Chaim Dov Rabinowitz (; January 24, 1911 – April 18, 2001) was a Haredi
rabbi
A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...
, educator,
sofer
A sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M (, "scribe"; plural , ) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), Mezuzah, mezuzot (ST"M, , is an abbreviation of these three terms) and other religio ...
and author. He is most well-known for his monumental commentary on the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' shtetl
or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...
in the Vawkavysk district of the Grodno Region) to
Chana Liebe and Rabbi Shraga Feitel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the town. In his youth he studied at Yeshiva Ohel Torah-Baranovich and later at Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah-Grodna under the tutelage of some of the foremost Haredi leaders of the time such as Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman and Rabbi Shimon Shkop.
Rabinowitz moved to Israel shortly before the World War II (1937) settling in Tel Aviv. There he directed the Ohel Yaakov Talmud Torah, the first Hareidi
Talmud Torah
Talmud Torah (, lit. 'Study of the Torah') schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of religious school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew language, H ...
in that city. In the aftermath of the war, Rabinowitz was very active on behalf of the immigrants in the transit camps.http://www.chareidi.org/archives5761/achrei/ACHarabinowitz.htm
Biblical exegesis
Rabinowitz's '' magnum opus'' is ''Daat Sofrim'', a commentary on all of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' Giveah and the story of Sodom)
A second interesting feature are his (possibly the only Haredi) attempts to resolve some of the issues raised by
biblical criticism
Modern Biblical criticism (as opposed to pre-Modern criticism) is the use of critical analysis to understand and explain the Bible without appealing to the supernatural. During the eighteenth century, when it began as ''historical-biblical c ...
. Thus he identifies the second part of the
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
as possibly being written by a different author based on an
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
from Isaiah.
History
Rabinowitz, in his volume on history, (''From Nechemia to the Present'') emphasizes that the study of history in and of itself is a waste of time. One must focus to a large degree on the moral lessons inherent in the history. In line with this each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section is a brief overview of the period under discussion. The second is an in depth discussion, in question and answer form, on the difficult aspects of history. For example, he questions what led the Jews to leave a relatively peaceful life in Iraq for the more difficult, anti-semitic countries in Europe. At all opportunities Rabinowitz demonstrates what he sees as the "hand of G-d" directing the course of history.
Sources
For the
Second Temple
The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...
and
Geonic
''Geonim'' (; ; also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated Gaonim, singular Gaon) were the presidents of the two great Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, Babylonian Talmudic Academies of Sura Academy , Sura and Pumbedita Academy , Pumbedita, in t ...
period, Rabinowitz largely quotes the opinion of Yitzchok Isaac Halevy although he frequently disagrees with his interpretation of events. This period is also based on the writings of
Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...
and the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
Encyclopaedia Judaica
The ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' is a multi-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, Jewish holida ...
'' as well.
Rabinowitz presents an idiosyncratic Jewish Orthodox picture of history. For example, as opposed to the typical Haredi viewpoint that Moses Mendelssohn caused the assimilation of German Jewry, Rabinowitz writes that Mendelssohn's work was in fact very similar to that of the founder of neo-orthodoxy Samson Raphael Hirsch and that assimilation was mostly a result of the challenges of the Enlightenment.
In his discussions he analyses several social issues that were improperly or insufficiently remedied in the past. For instance, he expresses astonishment that the issue of education for Jewish girls was so long ignored given the obvious need for such an institution.
His works bear approbations from most of the leading Haredi rabbis of his time including: Yaakov Kamenetsky, Moshe Feinstein, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and many others.