Rabbi Aharon Feldman אהרן פלדמן | |
|---|---|
 Rabbi Aharon Feldman in 2010 | |
| Title | Rosh Yeshiva, Yeshivas Ner Yisroel |
| Personal life | |
| Born | Aharon Feldman (1932-01-18)January 18, 1932 (age 93) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Spouse | Lea |
| Parent | Rabbi Joseph H. Feldman |
| Occupation | Rosh yeshiva |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Judaism |
| Jewish leader | |
| Predecessor | Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Kulefsky |
| Position | Rosh yeshiva |
| Yeshiva | Yeshivas Ner Yisroel |
| Began | 2001 |
Rabbi Aharon Feldman (Hebrew:אהרן פלדמן; born 18 January 1932)[1] is anOrthodox Jewishrabbi androsh yeshiva (dean) ofYeshivas Ner Yisroel (Ner Israel Rabbinical College) inBaltimore,Maryland. He has held this position since 2001. He is also a member of theMoetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages).[2][3]
Rabbi Aharon Feldman is the son of Rabbi Josef Feldman (died 1993), a native ofWarsaw and scion of a rabbinical family.[4] Rabbi Josef Feldman served as a rabbi inManchester, New Hampshire, in the 1930s, but left that post to assume the helm of Baltimore's Franklin Street Synagogue so his sons could attend aHebrew day school.[5] He was the last rabbi to formally serve aschief rabbi of Baltimore.[citation needed] Rabbi Aharon Feldman has two brothers; his elder brother,[6] RabbiEmanuel Feldman, was the prominent spiritual leader ofCongregation Beth Jacob of inAtlanta, Georgia, for 40 years.[4] His younger brother, Rabbi Joel Feldman, was a dean ofTalmudical Academy of Baltimore.
Rabbi Feldman was born and raised in Baltimore, where he attended the Talmudical Academy and Ner Yisroel, becoming a close disciple ofRosh Yeshiva RabbiYitzchak Ruderman.[1][7][8]
He went on to study under RabbiYitzchak Hutner and RabbiAryeh Leib Malin, who had "the most profound influence" in Feldman'sTalmudic studies and introduced him to theBrisker method.[7] Afterwards, he taught in severalyeshivas in New York.[1] He has dual citizenship in bothIsrael and the US.
In 1961, Rabbi Feldman and his wife Leah madealiyah with their family toIsrael, intending to raise their eight children in a more religious environment.[1] They lived inBnei Brak for 12 years and relocated toJerusalem in 1973.[1] Rabbi Feldman served as one of theroshei yeshiva ofOhr Somayach, Jerusalem for many years and founded Yeshiva Be'er HaTorah in Jerusalem in the early 1990s.[1]
In 2001, Rabbi Feldman accepted the request of Ner Yisroel to serve as itsrosh yeshiva. Before returning to the United States, he consulted with RabbisYosef Shalom Elyashiv and withAharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman, who both counseled him to take the position in the US.[7]
In 2005, he was one of 15 Jewish educators invited to an informal discussion onJewish education in the White House'sRoosevelt Room.[9]
Rabbi Feldman serves on theMoetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America.[11] Rabbi Feldman is a friend and formerchavrusa partner of the economistIsrael Kirzner.[7]
In 1994, Rabbi Feldman spoke publicly against the actions ofBaruch Goldstein saying that there could be "no justification", and describing the actions as "way beyond the pale".[10]
In 2003, in response to a question fromGil Student, Feldman issued a ruling regardingChabad messianists. He drew a distinction between what he terms the "meshichists" (those who believe the late RabbiMenachem Mendel Schneerson is themessiah) and the "elokists" (those who believe he was a part of God or God "clothed in a body"). He ruled that it is forbidden to associate withelokists under any circumstances due to theirheresy and that they cannot be counted for aminyan, stating that most Chabad adherents do not fall under that category. Regarding themeshichists, he determined that while their beliefs do not make them heretics, it is forbidden to conduct any action which would be seen as lending credence to their messianic beliefs.[11]
Feldman has penned a lengthy critical review of theSteinsaltz Talmud. Among many criticisms, he writes, "Specifically, the work is marred by an extraordinary number of inaccuracies stemming primarily from misreadings of the sources; it fails to explain those difficult passages which the reader would expect it to explain; and it confuses him with notes which are often irrelevant, incomprehensible, and contradictory." Feldman says he fears that, "An intelligent student utilizing the Steinsaltz Talmud as his personal instructor might in fact conclude that Talmud in general is not supposed to make sense." Furthermore, writes Feldman, the Steinsaltz Talmud gives off the impression that the Talmud is intellectually flabby, inconsistent, and often trivial.[12]
In 2005, he wrote a critique of RabbiNatan Slifkin, explaining and defending the 2004 ban issued against Slifkin's books.[13]
Feldman has been an opponent ofOpen Orthodoxy. He argues that "The basis of Orthodox Judaism is a belief in the Divine origin of both the Oral and Written Torah.Yeshivat Chovevei Torah’s leaders or their graduates have said clearly or implicitly on many occasions that they do not accept that the Torah was authored by Hashem, that parts of the Torah can be excised, and that the Oral Law was developed by Rabbis to adjust the Written Torah to the realities of the time that they lived in. This basic philosophy is what writes them out of Orthodox Jewry."[14]
Rav Feldman has written and spoken strongly against the ideology of Zionism. In a letter to R.Aharon Lichtenstein, he quoted their mutual Rebbe, Rav Yitzhok Hutner as saying that Zionism is "pure apikorsus."[15] He also quoted RavYosef Dov HaLevi Soloveitchik (R. Lichtenstein's father in law) “I remember my father used to say, ‘leum’us [Zionism] is apikorsus“.[15]
In 2020, Rav Feldman gave the keynote address at the AnnualAgudah Convention. He spoke about the fact that the Eretz Hakodesh slate joining theWZO violated what a century of Gedolei Torah (from theChofetz Chaim toRav Elyashiv) warned Torah Jews not to do. He asserted that alleged support for the project fromRav Chaim was not true. He stated that all of the reasons the Gedolim had for not joining in with the Zionist organization still held today. Among the reasons he gave is that in order to join one had to agree to the kfirah of theJerusalem Program, and that by joining with reform and other groups it seems like a legitimization of those groups, which are strictly forbidden. He described the kefirah of Zionism as a dismantling of the Torah by making the land, language, and culture central to the Jewish People as opposed to only the Torah.[16][17]
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