From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elazar Menachem Man Shach (אלעזר מנחם מן שך) (or Rav Leizer Shach, at times his name is written as Eliezer Schach in English publications) (January 22, 1898 - November 2, 2001), was a leading Eastern European-born and educated Haredi rabbi who settled and lived in modern Israel.

He was the rosh yeshiva ("dean") of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, and founded the Degel HaTorah political party representing Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jews in the Israeli Knesset, many of whom considered him to be the Gadol HaDor ("great one of the generation") and used the honorific Maran ("[our] master") when referring to him.

He was recognized as a Talmudic scholar par excellence by scholars such as Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik (the Brisker Rav) and Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer in their approbations to his works; he authored the Avi Ezri a commentary on the Mishneh Torah.

Contents 1 Life in Europe 2 Escaping to the British Mandate of Palestine 3 Rabbinical career 4 Political life 4.1 Opposition to the Lubavitcher Rebbe[3] 5 Family 6 Quotes 7 References 8 External links

Rabbi Shach was born in Wabolnick (Vabalninkas, pronounced Vaboilnik in Yiddish), a rural village in northern Lithuania to Rabbi Ezriel and Batsheva Shach. The Shach family had been merchants for generations but Batsheva's family, the Levitans, were religious scholars who served various Lithuanian communities. Batsheva's brother, Rabbi Nisan Levitan, later became an important figure in the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. Elazar was a child prodigy, and was sent to study in the Ponevezh yeshiva at age seven. At thirteen he moved on to the Slabodka yeshiva, where he caught the attention of its dean, Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, as well as Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, dean of the Slutsk yeshiva. Shach soon became one of Rabbi Meltzer's favorite pupils, beginning a lifelong relationship of friendship and respect.

When World War I began in 1914, many of the Slabodka yeshiva students scattered across Europe. Shach initially returned to his family but then began traveling across Lithuania from town to town, sleeping and eating wherever he could and studying in local synagogues, continuing to study Torah "as if there were no war" ^[1]. After the war Shach rejoined Rabbi Meltzer and his son-in-law, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, in Kletsk, Poland. When Rabbi Meltzer returned to Slutsk, Shach followed him (the Slutsk yeshiva later gained fame as the Lakewood yeshiva in America).

Rabbi Meltzer became both a father figure and patron to the young Shach, even arranging his marriage with his niece, Guttel, in 1923. Shach received rabbinical ordination from Rabbi Meltzer and began teaching in the Kletsk yeshiva in 1927, where he taught for five years. He served as rosh yeshiva in Lublin, then taught Talmud at the Novardok yeshiva as well. In 1936 he became rosh yeshiva at Karlin yeshiva in Luninets.

Shortly before the start of World War II and the Holocaust, several yeshivas began considering evacuating their rabbis, students and families.Rabbi Kotler eventually left for America, travelling across Siberia and arriving in the United States during the war. In 1939,Rav Shach first went to Vilna, where he stayed with Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski. Later that year both Rav Shach's mother and eldest daughter fell ill and died. In early 1940 the Shach family decided to leave Lithuania. Rav Shach's maternal uncle, Rabbi Aron Levitan, had helped Rabbi Kotler get emigration visas, but Rav Shach instead decided to go to Palestine, where Meltzer was serving as Rosh Yeshiva at Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem, (Rav Shach would later serve as Rosh Yeshiva there as well). His uncle helped Rav Shach and his family get emigration certificates and took them in after they arrived at his doorstep, destitute.

Several years after the re-establishment of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, he was asked to be one of its deans. He remained in the position until his passing. At this Yeshiva, Rav Shach taught many thousands of students, many of whom eventually assumed prominent positions as Roshei Yeshiva and Rabbis.

Shach was credited by many for helping revolutionize the concept of the "society of learners" in the post-war Haredi world. Under his leadership, the phenomenon of Haredi men studying in yeshivas and kollels full-time, something that had been comparatively rare in Europe before World War II, became the standard in many Haredi communities in Israel, with the financial backing of Haredi communities and subsidies to young families with many children from the Israeli government.

Shach was a member of the Agudat Israel Council of Torah Sages beginning the 1970s, during which time he began to take special notice of the second-class situation of Sephardim in Israel, including Haredi Sephardim, who at that time were without any real political representation and generally voted for the Likud or Agudat Israel. In an attempt to give the Sephardim more political influence, Shach encouraged and guided the formation of the Sephardi Shas party, under the spiritual leadership of his ally, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Shas ran for the 11th Knesset in 1984, and Shach called upon his "Lithuanian" followers to vote for it in the polls, a move that many saw as key political and religious move in Rav Shach's split with Agudat Israel. While initially Shas was largely under the aegis of Shach -- who capitalized on his influence with the Sephardic party in order to pressure Agudat Israel -- Yosef gradually exerted control over the party and moved it away from Shach, culminating with Shas' decision to support the Labor party in the 13th Knesset in 1992, something both Degel HaTorah and Agudat Israel opposed.

In 1988, citing disagreements in leadership style with the various Hasidic rebbes in the Agudat Israel party, Shach officially broke away from Agudat Israel and formed the Degel HaTorah ("Flag of Torah") party to represent the non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Haredim. He nevertheless encouraged Degel HaTorah to work in an alliance with Agudat Israel under the name of United Torah Judaism, an agreement which has continued until the present.

Around 1995 Shach's political involvement slowed down, following deterioration in his health, and ceased altogether afterward. Since then, his followers do not have a strong leading authority, and the two main leaders are Rabbi Elyashiv, and Rabbi Shteinman, of which Elyashiv is more dominant.

Shach was deeply opposed to Zionism, both religious and secular. He was fiercely dismissive of secular Israeli culture. For example, during a 1990 speech he derided kibbutzniks as "breeders of rabbits and pigs" who did not "know what Yom Kippur is". In the same speech he said that the Labor Party had cut themselves off from their Jewish past and wished to "seek a new Torah". Shach was also critical of democracy, once referring to it "cancer", adding that "only the sacred Torah is the true democracy." ^[2]

However, on diplomatic issues many considered Shach comparatively moderate, though "pragmatic" would be a more accurate description. Shach quickly realized the tangible political benefits that Haredi society could reap if it cultivated relationships with both poles of the Israeli political spectrum, and also supported the withdrawal from land, in principle, under the Halakhic teaching of Pikuach Nefesh ("the saving of a life"), in which the preservation of lives takes precedence over nearly all other obligations in the Torah, including those pertaining to the sanctity of land. Shach criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (at that time mainly settled by secular and Religious Zionist Jews) as "a blatant attempt to provoke the international community", and called on Haredim to avoid moving to such communities.

Shach was involved in a number of public disputes with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson the Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement from the 1970s through Schneerson's death in 1994. Shach accused his followers of false Messianism. When once asked which religion was theologically closest to Judaism, Shach responded "Chabad".^[4] He objected to the call for "forcing" the Messiah's appearance, an idea avocated by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. When certain elements in Chabad actually identified Rabbi Schneerson as the possible Messiah, Rabbi Shach advocated a complete boycott of Chabad, its institutions and projects by its constituents. ^[5] Shach also compared Chabad and Schneerson to the followers of the 17th century false messiah Sabbatai Zevi, a comparison disputed by Chabad representatives.^[6]

Pointing to an assertion by the Rebbe in a passage dealing primarily with his predecessor that a rebbe is ‘the Essence and Being [of G-d] placed into a body,’ Rabbi Schach spoke of nothing less than Avodah Zara [idol worship]. His followers refused to eat meat slaughtered by Lubavich shochetim or to recognize Chabad Hasidim as adherents of authentic Judaism.^[7]

Shach once described Schneerson as "the madman who sits in New York and drives the whole world crazy."^[8].

In addition to Shach's objections to some Chabad members venerating Schneerson as the Messiah (both before and after his death), the two also disagreed on various issues of Jewish law and philosophy, but particularly politics. Chabad strongly opposed peace talks with the Palestinians or to relinquishing any Israeli territory under any circumstance, while Shach alternately supported both left and right-wing parties in the Israeli elections^{[citation needed]}. During the 1988 elections, Schneerson endorsed Agudat Israel over Shach's newly-formed Degel HaTorah party, and instructed Israeli Chabad to campaign for it. Shach's newspaper, Yated Ne'eman, ran several articles documenting various Chabad writings and statements which described Lubavitch as becoming a breakaway sect of Judaism focused around Schneerson as the Messiah.

It should be noted that in spite of his pitched battle against Lubavitch, Rabbi Shach nevertheless recited Tehillim when Rabbi Schneerson became sick. At the time he was asked for an explanation, and he obliged, “My battle is against his erroneous approach, against the movement, but not against the people in any personal way. I pray for the Rebbe’s recovery and simultaneously, also pray that he abandon his invalid way.” ^[9]

Rabbi Shach often clarified his stand, both in speech and in writing, that the slander spread against him about his persecution of chassidim was something he could never forgive, for it had transformed him into a baal machlokes, a disputant, at a time when he loved peace and pursued it to the nth degree.^[10]

Rabbi Elya Svei, one of the rosh yeshivas of the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, said in his eulogy for Rabbi Shach, "Another area in which Rav Shach took the sole initiative and responsibility was in the less than popular task of protesting Messianic proclivities within Lubavitch. Rav Shach assumed the responsibility of decrying this perversion. Rav Shach started to fight this battle alone. He illuminated the truth so that others could also see the posed threat and follow his lead." ^[11]

Shach had three children, all born in Kletsk in the 1920s: Miriam Raisel, Devorah, and Ephraim. Miriam Raisel died as a teenager in 1939 of pneumonia. Devorah married Rabbi Meir Tzvi Bergman, a Torah scholar in Israel, and had several children. Ephraim was unsatisfied with the Haredi lifestyle and eventually became a member of the Religious Zionist camp. He served in the Israel Defense Forces, received a doctorate in history and philosophy, and presently works as a supervisor for the Israel Ministry of Education.

Rebbetzin Guttel Schach died in 1969 from complications relating to diabetes.

• "I remember how I was educated in my parents' home: when my yarmulke fell off my head, I was taught that you had to cry from distress. They were guided by a concern for the punctilious observance of mitzvos. Once I woke up after the zman Krias Shema according to the Magen Avraham and I burst out crying and continued to cry about it all day long."

• Rabbi Shach and Lithuanian Anti-Zionism (E.Segal)
• From child genius to ultra-Orthodox leader, 1898-2001, by Shahar Ilan, Haaretz, 2001.

• Collection of Haaretz links relating to Shach
• Obituary, by Lawrence Joffe, The Guardian
• Obituary by David Landau, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
• Obituary from Yated Ne'eman
• Rabbi Shach as a student
• Anecdote about Rabbi Shach during World War I
• Article about Rav Shach from Jewish Observer
• Eulogies for Rabbi Shach given by Rabbi Elya Svei and Rabbi Meir Tzvi Bergman and Article about Rabbi Shach from Yated Ne'eman
• Article about Rabbi Shach from Jerusalem Post