David Berger (professor)
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- For other persons of the same common name, see David Berger.
Rabbi Dr. David Berger is a professor of history at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and a visiting professor at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School. He is most famous for advocating a purge of messianist Chabad-Lubavitch ideology from Orthodox Judaism.
In 2006, Dr. Berger accepted his appointment as a full time faculty member at Yeshiva University. He will teach primarily Medieval Jewish History at the graduate level. It is anticipated that he will occasionally teach courses on messianism and Jewish-Christian relations in modern times as well.
He is the author of "The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference".
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[edit] Education
Berger received a Bachelor's degree from Yeshiva College in 1964. He then went on to Columbia University where he completed a Master of Arts degree in 1965 and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1970. He received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America, the official organization representing Modern Orthodox rabbis.
[edit] Criticism of Chabad-Lubavitch messianism
[edit] Summary
Berger, an academic expert on Jewish responses to Christianity, particularly claims of Jesus messiahship and divinity, criticized what he viewed as similar assertions made by some religious leaders of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement about their last Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson shortly after Rabbi Schneerson's death in 1994. Berger claimed that such assertions could not be squared with traditional Jewish texts. An example of Berger's prooftexts is the passage in the Talmud which shows that Rabbi Akiva set aside his previous assertions of Simon bar Kokhba's presumed messiahship following Bar Kokhba being put to death. To Berger, Chabad's viewpoint on this issue is outside the pale of accepted Orthodox Jewish belief. Berger has been highly disappointed by the Orthodox establishment's reaction to Chabad-Lubavitch's claims that Schneerson is the Jewish messiah, arguing that there is a "scandal of Orthodox indifference".
[edit] Support
Berger states that his views are shared and supported by many prominent Orthodox authorities, including leaders from the Ashkenazi non-Hasidic Lithuanian (Litvak) institutions, Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, especially the reactions and statements of its late Rosh yeshiva ("dean") Rabbi Elazar Shach (see Elazar Shach: Opposition to the Lubavitcher Rebbe) and the vehement opposition of the Rabbinical Seminary of America (Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim) in New York.
Rabbi Aharon Feldman, the dean of the non-Hasidic Yeshiva Ner Yisrael: Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote a widely-disseminated letter in 2004 which stated that Orthodox Jews should avoid praying in Chabad synagogues that avowed a belief in the Rebbe as the Messiah. He stated that while there is nothing in Jewish law against the messianist views of Chabad-Lubavitch, they "dig under the foundations of Torah fundamentals" and any support of them should be avoided.
Berger is a highly popular figure in Modern Orthodox circles. Following Yeshiva University President Rabbi Norman Lamm's announcement that he would retire in 2001, Berger placed second on an online poll which asked who Lamm's successor should be. In 1996, largely at his behest, the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States, approved the following resolution:
- "In light of disturbing developments which have recently arisen in the Jewish community,the Rabbinical Council of America in convention assembled declares that there is not and has never been a place in Judaism for the belief that Mashiach ben David will begin his Messianic mission only to experience death, burial, and resurrection before completing it."
Berger felt that the RCA resolution was a very significant turning point for his cause, as he recounts in his book that after the resolution was approved, "the thunder-bolt struck."
[edit] Conflict over Rabbi Ahron Soloveitchik's letters
A letter was subsequently published as a paid advertisement in 1996 in The Jewish Press, a widely circulated Jewish newspaper, signed by Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, the late rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Brisk of Chicago and a teacher at Yeshiva University, condemning the resolution. The letter stated that:
- "The belief held by many in Lubavitch... that the Rebbe can still be Moshiach... cannot be dismissed as a belief that is outside the pale of Orthodoxy. Any cynical attempt at utilizing a legitimate disagreement of interpretation concerning this matter, to besmirch and damage the Lubavitch movement... can only contribute to the regrettable discord that already plagues the Jewish and particularly Torah community." [1]
Despite this, many believe that the letter was actually a forgery, especially in light of Rabbi Soloveichik's clarification of his own position two years earlier in an article in The Forward, another Jewish publication, in which he states that to believe that the Rebbe is still the Messiah is indeed outside the pale of Orthodoxy:
- "The late Rebbe can't be the Messiah -- he is not living -- a Messiah has to be living -- a living Messiah, not a dead Messiah." [2]
Since Rabbi Soloveichik never himself discredited the veracity of the 1996 letter, suspicions of forgery remain speculative.
[edit] Criticism
David Singer, Director of Research for the American Jewish Committee, wrote a lengthy criticism of Berger at OrthodoxyToday.org, stating, among other things, that Berger has "emerged as a would-be Torquemada on the Orthodox scene, demanding a policy of 'intolerance' and 'exclusion' toward those he deems to be heretical to Orthodoxy."[3]. Berger responded at length on the same website.[4]
Likewise, Professor Aviezer Ravitzky, chairman of the department of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University, strongly disputes Berger's claims that new Chabad teachings amount to heresy; however he does not believe that such beliefs are correct. In regards to those who wait for Schneerson to return from the dead as a messiah, Ravitzky stated "Torah does not prohibit a person from being stupid."
[edit] Other Accomplishments
Before Berger prominently criticized Chabad, he was most famous as an expert on interfaith dialogue and medieval Jewish-Christian debate. He has written commentaries on Dominus Iesus, Nostra Aetate,and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's "Confrontation". The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU) asked him to write a response to Dabru Emet and that response was subsequently adopted as the OU's official position. He has also contributed an essay about Jacob Katz's views on medieval Jewish-Christian debate in the book, Pride of Jacob.
[edit] See also
- Chabad-Lubavitch
- Haredi Judaism
- Hasidic Judaism
- Israel ben Eliezer
- Mitnagdim
- Hasidim and Mitnagdim
- Modern Orthodox Judaism
- Vilna Gaon
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Jewish Press, Statement of Hagaon HaRav Aharon Halevi Soloveichik The Jewish Press, June 28 1996, accessed May 28 2006
- ^ The Forward, Rabbis Blast Lubavitcher Messianism The Forward, December 2, 1994, accessed May 28 2006
- ^ Singer, David, "The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Heresy Hunter", OrthodoxyToday.org, accessed May 28 2006.
- ^ Berger, David, "Response to David Singer", OrthodoxyToday.org, accessed May 28 2006.
[edit] Works
- Berger, David. The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001 (ISBN 1-874774-88-9)
