Church documents reveal high-level abuse coverup

NYTIMES   The retired archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, and other high-ranking clergymen in the archdiocese worked quietly to keep evidence of child molesting away from law enforcement officials and shield abusive priests from criminal prosecution more than a decade before the scandal became public, according to confidential church records. 

The documents, filed in court as part of lawsuit against the archdiocese and posted online by The Los Angeles Times on Monday, offer the clearest glimpse yet of how the archdiocese dealt with abusive priests in the decades before the scandal broke, including Cardinal Mahony’s personal involvement in covering up their crimes.  

Rather than defrocking priests and contacting the police, the archdiocese sent priests who had molested children to out-of-state treatment facilities, in large part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report any evidence of child abuse to the police, the files make clear.  [...]

In a written statement released on Monday, Cardinal Mahony, who took over the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1985 and retired in 2011, apologized to the victims of the sexual abuse. 

“Various steps toward safeguarding all children in the church began here in 1987 and progressed year by year as we learned more about those who abused and the ineffectiveness of so-called ‘treatments’ at the time,” the statement said. “Nonetheless, even as we began to confront the problem, I remained naïve myself about the full and lasting impact these horrible acts would have on the lives of those who were abused by men who were supposed to be their spiritual guides.” 

Cardinal Mahony said he came to understand that impact only two decades later, when he met with almost 100 victims of sexual abuse by priests under his charge. He now keeps an index card for each one of those victims, praying for each one every day, he said in the statement.

Danish Haircuts - Gender Equality vs Commonsense

Reuters       Denmark, which like its Nordic neighbors prides itself on promoting equal treatment for men and women, is taking gender equality all the way to the beauty salon. 

The Board of Equal Treatment effectively ruled last month that price differences between men's and women's haircuts were illegal. It ordered a salon advertising women's haircuts for 528 crowns ($94) and men's haircuts for 428 crowns - plus an extra fee for long hair - to pay 2,500 crowns ($450) to a woman who had filed a complaint.

Now, a trade organization for hairdressers has called the decision absurd, saying it will become a nightmare to set prices for customers and warning of "pricing chaos".

"It takes, quite simply, longer time with women," Connie Mikkelsen, chairwoman of the Danish organization for independent hairdressers and cosmeticians, said in a statement on Monday.

The board's decision has been appealed and a court will determine whether hairdressers need to find a new way to charge for their services, in the length of time, or the standard of the cut.

"Measuring time will lead to a discussion of hair length - what is medium length, and what is long. It will end in a series of conflicts with customers," Mikkelsen said.

Teaching Torah to gentiles | Rav Aharon Kahn | Orthodox Union

Audio mp3

Rav_Kahn_Sheets_-_Shiur_22.pdf

  Content Description: Teaching Torah to gentiles. Analysis of commentaries on gemara Chagigah 13a, which focus on the pasuk brought to support the prohibition of teaching Torah to gentiles. Who ‘owns’ the Torah? Do I have a partial, but individual ownership? Or do I individually own nothing of Torah, but rather, as a part of Klal Yisroel, it is group-owned? An understanding of the word: “morasha”--nuances of ‘yerushas kehillas Yaakov’ in contrast to ‘morasha kehillas Yaakov.’

Citations: Gemara Chagigah 13a with Tosfos, found in the source packets on page 1, and Turei Even on that Tosfos, found in the source packets on pages 1-3, and Sfas Emes (Chagigah 13a) found in the source packets on page 3.

Weberman: 10 more victims reported/ Sentencing Tuesday

NY Daily News She wasn't the only one.

Nechemya Weberman, the unlicensed Hasidic counselor slated to be sentenced Tuesday for sexually abusing a Brooklyn girl, violated at least 10 others — including teens and married women he counseled, a Daily News investigation revealed.

The self-proclaimed religious adviser even invoked Kabbalah — a form of Jewish mysticism — to convince his victims that having sex with him was kosher.

“He’s a monster,” said a man whose daughter was repeatedly brutalized by Weberman a couple of years before the victim at trial came forward.

Nodah B'Yehuda & Kabbala - private & public view by Rabbi Dr. David Katz

The follow is an excerpt from Rabbi David Katz' doctoral dissertaion on the Nodah B'Yehuda. Rabbi Katz is a rav in Baltimore and is a very well respected talmid chachom as well as very knowledgable about many other things. The full dissertation can be downloaded here from the University of Maryland. The main point is that the Nodah B'Yehuda had a negative public attitude towards Kabbala but privately he had a strongly positive one. This also was true of Rav Yaakov Emden, Chasam Sofer and others. This duality was resulted from the concern for the followers of Shabtsai Tzvi and the Frankists as well as the well founded fear of the ignorant studying kabbala without a proper teacher or foundation.

   Nodah b'Yehuda and Kabbala by Rabbi David Katz 

Kabbala & Prof Scholem: Ask no questions

For those who want to understand the important differences between an academic study of Kabbalah and the real thing - there is an interesting article by Boaz Huss Ask No Questions Gershom Scholem & the Study of Contemporary_Jewish_Mysticism. 

Scholem insisted on approaching kabbala as an "it" - something to be examined from outside and something which lacked vitality. He had no interest in contemporary kabbalists and having failed to have any  mystical experiences [Idel - New Perspectives in Kabbala ] insisted on dealing with kabbala as something entombed in the letters of musty old texts rather than  a living entity touching the souls of profound and complex men. I bring this up because it is obvious that many who have been commenting on these issues - come from his perspective. A related attitude was expressed by Shaul Leiberman who said

"In an introduction to a lecture Scholem delivered at the seminary, Lieberman said that several years earlier, some students asked to have a course here in which they could study kabbalistic texts. He had told them that it was not possible, but if they wished they could have a course on the history of kabbalah. For at a university, Lieberman said, "it is forbidden to have a course in nonsense. But the history of nonsense, that is scholarship." wikipedia

=================================================

By way of introduction, let me recount something that happened to a young acquaintance of mine in 1924. The fellow came to Jerusalem,unpretentiously bearing his training in philology and modern history,and sought to get in touch with a circle of latter-day kabbalists who had preserved, for over 200 years, the traditional mystical teachings of the Jews of eastern lands. Eventually, he met a kabbalist who told him:“I am prepared to teach you Kabbalah, but on one condition that I’m not sure you’ll be able to fulfill.” Some of my readers may not guess that condition: “Ask no questions.”1 

 Gershom Scholem used this mythical tale to open his lecture“Kabbalah and Myth” at the Eranos Conference in Ascona, Switzerland,in 1949—the first time he lectured at that conference. In a 1974 interview with Muki Zur, Scholem disclosed that he himself was the young man in the story, a fact that had no doubt been clear to his audience at Eranos. He went on to tell of his reaction to the condition imposed by R. Gershon Vilner, the aged Ashkenazi kabbalist from the “Bet-El”yeshiva, a reaction that was likewise unsurprising: “I told him I wanted to consider it. And then I told him I couldn’t do it.”2

Paradoxically enough, by his negative response Scholem effectively accepted the condition proposed by the kabbalist, for he chose not to ask questions about—and not to study—Kabbalah as a living, contemporary phenomenon.3

In his partial autobiography From Berlin to Jerusalem , Scholem mentions several more encounters with kabbalists and mystics, but he presents these meetings anecdotally, never raising the possibility that these mystics might be the subjects of study or research. 4

Indeed, Scholem’s meeting with contemporary kabbalists left no impression whatsoever on his vast corpus of scholarly work. He labored to examine the most out-of-the-way kabbalistic manuscripts he could find, but he devoted not a single study to the Bet-El kabbalists or any other kabbalistic stream of his own time. The kabbalistic yeshivas that functioned in Jerusalem during Scholem’s time (“Bet-El,” “Rehovot ha-Nahar,” and“Sha‘ar ha-Shamayim”) and prominent kabbalists, most of them likewise in Jerusalem during Scholem’s period, such as R. Saul ha-Kohen Dwlck, R. Judah Petaiah, R. Solomon Eliashov, and R. Judah Ashlag, go nearly unmentioned in Scholem’s studies. That is the case as well with respect to the few mystics of his generation for whom Scholem expressed esteem—Rabbi Kook, R. Menahem Mendel Schneerson,and R. Ahrele Roth.

Rav Kook suggested studying kabbala in Telz Yeshiva

Making of a Godol page 979. Sometime after the Hasman tenure - probably before R' Katz took the post and certainly before R' Luft did - R' Laizer tried to strike out in a direction other than Musar by offering the post of mashgiah to R' Avraham-Yitzhaq Kook, then serving as Rav of Boisk. The latter spent several days in Telz before turning down the position because the post of Rav of Jaffa, in Eretz Yisrael, was offered him at the same time - but not before making the revolutionary suggestion to R' Gordon that "the yeshiva institute classes in Tnakh, Midrash, Zohar, Kuzari, שמונה פרקים and the like ''. (Regarding the suggestion that yeshiva bahurim study Zohar, cf....  where, in a letter to .... dated Rosh Hodesh Elul 5673 (September 3, 1913), about a decade after R' Kook's visit to Telz, he defends studying Kabala before being "full with the bread and meat" of Talmudic studies.)

Egyptian president is anti-Semite - anyone suprised?

NY Times   Nearly three years ago, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood delivered a speech urging Egyptians to “nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred” for Jews and Zionists. In a television interview around that time, the same leader described Zionists as “these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.” 

That leader, Mohamed Morsi, is now president of Egypt — and his comments may be coming back to haunt him.

Since beginning his campaign for president, Mr. Morsi has promised to uphold Egypt’s treaty with Israel and to seek peace in the region. In recent months, he has begun to forge a personal bond with President Obama around their successful efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants of the Gaza Strip. 

But the exposure this month of his virulent comments from early 2010, both documented on video, have revealed sharp anti-Semitic and anti-Western sentiments, raising questions about Mr. Morsi’s efforts to present himself as a force for moderation and stability. Instead, the disclosures have strengthened the position of those who say Israel’s Arab neighbors are unwilling to commit to peace with the Jewish state.

Zohar's concerns about marrying a widow? - Rav Sternbuch

Rav Sternbuch( 4:279): Should one avoid marrying a widow?

This that you ask regarding marrying a widow, we find in the holy Zohar in parshas Mishpatim about taking another wife -

Zohar (2:102a): ‘What, then, becomes of the spirit of an ordinary man whose widow has married.again? Come ye and see the wonderful and mighty works of the Holy King! Who can utter them? When.the second husband's spirit enters into the body of the woman the spirit of the first husband contends with.it, and they cannot dwell in peace together, so that the woman is never altogether happy with the second.husband, because the spirit of the first one is always pricking her, his memory is always with her, causing.her to weep and sigh over him. In fact, his spirit writhes within her like a serpent. And so it goes on for a.long time. If the second spirit prevails over the first one, then the latter goes out. But if, as sometimes.happens, the first conquers the second, it means the death of the second husband. Therefore we are taught.that after a woman has been twice widowed no one should marry her again, for the angel of death has taken.possession of her, though most people do not know this. Friends, I am aware that on this point you may.well object that in that case the second husband's death was not in accordance with Divine judgement. It is.not so, however. It is all decided by fair trial, whether the one spirit should prevail over the other or be at.peace with it; but he who marries a widow is like unto one who ventures to.brave the ocean during a storm without a rudder and without sails, and knows not whether he will cross.safely or sink into the depths. ‘

In Jerusalem many have the practice of marrying a widow only after they have done the Tikun of the Rashash. However in the majority of communities there is absolutely no concern about this and they marry directly without the Tikkun. Your question is whether one should in fact be concerned about this?

It would seem that in our days that there is a basis to be lenient in spite of the Zohar. The basis of the Zohar's concern is the joining of the souls of the husband and wife in the first marriage. That means that each one has kedusha created in his soul through their joining together in the first marriage. Consequently the Zohar writes that the soul of the woman now is bound together with the first husband. Consequently his spirit strongly impacts her even after he has died and therefore no one else should marry her. However it is known from the commentaries that today marriage is always considered zivug sheini (a second marriage). That is because we all are reincarnations from a previous existence since our souls have not achieved the proper perfection. Therefore the marriage is according to one's deeds and therefore it is alright to marry a widow and I have never heard anyone saying otherwise. In addition I have never heard or seen outside of Israel that anyone insisted on during the Tikun of the Rashah. Therefore it would seem that even according to the Zohar it is not necessary in our day since the nature of the marriage is different and therefore the reason for concern of the Zohar doesn't apply anymore. Consequently the poskim don't even mention this issue.

In fact it would seem that the main concern of the Zohar is when the first husband is a great talmid chachom and now the widow is marry a person who is truly ignorant of Torah. In that case the spirit of the first husband would disturb her and would not find peace. However if the second husband is a talmid chachom or at least a G-d fearing man who observes all the mitzvos properly - then this would not arouse the objection of the deceased husband. Because there is no question that we have no desire to keep her unmarried for the rest of her life. In fact I heard that the Gra married a widow and had no concerns. That is because the first husband obviously had no objection for his widow to marry such a great Torah scholar and in such a case the husband's spirit would not disturb his widow. Even though we in truth find kabbalists in mishnas chassidim who warned not to marry a widow (see Chavis Ya'ir #197)  -nevertheless since the established practice is not to be concerned with this we say "G-d guards the fools" and one should not be concerned at all about this.

However since one can in fact readily take care of even this ignored concerned then I would advise that the second couple should request of the kabbalists in Jerusalem  to do the Tikun of the Rashash - and this is the right way to act.  If this is done there is absolutely no concern at all but they should get married and have a wonderful life together with G-d's help. The main thing is to direct ones deeds according to the Shulchan Aruch and poskim.

Furthermore the Chida writes that the Zohar's concern only apply in the first 12 month of the first husband's death and this is also mentioned in the Maharasham (2:141) who says he receives this from the Shinover. In the new Maaseh Rav of the Gra he writes, In the Zohar parshas Mishpatim we find that it is very strongly against marrying a widow. There is a leniency that after 12 months of the death of the first husband there is not so much of a danger since his spirit has left from there. And this is what I have observed amongst distinguished rabbis of our day. ... We see from there that as long as the second marriage be done for the sake of Heaven that a frum person has nothing to fear and there is absolutely no concern for this issue. Consequently according to all this if he has an alternative to marrying a widow even after 12 months perhaps it is best if he take it since he is protected only if he does it for the sake of Heaven. See there that some say that the concern for the spirit of the first husband returning is only for special individuals and very holy people but not for others. Some are insistent that on the day of the wedding to give charity for the elevation of the soul of the first husband and that is sufficient.

You should also be aware that in the case of marrying a widow I am very stringent to insist that the yichud should be in a room in which there is a bed so that it possible to have sexual intercourse. That  is because a widow requires either intercourse or at least the chupah should be possible to actually have intercourse. I am also very insistent that the time of yichud should be extra long (at least 10 minutes) before others entere the yichud room. In this manner the chupah and marriage are absolutely not problematic. In contrast with a virgin it just depends on being secluded for a short time as is explained in Sotah (4b). ... and it is necessary to remain in the yichud room for the amount of time that sexual intercourse takes according to many poskim.

R' Amnon Yitzchok says Rav Ovadiya Yosef faked stroke

kikarhashabat

ר' אמנון יצחק ממשיך במתקפה חסרת תקדים נגד תנועת ש"ס המונהגת על ידי מרן פוסק הדור רבי עובדיה יוסף.

כמו בשיעוריו הקודמים טען הרב יצחק כי הוא אינו נגד מרן הרב עובדיה יוסף אולם במתקפה נגד תנועת ש"ס.

הרב יצחק התייחס לטענות שהופנו בסוף השבוע (מוצ"ש) על ידי מקורבי הרב עובדיה יוסף, לפיהם מרן הגר"ע יוסף לקח באופן אישי וקשה את האמירות של הרב יצחק נגדו.

הרב אמנון יצחק אמר במהלך הרצאה שנשא: "אמנם שלושה עיתונים חרדים, לא התפתו ולא כתבו בכלל, כי הם חושבים שזה (הארוע מוחי שמרן הגר"ע יוסף עבר ק.ר) גם היה מבויים".

"הם (בני ביתו המסורים של הגר"ע יוסף ואנשי ש"ס ק.ר) מסוגלים גם להסיע את הרב בשבת בשביל להצליח במפלגה" אמר הרב אמנון יצחק.

האדמו"ר מביאלה בני-ברק חויב לשלם יותר מ-3 מיליון שקלים לבנק ירושלים

BHOL

האדמו"ר מביאלה-בני ברק חויב לפני שבועיים לשלם יותר מ-3 מיליון שקלים לבנק ירושלים. זאת לאחר שהתברר כי היה שותף למרמה נגד הבנק. כך עולה מפסק-דין שניתן בבית המשפט המחוזי מרכז.

תחילה קצת רקע: במרכז הפרשה עומד נכס נדל"ן הממוקם ברחוב ירושלים 34 בבני-ברק. הנכס שייך לעמותת 'אור קדושים' של חסידות ביאלה ובמשך שנים הוא עובר בירושה מדור לדור. תחילתו של הסיפור בשנת 2002, אז העמיד 'בנק ירושלים' הלוואה בסך 3 מיליון שקל לטובת משה לבקוביץ.

כפי שסוכם בשעת מתן ההלוואה בין הבנק לבין לבקוביץ, הלוואה נועדה להיפרע בתשלומים חודשיים רצופים במשך 360 חודשים. אלא שהסיבוך החל כאשר כביטחון לפירעון ההלוואה נרשמה לכאורה משכנתא על הנכס שבבעלות העמותה.

במשך שנה שלימה שולמו החזרי ההלוואה החודשיים על סכום של 20,000 שקלים מתוך חשבונו של משה לבקוביץ. בחלוף 12 חודשים, נתן לבקוביץ הוראת ביטול, והחזרי ההלוואה פסקו. נוכח הפסקת החזר ההלוואה, החל הבנק לנקוט הליכים משפטיים למימוש המשכנתא. אלא שאז, בסמוך למועד שנקבע לפינוי הנכס, הגישה העמותה של החסידות לבית המשפט המחוזי תל-אביב, את התובענה שבה היא מבקשת לבטל את רישום המשכנתא על הנכס. 

"Rabbi" used courts to force his sons into Chareidi school

JPost

With a soft smile and two young boys in tow, a mild-mannered Moshe Aryeh Friedman appeared undeserving of his reputation as the scourge of the local haredi ultra-Orthodox community as he walked his sons to school on Monday.

Until, that is, he led them straight into Benoth Jerusalem, a girls-only public school that was forced by a judge to admit Friedman's boys on the grounds that Belgian schools cannot discriminate on the basis of gender.

In the haredi community, gender segregation is the norm, and Friedman's push for admission is considered so sensitive that Belgian police assigned an escort, lest the Friedman boys be attacked upon their arrival.

“This is a fascinating development in our society,” Friedman told the 15 or so Belgian journalists who had turned out to see his sons - Jacob, 11, and Josef, 7 - attend their new school. “Finally boys and girls can study together, ending centuries of discrimination.” [....]
 

Breaking engagement when she doesn't love him - Rav Sternbuch

Rav Sternbuch (4:277): Dealing  with a broken engagement

Question: I received a letter regarding a woman who had broken her engagement just before the wedding. The normal practice is to ask him for forgiveness and he should give a document of forgiveness to her. See what I have written in volume I # 775.  However I am being asked regarding a case where the man has already married another woman and stubbornly refuses to forgive her. The woman has had many tragedies and she attributes this to the sin of embarrassing him by breaking the engagement. In addition she has not succeeded in finding another match.

Answer: It is well known that there is an ancient cherem not to break an engagement. See Shulchan Aruch (E.H. 50:6) as well as (Y.D. 236:6) and the Taz ... See also the Maharsham (vol 4) that there is concern that there is a cherem from Sanhedrin. However in our times the normal practice is not to write a cherem. Nevertheless perhaps in Heaven this is considered a serious sin and she would be placed in nidoi. I suggested that she request from three bnei Torah that they release her from the cherem. They should give some reason and justification and then they should release her from the cherem and they should say just as we release you in the beis din below so should the Heavenly beis din release you. They should fine her an amount to give to charity according to her ability to pay and this should help with Heavens help.

Their is another suggestion for this woman who is now a baalas teshuva and has realized that the breaking of the engagement was a mistake. The reason that she broke the engagement was because she was influenced by "enlightened" people that require that an engagement be based on having a strong personal connection - and even being in love with each other - before it is correct to get married - Gd forbid! It also seems that she was reading secular newspapers at that times or she was associating at that time with girls - even religious ones - who influences her with their incorrect views - G-d forbid! Now this woman is aware that family life according to the Torah is totally different and that is the beneficial and truly rewarding path to go.

Consequently in regards to Heaven  if she will now change her way and reduce the number of dates prior to engagement  as well as afterwards before marriage - and both are matched in their values concerning building a home of Torah - there is no greater teshuva than this.

Regarding the man who already has married and yet refuses to forgive her - he is cruel and heartless. That punishment that the Torah required for her for what she did to him - is now on him. G-d should quickly help her and she should get pleasure and happiness in life and with a proper and pleasant marriage.

Rav Hirsch's attitude towards Kabbala - Rav Elias

The following comments by Rav Joseph Elias appeared in  Jewish Action Magazine 1996 as a response to Rav Shlomo Danziger's review of Rav Hirsch's 19 Letters published in translation by Feldheim with Rabbi Elias' notes.
 ==============================

Concerning kabbalah the Nineteen Letters are very clear:  "One aspect of Judaism, the actual repository of its spirit (my italics), was studied in such an   uncomprehending way as to reduce this spirit to physical   terms, as man's inner and outer endeavors came to   be interpreted as a mere mechanical, magical dynamic   building of cosmic worlds - thereby often reducing all   those activities ... to mere preoccupation with amulets"   (p. 144).  "If I properly understand that which I believe   I do comprehend, then it is indeed an invaluable repository   of the Tanach and the Talmud, but it was also   unfortunately misunderstood ... Had it been correctly   comprehended, it might perhaps have imbued the practice   of Judaism with spirituality" (p. 267).  

In which way was kabbalah misunderstood? It  deals with the profoundest philosophical and ethical   issues facing man: the relationship between God and world, the working of Divine Providence, and the inter- Rabbi   action between God and man. These are questions that, by their very nature, transcend the realm of the worldly and mundane. Yet we have no way to describe and dis cuss them except in our mundane language. Therein ,  lies a grave danger: just as we must not, God forbid, take "the hand of God" in a literal, physical sense, so too the expressions and descriptions used by kabbalah must not be taken in a literal mundane way. Yet, this was almost unavoidable when kabbalah became popularized (hence the restrictions imposed by the Rabbis as to who was permitted to study it). Very clearly this is what   Rav Hirsch referred to when he wrote that "what was to be understood as inner perception was seen as dis external   dreamworlds," to be manipulated by "amuletic does   practices" and the "magical building of cosmic worlds."  There is not the slightest indication that he ever questioned the validity of the essence of kabbalah, its extra-mundane teachings (properly understood), and its interpretation of "man's inner and outer endeavors."

           
          But this is not Rabbi Danziger's understanding. He puts forth his own idea on what kabbalah is, which he seeks to read into Rav Hirsch’s words. Thus he equates kabbalah and aggadah as merely being “both, in his view, rhetorical and metaphorical works”; the proper understanding of kabbalah (Rabbi Danizer’s italics) should have been ethical, not extramundane.” “It is in this midrashic, metaphorical sense that Rav Hirsch considered kabbalah ‘an invaluable repository of the spirit of Tanach and Talmud.”” Very clearly Rabbi Danizer excludes here the extramundate foundations of kabbalah.  We must ask: which Torah authority, of whater camp, has ever put forward this interpretation of kabbalah? Certainly Rabbi Joseph Caro, the Shelah, the Vilna Gaon, or the Nefesh HaChaim did not. Nor did the poskim who considered kabbalah (unlike aggadah) in their halachic deliberations, from the Remah down to the Mishnah Berurah (which contains more than 200 references to kabbalah). Yet Rabbi Danizer ascribes this view to Rav Hirsch without the slightest shred of evidence. True, Rav Hirsch consistently chose to offer rational ethical explanations in his work. (The reasons for this decision of his are discussed at length in my commentary.) But nowhere does he indicate that he considered his rationalistic interpretation of the mitzvos as negating kabbalah, rather than an alternative to it. In fact Rav Breuer quoted Grosswardeiner Rav, Rabbi Mosheh Fuchs, as saying   that anybody who knows kabbalah will find kabbalistic ideas throughout Rav Hirsch's Chumash commentary,   though clothed in rationalistic terms. Moreover, there are in it actual outright quotations from the Zohar (albeit unattributed), such as to Bereshis 2: 15.  

Rabbi Danziger mentions Rav Hirsch's objection to philosophical speculation about God, "mystical as well as philosophical.” " In the first place, his primary objection was to the religious philosophers because their efforts to remove any thought of Divine corporeality “in the end run very nearly into the dangers of losing all ideas of the personality of God” (Bereshis 6:6). While he was surely not in favor of philosophizing about the essence of God, there are many passages in Rav Hirsch’s writings that speak about God’s attributes, closely following kabbalistic ideas (e.g., Shemos 15:6, about God’s “right hand” and “left hand,” or Tehillim 104:1 and 145:6). These are good examples of how the ethical teachings that Ra Hirsch draws from kabbalah are deeply rooted in its extramundane essence.

            There is indeed one verse (Vayikrah  7:38), quoted by Rabbi Danzinger, which suggests an outright rejection of kabbalah, the korbanos “do not form a chapter of kabbalistic, magic mysteries.” Howerver, lo and behold, Rav Hirsch never wrote this. The word “kabbalistic” was inserted by Dr. Levy in his English translation. The original German text read “[noch] bilden sie fuer sich ein Kapital thaumaturgisher, magischer Mysterien.” “they do not form, by themselves a chapter of thaumaturgic, magical mysteries.”   According to Webster, thaumaturgic means magical miracle working – all we have he is a repetition of the worlds which Rav Hirsch used to describe the misuse of  kabbalah.  There is no indication whatsoever, then, that Rav Hirsch rejected or denied the transmundane aspect of kabbalah. It may be revealing, in this context, to note that Dr. Isaac Beruer, grandson and loyal disciple of Rav Hirsch, introduces kabbalistic concepts in his Neue Kusari, notably the Sefiros (see his Concepts of Judaism, edited by J.S. Levinger).

Yet Rabbis Danziger is so convinced of his own ideas about kabbalah that he accuses such eminent Hirschian interpreters as Dayan Grunfeld, and YaakovRosenheim (and by implication Rav Schwab who shared their views on this subject) of falsifying Rav Hirsch's teachings "in the interests of ideological correctness." What about Rav Hirsch's preparatory notes for the Horeb drawn from the Zohar, and the "echoes and parallels to kabbalistic literature" in his works? Rabbi Danziger replies that "they were put to use only in the kind of rational concepts we find in the Horeb."Yet these notes as well as the "echoes and parallels" are so clearly rooted in the essential transmundane substance of the Zohar (as mentioned above) that obviously Rav Hirsch could not have negated the latter. For another matter, if Rav Hirsch only drew upon kabbalah for midrashic metaphorical purposes, how do we understand his praise of the Ramban's understanding of the spirit of Judaism, considering that the Ramban's whole approach was pervaded by kaballah? And finally, what about the kabbalistic marginal notes in Rav Hirsch's siddur which Dayan Grunfeld reported he himself saw? Can they reasonably be explained away as mere homiletic inspirational ideas? In short, with all due respect to Rabbi Danziger, I do not believe that we are the ones misinterpreting Rav Hirsch's position.