Nehama Leibowitz: A Pioneering Orthodox Scholar and Teacher

Nehama Leibowitz (September 3, 1905 - April 12, 1997, 5 Nisan 5757) was one the most influential Jewish Bible scholars of the twentieth century, and certainly the first Orthodox woman Bible scholar to have broad recognition and impact.^[1] Her influence extended primarily beyond the walls of the academy; she was a regular presence in the lives of those who signed up for her gilyonot (study sheets), and was something of a celebrity in the religious-Zionist community and beyond.

From 1957–1966, she regularly appeared on the main Israeli radio station to discuss the weekly parashah (Torah portion), and she gave many public classes and lectures that were well-attended. She instructed many groups of students at her home and taught and lectured in various seminaries and yeshivas around the country, including those that had all-male faculties and student bodies. She also played a very significant role in the Israeli educational system, where the matriculation exams (bagrut) for the religious public school system emphasized her method of concentrating on medieval biblical interpretation.

Background and Education

Leibowitz was born to an observant, Zionist-leaning family in Riga, Latvia. Her father, a businessman, was her first teacher of the Bible and its commentaries, as well as Hebrew, which was used in her home alongside German, Yiddish, and Russian. Her older brother, Yeshayahu, born in 1903, was a polymath and a scientist who went on to become one of Israel’s most formidable thinkers and public intellectuals.^[2]

Leibowitz studied in German private schools until her family moved to Berlin in 1919, where she attended gymnasium. She enrolled in Berlin’s Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (now Humboldt University) from 1925–1928. Given the presence of the Orthodox Rabbiner-Seminar zu Berlin, it was not unusual for Orthodox men to study there, but Orthodox women were less common.

She concurrently took classes at the Hochschule für die Wissenchaft des Judentums,^[3] a non-denominational liberal institute of Jewish Studies that opened in Berlin in 1872, where she attended the lectures of Leo Baeck, Julius Guttmann, and Ismar Elbogen, all of them leading scholars of their generation.^[4] While there, she exchanged private lessons with fellow student Leo Strauss, who later emigrated to America and taught at the University of Chicago.^[5] She tutored him in medieval Hebrew philosophical texts while he read Greek philosophical texts with her.^[6]

In 1930, Leibowitz received a Ph.D. in German linguistics at the university in Marburg, which was especially welcoming to women.^[7] She studied philosophy, English, and German philology, and even took a course with Heidegger in Logic,^[8] but took only one course in biblical studies there, with the great scholar of prophetic literature, Gustav Hölscher. In her dissertation, she argued that early modern Yiddish translations of Psalms were not intended as free-standing; they were, rather, designed to engage exegetically with the biblical text.^[9] This view of the function and place of translations would inform her future work.

As a student, Leibowitz was exposed to historical-critical (henceforth, “critical”) biblical scholarship, Assyriology, biblical theology, and history of religion under some of the best scholars of the time. Among her teachers in Berlin and Marburg, the resumé published with her dissertation lists Ernst Sellin, Gustav Hölscher, Benno Landsberger, and Bruno Ernst Meissner.^[10] A curriculum vitae produced decades later, in 1957, adds that she studied “madaʿ ha-miqraʾ,” the phrase typically used then for critical biblical scholarship, with Kurt Galling, Hugo Gressmann, Rudolf Otto, and Rudolf Bultmann.^[11]

Leibowitz is not known to have discussed her university studies or the work of these scholars in any sustained manner, and thus the extent of her exposure, and how she evaluated various methods and subfields, cannot be determined. This remains a biographical lacuna that may one day be partially filled by extant family letters.

In 1930, she married her paternal uncle and they emigrated to Mandatory Palestine; she would return to Berlin only once to escort her parents to Palestine, and otherwise never again left her beloved Land of Israel. Upon arrival in Palestine, she taught at various teachers’ seminaries, including the Mizrachi Seminary for Girls, a religious Zionist school, then headed by Moshe Seidel.^[12] Here, and especially at the seminary that trained religious counselors for the Aliyat ha-Noar [Youth Aliyah movement], she taught alongside the elite of the new German-Jewish emigrees.^[13]

Gilyonot (Study Sheets)

Leibowitz was viewed as an exacting and charismatic teacher. In 1937, she began to disseminate her gilyonot—mimeographed study sheets with questions mainly based on medieval Jewish biblical interpreters of the Torah. These were regularized according to the weekly parshiyot, the cycle of annual Torah readings, in 1942.^[14] Through 1971, at her own expense, she mailed these gilyonot out to her correspondence students, and corrected and returned their answers, responding over several decades to tens of thousands of submissions.

The gilyonot, and Leibowitz’s later volumes of Iyyunim [Studies] based on them,^[15] were wholly uninterested in critical issues in the sense typically used in biblical studies (i.e., identification of textual sources, their editing and transmission, etc.). Instead, Leibowitz emphasized critical thinking skills, a hallmark of her pedagogy, encouraging readers to compare commentators and translations, to note fine distinctions between them, and to see what informed their various readings.^[16] These studies offered a highly sophisticated and nuanced appreciation of the texture of the biblical text.

Leibowitz later taught biblical commentaries, literature, education, and pedagogy of the Bible at Bar-Ilan University (1957–1962), Tel Aviv University (from 1957; she became a tenured professor of Bible education in 1968), and in the Education Department and the overseas program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^[17] Leibowitz was never appointed a professor in the Bible department at any of these universities, however; they viewed her as a Bible educator. Indeed, in 1956 she received the Israel Prize in Education.

Her Approach to Bible Study

Leibowitz’s work shows close attention to the word-choice (extending observations of classical rabbinic texts) and the structuring of the Hebrew biblical text. She uses classical rabbinic texts and many medieval interpreters who highlight the importance of every biblical word, phrase, and expression, continuing the earlier traditional Jewish theological notion that the biblical text is fully infused with meaning.

She was influenced by her close friend and colleague Meir Weiss (1902–1998), and by Martin Buber (1878–1965), with whom she worked on the final edition of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible translation.^[18] Leibowitz’s interest in stylistics and literature extended back to her university studies at Marburg and informed all of her work; she often cited world literature to illustrate the nature of biblical style, citing, for example, Erich Auerbach’s classic comparison in Mimesis between the binding of Isaac and Homer.^[19]

She uses the Bible, focusing primarily on teaching Torah, to encourage her audience to become more Jewishly literate by adding insights from significant classical Jewish texts that she thought her audience should become familiar with. She cared about the exegetes as they influenced Judaism over the centuries, rather than what they might have originally said, and thus she preferred the standard medieval text as it appears in the Rabbinic Bible, rather than critical editions or best manuscripts.^[20]

Leibowitz’s abiding interests are reflected in the subtitle of her Studies: In the Context of Ancient and Modern Jewish Bible Commentary. The Hebrew title is even more telling—she uses the word פרשׁנינו, “our commentators.” Of these, Rashi was her favorite, and she famously encouraged students to use Rashi to engage directly the biblical text by asking, מה קשה לרש"י, “What is bothering Rashi?”—namely, what problem did he see in the biblical text that motivated his gloss.^[21] One of her students summed up her goals well: “Nehama did not teach Tanach or miqra, but ‘Torah’ in the deep Jewish sense of the word.”^[22]

Views of Modern Critical Scholarship

Leibowitz’s approach to the Torah informed the way she related to modern biblical scholarship. When she did quote Christian biblical scholars, which happened rarely, it was more often than not to disparage them, saying that their Hebrew skills were inadequate and that their Christian bias involved denigrating Judaism.^[23] This was not unusual of Jewish scholars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.^[24] On the other hand, her Studies does make use of the grammars, lexica, and works on biblical stylistics of several non-Jewish scholars, and frequently cites non-Jewish biblical translations as a way to better understand the nuances of the Hebrew text.

It seems that one factor in her minimal use of Christian biblical scholarship was her sensitivity to her Israeli audience, which would have had little sympathy for it. This is borne out by the fact that her single work published specifically for an English-speaking audience quotes Christian scholars more often, and even refers to Franz Delitzsch as “a great non-Jewish exegete of Psalms who lived in the 19^th century.”^[25] It is also possible that the rise of Nazism, and the involvement of several German Protestant biblical scholars in the movement, influenced her rejection of non-Jewish biblical commentators.

Citing Non-Observant and Critical Scholars

In her Studies, she occasionally quotes Jewish critical scholars, but never cites their critical views; this position is explicitly addressed, and justified, in a letter written to R. Yehudah [Leo] Ansbacher in 1980.^[26] The precise context of the letter is uncertain, but it likely is a response to some of Ansbacher’s congregants to a lecture she delivered in his Tel Aviv synagogue, where she cited positively non-observant Jewish biblical scholars:

נכון הוא שהנני מביאה דברי אלה שאינם מקיימי מצוות - אם דבריהם טובים בעיני, ויכולים להראות אורה של תורה ולהראות גודלה וקדושתה ללומד. לפי הכלל: קבל את האמת ממי שאמרה. מה אומר ומה אדבר?

It is correct that I cite those who are not observant—when I agree with what they say, and their comments reveal the light of Torah and show its greatness and holiness to the student. I follow the rule: accept the truth from whoever says it.^[27] What can I possibly say?^[28]

Benno Jacob שהיה רפורמי קיצוני, "כהן" ב-Sontags Gemeinde ובוודאי עבר על חלק עצום של מצוות תורתנו הקדושה (מלבד זה היה אנטי ציוני קיצוני וכו' וכו') למדתי מספריו.... טענותיו נגד ביקורת המקרא והוכחותיו על פחזותם ושגיאותיהם - לא כתב איש דברים טובים מהם, אפילו ר' דוד הופמן זצ"ל (שקשה לי להזכיר את שמו של גאון זה עם ב. יעקב.)...

Benno Jacob,^[29] who was a radical reformer, who “presided over” Sunday prayers,^[30] and certainly transgressed a huge number of the commandments of our holy Torah (aside from the fact that he was a radical anti-Zionist, etc, etc.)—I learned [much] from his books…. His claims against biblical criticism and his proofs concerning their rushed errors—no one has written anything better. Not even R. David Hoffmann,^[31] may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing. (It is difficult for me to even mention the name of this genius alongside B. Jacob.)…

ופרופ' קאסוטו ז"ל, שהיה יהודי ירא וחד על מצוות ה' ומדקדק בהם, אמר כמה דברים שרחוקים מאוד מאמונתי בתורה מסיני, ולא אתן יד להפיצם. ולכן לא אתחשב באומר אלא בנאמר.

And Professor Cassuto^[32] of blessed memory, who was an observant Orthodox Jew, punctilious and zealous in fulfilling the divine commandments, said some things that differ significantly from my belief in a Sinaitic Torah, and I will not help spread them. Therefore I will only consider what is said, not who says it.^[33]

אין צורך לומר שבובר לא היה יהודי טוב - במובנו הרגיל של מושג זה.... ואני והרבה מורים דתיים למדו ממנו כמה דברים נכונים בתנ"ך, ביחוד כל ענין המילה המנחה Leitwort ומשמעותה העמוקה הנרמזת באמצעותה בתורה, ואם כי גם מדרשינו ראו את הפרינציפ הזה ("נאמר כאן... ונאמר שם", וכן "מידה כנגד מידה" ועוד), אבל זכותו של בובר וביותר של רוזנצוויג, שהרחיבו עניין זה וגילו כמה מקומות שלא מצאתים בשום מקום קדום. ולא אמנע טוב מלומדים על יד שאעלים דבר זה מעיניהם.

It is certainly the case that Buber was not a good Jew—in the normal sense of that expression....^[34] I and other religious teachers learned from him several correct things concerning the Bible, especially concerning the Leitwort^[35] and the deep ways it hints at meaning in the Torah—even if it is the case that our traditional midrashim [already] understood this principle (“It says here…and it says there”; and measure for measure,” etc.). But it is to Buber’s credit, and especially to Rosenzweig’s, who expanded this principle and found several places [that use this principle] that I have not found in any earlier source. I will not prevent students from seeing something beneficial by ignoring this principle.

הרי גם שאינם בני ברית אומרים לפעמים דברים (אם כי לדעתי - לעתים רחוקות) איזה פירוש טוב וחריף ויפה לפסוק, ואף אברבנאל מביא במקומות אחדים דברי הגמון קתולי, ומקבל דעתו נגד דעת הרד"ק והרלב"ג.

Even those who are not members of the tribe sometimes (though I feel, rarely) adduce a good and sharp interpretation of a verse, and even Abravanel in some cases adduces what a Catholic bishop says, and favors his opinion over that of Radak and Gersonides.^[36]

וכמה פעמים הראיתי לתלמידי חכמים פרטים מתוך הספר החשוב Aug um Auge של Benno Jacob והודו לי, ושמחו כמוצאי שלל רב. האם אעלים שם האומר? זה לא אוכל. "מי הם אלה שמימיהם אנו שותים ושמותיהם אין אנו מזכירים."

Several times I showed traditional scholars details from Benno Jacob’s important book Auge um Auge [An Eye for an Eye],^[37] and they agreed with me, and I was as happy as someone who found a great treasure.^[38] Should I omit the name of the person who said these things? I cannot. We learn from the rabbinic dictum: “Who are those whose water we drink from [=whose Torah we study] but we cannot mention by name?”^[39]

זו דעתי, שבה החזקתי כל ימי.

That is my opinion, and I have adhered to it my entire life.

She seems to think that Jewish scholars, even those critical in their perspective, have an innate and infinitely better feel for this text, its language, and its nuances.^[40] In addition, Jewish scholars would not be tainted by Christian supersessionist readings of the text. Her references to the work of Yehezkel Kaufmann are especially instructive: rather than citing his central critical claims, as for example his inversion of the regnant view of the chronology of Priestly and Deuteronomistic sources, she cited various cases where he notes Israel’s superiority to its pagan neighbors.^[41]

She strongly disapproved of Jewish engagement with critical biblical study; when she heard that Yisrael Knohl, whom she knew from his childhood and who went on to become a noted biblical scholar, was engaging in critical biblical studies, “she berated him unsparingly for being involved with ‘all that rubbish and heresy.’”^[42]

Equally instructive is a postcard she wrote to her father more than four decades earlier (on May 3, 1928), soon after arriving as a student at the University of Marburg,^[43] in which she summarily dismisses the scholarly claims of a leading non-Jewish critical scholar. She also downplays her previous exposure to biblical scholarship in Berlin, claiming to know only medieval Jewish exegesis. As noted above, it remains unclear is whether this dismissiveness was borne of her sensitivity to the Christian theological assumptions that informed so much of the field, or whether she found fault with their methods or assumptions.

Distrust of Non-Jews after the Third Reich

Once Leibowitz left Germany for Mandatory Palestine, her complete uninterest in her earlier teachers and studies might well have been buttressed by the turn of the German academic establishment toward National Socialism, including her own dissertation advisor, Karl Helm, who joined many German academics in signing the 1933 declaration of allegiance to the Nazis.^[44] What is evident is that by the time she was writing in Mandatory Palestine, and especially after the Holocaust, she could be suspicious of non-Jews.

This comes out clearly in a 1957 exchange of letters she had with the philosopher and first rector of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Hugo Bergman, concerning whether Esau’s kiss to Jacob (Gen 33:4) was sincere; she insists that it was not.^[45] Bergman chastised her for articulating this position on her radio show, but she stridently defended herself:

אין בדעתי כמורה וכמחנכת להשכיח מלד תלמידינו את כל אשר באתנו, לא את גזרת תתנ"ו, ולא את ספרד. ולא את גזרת ת"ח ובודאי לא את השואה של זמננו ולא את דברי ר' יהודה הלוי: יונה נשאת על כנפי נשרים... ולא את דברי המשורר בן זמננו "לך זרוע אף קרדום, וכל הארץ לי גרדוםץ."

As a teacher and educator, I don’t intend to let our pupils forget our history—neither the [Crusader massacres of 1096], nor Spain, nor the [Chmielnicki pogroms of 1648], and certainly not the recent Holocaust; nor the words of R. Judah Halevi: “O dove, borne upon eagles’ wings…” and those of the contemporary poet: “You have the axe-arm, even a spade, and all the earth is to me a hanging-block.”^[46]

This last line quotes Bialik’s famous poem, “In the City of Slaughter,” which he wrote in 1904 after the Russian Kishinev pogroms of the previous year killed almost fifty Jews.

Whatever its etiology, Leibowitz’s anti-critical stance and her negation of the role that critical scholars could play in contemporary Jewish life had great influence in the religious-Zionist community and beyond.^[47] Only in the last few decades is this attitude changing to some extent among that community, and less so in the diaspora. But that is a story for another time.