More From Rav Davidh Bar-Hayim

Two weeks ago, VosIsNeias posted a two-hour interview with Rav Davidh Bar-Hayim of Machon Shilo on its website, which elicted over 160 comments -- as usual, some pro and some (very) con. Hrihurim's post on Rav Bar-Hayim two months back or so inspired an even greater number.

In that spirit, I am posting excerpts from a phone-interview I conducted with Rav Bar-Hayim in August 2007. Some of the material already appeared in The Jewish Press two years ago. Most of the it, however, didn't. Please keep in mind that some of what appears below is uneditted and taken directly from my transcript of the interview. Ellipses indicate that I deleted words, skipped words, or never transcribed them altogether (this is particularly true of one of the last paragraphs).

You also believe that we should rebuild the Beis Hamikdash before Moshiach’s arrival, correct?

It’s not really a question of what I think; it’s a question of what the Torah thinks. The Torah tells us that there is a mitzvah to build the Beit Mikdash. And this is listed by all the authorities as a mitzvat asei. One cannot nullify such plain and overwhelming evidence with some agada or story that tells us it’s supposed to fall from heaven.

You have written that the identification of the chilazon and the process of dyeing wool t’cheles are “well-known today.” Is it really that clear?

I believe it’s very clear and I believe that anyone who has gone into this matter seriously has reached the same conclusion. This is a perfect example of the let’s-maintain-the-galut-reality-of-Judaism-syndrome because here we have a clear opportunity to perform a mitzvah from the Torah and the rabbinical establishment for the most part is disinterested.

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The issue of t’cheles is halachically clear and they simply choose to ignore it?

I believe that’s entirely correct, yes – in the same way that’s it’s halachically clear that we’re supposed to have a beit mikdash, it’s halachically clear that we’re supposed to have a Sanhedrin, it’s halachically clear that you don’t give parts of Eretz Yisrael away to your enemies, and it’s halachically clear that you should at least make a fuss when 10,000 Jews are kicked out of their homes and a whole part of Eretz Yisrael is turned to wasteland. And yet certain rabbanim and certain frum Jews somehow manage to not see these things.

You once accused certain people of “painting an Halachic canvas with an ideological brush.” Some would accuse you of doing the same?

The difference between one accusation and another is one has a basis and the other does not. If someone makes a claim related to a halachic issue and doesn’t have any real halachic argument to back it up, but he does have all kinds of ideological baggage and reasons for making that claim, then it’s obvious where he’s coming from. If, on the other hand, the opposite argument says – “Well, it’s a halachic issue, lets look at the halacha. The halacha says this and that and why therefore should it not be so?” – I think it’s clear who’s painting the canvas with an ideological brush and who’s not.

You once wrote, “Galuth-version of the Torah is not the real McCoy; it is a scaled-down model, a product of the cataclysm of the Hurban (the destruction of the Temple) and the collapse of the Second Jewish Commonwealth.” What do you mean by that?

I imagine it’s clear to any thinking person that Judaism in the galut is not the real McCoy because the Torah is not directing itself to a people supposed to live in galut amongst other nations without their own land, without their own state, without their own army, without the beit mikdash etc. If therefore we’re discussing the galut reality of Judaism, well obviously we're discussing some kind of bedieved reality in which the Jews find themselves in and they have to somehow make do with what there is.

And I of course am aware of that fact, and I accept that without any difficulty. When in galut, when that’s all there is, then you do the best that you can…..live according to some kind of scaled down model which retains a certain amount of the original flavor and the original essence of the thing but is not the thing itself.

It’s enough to keep the battery turning over so the engine does not die. It’s like a car that has broken down, has flat tires and the engine is not capable of moving the car anywhere at all. But on the other hand it hasn’t completely died; the engine can be switched on and kept running at a very low rpm to barely keep it running, not more. That’s the reality of Judaism in galut.

……It’s a very major difference in how you approach the Torah. If one is interested in maintaining galut-reality Judaism and everything it entails, then one will fight for the minhag of kitniyot and one will fight the suggestion that one could possibly do netilat lulav on the first day of Sukkot for example (or many other things we recommend, such as nusach Eretz Yisrael for tefillah), but if a person realizes that galut Judaism is only some kind of system to prevent the machine from dying altogether but it’s really not the thing itself, it’s not what we're supposed to be dealing with, and therefore as soon as we have the opportunity to move onto something bigger and better, that’s obviously what we want to do; if that’s your approach, then who has the time to discuss a minhag like kitniyot…..unimportant meaningless.

Another metaphor......coma……alive……just barely……when wake up……and that’s what happened to the Jewish people today……not normal if continue lying and don’t get up and…...return to a normative and full expression of Torah living, Torah Judaism, which is of course centered in Eretz Yisrael with everything that that entails…… It would be rather strange indeed if you were to insist…….to remain and live the Judaism of Hungary or Teiman…….[essentially saying,] “We don’t want the real Torah of Eretz Yisrael, we don’t want the whole, the big picture, we’ll be happy with the crumbs. We don’t want thing itself.”

These are just small examples. We're talking about an entire approach to Jewish living according to the Torah.

[I also asked Rav Bar-Hayim to comment on the following paragraphs which I excerpted from an article he wrote several years ago:]

"The haredi rabbis see themselves as guests in the land of the secular Jew. 'Let the "goyim" decide. Give us our yeshivas and leave us alone. Whose idea was this state anyway?' -- this is the mentality that animates them. Their policy on 'foreign' and defence issues is not to have a policy. After all, it would be unseemly for the guest to tell the master of the house what to do.

"The bare truth is that the haredi rabbis prefer it this way; they would rather let such issues be decided by others. The haredi leaders consider the state of Israel to be a new form of exile. Their aim is to function and survive as Jews did in Europe for centuries 'until the Messiah arrives' -- and in the meantime lead the life of a ghetto Jew, a disenfranchised nobody wielding no real control over his own destiny."

[I couldn't find Rab Bar-Hayim's response to this solicitation to comment.]