Yitzchak Feivish Ginsburgh (Hebrew: יצחק פייוויש גינזבורג; born 14 November 1944) sometimes referred to as "the Malakh" (lit.'the angel') is an American-born Israeli rabbi affiliated with the Chabad movement.[1] In 1996 he was regarded as one of Chabad's leading authorities on Jewish mysticism.[2]
He is the leader of the Derech Chaim Movement[3] and founder of the Gal Einai Institute, which publishes his written works. His students include Charedim, religious Zionists, and Chabad Chassidim, as well as ba'alei teshuvah.[4] He is currently the president of a number of educational institutions, including the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank.[4] Ginsburgh has lectured in various countries, and throughout Israel. His teachings cover subjects including science, psychology, marital harmony and monarchy in Israel. He has published over 100 books in Hebrew and English, most of which are edited by his students.
Ginsburgh is a musician and composer.[4] Some of his music has been performed by Israeli musicians. His students include Torah scholars, academics and musicians.
Some of his statements regarding the differences between Jews and non-Jews have aroused controversy. Ginsburgh and his students have responded to the controversy by saying that his use of concepts taken from Chassidut and Kabbalah are far removed from the language that the media has adopted.
Biography
Early life
Ginsburgh was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944,[4][5] the only child of Shimshon Ya'akov and Bryna Malka (nee Dunie) Ginsburgh. He was considered a child prodigy in music and mathematics.[6] Both of his grandfathers were Chabad chassidim. His parents had a great affinity to their Jewish roots and a love of the Land of Israel. His father immigrated to Israel as a young man, where he was one of the founders of the City of Ra'anana, but returned to the USA to complete his higher education. His return to Israel was delayed when the Second World War broke out and he remained in the USA, where he married Ginsburgh's mother. His father held a PhD in education and served as principal of a number of Jewish schools. The family later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Ginsburgh grew up until the age of 14, when his parents spent a year in Israel while his father wrote his doctorate on teaching the Hebrew language.[citation needed]
During their year in Israel, the young Ginsburgh studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Rechavia, where he learned Hebrew and began his path to Torah study by reading Ethics of the Fathers, which left a great impression upon him.
Upon their return to Philadelphia, he met the Rebbe of the Nadvorna Chassidic dynasty, Rabbi Meir Isaacson, author of the Mevasser Tov responsa, and at the age of 15 became a baal teshuva. He attended the University of Chicago, majoring in mathematics and philosophy. He then completed a Masters in Mathematics at the Belfer Graduate School of Science of Yeshiva University. At the age of 20, he abandoned his doctorate studies to devote himself entirely to Torah study.[4][5]
Israel
In 1965, he returned to Israel and studied at the Yeshivah of Kamenitz in Jerusalem. He spent 1966 through 1967 at the Slonimshul in Tiberias. After the Six-Day War, Ginsburgh went to Jerusalem and was one of the first to move into the old Jewish quarter. There, together with his future father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Zvi Segal, he began renovating the ruins, sleeping at night in the Tzemach Tzedek synagogue.[5]
In the summer of 1967, he went to the Torat Emet Chabad yeshivah in Jerusalem,[4] where he studied the Chabad school of Chassidus in depth. That year he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and remained in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for several months. There, he was accepted for private audience with the Rebbe, whose guidance became his leading influence.[7]
When he returned to Israel, he married Rabbi Segal's daughter, Romemia. They lived in Jerusalem, where Ginsburgh studied with Reb Asher Freund, helping to establish Freund's charity organization, Yad Ezrah. He also took part in founding Freund's Or Yerushalaim yeshivah in Jerusalem, where he taught Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, and Chassidut. During this period, a kernel of students developed around him.[5]
In 1971, following an instruction from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he moved with his wife and growing family to Kfar Chabad.[citation needed]
In 1973, at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, under instruction from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Ginsburgh visited the warfront to transmit the Rebbe's blessing to officer Ariel Sharon, who later became 11th Prime Minister of Israel. The next morning, after a successful battle, Ginsburgh presented Sharon with a lulav and etrog.[5]
Ginsburgh founded the Chabad house in the Yamit settlement in Sinai, where he lived during the last few weeks before the settlement's destruction by the Israeli government in 1982.[citation needed]
In 1982, Ginsburgh returned to Kfar Chabad, and was asked by Jerusalem rabbi and philanthropist Yosef Eliyahu Deutch to serve as head of the Shuva Yisra'el Yeshivah on Yo'el Street. Rabbi Ginsburgh gave frequent classes on a wide variety of subjects, from the exoteric to the esoteric parts of the Torah. Many were taped and form a large part of the 15,000 lecture archive of his classes.[citation needed]
He currently serves as the president of a number of educational institutes run by his students, including the Torat Chaim elementary school for boys (Jerusalem), the Ya'alat Chen elementary school for girls (Jerusalem), Ma'ale Levonah high school for girls,[8] and the Tom Vada'at Yeshivah in Jerusalem. He is also president of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah since its relocation to Yitzhar. In addition, he is the dean of the Torat Hanefesh School of Chassidic Psychology, founded and run by his students.[9]
Ginsburgh follows Chassidic practices in his teaching style and is proficient in many aspects of Chassidic literature. He bases his teachings on Kabbalah and Chassidut and presents them in practical terms,[12][4] rendering the profound concepts of the original Kabbalistic texts relevant to today's world and presenting them in modern language.[7] Although the media has dealt almost exclusively with his two booklets that address politics, the great majority of his work is of a broader and deeper scope.[citation needed]He has written books on Jewish law, Kabbalah, Torah and science, psychology, love, marriage and education. He has also published a book addressed to children, named Anochi Ve'Hayeladim ("Myself and the Children").[13] Ginsburgh specializes in analyzing modern cultural phenomena in the light of Kabbalah. These include psychology, psychoanalysis, homeopathy and economics.[6]
He has published over 100 volumes of original work in Hebrew and more than 20 in English. Some of his books have been translated into French, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese.[citation needed]
Ginsburgh's teachings form a methodical ideology that covers three major areas: the individual, society and the Jewish national state. He has also developed a social and economical renewal strategy based on Torah teachings, called "The Dynamic Corporation."[14] One of his seminars was recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Education as a supplementary teachers' training course.[6] His books are published by the not-for-profit Gal Einai Institute, which he founded in 1991. The Hebrew name Gal Einai is taken from Psalms 119:18, meaning "Open my eyes."[citation needed]
He delivers classes in Israel, and has lectured in the United States and other countries including France, Canada and England.[citation needed]
Since December 2012, Ginsburgh has been a lead speaker at an annual gala evening commemorating the Chassidic festival 19 Kislev. The event includes performance of many of his musical compositions. In 2015, the event was held at Culture Palace in Tel Aviv, with an audience of approximately 3000 people.[15]
Ginsburgh's style of teaching combines structured thought together with a freer, associative component that manifests in his generous use of the ancient tradition of gematria (Hebrew numerology), by which he translates between words and numbers. He also implements the use of figurate numbers in interpreting Torah verses.[16]
Psychology
Ginsburgh's contribution to Chassidic psychotherapy has opened up new horizons in therapeutic practice, whose processes are already evident in modern clinical psychology.[12] Ginsburgh sees awareness of the Divine as the key to successful psychological therapy. He aims to find the balance between science and the Torah, which will allow establishing psychology on the Torah together with empirical analysis of the data in order to develop working theories.[12]: 130
Ginsburgh's writings on psychology develop the three-stage Chassidic model of submission, separation and sweetening[17]: 343 [18] that originated in the study halls of the Ba'al Shem Tov and his followers.[12]: 135 He has thus severed the chain of non-Jewish religious sources upon which all western schools of psychotherapy are founded.[12]: 149
Meditation
Ginsburgh does not adopt foreign meditative methods. He remains faithful to the Chabad system of meditation, which consists of Torah study, pre-prayer meditation, and meditation during prayer. His particular innovation is the connection between personal consciousness achieved through meditation, and a change in the collective consciousness.[19]
Ginsburgh defines two types of meditation, "general meditation" (הִתְבּוֹנְנוּת כְּלָלִית) and "detailed meditation" (הִתְבּוֹנְנוּת פְּרָטִית) The purpose of general meditation, according to Ginsburgh, is to arouse one's natural love and awe of God. In order to arouse love, he recommends meditating on how God vitalizes the individual and the entire world at every single moment of time. Similarly, he recommends meditating on God's omniscience to arouse fear of God in one's heart.[19]
According to Ginsburgh, three general meditative aids are music, movement and breathing exercises.[19]
Ginsburgh began composing at a very young age.[6] He has composed hundreds of songs and original melodies in the Chassidic tradition.[4][20] He has also composed a number of musical compositions in the genre of world music. His music has been published in dozens of discs, which include discs that conserve Chassidic songs and melodies from bygone eras.
Russian violin virtuoso, Sanya Kroytor has performed renderings of some of Rabbi Ginsbrugh's compositions, and has played violin accompaniment to Rabbi Ginsburgh singing the Chassidic melody Tzama Lecha Nafshi.[22]
Israeli musician, Ariel Zilber, performs some of Ginsburgh's works.[4]
Ginsburgh has also co-designed a number of pieces of Jewelry based on ancient Kabbalistic ideas, expressing love,[23] peace[24] and grace.[4][5]
Students
Over the years, Ginsburgh has accumulated a large number of students from all over the world.
In the 1980s, a group of ba'alei teshuvah crystallized around him, some of whom were inspired to found the Bat Ayin settlement in Gush Etzion. Following the death of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, another group of students joined him from the Merkaz Harav yeshivah. They sought to fill the gap left by their rabbi's death by heading for new spiritual horizons in Kabbalah and Chassidut. They founded the original Od Yosef Chai yeshivah at Joseph's Tomb, and sought a significant spiritual leader in these spiritual fields to serve as their head. Ginsburgh later conceded to their request to join them as their rosh yeshivah.[6]
In Israel today, there are communities of his students in Jerusalem, Bat Ayin,[6] Yitzhar, Kfar Chabad, and Rechovot.[4] His students include Charedim, religious Zionists, and Chabad Chassidim, as well as ba'alei teshuva.[4][5][1]
Eliezer Zeiger, professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles[31][32] and executive director of the Torah Science Foundation.[32] Zeiger has been a student of Rabbi Ginsburgh since 1992.[33] Together, Ginsburgh and Zeiger have co-authored integrative Torah biology textbooks for Jewish high schools on nutrition and the nervous system.
Ginsburgh advocates the reinstitution of Jewish monarchy in the Land of Israel.[34] (Some of his own followers want him to be the king.[13]) He opposes efforts to remove Jewish settlements from the West Bank and encourages his followers to attempt to dissuade soldiers and police officers from carrying out evacuations.[35] He advocates "Jewish labor" − the idea that under the current state of affairs in the land of Israel,[36] Jews should employ other Jews. In accordance with Maimonides' ruling[37] and many rabbinical authorities, he believes that taking the current security risks into consideration,[36] Gentiles should not be allowed to live in the Land of Israel,[36][38] unless they become the "righteous of the nations".[36][39]
Ginsburgh has repeatedly said that he does not promote violence.[6] His students say that they seek to actualize the messianic vision not by violent revolution, but by a change of consciousness that will take place within individuals and will eventually encompass the collective.[19]
In his 2007 book Kabbalah and Meditation for the Nations Ginsburgh writes, "Ours is the first generation in modern times to understand the truly universal human condition and to seek to bring all peoples of the earth together in peace and harmony."[43]
In April 2014, after the confiscation of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah complex by the IDF, Gershon Mesika, then head of the Shomron Council, visited Rabbi Ginsburgh in his home in Kfar Chabad together with a group of rabbis headed by the Chief Rabbi of the Shomron Elyakim Levanon. During the visit, Ginsburgh expressed his opposition to causing any harm to IDF soldiers.[44]
Controversy
In 1989, following the arrest of seven of his students after the shooting of an Arab girl during a settler rampage through the Palestinian West Bank village of Kifl Haris (in response to rock-throwing by the Arab villagers[6]), Ginsburgh reportedly "offered biblical justification for the view that the spilling of non-Jewish blood was a lesser offense than the spilling of Jewish blood." He stated that threatening to kill Jews comes under the ruling, 'He who comes to kill you, you should kill him first.'[45][46][47] The Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Shapira criticized Ginsburgh's views.[45][48][49]
In 1994, Ginsburgh received widespread criticism for his article "Baruch Hagever"[50] in which he defended Baruch Goldstein who had massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.[51][52] Rabbi Ginsburgh wrote that it is possible to view Baruch Goldstein's act as either following or defying[53][54] five Halachic principles, namely "sanctification of God's name", "saving life" (referring to allegations that Goldstein had received prior warning from the IDF regarding a planned Arab massacre of Jews[55]), "revenge", "eradication of the seed of Amalek" and "war".[56] The conclusion to the article is that Goldstein's act emanated from the super-rational powers of his soul, therefore one cannot rely on logical reasoning to determine whether the act was worthy or condemnable.[57]
The Jerusalem Post asserted that Ginsburgh had called the massacre a mitzvah.[58] Motti Inbari commented on this:
In his writings, Ginzburg (sic) gives prominence to Halachic and kabbalistic approaches that emphasize the distinction between Jew and non-Jew (Gentile), imposing a clear separation and hierarchy in this respect. He claims that while the Jews are the Chosen People and were created in God's image, the Gentiles do not have this status.... Ginzburg stated that, on the theoretical level, if a Jew requires a liver transplant to survive, it would be permissible to seize a Gentile and take their liver forcefully. From this point only a small further step is required to actively encourage and support the killing of non-Jews, as Ginzburg did in the case of Goldstein.[59]
Ginsburgh responded to claims that he permits the murder of non-Jews:
Never did I advocate taking non-Jewish life, except when tragically forced by war. The Torah forbids this, emphasizing that ALL human life is sacred. It is our task, as G-d's chosen people to enlighten all humanity and raise the consciousness of mankind to fully recognize the sanctity of all life... When G-d deemed it necessary that the Egyptians drown in the Red Sea to save and liberate His chosen people, Israel, He nonetheless forbade His ministering angels to rejoice at the death of the Egyptians, His own creations. The Torah instructs us to "emulate His ways" of mercy and lovingkindness to all.[60]
On March 10 1996, Ginsburgh was arrested for administrative detention for 60 days for his pronouncements that the state should take action against Arabs in response to the recent wave of terror attacks.[61] An article in the Jewish Week stated that the detention was "an attempt to stifle Rabbi Ginsburgh's teaching and lectures to his followers.[2] After an appeal against the detention,[62] on March 28 Ginsburgh was released without charge. The judge declared that the accusations were baseless[63][64] and that Ginsburgh was not a danger to the public.[63][2][4] Prior to the court ruling, the government had circulated to all its embassies abroad a statement that Ginsburgh had "a long record of incitement to violence, inflammatory rhetoric, and has developed a theology of revenge whose tenets he spreads wherever he can."[64] Following his release, Ginsburgh wrote, "The court recognized that my arrest entailed not only a violation of freedom of speech, but an attack against teaching Torah in general and Chassidic philosophy in particular."[60]
In 2003, Ginsburgh was indicted on charges of encouraging racism against Arabs in his booklet "Tsav Hasha'a – Tipul Shoresh" (טִיפּוּל שׁוֹרֶשׁ, "Order of the Day – Root Treatment"[65]).[66] The charges were dropped after he issued a clarification letter.[67]
In 2010, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz called Ginsburgh "a well known radical on his views on Israel Arab public."[67] A former head of the Shin Bet, Carmi Gillon, told The Forward in 2016 that, in his view, "[Ginsburgh's] words count as incitement and he should have faced charges a long time ago."[13]
In April 2014, Ginsburgh called price-tag acts of vandalism, "unsupervised acts" and stated that there is no need to use hands-on tactics. Instead, he suggested achieving goals by power of word alone, speaking out firmly but calmly to transmit the message.[68]
In May 2014, the Shin Bet claimed that the price-tag acts were the handiwork of about 100 individuals who were inspired by Ginsburgh's ideas.[69] Tzvi Sukkot, self-identified as a prior "hill top youth", says that it was Rabbi Ginsburgh who convinced him to stop his violent activities against Arabs and find more legitimate ways to express his frustration. "Ginsburgh spoke out very clearly against violence. He said that we should act... within the framework of the law."[70]
Ginsburgh and his students have responded to the accusations made against him by stating that he has been misunderstood and that his words have been taken out of context.[54]
List of works in English
The Hebrew Letters: Channels of Creative Consciousness (1995, hardcover, 501 pp.)
The Mystery of Marriage: How to Find Love and Happiness in Married Life (1999, hardcover, 499 pp.)
Awakening the Spark Within: Five Dynamics of Leadership That Can Change the World (2001, hardcover, 200 pp.)
Transforming Darkness into Light: Kabbalah and Psychology (2002, hardcover, 192 pp.)
Rectifying the State of Israel: A Political Platform Based on Kabbalah (2002, hardcover, 230 pp.)
Living in Divine Space: Kabbalah and Meditation (2003, hardcover, 288 pp.)
Body, Mind, Soul: Kabbalah on Human Physiology, Disease and Healing (2004, hardcover, 341 pp.)
Consciousness & Choice: Finding Your Soulmate (2004, hardcover, 283 pp.)
The Art of Education: Integrating Ever-New Horizons (2005, hardcover, 303 pp.)
What You Need to Know About Kabbalah (2006, hardcover, 190 pp.)
Kabbalah and Meditation for the Nations (2007, hardcover 200 pp.)
Anatomy of the Soul (2008, hardcover 144 pp.)
A Sense of the Supernatural: Interpretation of Dreams and Paranormal Experiences (2008, hardcover 207pp.)
Lectures on Torah and Modern Physics (2013, hardcover 180pp.)
^ abcdeDr. Rafael Sagi (2015). "Hasidic Psychotherapy According to the Model of Repression-Separation-Amelioration of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh / פסיכותרפיה חסידית: לפי המודל 'הכנעה-הבדלה-המתקה' מבית מדרשו של הרב יצחק גינזבורג". Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah (in Hebrew). 78 (78). Bar-Ilan University Press: 129–150. JSTOR24235666.
^Robert Pope 'Acts of Holy Terror? Fundamentalisms Revisited', in Robert Pope (ed.), Honouring the Past and Shaping the Future: Religious and Biblical Studies in Wales: Essays in Honour of Gareth Lloyd Jones, Gracewing, Leominster, 2003 pp.213–30, pp.224–5.
^The title means "Blessed is the man", (from Jeremiah 17:7). A version of the article later appeared as a chapter in a book, also called "Baruch Hagever" (1995), edited anonymously by Michael ben Horin (Ehud Sprinzak, Brother against Brother, p. 259).
^Motti Inbari, Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? (State University of New York Press, 2009), p. 132.
^Don Seeman, Violence, ethics, and divine honor in modern Jewish thought, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 73 (2005), 1015–1048.
^ ab"Prisoners of Peace:Administrative Detention During the Oslo Process"(PDF). BTselem. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. June 1997. pp. 36–37. no claim is made that he advocated concrete criminal acts... It has also not been proven that his words are liable - not with near certainty and not a lesser degree of likelihood - to cause his students to injure Arabs.
