies in 1916, Rav Yitzchak Herzog assumed the position as rabbi of Belfast, Ireland. During his years in Belfast, he had occasion to travel to London for a rabbinic meeting where he met Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohein Kook, Rav Shemuel Hillman (his future father-in-law, then a dayan in London) and his future rebbitzen. In 1919, Rav Yitzchak and Rebbitzen Sarah Herzog moved to Dublin, still part of the United Kingdom, where he had been appointed the Chief Rabbi. Rebbitzen Herzog, a well-respected askan and baalas chesed and tzedakah in her own right, was later honored with the naming of Herzog Hospital, a highly regarded rehab hospital in Yerushalayim.

The Herzogs had two sons, the older of whom, Chaim, became a general, politician, ambassador to the United Nations and president of the State of Israel. Two of Chaim’s four children also became famous in Israeli government: Michael served as ambassador to the United States and Yitzchak (named for his grandfather) headed the Labor party in the Knesset, was leader of the opposition, chairman of the Jewish Agency and is the current president of the State of Israel.

The younger son, Yaakov, was a musmach of Machon Harry Fischel and at one time was offered the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. Professionally, he was a member of the Israeli diplomatic corps, where he served with much distinction. He was an advisor on foreign policy to the Prime Minister (chief of the United States division), minister at the Israeli embassy in Washington D. C., and was the Israeli ambassador to Canada and, later, the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office. He held secret talks with King Hussein of Jordan in a London clinic that opened the way to peace between Jordan and Israel, established secret contacts with Lebanese Christians and became a personal friend to President Kennedy and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. While ambassador to Canada, he became most famous for his public debate with the highly anti-Semitic but well-respected British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee, who had called the Jewish people a “fossil” and compared Israel’s actions in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War to the actions of the Nazis against the Jews in the Holocaust. After he demolished Toynbee in the debate, Toynbee’s wife, who had witnessed the debate, publicly rebuked Toynbee for having participated in the debate to begin with, so poor was his showing. Unfortunately, Yaakov Herzog passed away prematurely of a stroke at the age of fifty.

Let us return to when the two Herzog brothers, Chaim and Yaakov, were still little boys in Ireland. Rav Herzog supported the Irish republican cause during the Irish War of Independence. He personally befriended and sheltered Eamon de Valera (later to become President of Ireland) when he was a refugee from the British army and police. When the Irish Free State earned its independence, Rav Herzog became the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, a position he kept until he moved to Eretz Yisrael.

During his twenty years as a rav in Ireland, Rav Herzog was offered numerous prominent positions, including the Chief Rabbi/Chacham Bashi of Saloniki, then the largest Jewish community in the world; the presidency of Yeshiva University; and the Chief Rabbi of France. He turned down all the offers, saying that he wanted to leave Ireland only if he could move to Eretz Yisrael.

When the senior Rav (Yoel) Herzog passed away in 1935, he had left a tzava’ah requesting that he be buried in Eretz Yisrael. Rav Yitzchak Herzog followed his father’s wishes and personally conveyed his father’s remains to Eretz Yisrael. This was the younger Rav Herzog’s first visit to Eretz Yisrael, and it was at this time that the position of Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv was open. While he was in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Herzog was interested in the position, and his son Chaim, then still observant, advocated strongly on his father’s behalf. Rav Herzog gave many shiurim while visiting Eretz Yisrael and met many of the country’s great talmidei chachamim and gedolei Yisrael, but did not get the position. The position was awarded to Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel, at the time the rav of Antwerp, Belgium, who was the candidate of the organized Mizrachi party. (By the way, the candidate who placed third in the election was Rav Joseph Ber Soloveichek of Boston and, later, of Yeshiva University.)

Shortly thereafter, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohein Kook, rav of the new yishuv, passed on, and his position was up for election. I have previously written at length on this election and the fact that Rav Herzog won the election (over Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap, theRosh Yeshivaof Yeshivas Merkaz Harav) by only a few votes. The Herzogs moved to Eretz Yisrael at the first opportunity, although their younger son, Yaakov, remained in England where he completed his secular education.

By 1936, Rav Herzog was well established in Eretz Yisrael. He testified in front of the Peel Commission in London and participated in the London Conference of 1939 between Jews and Arabs from Mandatory Palestine, convened by the British government. During the Arab Revolt, he, together with other rabbonim, called for avoidance of acts of revenge. Rav Herzog also acted to unify the Jewish settlers in Eretz Yisrael. He attempted to mediate between Chaim Weizmann and Zeev Jabotinsky, encouraging them to cooperate, and took measures to establish unity among the religious leaders in Palestine. He visited Irgun prisoners who were being held by the British in Eritrea (Africa), in order to encourage them.

From 1936 until his death in 1959, he was Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine and of Israel, after its creation in 1948. He was deeply disappointed that the new state did not follow halacha as its basic civil law, something that he had assumed it would. He was the author of the prayer on behalf of the State of Israel currently recited weekly by many congregations the world over, and was also instrumental in many now-assumed aspects of Israel. His responsa have been published as Shu’t Heichal Yitzchak and he authored two books (of a planned five) entitled Main Institutions of Jewish Law.

In May 1939, shortly before the Second World War, the British issued the White Paper of 1939, restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. After leading a procession through the streets of Jerusalem, on the steps of the Hurva Synagogue he turned and said: “We cannot agree to the White Paper. Just as the prophets did before me, I hereby rip it in two.” Thirty-six years later, on November 10^th 1975, Chaim Herzog, then Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, repeated his father’s gesture, physically ripping up the UN resolution that Zionism is racism.

During World War II, Rav Herzog travelled the world in attempts to have the allies do something to save Jewish lives, including meetings with politicians throughout Europe and with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. After the war, Rav Herzog set out on a rescue mission to find Jewish children who survived the Holocaust by being placed with Christian families and to return them to the Jewish people. He also entered abandoned Jewish homes throughout Europe, collecting genizah and other items of Judaica that had survived the war. The Central Committee of Polish Jews gave him a Torah scroll found under the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto, to bring to Eretz Yisrael.

Rav Herzog travelled throughout devastated Europe meeting with religious and state leaders, requesting their help with his mission. He even met with the not-so-pious pope (known as Pius XII), who turned a cold shoulder, refusing to return any Jewish child who had been baptized, even if forcibly or by adoptive Christian families. Rabbi Berel Wein often told how moved he was as a teenager when he heard Rav Herzog tell the story and then break down into uncontrollable crying over the neshamos lost to Yiddishkeit forever. Rav Herzog authored a kinah (lament), which he penned after witnessing the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. He began his return to Eretz Yisrael from Poland via a Red Cross train traveling to Prague, bringing with him 500 orphaned children whom he had managed to save from both Holocausts, physical and spiritual.

In 1947 and early 1948, Rav Herzog worked diligently to prepare a comprehensive program for the institution of halacha as the civil legal system in Israel. Throughout his lifetime, Rav Herzog wrote many articles and books, in addition to the above-mentioned Main Institutions of Jewish Law, discussing what should be the judicial system in the Jewish state.

Rav Herzog, described by one journalist as no less than a “phenomenon of knowledge,” had a broad range of interests and areas of expertise. “So great was the scope of his activities that to the outside observer it may seem as though they were accomplished by many different people in different fields, not by one.” He attracted an eclectic group of friends and acquaintances — rabbonim such as Rav Yechiel Michel Tukachinski; prominent secular Jewish leaders; politicians, such as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York and Eamon de Valera, leader of the Irish Revolution; and even the catholic Archbishop of Ireland.

Notwithstanding his own prominence as a Torah scholar and his position as Chief Rabbi of the nascent State of Israel, he often suppressed his own halachic position in order to create consensus and avoid machlokes. (This is in noted contrast to some later holders of the august position.) For example, when the Chazon Ish opposed introducing zebu cattle to Eretz Yisrael, Rav Herzog rescinded his psak accepting them, notwithstanding that such prominent chareidi authorities as Rav Vosner agreed with Rav Herzog.

Rav Herzog passed away in 1959 and is buried in the Sanhedria Cemetery. He was succeeded by Rav Issar Yehuda Unterman. Thus, the first three rabbonim of the new yishuv were, in order, Kohein, Levi, Yisrael.

Electing a Chief Rabbi – The Charlap versus Herzog Controversy

In 1935, Rav Kook passed on after a lengthy illness. After reviewing names of potential candidates to fulfill his position, the search committee decided to narrow consideration to two prominent choices for the position of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi and two for that of Sefardi Chief Rabbi, who would also be called the Rishon LeTzion. No one questioned that any of the candidates were qualified for the position. As a matter of fact, the decision was that should the elected candidate be unable to assume the position, the other — technically, the losing candidate — would be offered the position. For Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, the finalists were Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap and Rav Yitzchak Herzog. Both were highly respected talmidei chachamim, poskim, and identified very strongly with the Mizrachi movement and organization. Both had known Rav Kook, both sought to continue his vision of building a modern Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael that would be run according to halacha, and that this state would require working with non-observant individuals and elements on a temporary basis to achieve that goal. Both had extensive experience working with non-observant elements; both were highly respected by the gedolei Yisrael of their era, and both were also equally respected by many who had unfortunately rejected observance.

And yet, it is difficult to imagine two more dissimilar candidates, and the vote was certainly not merely over two candidates, but over two completely different views of what the position would entail.

Rav Charlap prided himself that he had never stepped outside of Eretz Yisrael. He had been born and educated in the old yishuv, and maintained close ties with it, notwithstanding that, at the same time, he had associated with Rav Kook, who was often viciously attacked by some elements of the old yishuv. Rav Charlap’s father had been a dayan on the beis din of the Maharil Diskin. Rav Charlap had no secular education; he was a pure product of the cheder/yeshiva system.

Rav Charlap had been one of the major participants in the famous 1913 “teshuvah trip” of Rav Kook, Rav Yosef Chayim Sonnenfeld and others, to spread Torah among the agricultural yishuvim that had sprouted all around the land. He was viewed as a talmid chaveir of Rav Kook. Rav Kook had appointed him as the active Rosh Yeshivah of the yeshiva he created, Merkaz Harav, and Rav Charlap shared Rav Kook’s approach to understanding the relationship of the growth and development of modern Zionism from a kabbalistic perspective. The hashkafic writings of both of them are full of deep, esoteric thought.

On the other hand, Rav Herzog had been in Eretz Yisrael only once in his life, to make the arrangements when his father had passed away. Born in Lomzha, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire), when he was eight years old his family moved to Leeds, England, where his father had assumed a rabbinic position, then moved to Paris when his father was appointed the rav of a prominent Ashkenazi kehillah there. His secular academic education began at the University of London, continued at the Sorbonne in Paris, and concluded at University of London, where he earned a doctorate, following which he assumed the rabbinate in Belfast, North Ireland. He made acquaintance with several great Torah scholars who were located in London, including Rav Kook, who had been forced to stay in London when World War I broke out, and Rav Shmuel David Hillman. Rav Herzog eventually married Rav Hillman’s daughter.

Rav Herzog’s highly extensive Torah education was largely self-taught. He never attended any yeshiva, and his primary face-to-face rebbe was his father. As he pursued his secular education, he continued his Torah education on his own, but corresponded extensively with the great Torah geonim of his era, including Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (author of Ohr Somayach and Meshech Chachmah), Rav Chayim Soloveichek of Brisk (then in Russia), the Ridbaz (of Slutzk, then briefly Chief Rabbi of Chicago, and finally the Chief Rabbi of Tzefas), Rav Chayim Ozer of Vilna, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer (then a Rosh Yeshiva in Slabodka, Lithuania, and later Rosh Yeshiva of Eitz Chayim Yeshiva in Yerushalayim) and many others.

Rav Herzog was appointed the chief Rabbi of Dublin, at the time still ruled by England. He was patriotically involved in Ireland’s struggle for freedom, and when the Irish Free State was eventually born, Rav Herzog became the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland.

While in Dublin, Rav and Rebbitzin Herzog had two sons, Chayim, who later became president of Israel, and Yaakov, who later became Israel’s ambassador to Canada, and, at one point, was considered for the position of Chief Rabbi of Israel. Chayim and Yaakov were named for two of Rav Herzog’s “correspondence teachers,” Rav Chayim Soloveichek and Rav Yaakov David Ridbaz, both of whom had passed on in the interim.

Rav Herzog was a classic “Renaissance Man.” Fluent in numerous languages, both modern and ancient, he was conversant in a wide variety of academic studies, had been involved extensively in political struggles, was familiar with a host of political leaders, and, at the same time, was a massive talmid chacham.

Although he had lived his entire life in chutz la’aretz, Rav Herzog decided that he would leave his position only to move to Eretz Yisrael. He was offered numerous prominent positions in Europe, including to take his father’s place in Paris, and the position of chacham bashi and Chief Rabbi of Salonika, at the time the most prominent Sephardic rabbinic position in the world. When Rav Herzog was offered the position in Salonika, he was told that there was a tacit understanding that whenever the position of Rishon LeTzion became available, it would be offered first to the chacham bashi of Salonika, and that the community would understand his leaving Salonika for Israel. Thus, Rav Herzog theoretically could have become the Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Israel.

Rav Herzog’s father had left a tzavaah that he be buried in the Holy Land. In 1934, when his father passed on, Rav Herzog left with his father’s aron, accompanied by his older son, Chayim, to Israel to carry out his filial responsibilities. He used the occasion to reacquaint himself with Rav Kook, whom he had met previously in London, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, who until that time had been only a correspondent, Rav Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, a major posek of the old yishuv, Rav Reuven Katz, the rav of Petach Tikvah, and Rav Pesach Frank, the rav of Yerushalayim.

While Rav Herzog was in Israel, the position of Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo became available (a position that had at one time been held by Rav Kook). For the first and only time in his life, Rav Herzog took an active role in pursuing this position, giving shiurim and speaking wherever he could, and meeting many great Torah scholars in Israel.

There were three finalists in consideration for the position, all of them rabbonim then living in chutz la’aretz: Rav Joseph Be’er Soloveichek, then the Chief Rabbi of Boston (which was why he became known as “the rav,” when he later become a rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University), Rav Herzog, and Rav Moshe Avigdor Amiel, who was at the time rav of Antwerp. All three were eminently qualified for the position — they were accomplished talmidei chachamim, they had rabbinic experience, and they believed in the Mizrachi’s approach to Zionism and settlement in the Holy Land. The organized Mizrachi party in Israel backed Rav Amiel, and the political machine proved itself successful with his overwhelming election.

Shortly after Rav Herzog returned to Ireland, he received word of Rav Kook’s passing, and was asked whether he would submit his name for consideration to be Rav Kook’s successor as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine. That was the total extent of his involvement in applying for the position, which ultimately became a major machlokes in Israel.

Whereas both Rav Herzog and Rav Charlap acted as the princes that they were and did not get involved in any politicking, their followers viewed seriously their responsibility to guarantee that “their” candidate win the election. False claims were published; great Torah leaders, both alive and gone, were quoted and misquoted in these broadsides. Some, such as Rav Chayim Ozer, issued a statement that he had been falsely attributed with opposing Rav Herzog’s election.

The opposition to Rav Herzog was largely because of his extensive secular education. Rav Tukachinsky, by now a close personal friend and backer of Rav Herzog, begged him to remove any reference to his doctorate from his name. Rav Herzog responded that people should consider him for what he is, not what they want to make of him.

Aside from those opposed to a “Rabbi-Doctor,” some backed Rav Charlap because they felt that the new yishuv should have a rav familiar with the local scene. Those who felt that Rav Charlap was the natural and obvious successor to Rav Kook included several respected rabbonim of cities in Eretz Yisrael. The spillover from this machlokes lasted for years, and, many years later, one of the prominent Mizrachi rabbonim who was upset at Rav Herzog for a position that he took at the time, announced loudly that he had always opposed “a doctor in English, wanting instead a gadol in halacha.”

On election day itself, the atmosphere was even more heated. As the seventy electors gathered to vote, the cacophony outside between the two sides was so great that the mandate police were called in to move both protesting sides a distance from the assembly hall, so that discussion and voting could take place.

When the decision was final, 37 votes were in favor of Rav Herzog and 31 in favor of Rav Charlap. So, the final decision regarding the definition of the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, and the halachic direction of the new yishuv for the next twenty years, was decided by four people, who, had they cast the vote in the opposite direction, the position would have gone to Rav Charlap.