Rosh Hodesh Adar, 5773
Dear Friends,
This morning I attended the funeral of my teacher, Rabbi David Hartman, the founder of the Hartman Institute, who died
on Sunday. The funeral was held at the Institute, where Rabbi Hartman had taught and lectured on many, many occasions.
Let me tell you a little about Rabbi Hartman.
Let me tell you a little about Rabbi Hartman.
Rabbi Hartman was an extraordinary force. He was a
brilliant philosopher, an electrifying speaker and a caring mentor, and he was also
a dreamer and a builder. He was
passionate and impassioned, with fiercely held and well-articulated views—and
he was also a man with broad perspectives and a big heart. Born into an ultra-Orthodox family in New
York, he later became a true pluralist, respecting and seeking to further not
just Orthodoxy, but the entire spectrum of Jewish religious perspectives.
After making aliyah
from Montreal soon after the Six Day War, Rabbi Hartman became a professor of philosophy
at the Hebrew University. For anyone else, that might have been enough. But it wasn’t enough for Rabbi Hartman. He
wanted his influence to extend beyond the ivory tower. He wanted to have a deep impact on Israeli
society.
And so Rabbi Hartman created the Hartman Institute (named after his father). He gathered around him scholars from various
Jewish disciplines (Bible, Talmud, Jewish History and Jewish Philosophy) and
established a Jewish “think tank” to promote interdisciplinary Jewish
scholarship. The Hartman Institute has
produced a respectable collection of published works. But that wasn’t enough for Rabbi Hartman. He
didn’t just want scholars to better understand what Jewish texts meant in the
past, he wanted those texts to matter, and to make a difference, today.
And so he decided to use the Institute to create opportunities for North
American rabbis—of all denominations—to come to Israel and explore Jewish texts
together. He wanted rabbis to work hard at listening to
our sacred texts and to one another, and together to determine what kind of a
difference those texts could make in our lives—and in the lives of the members
of our congregations.
David Hartman loved rabbis, and he is responsible for
bringing hundreds of rabbis to Israel for weeks at a time to learn, to grow, to
reflect, to strategize, and to be renewed.
I am one such rabbi. Between 2003
and 2008, I came to Israel twice a year to study at the “Machon,”—or, “the Institute,”
as we affectionately called it—and I then became a Senior Rabbinic Fellow there.
Since then, whenever I have come to Israel, I have stopped by the Machon to study
in the library or to talk with colleagues. Just last week, I went there to sit
in on a few lectures with the current cohort of rabbis studying in the Center
for Rabbinic Enrichment. (Included in
that group, incidentally, is Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Temple Shalom in Newton, with
whom I co-led a trip to Israel with nineteen ministers in 2009.)
Without the Hartman Institute, it is possible that some of the many hundreds of rabbis who have studied there
would have come to Israel at one time or another. But it is highly unlikely that rabbis from
different denominations, such as Rabbi Gurvis and myself, would have talked,
much less studied, with one another in Israel.
That was Rabbi Hartman’s genius:
to create a mutually respectful Beit Midrash (study hall) in which all of
our voices could be heard.
In addition to its rabbinic programs, the Machon now runs programs
for cantors, educators, and lay leaders as well, which bring many newcomers—and
many returnees—to the Institute each year.
One day, I hope that we can organize a group from Temple Aliyah. Incidentally, not only Jews have benefitted
from the Hartman embrace: each year, dozens of Christian clergy and laity visit
the Institute to explore the meaning of the Holy Land to the Abrahamic
faiths. (Boston’s own James Carroll is a
regular.)
Haval d’avdin v’lah
mishtak’khin. That’s a Talmudic
phrase that means, “Alas, for those who are gone, and are no longer to be
found.” (Sanhedrin 111a.) Rabbi Hartman was unique. His energy, his fierce pursuit of truth, and his
love of the Jewish People, were extraordinary.
He will be missed.
May his memory remain a blessing.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
P.S. If you would
like to read more about Rabbi Hartman, here are three recommendations:
(1.) the
English-language homepage of the Hartman Institute, on which you can access
writings and video clips of Rabbi Hartman teaching: click here.
(2.) a
tribute to Rabbi Hartman, written by Professor Arnold Eisen, the chancellor of
the Jewish Theological Seminary of America: click here.
(3.) the
obituary published in today’s Haaretz newspaper: click here.
