A number of political theologies have emerged within modern Judaism, primarily as a reaction to the rise of Zionism but also, and to a lesser degree, to that of socialism, pacifism, and other ideological movements. Among the characteristics they shared are a “father”—i.e., an individual who fleshed out their tenets in more or less systematic fashion—and an attempt to deal with the nature and governance of a future Jewish state. The majority of these theologies failed to achieve significant influence in the wider public arena. Notably, however, there is one modern Jewish political theology that evolved by means of a different process, one that was gradual and decidedly unsystematic. It also lacks a single founder or figurehead, even though, like its counterparts, it developed and sought to remain within a particular social faction where it has long exercised significant influence and continues to do so to this day. I am referring to the doctrine of Daʿat Torah (literally “the Torah view,” “the opinion of the Torah,” “the knowledge of the Torah,” or “the Torah mind”),Footnote 1 which arose in the first half of the twentieth century in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) circles.Footnote 2 It can be summarized in a single sentence: The great religious authorities hold the power to issue rulings not only in their specific areas of expertise but in all areas of life, including the political realm.
Unlike other Jewish political theologies, Daʿat Torah was not designed for use in a sovereign state. Rather, its target audiences were much smaller in scale: a political party—for example, Agudat Yisrael—or specific religious communities subject to the governance of larger states. According to some scholars, the doctrine includes the implicit (or explicit) belief that the great Torah scholars cannot err, frequently compared to the Catholic Church's concept of papal infallibility.Footnote 3 Adopted as one of the central values of Haredi society from its very beginnings, Daʿat Torah continues to wield significant influence among this society's political and social organizations today.
At first blush, Daʿat Torah seems to be a simple—some would even say “simplistic”—theocratic doctrine. This impression is strengthened by the fact that it establishes the absolute authority of Torah authorities without indicating how they are to be chosen, and how their powers implemented. As with other Haredi doctrines from the same period, its formulation is fraught with language that is incidental, sloppy, and at times garbled. It rarely, if ever, makes reference to other, alternative doctrines, whether those that oppose it or those that could, potentially, enrich it. It is therefore appropriate to ask: Is it possible to view Daʿat Torah as a theological creation? And if so, is it possible to view it as a political theology? Finally, has the doctrine of Daʿat Torah contributed to twentieth-century theological-political discourse, and can it contribute to our understanding of political theologies today?
In the following article, I will attempt to answer all of these questions in the affirmative. Whereas a few scholarly studies have described Daʿat Torah as a social and political pattern of behavior that eventually achieved a certain theological expression,Footnote 4 in what follows, I argue the converse perspective: that Daʿat Torah is a theological idea that achieved expression through practical implementation. First, I will demonstrate that the question of the categorization of Daʿat Torah as “theology,” and consequently as “political theology,” depends on how the parameters of these concepts are defined. After examining the range of possible definitions, I will argue that Daʿat Torah constitutes both a theology in the broad sense of the term as well as a political theology, even in the narrow sense of “political.” Furthermore, I will argue that Daʿat Torah indeed made the following important contributions to twentieth-century political-theological discourse: 1) Daʿat Torah represents a methodological innovation in the definition of theology, challenging the accepted boundaries of theological creativity and potentially expanding our understanding of the concept; 2) as a political theology not designed for use in a state, Daʿat Torah represents an innovation in the definition of political theology; 3) given its fundamentally antidemocratic nature, it provides an interesting counterpoint to mainstream Western political-theological discourse in the twentieth century (although, it should be noted, it does require a pseudo-democratic balance in its implementation); 4) it came to include a subtle element of infallibility, which I will refer to as “political infallibility”; and 5) as the only Jewish political theology in the modern era to achieve practical application—i.e., to withstand the “test of outcomes”—it can prove of significant interest to the social sciences. Lastly, I will argue that the pragmatic, non-systematic character of Daʿat Torah affected its content: because the doctrine was not formulated in clear-cut theological terms, it could display a greater degree of political and theological dynamism than many other political theologies, which fossilized on history's bookshelf.
The Doctrine of Daʿat Torah: Its Origins and Development
Daʿat Torah is a Haredi innovation that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, around the time of the schism that erupted within Orthodox Judaism over the question of its relationship to Zionism. Already by the end of the nineteenth century, when the Jewish-national movement first entered the stage of Jewish history, the Orthodox world divided essentially into two camps: those who supported the movement and, consequently, established the Religious-Zionist Mizrahi Movement in 1902 and those who would go on to found the anti-Zionist political party Agudat Yisrael ten years later.Footnote 5 After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the two political streams gradually evolved into religious-social movements: religious Zionism on one hand and the non-Zionist Haredi community on the other. Today, they are mainly recognized for their different approaches to modernity, as well as for their distinct approach to rabbinic leadership.Footnote 6 In the first decades of their existence, however, the division between these groups ran primarily along political lines. Although neither movement presented a feasible plan for a modern Jewish state, Haredi Judaism, and in particular the Agudat Yisrael party, developed the doctrine of Daʿat Torah, which effectively established the modus operandi for Haredi society within a larger political entity, whether Jewish or Gentile.
Daʿat Torah originated in the Litvish (Lithuanian) sector of Haredi Judaism, which cherished Torah study and intellectual achievement to the exclusion of almost all else. In this context, Daʿat Torah may be said merely to have accentuated the authority of outstanding Torah scholars, whose reputations were based on their talmudic acumen and legal rulings. By contrast, the other large sector of Haredi Judaism, the Hasidim, foregrounded ethical values and spirituality; since the eighteenth century it been led by tzaddikim, or “rebbes,” who offered guidance not only in areas of religion, but also on questions relating to individual and communal needs. The rebbes’ authority derived both from their lineage and their virtue (expressed in the mystical-charismatic concept of being “imbued with the holy spirit”), thus granting them even broader powers than were later to be assigned by the doctrine of Daʿat Torah. Indeed, since the Hasidic rebbes did not need Daʿat Torah to shore up their authority, they contributed very little to its development. Understandably, then, the stages of the doctrine's development described below overlap to a great degree with the leadership of different personalities in the Litvish sector, who infused it with content related to their worldviews, their personality traits, and their leadership styles.Footnote 7
One of Daʿat Torah's early advocates was the Lithuanian Rabbi Israel Meir Hakohen (Kagan), the “Hafetz Hayim” (ca. 1839–1933). Known as a legal authority rather than a theologian, he was nonetheless revered for his remarkable piousness, humbleness, and simplicity. The Hafetz Hayim argued for the Torah's ability to provide an answer to any and all questions. It should be noted that his certitude derived from a faith in the truth inherent in the Torah itself, and not necessarily in the Torah scholars. The theological source of this approach is, in fact, a much older doctrine, that of “everything is in it” (kollaʼ bah)—i.e., in the Torah.Footnote 8 According to this principle, the Torah in both its written and oral forms contains the entire truth about reality. While the roots of this doctrine can be traced to midrashic sources, Maimonides, the preeminent Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, gave it a decidedly rationalistic orientation, maintaining that one can find in the Torah all the basic scientific and metaphysical principles of the world. The Kabbalists, by contrast, lent this doctrine a mystical orientation, even radicalizing it to a degree in the eighteenth century, when they argued that the knowledge embedded in the Torah relates not just to abstract principles (i.e., the general foundations of the world), but also to details concerning individual persons or objects. This kind of knowledge could be mined by either a mystical-experiential approach (employed, for example, by the founder of Hasidism, Israel Baal Shem Tov) or an intellectual one, which seeks to decode textual “clues” (as employed by the Gaon of Vilna, the leader of the opposition to Hasidism).
As the status of Kabbalah in Jewish thought declined rapidly during the course of the nineteenth century, its pretensions to access the hidden knowledge about each individual were also largely dismissed. Eventually, the notion of “everything is in it” became a purely dogmatic principle, absent practical expression. Furthermore, the doctrine had by then come under the influence of “simple faith,” a concept that could not be farther removed from metaphysical understanding. Now the emphasis was no longer placed on the Torah's revelation of the underlying principles of the world order, nor on its knowledge regarding the lives of either individuals or particular events. Rather, Haredi Jews sought out the Torah for its ability to provide practical advice on how to live, relevant both to individuals and the community as a whole. As the Hafetz Hayim famously stated, “He whose knowledge is the knowledge of the Torah (Daʿat Torah) can solve all of the problems in the world, for the individual and for the collective.”Footnote 9
At this point in time, it is important to note, guidance gleaned from the Torah was perceived as worth heeding, but not necessarily authoritative or obligatory. Furthermore, the early twentieth-century version of Daʿat Torah—the Hebrew meaning of which encompasses the definitions “knowledge of the Torah,” the “worldview of the Torah,” and the “Torah-mind”—referred specifically to the ability of Torah scholars to draw advice specifically from written sources. (This approach, it should be noted, was the seed of the doctrine of Daʿat Torah in its embryonic stage.) Accordingly, the innovative potential of Daʿat Torah was deliberately limited, in contrast to the far-reaching pretentiousness of the “everything is in it” doctrine that prevailed in earlier periods.
In the second stage of Daʿat Torah's development, which began with the establishment of Agudat Yisrael at the beginning of the twentieth century and concluded with the Holocaust, the doctrine underwent a clear transformation in a number of areas. For example, the new party established a supreme body of religious leaders, “The Council of Torah Sages,” designed to provide guidance to its functionaries. According to party ideology, the council was the living embodiment of Daʿat Torah and applied it to fundamental questions on its agenda. As such, the “pure” doctrine underwent a process of institutionalization: the new council represented the various powers in the Haredi world (including both prominent rabbis and Hasidic masters), and aspired—in theory, if not always in practice—to arrive at decisions by consensus. At the same time, however, it issued rulings without explanations—a practice that is non-existent in the halakhic tradition.Footnote 10
Daʿat Torah undoubtedly granted Agudat Yisrael a religious-moral edge over its competitors—especially the Mizrahi movement, which did not enjoy the support of the most prominent rabbis. At the same time, it offered an alternative to the anticlerical spirit then prevalent among many secular Zionists. This spirit is reflected, for example, in the following passage by Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, from his book The Jewish State (1896):
We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks. Army and priesthood shall receive honors high as their valuable functions deserve. But they must not interfere in the administration of the State which confers distinction upon them, else they will conjure up difficulties without and within.Footnote 11
Against this claim, the Non-Zionist Orthodox leadership sought to bolster the public status of the rabbis by calling for their involvement in political matters. To be sure, this approach constituted a clear departure from the previous understanding of the role of the rabbi in Jewish life. In premodern, traditional Jewish society, “secular” matters were largely handled by the kahal (the council of the community), which was primarily a nonreligious entity.Footnote 12 Nevertheless, for the sake of defending Orthodoxy, modern-day Orthodox Jews were prepared to deviate from their usual conservatism and embrace certain fundamental changes. One of the leaders of Agudat Yisrael, Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin, recognized this essential shift in rabbinic responsibility in comments he made in 1926:
To you, rabbis of Israel, . . . it is of course difficult to suddenly become rulers who occupy an exalted position above the people. . .. But permit me, gentlemen, to tell you: . . . At a time that the Torah is in danger, at a time when fire is consuming thousands of Jewish souls, there is no room to be glorified with excessive humility and to hide in the corner; . . . It is demanded of each one of us: “And thou shalt stand upon a rock” (Exod 33:21).Footnote 13
Other Torah sages took the idea of Daʿat Torah in similar directions. Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman (1874–1941), a disciple of the Hafetz Hayim, returned to the idea of “everything is in it,” this time with the caveat that only the truly great Torah sages, who had dedicated their lives to Torah study and completely internalized its spirit, were capable of finding in it the correct answers to all questions. Rabbi Wasserman himself sought answers through an explicit—even somewhat fundamentalist—interpretation of the holy texts. Such rabbinic rulings were, once again, received not only as good advice but as obligatory, halakhic-type rulings, based on the law, “Thou shalt not decline [from the sentence which they shall show thee]” (Deut 17:11).Footnote 14 At the general assembly of Agudat Yisrael, he stated:
The Torah is our spring of life. Without the Torah we have no knowledge. To all the events of life we can find an explanation in the Torah. . ..
Each one of us has a Torah view (Daʿat Torah), but in varying percentages. One person holds 50 percent, another 75, and a third 15, and the remaining percentages held by each of them are not the view of the Torah, but other views: the view of one's livelihood, the view of one's commerce, the view of one's wife and children, etc. And, thus, his Torah view becomes an ineffective minority, and . . . he is untrustworthy.
A Torah view held by 100 percent can be found only in the great Torah scholars, they who disposed of all worldly concerns and devoted themselves solely to the knowledge of the Torah (Daʿat ha-Torah), “according to all that they inform thee.”Footnote 15
In contrast to Rabbi Wasserman were more moderate Haredi personalities, such as Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzinski (1863–1940), who served as the president of the Council of Torah Sages. Rabbi Grodzinski held that not every answer can be found in the Torah; indeed, the opinions of the sages in certain matters must be based on “common sense and experience.”Footnote 16 For example, when a German Orthodox Jew asked him whether it would be halakhically right or wrong to secede from the larger Jewish community and establish a separate, Orthodox one, he replied:
I must tell you that in spite of my desire to satisfy you and answer you properly, this time the question you posed is too difficult. . .. Indeed, the key to answering [it] is, in my opinion, [to grasp that it is] different from all those questions about ritual matters or even . . . [those] pertaining to the status of agunot.Footnote 17 Regarding such questions, which are squarely rooted in the Talmud and the halakhic codes, the decisor has to work at understanding the earlier and the later authorities, to apply their rules for making a decision, and to find a solution to the complex problem at hand. The solution to the issue you raise, however, is different. It is founded on a comprehensive awareness and clear-sightedness [that enable one] to know the right way to patch the breached fence, and fill in the gap, in order to reinforce our religion. . .. This question is not solved by sources from the Talmud and the halakhic authorities, but by good reasoning and a clear-sighted worldview.
And with regard to the issue [of the dispensation to associate oneself with sinners], which pertains to fundamental issues of the Torah and its laws, and is not resolved by talmudic sources but [rather] by good common sense and experience—only the halakhic authorities of the place in question can address it with due profundity. [It is their duty] to [determine] the correct extent of engagement and disengagement [with the non-Orthodox].
It is important to note that Rabbi Grodzinski did not believe that recognizing that certain rulings lack a textual basis in any way reduced the authority of Daʿat Torah. Instead, he seems to have understood the doctrine in a less rigid manner than did Rabbi Wasserman and others, who represented Agudat Yisrael's dogmatic wing.
Relying on their moral-religious authority, the Hasidic masters and prominent rabbis of Eastern Europe adjudicated on the difficult questions with which they were confronted on the eve of the Holocaust. A majority maintained the tradition of opposition to emigration from Europe, both to the United States and Palestine. Whether a different position would have significantly changed the scope of the Nazi massacre remains open to debate; nonetheless, there were many who did not hesitate to level criticism at that leadership when the sheer proportion of that massacre became clear. Indeed, in the period following the Hurban (“Destruction,” as the Holocaust is known in Haredi literature), Haredi Judaism was mired in a profound crisis. Its leaders, members, and centers of learning were almost completely decimated; in addition, it was forced to grapple with a crisis of faith, in God himself and in the sages, both of whom had arguably failed the test of outcomes.Footnote 18 Many claimed that the Holocaust was unequivocal proof of the Zionist prognosis for Europe and blamed Haredi leaders for their failure to see the writing on the wall—thus attributing to them responsibility for the fate of their followers.Footnote 19 Such claims—some of which bore grains of truth, while others were more akin to demagoguery—often fell upon receptive ears, and likely as not more than a few Haredim were taken in by them to some degree. The need both to acknowledge and rectify the mistakes of the sages was urgently felt and became even more so several years later, when Zionism succeeded in establishing the State of Israel.
The third stage in the development of Daʿat Torah occurred after both the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. In response to attacks on the doctrine both during the Holocaust and immediately thereafter, certain Haredi ideologues became even more radical. This trend led in two directions: First, the quasi-halakhic element of Daʿat Torah, which had already emerged in an earlier stage, became more entrenched. Now, Haredi leaders taught that the obligation to obey Daʿat Torah, as with that of any halakhic precept, should not be predicated on the assumption of a positive outcome; moreover, the soundness of a Daʿat Torah ruling cannot be judged by its results. Second, the quasi-mystical element of the doctrine was bolstered by claims that the decisions of the sages are inspired by “the holy spirit,” or a “Divine inspiration.”
The first direction was represented primarily by the two most prominent leaders of Haredi Judaism after the Holocaust: the Hazon Ish and the Brisker Rov.Footnote 20 A saying attributed to the Hazon Ish may provide an example:
Someone once commented to him that in view of the Hazon Ish's own immigration to Palestine it is likely that the great Torah authorities of the previous generation, who had opposed Jewish immigration to that land, were proven wrong. This comment highly excited the Hazon Ish, and he exclaimed: “Heresy has been shed into your words! When the great authorities say not to immigrate—this is sheer law, just as much as their ruling to immigrate is a sheer law.”Footnote 21
In other words, outcome is irrelevant, since obedience to God's law must be absolute, an end in itself. “Success is not law,” he is quoted as saying, in a typically concise manner.Footnote 22 Similarly, the Brisker Rov is quoted as saying:
Where the opinion of Torah (Daʿat Torah) is that a certain action is forbidden, the outcomes that may emerge from this action make no difference at all. Even if we know by a clear prophecy what will happen in the end, the prohibition remains equally valid.Footnote 23
This standpoint led the Brisker Rov to object vehemently to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In his opinion, there was no halakhic justification for the risk of human life in defense of such a state and, therefore, it was forbidden to establish it, even if it may lead to a good outcome, and even if its establishment were the realization of biblical prophecies.Footnote 24
The second, quasi-mystical direction was particularly dominant in the writings of the renowned Rabbi Eliyahu E. Dessler (1892–1953). Formulations of this type came closest to the concept of infallibility, to which we will return later on. These two directions—the “halakhic” and the quasi-mystical—are not obviously compatible, for halakhic rulings are largely perceived in rabbinic tradition as detached from supernatural sources. In addition, halakhah is considered a “culture of controversy,” in which each scholar is permitted to point out what he considers to be errors in the arguments of his colleagues. Yet Haredi thought was not generally concerned with these inherent tensions. In any case, both of these theoretical directions were in fact compatible with still another trend that developed at the same time: the deinstitutionalization of Daʿat Torah.
While the Council of Torah Sages continued to function and to guide the course of Agudat Yisrael, the two figures who personified Daʿat Torah in this period, the Hazon Ish and the Brisker Rov, were not members of the Council and never participated in its meetings. Indeed, even after the establishment of the State of Israel, when Agudat Yisrael was integrated into the state's elected democratic institutions, we do not find any real aspiration to extend the jurisdiction of the council beyond its sphere of influence within Haredi society. Nor, for that matter, did the council seek to serve as a model for a Jewish theocracy. Rather, the doctrine became an extremely powerful force within the Haredi community—so much so, in fact, that those with hesitations were summarily discounted, or even thrown out. At a certain point, the doctrine virtually took on the status of an article of faith.
The fourth and fifth stages in the evolution of Daʿat Torah involved almost no noteworthy theological developments. They were, however, characterized by changes in the doctrine's implementation. In the fourth stage, which began in the 1970s, the attempt to monopolize Daʿat Torah began in earnest, in association with the leadership of Rabbi Elazar Menachem Shach (ca. 1898?–2001). The dominant leader of the Litvish Haredi sector at the time, Shach launched a series of attacks against different power bases in Haredi society, thus aggravating schisms within the Council of Torah Sages and ultimately neutralizing the body altogether. The fifth stage, which began in the mid-1990s, is associated with the leadership of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (1910–2012), also a leader of the Litvish Haredi community. This marks, to a large degree, the post-ideological or technocratic phase of Daʿat Torah, in which its direction is not only determined by the Great Torah Sages but is also influenced in significant part by a group of aides and beadles that surrounds them. Rulings are primarily pragmatic, and allow for a degree of relativity between the different groups and individuals that constitute Haredi society.Footnote 25 This is, it should be noted, in keeping with the doctrine's original mandate: although Daʿat Torah was designed to anchor the involvement of the Great Torah Sages in “all of the problems in the world,” including matters both personal and public, its strongest impact, at least from the second stage onward, was undeniably in the political realm, where it authorized the religious leadership of Haredi Judaism to function as its political leadership, as well.
Today we seem to be at the beginning of a new, sixth stage. Due to the split within the Litvish-Haredi leadership, there are two adversarial leaders for the sector and, consequently, every individual selects his own leader in what appears to be a very small and unstated move toward democratization in the practice (even if not in the concept) of Daʿat Torah: the individual no longer molds his views according to the views of the spiritual leader, but rather selects his spiritual leader according to his existing views. But this process is too premature to be discussed here.
The decisions made by Torah masters are manifold. Torah authorities and Hasidic rebbes nominate the Knesset members of Agudat Yisrael, and the Shas Party, established in 1983, holds the same policy. The religious authorities decide which of the resulting Knesset members will serve as a vice-minister or as head of a parliamentary committee, and in the case of Shas, even as a minister at all. Moreover, all public nominations must receive the approval of the Torah (or Hasidic) authority of the specific community at stake. The same is true for Haredi delegates in city councils, especially in larger locales and exclusively Haredi ones. Finally, Torah and Hasidic masters decide whether or not the Haredi parties should join this or that government coalition, and under what conditions.
A few examples will serve to illustrate these authorities’ far-reaching political influence. In 1977, they made the historic decision that Agudat Yisrael would join the government coalition formed by Menachem Begin. In 1984, Rabbi Shach called on his followers to vote for the new Shas party. In 1985 he encouraged the establishment of a new Haredi daily, Yated Ne'eman, and in 1988 he founded the political party Degel Hatorah, which seceded from Agudat Yisrael. In 1990, Rabbi Shach ordered the Shas Knesset members to vote against the attempt to topple the Likkud government (but they abstained). Two years later, in 1992, Agudat Yisrael and Degel Hatorah reunited to form a new bloc called “Yehadut Hatorah,” after the agreement had been approved by the spiritual leaders of both parties. Immediately following the elections of that year, Rabbi Shach ordered the Shas party not to join the new government coalition formed by Yitzhak Rabin, although the party's other leader, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef (1920–2013), ordered the opposite (the party followed Rabbi Yosef's decree). In 1996 Rabbi Shach called on his followers to support Binyamin Netanyahu's candidacy for prime minister, and in 1999 the Torah authorities ordered the Haredi parties to join the new government coalition formed by Ehud Barak. Rabbi Elyashiv, in 2001, harshly criticized the “Kinneret Covenant” for its description of religion-and-state affairs in Israel—a document that had been signed by a Haredi participant—and objected to the notion of negotiations on these matters with nonobservant Jews. In 2003, he approved, for the first time, the candidacy of a Haredi Jew for mayor of Jerusalem, who subsequently went on to win the elections, and he interfered in the mayoral rotation process in the municipality of Bnei Brak. In 2004, Rabbi Elyashiv ordered the Haredi delegates to abstain from voting on prime minister Ariel Sharon's “Disengagement Plan,” thus enabling the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza Strip. Again, in 2007, Rabbi Elyashiv interfered in the municipal elections of the Haredi town of Beitar Illit. This sort of involvement continues through the present day.
Daʿat Torah underwent a number of developments in its lifespan, all of which served, ultimately, to render it both flexible and invertebrate. This dynamism flows to some degree from the fact that Daʿat Torah primarily addresses concrete, pragmatic needs, yet it can also be attributed to the fact of its never having been formulated as a systematic theological approach. Either way, these factors combined to endow the doctrine, however unintentionally, with a vibrant quality not enjoyed by many other political theologies. Its success raises the question: can such a doctrine, which was developed and formulated haphazardly, and lacks both a systematic formulation and final consolidation, truly be considered a theology? Furthermore, given that Daʿat Torah never presumed to deal with the challenges of statehood, but only with those issues facing a particular political party or community, can it truly be considered a political theology? To answer these questions, we will now turn to a more general discussion of the concepts involved.
Methodological Analysis: What Is Political Theology, and to What Extent Is It Recognizable in Daʿat Torah?
The phenomenon of political theology has received a good deal of scholarly attention in recent decades. The term itself is at least as old as Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 b.c.e.) and was also used by Augustine,Footnote 26 but it fell out of favor during the high and later Middle Ages and through the early modern period. In the twentieth century, however, a number of new political theologies emerged, both on the left—for example, the Social Gospel and Theology of Liberation movements—and on the right—for example, the Velayat Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) espoused by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. It is plausible that the term “political theology” was revived in response to a need for a semantic parallel to the phenomenon of secular political ideologies, which flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
One of the first modern thinkers to renew interest in political theology was Carl Schmitt. He is also the one who likely deserves credit for restoring the term to common usage.Footnote 27 In Schmitt's view, however, the term “political theology” took on a distinct cast: he used it in reference to strictly secular phenomena, in order to demonstrate that certain modern legal concepts, such as sovereignty, were created by the secularization of ideas that were originally theological in nature.Footnote 28 By contrast, the primary usage of the term in recent decades has been in reference to religious phenomena—i.e., religious thought as it relates to political issues. We may conclude, then, that there are two different definitions of “political theology,”Footnote 29 only one of which—the original one, and not that of Schmitt—is relevant to our discussion.
Is it the case, however, that any religious thought that relates to political questions qualifies as “political theology”? Broadly speaking, the answer to this question would be “yes”; from a methodological standpoint, however, it would be worthwhile to distinguish between different types of theology and different meanings of the term “political.”
William Cavanaugh and Peter Scott, in their pioneering attempt to define the concept of political theology, described it as follows:
Theology is broadly understood as discourse about God, and human persons as they relate to God. The political is broadly understood as the use of structural power to organize a society or community of people. Under this spacious rubric, politics may be understood for the purpose of political theology in terms of the self-governance of communities and individuals; or in terms of Max Weber's more circumscribed definition of politics, as seeking state power. Political theology is, then, the analysis and criticism of political arrangements . . . from the perspective of differing interpretations of God's ways with the world.Footnote 30
We find a similar characterization of political theology in an illuminating article by Abraham Melamed:
Political theology, a branch of theology, deals with the political aspects and implications of revelation as expressed in the holy scriptures of each of the monotheistic religions. Whereas theology in general is concerned with everything accompanying religious faith based on divine revelation, political theology deals with the significance of governing relations between God and humankind in a particular ethnic or religious group stemming from this revelation.Footnote 31
The first of these definitions aroused some criticism,Footnote 32 but, significantly, no criticisms were directed at their basic foundation. These definitions may, therefore, serve as a useful starting point. Yet, I would argue that these writers define the concept of political theology too broadly. In what follows, I will attempt a clarification of political theology's two components.
The concept of theology has undergone a number of metamorphoses, generally in the direction of a broadening out of the concept. Although the Church Fathers were committed to a literal meaning of the term, and placed the doctrine of God at its center (as alluded to by Scott and Cavanaugh),Footnote 33 it became apparent from the Middle Ages onward that this doctrine was only one of many branches of theology. In Richard Hooker's definition, theology is a priori perceived as “the science of things divine”Footnote 34 in a general sense, that is, not just pertaining to the deity itself. It is beyond the scope of this paper to examine all of the different historical understandings of theology. We will, therefore, focus on two important questions connected to the issue at hand: to what degree must a religious text be systematic, and what level of abstraction is required before it can be considered theology?
Although compared in the Middle Ages to a mistress and her maidservant, the historical relationship between theology and philosophy more often resembled that of sisters. Indeed, during the long course of their respective developments, there was a notable trend toward the broadening of parameters, and a growing readiness to include nonsystematic deliberations under the rubric of philosophy.Footnote 35 Likewise, we could in this spirit recognize discussions that are not categorically part of theology as nonetheless part of theological discourse. But to what degree are we willing to extend this broadening trend? Is any text built upon Scripture to be considered theology? May every sermon delivered in church, and every utterance of a believer, be considered theological in nature?
The challenge inherent in these questions finds its match in Orthodox Judaism. This movement, which arose at the beginning of the nineteenth century as a response to the emerging threats to traditional Jewish life and thought, radicalized the Jewish legalistic spirit. The study of Talmud and halakhah now became a central value, with those who devoted their lives to study enjoying particular social prestige.Footnote 36 Consequently, the outstanding scholars in these disciplines became the spiritual leaders of the movement; so, too, were the ideological positions of Haredi Judaism formulated by these legalists, rather than by “professional” philosophers or theologians. Notably, their approaches differed dramatically from both of the prominent schools of Jewish thought that dominated up until the eighteenth century: religious-rationalist philosophy and Kabbalah. Indeed, the rise of Orthodoxy from the end of the eighteenth century coincided with the decline of Kabbalah, which had reigned supreme over Jewish theology for centuries,Footnote 37 while religious-rationalist philosophy, which had flourished primarily in the Middle Ages, became the domain of Orthodoxy's opponents, namely the Reform movement and the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah.
Given that few viable alternative theological movements developed in European Jewish centers, Orthodox Jews understandably moved in the direction of the nontheological “simple faith.”Footnote 38 Moreover, the most influential of the religious movements to come into contact with the large Orthodox communities in Europe—Hasidism and the Musar movement—did not develop systematic theologies; practically all of their writings consist of collections of sermons or informal “talks” delivered on incidental occasions. Can these works truly be considered theology? Christianity distinguishes between “systematic” and other branches of theology; Judaism, by contrast, asks to what extent it is possible to recognize an “unsystematic theology.”
In this regard, we must take care to distinguish between theology in its broad and narrow senses. While the latter might be limited to that type of theology developed through systematic and “professional” thinking, the former might include any set of correlated ideas uttered by a religious person and reflecting a larger religious worldview or responding to classical theological questions—even if the formulation is not systematic, or is even haphazard, and if the individual involved does not wish to be considered a theologian. We might call this phenomenon “indeliberate theology.”Footnote 39 In such instances, scholarly literature often does for these thinkers what they have not done for themselves: namely, reformulating their ideas in a logical manner. As a result, these thinkers appear far more profound and interesting than in their original work. (It must be emphasized, however, that in such circumstances, the scholar must be careful not to create the theology ex nihilo but only to paraphrase it.) We might say, then, that indeliberate theology creates a potential theology, and that only through scholarly reformulation can it become an “actual” theology. Yet even in such cases, the process of analysis and interpretation must be based on actual texts and, in order to remain as true as possible to the subject's original intention, should not suffice with an analysis of acts or deeds.Footnote 40
To be sure, not every religious idea is an “indeliberate theology,” just as not every secular idea is an “indeliberate philosophy.” We can reconstruct a philosophy out of literary, poetic, political, or columnist texts only if we somehow sense that their authors do have a more or less coherent “worldview”—that is, an approach that is more comprehensive than the mere sum of any few ideas. We may reconstruct a theology from religious texts under similar conditions. The interpreter of the “indeliberate theology” has only modest goals: he does not construct the theology in question, but rather reconstructs it from existing, fragmentary texts. He does not create the teachings but merely puts them into better order—translating them, as it were, to outside readers whose understanding depends on a more organized presentation. Therefore, we may say that he does his work properly if he does not impose a doctrinal content on the texts but rather only reveals an order of argumentation; when he exposes an internal logic that is already there, but ill-phrased or obscured. The researcher, in this case, is only theology's midwife.
According to this reasoning, we can say unequivocally that Haredi thinkers express an “indeliberate theology” on a variety of topics. Both the Hasidic rebbe and the Lithuanian Musar thinker, for example, evince a wide-ranging theological approach, and respond to a good number of theological questions (mostly Jewish in nature, but at times universal as well). Yet they do so in their own, unique way and in keeping with their own, unique cultural heritage. Indeed, almost any member of the Orthodox world can distinguish a Hasidic text from a Musar text, not just by virtue of their distinct styles, but also by their content. This ease of distinction reflects the fact that these schools of thought are associated with well-crystallized theology, even if it has not been formulated systematically. As such, by collecting and reorganizing the sources, a scholar can indeed reconstruct a well-organized argument, and discover the “indeliberate theology” they disclose. Based on this standard, there is no doubt that the doctrine of Daʿat Torah may also qualify as a theological creation of Haredi Judaism.
The above discussion accounts for one component of political theology—that is, theology. But what about the political component? I do not intend here to clarify the definition of “political” in general but rather to examine its meaning within the context of religious thought. Here, too, there is an array of suitable definitions, ranging from the narrowest to the broadest. In this instance, we will once again establish the narrow meaning by borrowing from the lexicon of political theology's sister: political philosophy. Classical political philosophy dealt primarily with the issue of what constitutes the best form of governance for an organized group of people, or, to borrow from Hobbes, the question of The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil.Footnote 41 In contrast, modern political thought is interested in other perspectives on the political, including any matter that affects the identity, boundaries, or organization of a society. Here, too, Schmitt played a key role in characterizing the concept of the political in its broad sense, namely, that it goes beyond the confines of the state. Schmidt sees the political as anything that relates to friend/enemy relationships.Footnote 42 To his mind, the concept of the state already presupposes the concept of the political and, therefore, the state must be defined through the political, and not vice versa. This definition, as well, relates to the term “political” in its general social context.
In the religious context, we can distinguish between at least three genres that deal with the political in its broad sense: 1) works of religious thought that deal with fundamental questions relating to the desired nature of governance (i.e., political thought in the narrow sense); 2) religious ideologies that deal with current political issues, even if they do not relate specifically to the ideal nature of governance, and that reflect the values by which the religious community is expected to function; and 3) works in the discipline of religious law that touch upon public matters. Obviously, the political in the narrow sense includes only the first genre, but the political in the broader sense includes all three,Footnote 43 along with others relating to collective identity and social organization.
After initiating Daʿat Torah into the theology club, can we also include it under the rubric of the political theologies? It would appear that, at first, it fits only within the framework of political theology in the broad sense, for it does not deal with the governance of states, nor does it touch upon the phenomenon of sovereignty. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it can—if just barely—be considered even a part of political theology in the narrow sense, since, in the final analysis, it deals with the question of the ideal form of governance for religious Jewish society, despite the lack of a sovereign framework. Moreover, the model presented by Scott and Cavanaugh does not specifically relate to the context of a state but includes self-governance of communities and individuals; likewise, Melamed emphasizes that “today it is standard practice in political research to assume that even frameworks without sovereignty, like the community, can be considered as ‘political systems’ and to examine them as such.”Footnote 44
This conception of the political can only enlighten and enrich the classical definition of political theology. As Lorberbaum pointed out, for centuries the political framework of the Jews was the community, not the sovereign state, and it is therefore natural that Jewish political theology would reflect this experience.Footnote 45 In addition, Haredi Judaism did not generally aspire to statehood; from its standpoint, the closest thing to sovereignty was the closed community in which Haredi Judaism existed: a society with a quasi-autonomous internal structure. On the other hand, Jewish political theology seldom deals with issues that are generally included within the definition of political theology in its broad sense. I would, therefore, suggest that Daʿat Torah constitutes political theology even in the narrow sense—although not, crucially, in the very narrowest one.Footnote 46
Daʿat Torah and the Democratic Spirit
If we were to adopt the broad definition of political theology, we would find only a handful of political theologies in twentieth-century Jewish religious thought that meet its criteria, ranging from the radical messianism of certain segments of Religious Zionism on the right to Martin Buber's utopianism on the left.Footnote 47 Even if we count approaches opposed altogether to the ideas of sovereignty and statehood, as professed, for example, by Jakob Rosenheim,Footnote 48 the number will not grow by much. Were we to adopt the narrow definition of political theology, this number would be reduced even further, and would include only three theories—all of which, it should be noted, developed as a response to the Zionist challenge: the “Halakhic Democracy” of Rabbi Hayim Hirschensohn (1857–1935)Footnote 49 and the similar model suggested by Rabbi Shimon Federbush (1892–1969);Footnote 50 the “Torah State” advocated by Isaac Breuer (1883–1946)Footnote 51; and the doctrine of Daʿat Torah. Hirschensohn proposed a modern democratic system inclusive of a few conservative limitations, such as unequal voting rights, the doctrinal justification for which came from theology.Footnote 52 Breuer, too, proposed a state with a primarily democratic government, with the exception that his legislative approach is much closer to that of modern theocracy, or a system in which religious law governs without need for popular consent.Footnote 53Daʿat Torah, as we have seen, does not propose any particular type of government but rather establishes the authority of the Great Torah Sages with regard to public affairs—even if, in reality, that authority functions exclusively within a community of believers. Needless to say, this authority is not achieved through democratic processes. The Great Torah Sages are not “elected” in any organized fashion but instead achieve their positions by virtue of the rabbinic elite's recognition of their scholarly achievements and leadership abilities. Daʿat Torah is arguably not a religious version of Plato's Republic, but, if we set aside utopian visions, we may find that Daʿat Torah is the closest model to that of the Platonic ideal ever proposed in Jewish political thought.Footnote 54 If in the Platonic model the community's political leaders are its philosophers, and the masses were not permitted—indeed, were considered unable—to decide who could or could not wear the toga (i.e., attain “philosopher” status), in the Haredi model this parallel role is held by the talmudic masters.
Thus, Daʿat Torah stands out among the sparse number of Jewish political theologies, not only because its sphere of action is a non-sovereign society (rather than a state) but also because it enshrines an elitist, antidemocratic ethos. These characteristics contrast, as well, with the Christian political theologies that developed in the West after World War II, all of which show the strong influence of liberal democracy, seen as the form of government most reflective of the Christian spirit. It is almost superfluous to point out that these Christian political theologies (those, for example, of Jacques Maritain,Footnote 55 John Courtney Murray,Footnote 56 and Reinhold Niebuhr,Footnote 57 to mention only a few) sided with democracy; however, even theonomian and dominionist approaches (such as those of Rousas John Rushdoony, Gary North, and Greg Bahnsen) were careful not to negate democracy explicitly, even though, to a large degree, their ideas stood in direct opposition to some democratic values. The Catholic Church adopted democracy as a reflection of rational values already in the days of Pius IX and has promoted this stance more vigorously in modern times, especially in the wake of Vatican II.Footnote 58 In fact, it is only in recent years that doubts have begun to arise regarding the compatibility between Christian and democratic principles.Footnote 59
Unlike Christianity, an antidemocratic spirit has found fertile ground in the world of Islam.Footnote 60 In contrast to the Reformist branch of Islam, which widely adopted democratic and liberal paradigms,Footnote 61 Islamic political theologians of the radical type (such as Hassan el-Bana and Said Kutub, the founder and leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, respectively) dismissed democracy as a Western political system antithetical to Islam.Footnote 62 Nevertheless, the formulators of the Iranian constitution of December 1979, who established a division between elected institutions and authoritative religious institutions under the directorship of the supreme spiritual leader (Maghame Rahbari), called for political-party pluralism—albeit subordinate to the adherence to Islamic tenets—and democratic elections, even as they defended the predominance of the supreme leader and the “guardianship of the Islamic jurists.” Because the Velayat Faqih deals with an Islamic state and not simply the governance of an Islamic community within a secular state, it seems fair to conclude that it had no choice but to take modern democratic sentiments into account, and to reach a kind of compromise with them.Footnote 63
The relationship between Daʿat Torah and democracy is similarly complex. On the one hand, as I demonstrated above, Daʿat Torah is a wholly elitist form of governance, one that is in no way subordinate to popular sentiment. Furthermore, since Daʿat Torah was intended as a doctrine for the governance of a closed community, and not a sovereign state, it does not face pressures to compromise, and can freely grant the “Great Sages of the Generation” an authority unlimited by any official body. On the other hand, Daʿat Torah has a decidedly less authoritative position than might be perceived at first glance.
The fact that Daʿat Torah functions within a non-sovereign framework makes it, somewhat ironically, more democratic than it appears. For instance, Haredi authorities never sought to establish enforcement mechanisms, preferring instead that their political power derive from their ethical-religious authority. Yet without enforcement mechanisms, the Torah sages cannot function as a truly authoritative governing body. Furthermore, participation in Haredi society is essentially voluntary: in principle, anyone who does not trust its leadership is free to leave. (Although secession involves contending with harsh social pressures, this does not constitute an enforcement mechanism in the political sense of the term.) Thus, rabbinic authority, although powerful, does to some degree rest on public support. Again, this situation does not constitute a formal democracy, but it also does not resemble the authoritarian power structure that characterizes sovereign theocratic states. We find, therefore, that while on the theoretical level Daʿat Torah embodies an almost belligerently antidemocratic approach, one that is exceptional among other Jewish and Christian political theologies of the twentieth century, it also, somewhat paradoxically, features an implied democratic spirit, in that it cannot impose rabbinic leadership on anyone who does not voluntarily choose to subordinate himself to it. Indeed, in the sole instance in which the leadership of the Lithuanian sector attempted to extend its control over all of Haredi society—in the period of Rabbi Shach—the process was a complete failure.Footnote 64
Some may recall the dialogue between the Prince and the King in The Little Prince. When the Prince yawns, the King tells him it is impolite, but when the Prince explains that he cannot help it, the King replies: “Ah, then . . . I order you to yawn.” When the prince replies that now he cannot do it because he is frightened, the King says: “Then . . . I order you sometimes to yawn and sometimes [not].” When the Princes asks, “May I sit down?” the Kings responds: “I order you to do so,” and when he begs to ask a question, the King immediately replies: “I order you to ask me a question.” The King then sums up: “Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.”Footnote 65 I would not go so far as to argue that the same dynamics are at work in Daʿat Torah, just as I would not argue that the orders of the Torah masters are always “reasonable.” Nonetheless, the point made by Saint-Exupéry is pertinent to many presumably authoritarian political systems—and even more so to religious systems in modern societies, where religion becomes a “product” in the “market”Footnote 66 and where the authorities are not afraid of “revolution” but simply of being deserted. Thus, the Haredi leadership structure rests on a threefold paradox: it is an authoritarian system that derives its strength from democracy, as it can exist (and even flourish) only in democratic societies; it is simultaneously endangered by democracy (since in free societies religion is voluntary) and must compete in the marketplace of ideas; and finally, it is a system that prides itself on its nondemocratic character even as it is forced to act malgré soi, in a semi-democratic way, as otherwise its impotence will fade out.
Subtle Infallibility, “Political Infallibility”
As discussed above, the Holocaust left the Great Torah Sages vulnerable to attack, both for failing to grasp the severity of the circumstances and for not instructing their followers to leave Europe. One of those who were disappointed by the sages’ public leadership was Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, originally a member of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudat Yisrael in the United States. Shortly after the end of World War II, when the proportions of the destruction became known, Rabbi Soloveitchik decided to leave Agudat Yisrael and join the Religious-Zionist Mizrahi movement—largely because, unlike the spiritual leaders of the former (and of Haredi Judaism in general), the Mizrahi movement consistently encouraged immigration to Israel. In his words, “the years of the Hitlerian Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the accomplishments of Mizrahi in the Land of Israel convinced me of the correctness of our movement's path.”Footnote 67 This change of allegiances, it must be understood, was for him not a matter of simple political-organizational preference. Rather, it was a much deeper, more fundamental change of priorities, what we might call a change in theological stance. Put simply, Rabbi Soloveitchik came to perceive God's will as being derived from reality, as opposed to the Torah and Daʿat Torah.
To understand the significance of Rabbi Soloveitchik's theological transformation, we need only compare certain of his statements from the prewar and postwar years. For example, when speaking in memory of Rabbi Hayim Ozer Grodzinzki, he expressed an unqualified Haredi position regarding the ideal image of a spiritual leader: that is, he denied any distinction between leaders who possess the authority to decide on issues of halakhah and those with the authority to decide on public affairs.Footnote 68 After the Holocaust, however, he wrote the essay “And Joseph Dreamt a Dream,” in which he portrays Joseph and his brothers as two typologies that differ in the way they understand reality. Rabbi Soloveitchik posits that Joseph's dreams reflect the paradigm of perceiving the will of God within unfolding events, which, in his view, describes the leaders of the Religious-Zionist Mizrahi movement. Joseph's brothers, on the other hand, represent the conservative approach of the Haredi leadership: “The brothers, however, were unanimous in their opinion that it is forbidden to gaze too intently into the mirror of the future—‘do not probe that which is wondrous to do—that one must judge the future by the present.’”Footnote 69 The historical reality proved, in Rabbi Soloveitchik's opinion, that the leaders of Mizrahi were correct: the Zionist enterprise had secured the future of their brothers in Europe, just as Joseph's accomplishments in Egypt secured the future of his brothers, who would otherwise have perished in the famine in the Land of Canaan. In sum, the sages, who presumed to issue rulings based on Daʿat Torah, had misread the map. He summarized his position as follows:
God handed over technical legal matters to the authority of Sages, to rule on what is clean and what is unclean, to decide between obligation and exemption, forbidden and permitted. But in historical questions . . . those relating to the destiny of the Eternal People, God Himself decides as to whose interpretation shall become the law (the historical development). Nor can anyone dispute the ruling of God in this domain. In the controversy between Joseph of yore and his brothers thousands of years ago, God decided in accord with Joseph's interpretation of the historical process. In our days, the Creator of the universe similarly decided that the (historical) “law” will be as the Joseph of 5662 [i.e., the Mizrahi].Footnote 70
Notably, such claims—and ones even harsher—were not rare in the Haredi world after World War II. Haredi thinkers coped with this crisis in a variety of ways. Some—albeit very few—admitted their mistake, even if said admission was weak and partial;Footnote 71 others, however, denied that any mistake had been made, arguing that the rulings of the sages were correct given the circumstances in which they functioned.Footnote 72 Some leaders deemed the apparent “misreading of the map” to be irrelevant, insisting that Daʿat Torah constitutes halakhic decisions, and are likewise not to be judged by results,Footnote 73 while others denied the very possibility of error on the theological level.Footnote 74 This last response, which takes a radical approach to the authority of Daʿat Torah, comes very close to a dogma of infallibility.Footnote 75 Nevertheless, there are significant differences between the Roman Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope (and of the Church in general) and the doctrine of Daʿat Torah, which I will clarify below.
The Roman Catholic concept of infallibility is based on the belief that the Church is the “Body of Christ”—that it represents, in other words, the quality of supernatural grace, sometimes referred to as “charism.”Footnote 76 By contrast, in the doctrine of Daʿat Torah—at least in its first two stages of development, that is, until the Holocaust—we find no such element. Indeed, this early Daʿat Torah did not even presume for itself the lesser claim of inspiration by a “holy spirit” (a point that shores up the Litvish character of the doctrine, as opposed to the Hasidic one, with its emphasis on the divinely inspired tzaddik). Claims similar to those of infallibility did, however, arise in discussions on Daʿat Torah following the crisis of “faith in the sages” after the Holocaust. Here, for the first time, we come across the argument that the sages do not err; that, moreover, it is actually those who criticize them for erring who are mistaken. The most prominent proponent of this position was Rabbi Eliyahu E. Dessler, the mashgiah ruhani (spiritual mentor) of the yeshiva at Gateshead, England, and later of the prestigious Ponivezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel. He outlined this position in his article, “A Letter on Faith in the Sages,”Footnote 77 written in response to a Haredi Jew who called the Great Torah Sages to task for their mistaken policy regarding emigration from Europe before the Holocaust. It was included in his influential book Mikhtav Meʼeliyahu, which found a receptive audience in Litvish yeshiva circles. The inclination toward infallibility is evident already in the letter's introduction, in which Rabbi Dessler expresses shock at the assumptions of the questioner: “From your words I see that you believe that all the great ones of Israel, all of whose deeds were for the sake of Heaven, who combined intellectual genius with heroic righteousness, . . . all of them are supposed to have made a terrible mistake.”Footnote 78 He continues, “God forbid that such a thing be in Israel! It is forbidden even to listen to words like these, let alone to say them.”Footnote 79 After emphasizing the intellectual and ethical superiority of the great rabbis, he goes on to attribute supernatural qualities both to them and their “meetings”:
Whoever was present in their meetings could see with his own eyes the extent and depth of the sense of responsibility with which they approached these matters; it could be seen on their faces, when they deliberated for the sake of Heaven and devoted their minds to considering the problems of Klal Yisrael [the Jewish collective]. . .. Whoever had the merit to stand before them on such an occasion could have no doubt that he could see the Shechina [Divine immanence] resting on the work of their hands and [that] the Holy Spirit was present in their assembly.Footnote 80
Despite Dessler's confidence, however, there were those who doubted that the “Holy Spirit was present in their assembly”; for example, a number of Daʿat Torah's critics have claimed that this approach likens the status of the sages to that of prophecy—which, according to the Talmud, ceased to exist already at the beginning of the Second Temple period.Footnote 81 Yet from Rabbi Dessler's perspective, the spiritual heights attained by the sages could not but demand complete obedience:
Our Rabbis have told us to listen to the words of the Sages “even if they tell us that right is left,” and not to say, God forbid, that they must be wrong because little I “can see their mistake with my own eyes.” My seeing is null and void and utterly valueless compared with the clarity of their intellect and the divine aid they receive. No Bet Din [rabbinical court] can revoke the decrees of another Bet Din unless it is greater in number and in wisdom;Footnote 82 failing this, it is very likely that what they think they “can see with their own eyes” is merely imagination and illusion. This is the Torah view concerning faith in the Sages.Footnote 83
Put simply, in the conflict between Daʿat Torah and “seeing” (in the original Hebrew version Rabbi Dessler uses the word “sense,” a term often used to denote intuition or “common sense,” but here it refers also to the five ordinary senses), Daʿat Torah holds sway. In practical terms, this argument precludes the possibility of criticizing Daʿat Torah. So, too, in the view of those who attribute to Daʿat Torah a halakhic status, such as the Hazon Ish and the Brisker Rov, there is no feasible way to criticize Daʿat Torah, since it exists on a plane completely above that of the test of outcomes: the Great Torah Sages rule on the proper course of action, and believers must follow their guidance, without any expectation of a reward in this world.Footnote 84 Rabbi Dessler, in a slightly nuanced claim, holds that the correctness of their rulings may also be discernible in this world, but the perspective of the individual who criticizes them is simply too narrow to perceive it. In support of this position, he offers the story of the Book of Esther in which the casual observer might at first assume that the course of action adopted by Mordecai and Esther was reckless and bound to fail, only to learn at the story's end that their approach was in fact correct, in part, because their intent was directed toward the Divine will.
It should be known, however, that even in Rabbi Dessler's formulation, we do not find a complete negation of the possibility of error: a “court”—that is, the Great Torah Sages—can in fact err; the key point is that it can only be criticized by a court that is greater in number and wisdom and not by mere laypeople.Footnote 85 We thus have a position that approaches infallibility but does not declare it outright. Notably, even at the height of the doctrine's popularity, we would be hard-pressed to find any explicit declarations that the rulings of the Great Sages are absolute and eternal truths, irrevocable and never subject to error. In this respect, then, there is a clear difference between Daʿat Torah and the Catholic dogma.
An additional difference between the Catholic doctrine of infallibility and Daʿat Torah relates to the question of in whose hands the alleged infallibility rests. In the history of the Church, there is a long-standing tension between those who viewed the Pope as infallible and those who reserved that merit for the Ecumenical Councils. The infallibility of the Pope was decreed only at the First Vatican Council in 1870 and was limited to cases in which the Pope rules ex cathedra on “a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church.”Footnote 86 The Ecumenical Councils, by contrast, were historically seen as the continuation of the gatherings of the Disciples of Jesus.Footnote 87 In Lumen Gentium (1964), the infallibility of the Councils was reaffirmed and was applied as well to agreements reached by all the Church's bishops (even if they do not meet in one place). In order to prevent the Councils from reaching a mistaken interpretation, however, it was established that all decisions must be subordinate to Papal consent. Lumen Gentium further emphasizes that beyond these conditions, “the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility.”Footnote 88 In any case, the Holy See in Rome and the Ecumenical Councils are part and parcel of the church establishment, and it is clear from the document that Catholic infallibility can never be attributed to a non-establishment, purely charismatic figure or institution.
By contrast, Daʿat Torah expanded to include the idea of infallibility only in its third, post-Holocaust stage of development—that is, the stage in which it was further detached from an establishment framework and sought to grant the highest degree of authority to individuals who were not necessarily members of the Council of Torah Sages. These rabbis were recognized as “Great Sages of the Generation” not because of their formal positions but precisely because of their charismatic qualities. Moreover, even though Lithuanian yeshiva culture, particularly from the third stage onward, recognized one particular leader as the “Great Sage of the Generation,” it did so not as a result of any fundamental or eternal principle, but rather as a testament to the wisdom and character of the rabbi in question.Footnote 89 Even so, it should be noted that this claim met with stiff resistance from many directions. As we recall, from a theological standpoint, Daʿat Torah is associated with the doctrine of “everything is in it,” which implies the infallibility of the Torah, and not of any individuals or institutions who might claim to represent it.
In the final analysis, then, the difference between the Catholic and Haredi doctrines of infallibility is quite noticeable. The Catholic dogma, for starters, makes infallibility dependent upon a number of limiting conditions, such as the technical-legal demand that the ruling be ex cathedra, and that it relate purely to questions of theology and morals—such as the establishment of the Immaculate Conception, determined in 1854, and of the assumption of Mary, determined in 1950—and not, significantly, to those of communal affairs.Footnote 90 While the infallibility of the Pope has, at times, been formulated to include political concepts of sovereignty,Footnote 91 these formulations have appeared primarily in the works of ultramontanist thinkers prior to the First Vatican Council, such as Joseph de Maistre, and were not included in Church dogma afterwards.Footnote 92 Likewise, although some papal rulings on moral issues—such as abortion, saving the life of a mother in childbirth, and euthanasia—have political ramifications, most popes have refrained from ruling directly on essentially political matters. True, any such papal rulings may enjoy a degree of moral authority in the eyes of believing Catholics—but nothing more binding than that.
In conclusion, the Catholic dogma of the pope's infallibility was in no way intended as a political theology; rather, it developed primarily as an attempt to bolster the authority of the pope as the supreme religious authority—and not, significantly, as an adjudicator on public issues. Papal infallibility was not established as a response to the secular state or secular ideological movements; neither did it serve as a countervailing force to Protestant theological movements. Rather, it was directed first and foremost against trends of decentralization within the Catholic Church, such as those of the Gallicans.Footnote 93 Indeed, we might even say that its essential force lies precisely in its symbolic declaration of the primacy of the pope against those who would deny it. Tierney, for instance, claims that “the papacy adopted the doctrine out of weakness.”Footnote 94
To be sure, the doctrine of Daʿat Torah also developed in reaction to an “illegitimate” religious movement: religious Zionism.Footnote 95 Yet during the period in which Daʿat Torah took shape, the controversy between the Haredim and the religious Zionists was not (or not primarily) over religious or theological-legal differences but rather over political and theologico-political ones. Thus, Daʿat Torah could not have been described as a “pure” theological doctrine, as was the Catholic position vis-à-vis infallibility. Indeed, unlike the latter, Daʿat Torah was designed for practical political application and was deliberately formulated in broad terms. In fact—and unlike the Catholic concept of infallibility—Daʿat Torah rarely touches upon theology, instead directing its energies toward purely political questions, whether they be existential (e.g., issues of war and peace), provincial (e.g., joining or leaving a coalition government), or parochial (e.g., boycotting companies that violate Jewish law) in nature.
For the same reason, however, it was difficult for Haredi adherents of Daʿat Torah to grant unequivocal infallibility to the Great Sages. Again, in its early stages, the doctrine did not refer to the institutional position of a single individual—such as the Catholic doctrine's reference to the pope—but rather to a collective body: the Council of Torah Sages. Naturally, in any group of individuals, there are bound to be differences of opinion, thus making it difficult to describe that group's positions as monolithic or absolute. Later on, to the degree that Daʿat Torah freed itself from its institutional dimension, becoming instead associated with one charismatic “Great Sage of the Generation,” the possibility of granting that individual infallibility also grew. Nevertheless, it still proved difficult, if not impossible, to create within the context of Orthodox Judaism an absolute model similar to the one established by the First Vatican Council. This may be attributed to a number of factors, such as the decentralized nature of the halakhic tradition of which most of the Great Torah Sages were a partFootnote 96 or the decentralized nature of Haredi society in general. But clearly one of the primary reasons for this lack of equivalence is the practical-political nature of the doctrine itself—that is, the fact that the “Great Sage of the Generation” was expected to employ Daʿat Torah on a daily basis and not just once in several decades. As a result, the doctrine was expected to withstand the test of outcomes. Although it would still be possible to defend Daʿat Torah by means of a dogma of infallibility, it was clearly more palatable to defend it through more nuanced, even banal means, such as those of Rabbi Dessler: we, who are so “small”, simply cannot comprehend the thought processes of the Great Torah Sages; even more so, we cannot judge them.
We may conclude, then, that in stark contrast to the Catholic doctrine of infallibility, whose goals are symbolic and whose declarations are primarily theological, the “infallibility” aspect of Daʿat Torah—if we may so call it—derives from the doctrine's inherently political nature. We might appropriately call this phenomenon “political infallibility,” as opposed to the theological sort.
Daʿat Torah as Practical Theology
Many political theologies have been committed to writing and formulated in a systematic matter for posterity. The vast majority, however, have never been translated into an instrument for practical implementation. This is particularly true of political theologies in the narrow sense, as well as of those that emerged in the twentieth century. We see this, for instance, in the case of Daʿat Torah's two competitors, neither of which was successfully transformed into practical programs: the “halakhic democracy” advocated by Hirschensohn, interest in which has only been revived by scholars in recent decades,Footnote 97 and Isaac Breuer's “Torah state,” proposed as the platform of his party, Agudat Yisrael. Breuer's proposal was rejected in favor of an amorphous formulation that did not provide a viable alternative to Zionism; ironically, it was then adopted by religious Zionism, especially from the 1940s onward. One of the most outspoken proponents of the idea at the time was the controversial Israeli intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Leibowitz claimed that the implementation of Breuer's idea would require changes in the halakhah, a position that brought him into conflict with one of the prominent rabbinic leaders of religious Zionism, Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neriyah.Footnote 98 Soon, however, religious Zionism also abandoned the idea of the “Torah State,” which had increasingly come to be perceived as a clerical program of the Dark Ages, and directed its efforts toward strengthening the Jewish character of the secular-democratic state already in existence. Leibowitz himself also turned away from the concept of a “Torah State,” embracing instead the opposite approach: the complete separation of religion and state. From the 1960s onward, the idea of the “Torah State” almost completely fell out of favor.
By contrast, Daʿat Torah had already been in use as a practical political program since the 1920s. It grew in strength and popularity as the years progressed, at least until its fifth stage in the 1990s. Undoubtedly there is some irony in the fact of a theocratic, outmoded, antimodern idea having achieved such success, while the two competing, overtly political theologies—both of which tended toward compromise with modernity—were relegated to history's dustbin. Even Plato's Republic, which formed one of the building blocks of Western political thought (and which I compared to Daʿat Torah in this essay's introduction) has most likely never been considered a practical program (particularly since the attempt to partly implement it in Syracuse ended in utter failureFootnote 99). In contrast, Daʿat Torah—what we might call a religious version of Plato's ideal form of governance—has arguably succeeded in the real world far more than have most other secular political programs. As such, Daʿat Torah becomes an interesting case study not only on the theological and theoretical levels but also on the level of implementation, and it should therefore be of interest to sociologists and political scientists.
Today, in the beginning of the sixth stage of its development, the doctrine of Daʿat Torah is recognized by most Haredim. Notably, the doctrine with which they are familiar is not Daʿat Torah in the “pure” sense: under the leadership of the Great Torah Sages there developed a secondary elite, functionaries who moved the political wheels and made the important decisions, thus allowing the sages merely to suffice with laying out the general direction, often within the context of already established facts.Footnote 100 Furthermore, one cannot today speak of a Daʿat Torah that encompasses all of the Great Torah Sages of the generation: the base of power has been dispersed, and the Daʿat Torah (multiple opinions) of many rabbis have found acceptance. Finally, after languishing for long years, the Council of Torah Sages is now almost completely nonfunctional. To be sure, these failures are not much different than those of any abstract idea that is implemented in real-life situations. Reality can generally be counted on to be uncooperative and to force a compromise of principles and the adoption of a more pragmatic line. Nonetheless, the Orthodox governance by the Great Torah Sages has lasted close to one hundred years. In the final analysis, any compromises—however unpopular at the time—have simply been integrated into the final product, influencing it on the level of implementation—and even on the theoretical-theological level as well.
Conclusion: What Has Daʿat Torah Contributed to Political Theology?
Daʿat Torah is arguably one of the most aristocratic political theories in the twentieth century. Its developers and propagators, who embrace an overtly antimodernist worldview, exempt themselves from a commitment to ideas of equality and the sovereignty of the people; indeed, they even mock such ideas. Yet in the very midst of democratic societies, and on account of the shelter they provide, the Haredim seek to build “a state within a state” that poses a fundamental challenge to the basic values of those societies. In their view, leadership is not meant to please the people, but instead to direct it, to lead it down the proper path. This path, moreover, is not determined by a majority—and certainly not a majority of commoners—but by God's word: the Torah. The Great Torah Masters are imbued not only with the texts they have learnt, but also with the “Spirit of the Torah,” which enables them to “sense” the Torah's directives even in those cases on which the text itself is silent. Daʿat Torah definitely shares the elitist views that contend that the masses are not capable of good decision making on complex issues that affect the nation, or even the community itself.Footnote 101 They would surely identify with the saying attributed to Winston Churchill, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”Footnote 102
The fact that Daʿat Torah has been implemented through many decades shows that it is a practicable and lasting model, at least in the limited scope in which it was employed. In addition to its success on the pragmatic level, Daʿat Torah can apparently boast another achievement: a significant contribution to theoretical, theologico-political discourse. Because of its nonconformist nature (vis-à-vis the external, modern, majority group),Footnote 103Daʿat Torah challenges those modern liberal political theologies that have sought to adopt and harness the democratic spirit (its development of a type of “political infallibility” being the most obvious example). It has, in sum, succeeded in becoming the only Jewish political theology in the modern world to achieve practical implementation and to withstand real-world challenges through consistently dynamic development.
It is indeed worth marveling that, of the three political theologies (in the narrow sense) that sprouted from Jewish thought in the twentieth century, two developed in non-Zionist, Haredi circles—those, in other words, generally characterized by a far more conservative and restrained worldview vis-à-vis religious creativity. That such communities nevertheless proved themselves capable of producing fruitful theology, at least in a relative sense, should give us pause. While the Zionist branch of Orthodoxy, by contrast, developed political theology in the broad sense, in an attempt to grant religious significance to national rebirth and the Jewish state that it generated, perhaps surprisingly it dealt very little with the question of an appropriate system of governance for that state.Footnote 104 The only model that emerged from its midst (or more precisely, its margins) was the “halakhic democracy” of Rabbi Hirschensohn (and the similar model of Rabbi Federbush), which eventually rejected the halakhic component in favor of a secular model anchored in the religious concept of the covenant.Footnote 105
And yet, the phenomenon of Daʿat Torah may not be so surprising after all, if we understand Haredi society as a kind of “counterculture,” the attraction of which lies precisely in its efforts to provide an antithesis to the thought of the prevailing majority culture. This recognition may arguably explain much of Daʿat Torah's appeal, as well as the dynamism that has enabled it to adapt to new circumstances. And so we return to the point from which we began: Daʿat Torah not only contributes substantive content to the literature on political theology in the twentieth century, but also makes a methodological contribution to the scholarship on theology itself. Precisely on account of its unsystematic nature and its often weak theological formulation, it provides an occasion for the reevaluation of the definition of theology, in particular the recognition that even an “indeliberate theology” should rightly come under that heading. As such, Daʿat Torah can also shed light on additional Haredi ideas, as well as others outside of the Orthodox Jewish world. In sum, the definition of Daʿat Torah as a political theology is not merely a semantic categorization, but an instrument for better understanding the concept of political theology altogether. These factors give Daʿat Torah the power to participate in the universal discourse on political theology that has developed in recent decades.
