Wednesday, August 16, 2017

The Anonymous Teachings Of Rav Hutner - Have A Critical Eye

I read an article today written by an academic that was just posted on the website academia [the feature hundreds of thousands of academic articles]. 

He notes that originally Rav Hutner's maamarim were published anonymously but later he attached his name to them. Why?

Here is the theory. Rav Hutner had "secret" sources in his maamarim from the world of general philosophy. As long as Rav Aharon Kotler was alive he was afraid to put his name on his maamarim, lest Rav Aharon discover that he had made use of "treif" sources. Once Rav Aharon passed away [in 1962], he felt free to publish the maamarim in his own name. [He had a similar theory as to why he published his notes on the Sifri anonymously. Since he used academic modes of study that he had used in Berlin, he wanted his name off of it]. He offered no evidence to support this claim. 

This theory strikes me as almost as likely as one that would suggest it was actually John F. Kennedy who wrote the Pachad Yitzchak and it was only after he died that Rav Hutner then claimed that it was he and not Kennedy who wrote it. 

The main reason it strikes me as absurd is that unless one is very well trained in secular philosophy there is ZERO indication in any of his works that he used any secular sources. Even if one IS trained in secular philosophy and can find issues addressed by Rav Hutner that were also addressed by philosophers, the work is still כולו תורה. Chazal talked about issues that secular thinkers in their time were dealing with. So did the Kuzari, the Maharal and countless others. All of these works are still Torah and caused no controversy. So it is highly unlikely that Rav Hutner was afraid that his teachings would be perceived as secular. Not one reference is made in any of his writings to anybody non-Jewish. 

So if anyone knows any old time Chaim Berliners and can find out the real reason why Rav Hutner first wrote anonymously, I would appreciate if you would share the information with me.  

Maybe there is a lesson here....

But one thing we can certainly take from this - don't believe everything you read. A critical eye is always healthy. Especially when academics write about Torah personalities. They see the world through the prism of their secular eyes and then impute their perspective to the subject of their study.