Isadore Twersky (born Yitzchak Asher Twersky, October 9, 1930 – October 12, 1997) was an Orthodox rabbi and Hasidic
Rebbe
A Rebbe ( yi, רבי, translit=rebe) or Admor ( he, אדמו״ר) is the spiritual leader in the Hasidic movement, and the personalities of its dynasties.Heilman, Samuel"The Rebbe and the Resurgence of Orthodox Judaism."''Religion and Spiritua ...
, and university professor who held the position of the '' Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy'' at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, a chair previously held by
Harry Austryn Wolfson Harry Austryn Wolfson (November 2, 1887 – September 19, 1974) was an American scholar, philosopher, and historian at Harvard University, and the first chairman of a Judaic Studies Center in the United States. He is known for his seminal work on ...
. Twersky was an internationally recognized authority on
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
and Jewish philosophy. He was especially known as an international expert in the writings and influence of the 12th-century Jewish legalist and philosopher
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...
, and
Abraham ben David
Abraham ben David ( – 27 November 1198), also known by the abbreviation RABaD (for ''Rabbeinu'' Abraham ben David) Ravad or RABaD III, was a Provençal rabbi, a great commentator on the Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central ...
, the Rabad of Posquieres.
His best-known works are, ''An Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah)'', and the more popular anthology, ''A Maimonides Reader,'' as well as ''Rabad of Posquieres: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist,'' which was based on his doctorate work. He was the editor of the ''Harvard Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature'' (in three volumes), won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989, and was a fellow of both the American Academy for Jewish Research and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
. According to , Twersky can best be characterized as a "historian of ideas and a researcher of the intellectual history of the Jews," and would presumably have considered himself as such.
Biography
Twersky was born in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
Hebrew College
Hebrew College is a private college of Jewish studies in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Founded in 1921, Hebrew College is committed to Jewish scholarship in a pluralistic, trans-denominational academic environment. The president of the colleg ...
, which was then known as ''Hebrew Teachers' College''. Much of his
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
knowledge was acquired through private study under the tutelage of his father Meshullam Zushe Twersky (his predecessor as the Talner Rebbe of Boston) and his future father-in-law
Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik ( he, יוסף דב הלוי סולובייצ׳יק ''Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveychik''; February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993) was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion ...
, rather than through formal
yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...
instruction . He then graduated from Harvard in 1952, where he majored in history. In 1949, he spent a year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Upon his graduation from Harvard, he began studies toward a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, under the guidance of the scholar of
medieval philosophy
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy that existed through the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century until after the Renaissance in the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval philosophy, ...
,
Harry Austryn Wolfson Harry Austryn Wolfson (November 2, 1887 – September 19, 1974) was an American scholar, philosopher, and historian at Harvard University, and the first chairman of a Judaic Studies Center in the United States. He is known for his seminal work on ...
. The subject of his doctorate was the twelfth century Provençal
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
ist,
Abraham ben David of Posquières
Abraham ben David ( – 27 November 1198), also known by the abbreviation RABaD (for ''Rabbeinu'' Abraham ben David) Ravad or RABaD III, was a Provençal rabbi, a great commentator on the Talmud, ''Sefer Halachot'' of Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi and '' ...
(Rabad). Published under the title ''Rabad of Posquières: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist'', it was one of the first academic portraits of a Talmudist written at an American university .
Twersky succeeded his father Meshullam Zalman Twersky as the
Talne
Talne ( uk, Тальне́, ; russian: Тальное, Talnoye) is a town in Zvenyhorodka Raion, Cherkasy Oblast (province) of Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Talne urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It had a population of ...
r
Rebbe
A Rebbe ( yi, רבי, translit=rebe) or Admor ( he, אדמו״ר) is the spiritual leader in the Hasidic movement, and the personalities of its dynasties.Heilman, Samuel"The Rebbe and the Resurgence of Orthodox Judaism."''Religion and Spiritua ...
of Boston for the last twenty years of his life, serving as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth David, known colloquially as the Talner Beis Medrash ("the Talner study hall"), which was located in a renovated house in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Twersky's lectures in the synagogue on Tuesday nights and late Saturday afternoons were known for their erudition and originality, in the tradition of elite religious Torah study, with the vocabulary and worldliness of a Harvard historian. Twersky and his wife Atarah (née Soloveitchik) played a prominent part in the leadership of
Maimonides School
Maimonides School (Hebrew: ישיבת רמב"ם ''Yeshivat Rambam'') is a coeducational, Modern Orthodox Judaism, Modern Orthodox, Jewish day school located in Brookline, Massachusetts. The school was founded in 1937 by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik a ...
. Twersky took on the role of spiritual leader for the school in 1993, after the death of Atarah's father Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who had founded the school in 1937. Atarah was the long-time chair of the School Committee, until 2006, nine years after Twersky's death. The Twersky's elder son Mosheh, a rabbi and lecturer at Yeshivas Toras Moshe, was murdered in the
2014 Jerusalem synagogue attack
On the morning of 18 November 2014, two Palestinian men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, and attacked the praying congregants with axes, knives, and a gun. They killed four dual-nati ...
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU on the Yeshiva Universi ...
and rabbi of the Talner Synagogue of Riverdale. Their daughter Tzipporah Rosenblatt, a lawyer, is married to
Jonathan Rosenblatt Jonathan I. Rosenblatt (born August 31, 1956) is an American Modern Orthodox rabbi, teacher, lecturer, and counselor.
Biography
A native of Baltimore, Rosenblatt served for more than thirty years as the Senior Rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center ...
Riverdale Jewish Center
The Riverdale Jewish Center is an Orthodox synagogue in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City.Freedman, Samuel G"Two Rabbis Find They’re Separated Only by Doctrine" ''The New York Times', May 30, 2009.
The synagogue was founde ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. Atarah resides in Riverdale.
Teaching and research
Twersky was a pioneer in the introduction of the methodology of the
History of ideas
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual his ...
, first developed by Arthur O. Lovejoy, into Jewish Intellectual history. He also devoted special emphasis upon the interaction between law and spirituality in the History of Judaism. He founded the Center for Jewish Studies in 1978 and served as its director until 1993.
His research in some respects resembled that of his contemporary and friend
Alexander Altmann
Alexander Altmann (April 16, 1906 – June 6, 1987) was an Orthodox Jewish scholar and rabbi born in Kassa, Austria-Hungary (present-day Košice, Slovakia). He emigrated to England in 1938 and later settled in the United States, working productive ...
, and his work on Jewish rationalist philosophy brought him into conflict with scholars such as
Gershom Scholem
Gershom Scholem () (5 December 1897 – 21 February 1982), was a German-born Israeli philosopher and historian. Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kaballah, Scholem was appointed the first professor of Jewish Myst ...
and
Shlomo Pines
Shlomo Pines (; ; August 5, 1908 in Charenton-le-Pont – January 9, 1990 in Jerusalem) was an Israeli scholar of Jewish and Islamic philosophy, best known for his English translation of Maimonides' ''Guide of the Perplexed''.
Biography
Pines wa ...
, who viewed the medieval rational philosophy typified by Rambam as an alien parasite grafted onto traditional Judaism . There has been noted a certain irony in the affection given to this greatest of Jewish rationalists by the descendant of an illustrious Hasidic dynasty (it being the case by and large that Hasidic doctrine has stronger affinity for the mystical over the rational), but sees here a coherent and unified search for the ''spiritual'' within the ''rational''.
At Harvard, Twersky taught both undergraduate and graduate students. His popular course, ''Moderation and Extremism,'' which compared and contrasted the paths to virtue in the works of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
,
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...
, and
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
, drew over 200 students in 1995, the final year it was taught. Over the course of his thirty years at Harvard, he taught a large number of graduate students. His exacting standards and expectations were legendary. Nevertheless, over thirty individuals completed their doctorates under his guidance. Many of these play leading roles in Jewish studies, both in North America and in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...
Gratz College
Gratz College is a private Jewish college in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origins to 1856 when banker, philanthropist, and communal leader Hyman Gratz and the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia (established in 1849 ...
David Fishman
David Fishman is an American academic and author. He is a professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Fishman's 2017 book, ''The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis, ...
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
Bar Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic i ...
Bar Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic i ...
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
Bar Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic i ...
Drew University
Drew University is a private university in Madison, New Jersey. Drew has been nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of its wooded campus. As of fall 2020, more than 2,200 students were pursuing degrees at the university's three sch ...
Leo Baeck College
Leo Baeck College is a privately funded rabbinical seminary and centre for the training of teachers in Jewish education. Based now at the Sternberg Centre, East End Road, Finchley, in the London Borough of Barnet, it was founded by Werner van ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
Jacob J. Schacter
Jacob J. Schacter (born 1950) is an American Orthodox rabbi. Schacter, a historian of intellectual trends in Orthodox Judaism, is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at ...
(
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU on the Yeshiva Universi ...
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
University of Scranton
The University of Scranton is a private Jesuit university in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1888 by William O'Hara, the first Bishop of Scranton, as St. Thomas College. In 1938, the college was elevated to university status and took t ...
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
Bar Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic i ...