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Jewish Political Theology: The Doctrine of Daʿat Torah as a Case Study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Benjamin Brown
Benjamin Brown*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

A number of political theologies have emerged within modern Judaism, primarily as a reaction to the rise of Zionism but also, and to a lesser degree, to that of socialism, pacifism, and other ideological movements. Among the characteristics they shared are a “father”—i.e., an individual who fleshed out their tenets in more or less systematic fashion—and an attempt to deal with the nature and governance of a future Jewish state. The majority of these theologies failed to achieve significant influence in the wider public arena. Notably, however, there is one modern Jewish political theology that evolved by means of a different process, one that was gradual and decidedly unsystematic. It also lacks a single founder or figurehead, even though, like its counterparts, it developed and sought to remain within a particular social faction where it has long exercised significant influence and continues to do so to this day. I am referring to the doctrine of Daʿat Torah (literally “the Torah view,” “the opinion of the Torah,” “the knowledge of the Torah,” or “the Torah mind”), which arose in the first half of the twentieth century in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) circles. It can be summarized in a single sentence: The great religious authorities hold the power to issue rulings not only in their specific areas of expertise but in all areas of life, including the political realm.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 107 , Issue 3 , July 2014 , pp. 255 - 289
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Prof. Hanina Ben-Menachem and Prof. Menachem Lorberbaum for their comments, and to Fathers Timothy Lowe, David Neuhaus, and Roberto Spataro for enlightening conversations.

References

1 The first critical analyses of this concept were by Bacon, Gershon, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Israel in Poland 1916–1939 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996) 48–69Google Scholar; Kaplan, Lawrence, “Da‘at Torah: A Modern Conception of Rabbinic Authority,” in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy (ed. Sokol, Moshe Z.; Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1992) 1–60Google Scholar; Katz, Jacob, “Da‘at Torah: The Unqualified Authority Claimed by Halakhists,” Jewish History 11 (1997) 41–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Brown, Benjamin, “The Doctrine of Da‘at Torah: Three Stages,” in The Way of the Spirit (ed. Amir, Yehoyada; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005) 537–600Google Scholar [Hebrew].

2 As I will clarify later, Orthodox Judaism separated in the twentieth cent. into two political movements, which subsequently became two religious streams: the more traditional stream, known as “Haredi Judaism,” and the more moderate stream, known as “Religious Zionism” or “Modern Orthodoxy” (the former term is more prevalent in Israel and the latter in the United States). In scholarly research, the term “ultra-Orthodox” has at times been used to refer to Haredi Judaism, but such use has drawn criticism, both on account of its judgmental connotations and because it is imprecise (at times it refers to Haredi Judaism in general and at times to its more radical branches). I have preferred in this essay to use the term “Haredi” in its various grammatical forms.

3 Bacon, The Politics of Tradition, 56; Katz, Jacob, Halakhah in Straits (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992) 18Google Scholar [Hebrew]. He also alludes to this comparison in idem, “Da‘at Torah,” 41.

4 This is, to a large degree, the trend that characterizes research on Haredi Judaism in general: a tendency to emphasize the social perspective at the expense of the intellectual one.

5 Heilman, Samuel C., “The Many Faces of Orthodoxy—Part II,” Modern Judaism 2 (1982) 175–82Google Scholar. On the establishment of the Mizrahi Movement, see Salmon, Yosef, Religion and Zionism: First Encounters (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002) 235–367Google Scholar; Luz, Ehud, Parallels Meet (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988) 227–56Google Scholar. There were also more radical elements in the Orthodox world that viewed Agudat Yisrael as a compromise and did not join it.

6 Brown, Benjamin, “Orthodox Judaism,” in The Blackwell Companion to Judaism (ed. Neusner, Jacob and Avery-Peck, Alan J.; Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) 311–33Google Scholar, at 319–22.

7 The following summary is based primarily on my article “The Doctrine of Da‘at Torah.”

8 Based on the language of the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot: “Turn it over and turn it over, because everything is in it” (m. Avot 5:22).

9 Shmuel Greineman, The Hafetz Hayim on the Torah (in Maʻasai Lamelekh; Bnei Brak: self-published, 1970) 30 [Hebrew]. The phrase can also be translated as “He whose mind is a Torah-mind,” or “He whose view is the view of the Torah.”

10 In the opinion of Katz and others, this self-appointed exemption from providing explanations implied that the council perceived itself as infallible. See Katz, Halakhah in Straits, 19–20.

11 Herzl, Theodor, The Jewish State (New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946) 146Google Scholar.

12 Katz, Jacob, Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1961) 169Google Scholar. Nevertheless, the Jewish community did not adopt the separation of powers in the modern sense. It is clear, therefore, that in the past the rabbis were also involved in public issues, apparently to a greater degree than is acknowledged by some of the critics of Daʿat Torah (see ibid., 126).

13 Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin Festschrift (ed. Shmuel Nadler; Lodz: Mesorah, 1930) 326 [Hebrew].

14 This law is perceived in rabbinic literature as the source of the obligation to adhere to the rulings of the halakhic scholars (see b. Šabb. 23a; Maimonides, “Introduction to the Mishneh Torah”), but in traditional commentary, this obligation applied only in the realm of halakhah.

15 “The Great Assembly of Agudat Yisrael in Marienbad,” Hapardes 1 (5697/1937) 9 [Hebrew]. The concluding verse is from Deut 17:10, and refers directly to the commandment, “Thou shalt not decline.” See also Wasserman, Elchonon B., Epoch of the Messiah (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Ohr Elchonon, ca. 1977) 25–26Google Scholar.

16 Grodzinski, Rabbi Hayim Ozer, “Letter concerning the Communities in Germany,” in Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg Memorial Volume (ed. Hildesheimer, Azriel and Kahane, Kalman; Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishing, 1970) 9–12Google Scholar.

17 Literally, “chained women,” women whose husbands have absconded, are missing and presumed dead, or who refuse to grant them a divorce according to Jewish law.

18 This crisis and the way in which it was handled have been addressed extensively elsewhere. See, for instance, Schweid, Eliezer, Between Destruction and Salvation (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1994)Google Scholar [Hebrew].

19 Members of the religious-Zionist Mizrahi Party at times lent their voices to these harsh accusations. See Friedman, Menachem, “This is the History of the Status Quo: Religion and State in Israel,” in The Transition from Yishuv to State 1947–1949: Continuation and Exchange (ed. Pilovsky, Varda; Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1989) 53Google Scholar and especially 75 n. 12 [Hebrew]; idem, “The Manner in which the Religious Groups Dealt with the Establishment of the State as an Expression of ‘Return to History’,” in Zionism and the Return to History (ed. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Moshe Lisak; Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1999) 458 [Hebrew]. On the way in which the Haredim dealt with the Holocaust in general, see idem, “The Haredim and the Holocaust,” The Jerusalem Quarterly 53 (1990) 86–105; Caplan, Kimmy, “The Haredi Society in Israel and its Relationship to the Holocaust—A New Reading,” Alpayim 17 (1999) 176–207Google Scholar [Hebrew].

20 “Hazon Ish” is the nickname for Rabbi Avraham Yesha'ayahu Karelitz (1878–1953), the most prominent leader of Haredi Judaism in the 1940s and 1950s. The “Rav of Brisk” is the pseudonym for Rabbi Yitzhak Ze'ev (Velvel) Soloveitchik (1886–1959), who became more prominent after the death of the Hazon Ish, and distanced himself from Agudat Yisrael.

21 Quoted in “A Da‘at Torah Collection of the Great Authorities of the Recent Generation,” in Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman, Footsteps of the Messiah (Bnei Brak: Netzah, 1989) 23 [Hebrew]. See also Yabrov, Rabbi Tzvi, Ma'ase Ish (7 vols.; Bnei Brak: self-published, 2001) 4:16Google Scholar [Hebrew]; ibid., 176.

22 Wolf, Rabbi Joseph Abraham, The Age and Its Challenges: The Land of Israel (Bnei Brak: The Y. A. Wolf Foundation for Book Publications, 1982) 298Google Scholar [Hebrew].

23 Passover Haggadah “From The House of Levi” Brisk—Addenda (ed. Moshe Shimon Gerlitz; Jerusalem: Orayta, 1989) 83 [Hebrew].

24 Ibid.

25 I recently analyzed the development of these two stages in Towards a Democracy in Haredi Leadership? (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2011) [Hebrew].

26 Augustine, City of God 4.5.

27 This is true if we disregard Spinoza's use of the title “Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,” which did not indicate the existence of a discipline called “political theology,” but rather that the book deals with the two disciplines mentioned: theology and politics.

28 Schmitt, Carl, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (trans. Schwab, George; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1985) esp. 5–52Google Scholar. Schmitt's concept of political theology is used more often in academic scholarship and less in religious literature. See, for instance, Tal, Uriel, Religion, Politics, and Theology in the Third Reich (London: Routledge, 2004) 16–170Google Scholar; Schmidt, Christoph, Die Theopolitische Stunde (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2009)Google Scholar; idem, “In Answer to the Question: What Is Political Theology?,” in God Will Not Stand Still (ed. Christoph Schmidt; Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 2009) 18–37 [Hebrew]. In Menachem Lorberbaum's opinion, these concepts remained laden with theological baggage (“Making Space for Leviathan: On Hobbes's Political Theory,” Hebraic Political Studies 2 [2007] 78–100, esp. 96–100).

29 See also Englard, Izhak, “Preface,” in God, State, Nature, Human: Hans Kelsen on Political Theology and Natural Law (trans. and ed. Englard, Izhak; Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2011) 11–44Google Scholar, at 16–17 [Hebrew].

30 Cavanaugh, William T. and Scott, Peter, “Introduction,” in The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (ed. Cavanaugh, William T. and Scott, Peter; Walden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007) 2–4Google Scholar, at 2.

31 Melamed, Abraham, “Is There a Jewish Political Thought? The Medieval Case Reconsidered,” Hebraic Political Studies 1 (2005) 24–56Google Scholar, at 43. Later in his comments, he is more specific: “Political theology, then, deals with God's government over man, with divine commandments given to men, with the governing relationship between God and humankind (theocracy is literally “God's governance”) and with the religious purpose of political life” (ibid., 44). See also Tal, Uriel, Political Theology and the Third Reich (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1991) 60–63Google Scholar, 70–71 [Hebrew].

32 See, for example, Kirwan, Michael, Political Theology: An Introduction (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2009) 4–9Google Scholar.

33 Thus, for example, in his definition of theology, Augustine described it as a discipline whose purpose is an “account or explanation of the Divine” (de divinitate rationem sive sermonem; City of God 7.1). For the translation, see The City of God (trans. Marcus Dods; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2009) 217.

34 Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1888) book 3, chap. 8, art. 11.

35 In common usage it is acceptable to talk about the “underlying philosophy” of nonphilosophical phenomena and disciplines. In this spirit, we could also recognize “underlying theology” in phenomena that are not categorically theological. However, these underlying philosophies are not considered integral parts of philosophy as a discipline (and in general, the term “underlying philosophies” is never used as a means of explaining the true philosophy of these presuppositions). On the other hand, secular works that are literary, poetic, or scientific in nature, and that deal with fundamental questions, are at times presented as part of the philosophical discourse. For example, see McGinn, Collin, Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays (New York: Harper, 2006)Google Scholar; Budick, Sanford, Kant and Milton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Ryckman, Thomas, The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in Physics, 1915–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. In truth, it is doubtful if important works by the most prominent philosophers were considered philosophy, at least in the narrow sense of the word, without the later abstractions of scholars.

36 Soloveitchik, Haym, “Rupture and Reconstruction—the Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradition 28 (1994) 64–130Google Scholar, at 82, 92–8; Brown, Hazon Ish, 314, 325, 329.

37 Brown, Benjamin, “The Comeback of Simple Faith: The Ultra-Orthodox Concept of Faith and Its Rise in the 19th Century,” in On Faith—Studies in the Concept of Faith and Its History in The Jewish Tradition (ed. Halbertal, Moshe and Sagi, Avi; Jerusalem: Keter, 2005) 403–43Google Scholar [Hebrew].

38 Ibid. The only notable exception was German Orthodox Judaism, which at its height numbered only a few thousand members, and whose theology is considered apologetics (and to a great degree, justifiably).

39 I have developed this concept in some of my articles. See, e.g., ibid, 442.

40 We could imagine an even more radical method that attempts to reconstruct the theology based on sources that are not textual, such as “underlying theology,” which analyzes the activities of particular individuals or the policy decisions of leaders. This method would work using an approach similar to Kant's, in which he attempted to uncover the “practical maxim” underlying human acts through a process of universalization, raising it to higher level of abstraction. I do not negate the value of such a method in principle, but it seems to me dangerous in actuality: It opens the door to baseless speculation and to the subjective over-involvement of the scholar in his research. In the more modest method that I suggest here, the researcher or systematic interpreter can reformulate the theology only from existing texts and must waive interpretation if they do not exist.

41 This is the subtitle of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan.

42 Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996) 26Google Scholar.

43 A similar list of genres through which political theology can be formulated (either directly or indirectly) is presented by Eliezer Don Yehiya and Bernard (Baruch) Susser, “Prologomena to Jewish Political Theory,” in Kinship and Consent (ed. Daniel J. Elazar; Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983) 91–111, at 91–6. Melamed also followed in their footsteps: see Melamed, “Is There a Jewish Political Thought?,” 41–2.

44 Don Yehiya and Susser, ibid., 98–102, 108; Melamed, ibid., 40.

45 Lorberbaum, Menachem, “Medieval Jewish Political Thought,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (ed. Frank, Daniel H. and Leaman, Oliver; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 176–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 176–77.

46 This classification is not merely semantic. The more political theologies multiply, and the more they become objects of academic study, the more we find ourselves in need of analytic tools to distinguish between political theology and other forms of thought, and between various types of political theology.

47 The number is particularly small when compared to the abundance of such theologies in Christianity and Islam during the same years.

48 Greenberg, Gershon, “Sovereignty as Catastrophe: Jakob Rosenheim's Hurban Weltanschauung,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 8 (1994) 202–24Google Scholar. Rosenheim believed that the Torah-based unity of the Jewish people that was shattered by the Emancipation would be reconstructed and embodied by Agudat Yisrael. See Mittleman, Alan L., The Politics of Torah: The Jewish Political Tradition and the Founding of Agudat Israel (New York: SUNY, 1996) 19–21Google Scholar, 52–4, 135–7. See also idem, “Some German Jewish Orthodox Attitudes Toward the Land of Israel and the Zionist Movement,” Jewish Political Studies Review 6 (1994) 107–25, esp. 117–23.

49 See Schweid, Eliezer, Democracy and Halakhah (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994)Google Scholar; Zohar, David, Jewish Commitment in a Modern World: Rabbi Hayim Hirschensohn and His Attitude Towards the Modern (Jerusalem: The Shalom Hartman Institute, 2003)Google Scholar [Hebrew].

50 Federbush, Rabbi Shimon, The Law of the Kingdom in Israel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1952) [Hebrew]Google Scholar. For an in-depth analysis of his theory, its comparison to Breuer's approach, and its problematic aspects, see Mittleman, Alan, “Mishpat Hamlukhah and the Jewish Political Tradition in the Thought of R. Shimon Federbush,” Jewish Political Studies Review 10 (1998) 67–86Google Scholar.

51 See Breuer, Isaac, Nahaliel (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1982) 310–30Google Scholar [Hebrew]; Mittleman, Alan L., Between Kant and Kabbalah (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY, 1990) 166–74Google Scholar, 181–82; Schweid, Eliezer, “The Torah State in the Thought of Isaac Breuer,” in Isaac Breuer: Studies in His Thought (ed. Hurwitz, Rivka; Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1988) 125–46Google Scholar [Hebrew]; and Leowinger, Jacob, Between Routine and Innovation (Jerusalem: De'ot, 1973) 57–76Google Scholar [Hebrew]. Breuer's “Torah State” vision was contested by his rival Rosenheim, who sufficed with a Torah party—Agudat Yisrael. The two agudists were engaged in ideological and personal disputes for many years. See Mittleman, Politics of Torah, 123–40.

52 According to the analyses of Schweid (Democracy and Halakhah, 7–11, 47–76) and Zohar (Jewish Commitment, 163–80), Hirschensohn's idea of “halakhic democracy” was based on the concept of a covenant. Hirschensohn distinguished between two types of covenants: Divine and human. The human covenant is what turns a group of individuals into a nation, and in this way creates the framework for nations and states; the Divine covenant comes after the human one has already been implemented, and organizes relationships between people and their God. The human covenant thus precedes the Divine covenant, both temporally and conceptually. As Zohar points out, Hirschensohn perceived the human covenant as the only obligation relevant to the national arena. Thus, a person who has abrogated the Torah and the commandments has abrogated the Divine covenant but can still remain a full participant in the human covenant. Hirschensohn saw Zionism as a revival of the human covenant and the preparation for the development of the new Jewish state (which in his day was still only an aspiration) as its complete implementation. The government of such a state, even if secular, would not damage the human covenant. He further contended that even from the standpoint of the Torah, the most desirable form of government for the Jewish state would be a democratic government, and he viewed American democracy as a good model. Indeed, he was greatly influenced by American constitutional law (with which he was familiar) and even declared explicitly that this system was, in his eyes, worthy of emulation. Since Hirschensohn viewed participation in the Divine covenant as voluntary, his halakhic-democratic system would not impose religious norms on its citizens. Even the Sanhedrin (the Supreme Court in the halakhic system), which he wanted to revive, was not to judge solely in accordance with halakhic norms, but rather through a synthesis of those norms and a consideration of prevailing popular sentiments in both the religious and secular components of the society. Hirschensohn had faith in the ability of the great halakhic scholars to implement such a synthesis by means of creative exegesis of the halakhah. According to Zohar's analysis, the only area in which he demonstrated a deviation from the Western democratic model was in his negation of the rule of the majority. This deviation came to expression in his suggested method of governmental decision-making (by means of a “majority of evidence,” rather than a “personal” or “numerical majority”), as well as in his negation of the right of all citizens to be elected to the legislative body in favor of an aristocratic elite (those who “understand what the people need”). He presumed to base this approach on the talmudic sages and on Maimonides. Strange as it seems, the principles of numerical majority and “one man, one vote,” which were internalized more than any other aspects of democracy by the Orthodox community in the second half of the 20th cent., were the very ones pushed aside in the “halakhic democracy,” while other principles, which were relatively less well received by this group, were included within it.

53 From the standpoint of content, there is no doubt that Breuer envisaged a state that exhibited many characteristics of democracy. In fact, it seems that he envisioned a democratic state in all aspects except one: the place of religion in the state. This aspect had implications on both the theoretical and practical levels. On the theoretical level, for example, it found expression in the idea that God, and not human society, is the source of authority for the laws of the state. We see this in the draft constitution that Breuer formulated in 1938, two of the first articles of which read as follows: 1) “The Torah is the law of the Jewish people”; 2) “The force of the Torah as the law of the Jewish people is not dependent on the agreement of the Jewish people or the Jewish community” (Isaac Breuer, “A Blueprint for a Constitution of the Jewish State,” Hama'ayan 13 (5733 [1977]) 1–5, at 1 [Hebrew]). In his Hebrew book Nahaliel, in which he fleshes out his idea of a Torah state, Breuer writes that many of the norms of the Torah state will overlap with those of regular modern states—but, even so, it is important that they come under the heading, “the Torah state.” In his words, “It is not the content that matters! It is the name that matters!” (Breuer, Nahaliel, 313). He was also ready to learn from the general laws of other nations (ibid., 314). These points relate, however, only to civil law. Religious law was, for Breuer, the traditional Jewish one, and he envisioned it as an inherent part of the Torah state's legal system.

54 This claim would certainly arouse a measure of surprise—and perhaps even derision—among those familiar with both Greek philosophy and Haredi thought. I will therefore offer a qualification: the differences between the two schools of thought are greater than the similarities, both on a basic ideological level and also on the level of the arguments on which they are based. Nevertheless, in spite of all of the differences, they indeed share the point that I mentioned out above. Furthermore, I do not negate the possibility that, in addition to the conceptual-phenomenological affinity between Daʿat Torah and the Platonic ideal, there might be a historical connection as well, albeit an indirect one: The elitism of the Greek philosophers who established philosophical contemplation as the highest ideal was transmitted to Maimonides, and infused his school of thought. Jewish Lithuanian thought in the 19th and 20th cents. (including that of Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik) inherited this Maimonidean elitism, but it expanded contemplation to include not only philosophy, but also the study of Halakhah, Talmud, and the legal codes. From there, it is but short path to Daʿat Torah, which transformed this elitism into a full-blown political theology.

55 Maritain, Jacques, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951)Google Scholar.

56 Murray, John Courtney, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1960)Google Scholar.

57 Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944)Google Scholar; Niebuhr, Reinhold and Sigmund, Paul E., The Democratic Experience: Past and Prospects (New York: Praeger, 1969)Google Scholar.

58 See the entry “Democracy” in NCE, 745–51, at 745, 749, 751. See also the speech of Pope Paul VI on November 28, 1970, in Manila: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/speeches/1970/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19701128_vescovi_en.html. An exception in this regard is the Society of St. Pius X—and in particular Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre, who claimed that democracy is antithetical to the values of Christianity, but did not call to topple it. The Archbishop and his followers were excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1988. See, for example, Lefebvre, Marcel, They Have Uncrowned Him (Kansas City, Mo.: Angelus, 1988) 51Google Scholar.

59 See, for example, Kraynak, Robert P., Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 2001) 1–7Google Scholar.

60 An interesting scholarly debate has been carried on about the weight of antidemocratic ideas in contemporary Islam. The scholarly consensus had been that the predominant thinkers of 20th-cent. Islam viewed democracy as a Western, anti-Islamic product. See, for example, Merad, Ali, “The Ideologisation of Islam in Contemporary Muslim World,” in Islam and Power (ed. Cudsi, Alexander S. and Dessouki, Ali E. Hillal; London: Helm, 1981) 39–41Google Scholar. Against this image, some scholars pointed out that since the 1990s a growth of democratic tendencies among Islamic intellectuals can be identified. See Esposito, John L. and Piscatori, James P., “Democratization and Islam,” Middle East Journal 45 (1991) 427–40Google Scholar; Volpi, Frédéric, “Political Islam and Democracy: Introduction,” in Political Islam (ed. Volpi, Frédéric; Oxon: Routledge, 2011) 135–37Google Scholar; Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky, “The Path to Moderation,” in Political Islam (ed. Volpi, Frédéric; Oxon: Routledge, 2011) 172–94Google Scholar; Filaly-Ansary, Abdou, “Muslims and Democracy,” in Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (ed. Diamond, Larry, Plattner, Mark F., and Brumberg, Daniel; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 193–207Google Scholar. John Esposito even risks the assessment that “most Muslims today accept the notion of democracy” (Islam and Politics [4th ed.; Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1998] 326). However, even regarding this late stage some scholars suspect that the change is only a tactic at best and often just rhetorical. See Esposito, Islam and Politics, 173–74; Litvak, Meir, “Islamic Democracy vs. Western Democracy: The Debate among Islamists,” in Middle Eastern Societies and the West (ed. Litvak, Meir; Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 2006) 199–219Google Scholar; Sivan, Emmanuel, “The Islamic Resurgence: Civil Society Strikes Back,” Journal of Contemporary History 25 (1990) 353–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin Kramer, “Islam vs. Democracy,” Commentary (January 1993) 35–42 (a revised version is available at http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/islam-vs-democracy/); and Kramer, Gudrun, “Islamist Notions of Democracy,” Middle East Report 183 (1993) 2–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Others imply that the process is only in its beginnings: see, e.g., Lewis, Bernard, “A Historical Overview,” in Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (ed. Diamond, Larry, Plattner, Mark F., and Brumberg, Daniel; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 208–19Google Scholar. Anyway, all those scholars seem to agree that until the 1990s the predominant trend Islam was antidemocratic and that even today the radical Islamists are still such.

61 Rosefsky Wickham, “Path to Moderation,” 172–94; Masmoudi, Radwan A., “The Silenced Majority,” in Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (ed. Diamond, Larry, Plattner, Mark F., and Brumberg, Daniel; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 258–64Google Scholar. A staunch liberal-Muslim attack against the radicals is found in: Mernissi, Fatima, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (Reading, Mass.Addison-Wesley, 1992) 42–59Google Scholar.

62 Merad, “Ideologisation of Islam,” 37–48; Esposito, Islam and Politics, 324–5; see also the discussion on Al Mawdudi's model of “theodemocracy,” idem, Islam and Politics, 151–55; Litvak, “Islamic Democracy,” 199–219.

63 On the principles and formation of the Iranian constitution, see Azimi, Fakhreddin, The Quest for Democracy in Iran: A Century of Struggle against Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008) 357–435Google Scholar; Baktiari, Bahman, Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics (Gainesville, Fla.: University of Florida Press, 1996) 53–67Google Scholar.

64 This process was made possible by, among other factors, the radicalization of the concept of Daʿat Torah after the Holocaust, including the adoption of an approach approximating the infallibility of the Great Torah Sages.

65 de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, The Little Prince (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1943) ch. 10Google Scholar.

66 Berger, Peter, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of A Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Doubleday, 1967) 151–2Google Scholar.

67 Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B., “And Joseph Dreamt a Dream,” in Five Addresses (Jerusalem: Tal Orot, 1983) 36Google Scholar.

68 Idem, “Bearers of the Mitre and the Breastplate” in Thoughts and Judgments (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1982) 187 [Hebrew]. The analysis here follows in the footsteps of Kaplan, “Da‘at Torah,” 8–10.

69 Soloveitchik, “Joseph Dreamt a Dream,” 29.

70 Ibid., 32 [italics added].

71 See Brown, “The Doctrine of Da‘at Torah,” 579–81.

72 Ibid., 581–82.

73 Ibid., 584–85.

74 Ibid., 582–83.

75 The radicalization of a religious doctrine, particularly following its failure, is a known phenomenon in the sociology of religion. See Festinger, Leon, Riecken, Henry, and Schachter, Stanley, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar; and Baumgarten, Albert I., “Four Stages in the Life of a Millennial Movement,” in War in Heaven/Heaven on Earth: Theories of the Apocalyptic (ed. O'Leary, Stephen D. and McGhee, Glen S.; London: Equinox, 2005) 61–75Google Scholar.

76 See Lumen Gentium, article 25, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html; and Gaillardetz, Richard, Witnesses to the Faith: Community, Infallibility, and the Ordinary Magisterium of Bishops (New York: Paulist, 1992)Google Scholar. Indeed, there was a not an insignificant number of cases in which the Popes admitted to mistakes made by the Church, and even asked for forgiveness for its erroneous acts, but they never formulated it as such. The remorse was usually expressed regarding an act done in the name of the Church, or perpetrated by those presuming to act on behalf of the Church.

77 Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, “A Letter on the Subject of Faith in the Sages,” in Strive for Truth (ed. Rabbi Aryeh Carmel; [3 vols.]; Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1978) 1:217–25.

78 Ibid., 217. Rabbi Dessler lists the names of the Great Torah Sages of the generation, and of preceding generations, all of which are esteemed in the Haredi pantheon. The very mention of these names in succession, Dessler seems to say, should be enough to make the questioner ashamed at having dared to reproach the “holy.”

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid., 218.

81 b. B. Bat. 14b.

82 b. Meg. 2a; m. ‘Ed. 1:5; and more. Rabbi Dessler's theological stance rests upon a halakhic source; nonetheless, it is not an all-encompassing principle. For an initial analysis, see The Code of Maimonides (trans. Abraham M. Hershman; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949) 140–41 (book 14 [Judges], section “Rebels,” chapter 2, articles 1–4) and the commentators on it.

83 Dessler, “Faith in the Sages,” 219. According to some scholars, the “Letter on the Subject of Faith in the Sages” completes the historic trend within the Lithuanian community, in which the leaders became somewhat likened to the Hasidic Tzaddik. Indeed, Rabbi Dessler, who was influenced by Hasidism and demonstrated a supportive attitude towards it (see, e.g., Mikhtav Meeliyahu [ed. Rabbi Aryeh Carmel; Jerusalem: Sifriyati, 1997] 5:35–39), describes the Torah sages here in a manner that is reminiscent of the descriptions of the Hasidic masters by their followers. Of course, Rabbi Dessler's formulation was not the final word on the subject, and we can find after him other Haredi descriptions, ones that are even more radical in this regard (for example, see Wolf, Rabbi Joseph Abraham, The Age and Its Problems (5 vols.; Bnei Brak: Rabbi J. A. Wolf Foundation for Book Publications, 1981) 2:298Google Scholar [Hebrew]. Yet even in those cases, to the best of my knowledge, there is no direct connection to the concept of infallibility.

84 See above, nn. 21–24.

85 m. ‘Ed. 1:5.

86 Quoted by The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (ed. Jacob Neusner and Jacques Dupuis; 6th ed.; New York: Alba House, 1996) 839; and Butler, B. Cuthbert, The Vatican Council (London: Longman's, 1930) 295Google Scholar. There is still a lively debate today in the Catholic Church regarding the question of whether a ruling is obligatory, and if so, what are the legitimate parameters of interpretation. Among the doctrine of infallibility's critics, the theology of the eccentric Hans Küng stands out. See Küng, Hans, Infallible? An Unresolved Inquiry (New York: Continuum, 1994)Google Scholar. Küng views the model as a problematic innovation of the First Vatican Council, which diverges from the central Church line. For a fundamental (but not neutral) analysis of the different sides of this debate, see Kirvan, John J., The Infallibility Debate (New York: Paulist, 1971)Google Scholar; Pottmeyer, Hermann J., Towards a Papacy in Communion: Perspectives from Vatican Councils I and II (Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.: Crossroad, 1998) 76–109Google Scholar.

87 See the entry “Infallibility” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (15 vols.; ed.: Charles G. Herbermann et al.; 15 vols.; New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913–1914) 7:790–800, at 795.

88 Lumen Gentium, article 25.

89 Even this fact must be qualified: until 1985, Rabbi Shach liked to present himself as someone who functioned under the sponsorship of another “Great Sage,” Rabbi Yaacov Yisrael Kanievsky, the “Steipler” (1899–1985). In reality, however, the latter functioned in his shadow and served solely as a rubber stamp for his ideas.

90 See the entry “Infallibility” in NCE, 496–98, at 497. See also Tierney, Brian, Origins of Papal Infallibility 1150–1350 (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 277–78Google Scholar.

91 Pottmeyer, Papacy in Communion, 78–81.

92 See, e.g., Lumen Gentium and Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), a compendium of which is available online: http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html. In the council itself, controversies regarding the scope of the definition of infallibility did not usually relate to the inclusion or exclusion of political issues from within its purview.

93 Schatz, Klaus, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992) 147–62Google Scholar. There are those who wonder about this, however, since it seems that the struggle was already decided in favor of the ultramontanists in 1870. See Costigan, Richard F., The Consensus of the Church and Papal Infallibility (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2005) 5Google Scholar.

94 Tierney, Origins of Papal Infallibility, 281. Bacon has a very similar view regarding the rise of Daʿat Torah (Politics of Tradition, 56).

95 This movement did not, however, place challenging the supreme religious institution at the top of its agenda, if only because no such institution had existed in Judaism since the demise of the Sanhedrin in the 5th cent. c.e. On the contrary, it was religious Zionism that aspired to establish such a supreme body, and it was the Haredim who opposed it. The bodies created by religious Zionists—the Chief Rabbinate of Palestine for example—were likely established to compete with the growing prestige of the parallel Haredi body.

96 The halakhic tradition is known as a “culture of controversy,” which never produces decisive rulings. See Roth, Joel, The Halakhic Process: A Systemic Analysis (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1986) 66–67Google Scholar, 77–78, 230–33, 310–15, 329–30.

97 Of special note are the studies conducted by Schweid (Democracy and Halakhah) and Zohar (Jewish Commitment); see above, n. 49.

98 See Cohen, Asher, The Talit and the Flag (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1998) 137–54Google Scholar [Hebrew].

99 The accepted opinion has since then been the one often attributed to Frederick the Great: “One who wants to destroy a country should hand it over to philosophers.”

100 See Weinman, Tzvi, From Katowice to 1948 (Jerusalem: Vatikin, 1995) 66–74Google Scholar [Hebrew].

101 Compare: Michels, Robert, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (New York: Dover, 1959) 89Google Scholar; Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: Routledge, 2006) 262CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Femia, Joseph V., Against the Masses: Varieties of Anti-Democratic Thought since the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 137–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 See for example, “John Petrie's Collection of Winston Churchill Quotes,” accessed May 23, 2014, http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/bulldog.html. I did not find a reliable primary source for this widespread saying.

103 It is superfluous to point out that, internally, the doctrine demands a broad degree of conformity.

104 See, for example, Kook, Rabbi Abraham Isaac, Mishpat Cohen (Jerusalem: The Society for the Publication of Rabbi Kook's Works, 1937)Google Scholar responsum 144, 15:1.

105 See the discussion above at n. 54. In modern parlance, the term “covenant” is associated with past glory and a festive spirit. In Biblical Hebrew, however, it has a technical-legal connotation: a “covenant” is a contract. From the perspective of political theology, Rabbi Hirschensohn's concept of the “human covenant” is equivalent to the concept of “social contract,” which served as the foundation of the modern doctrine of the state, beginning in the seventeenth cent. In other words, the most basic infrastructure, both in time and in essence, of the existence of the Jewish nation was its secular infrastructure, and this infrastructure is also the infrastructure of the political body that it establishes. The foundation of the state, according to the model of Hirschensohn's halakhic democratic state, is thus also secular and lacking in innovation. Furthermore, it also suffers from a theoretical failure: If the infrastructure of the Divine covenant is the human covenant, then it cannot undermine the foundation on which it is built. Thus, there is no justification for the deviations from modern democracy that Hirschensohn proposes, or at least they cannot be justified by reliance on halakhic sources, as he proposes. If we try to extricate Rabbi Hirschensohn from his failure, we are left with regular secular democracy, and his proposal lacks a message. In other words, if we take Rabbi Hirschensohn's theoretical arguments to their final conclusion, we find that we are left with a political theology that tries to justify a secular political governance, such as regular Western democracy.