José Faur Explained

José Faur (Hebrew: חכם יוסף פאור הלוי Ḥāḵām Yōsēf Fawr Hallēwī; 1934, 2020) was a Sephardic Hakham (rabbi), teacher and scholar. He was a Rabbi in the Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn for many years. He was also a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, and Bar Ilan University, and was Professor of Law at Netanya Academic College.[1]

Biography

José Faur was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina and belonged to the Damascene Syrian Jewish community of that city. He was tutored in Jewish subjects by several Sephardic Rabbis specially hired by his parents to this end. Eliahu Freue, cited by Faur as his principal teacher, was the spiritual head of the Damascus community in Argentina and taught Faur the fundamentals of Talmud, Jewish law and rabbinics. Other teachers included hakhamim Eliahu Suli, Jamil Harari and Aharon Cohen.

Faur credits these rabbis for providing him with an outstanding Jewish education.

"They never assumed an arrogant attitude toward their students or anyone else. They were accessible to all and encouraged contrary views and free discussion. The truth was the result of a collective effort in which everyone had equal access and share, rather than being imposed by an individual of a superior mind. Following Sephardic educational tradition, the teaching was methodical and comprehensive. Before one began to study the Talmud, it was expected of him to have a solid knowledge of the scripture, Mishnayot, the famous anthology Eyn Yaaqov, the Shulhan Arukh and other basic Jewish texts."

José Faur married Esther Cohen in February 1963. They had three children: Aura, Abe and Miriam. His son Abe continued in his father’s footsteps and also earned his Rabbinic degree.

He died in Netanya, Israel on the 9th of June 2020 at the age of 86.

Education

In 1955, in his late teens, Hakham Faur was accepted to the Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey.[2] The institution was founded and run by the Lithuanian Talmudist, Rabbi Aharon Kotler.

Faur reminisces about his time at the Yeshiva:

"The first lesson I heard by Rabbi Kotler sounded like a revelation. He spoke rapidly, in Yiddish, a language I didn't know but was able to understand because I knew German. He quoted a large number of sources from all over the Talmud, linking them in different arrangements and showing the various interpretations and interconnection of later Rabbinic authorities. I was dazzled. Never before had I been exposed to such an array of sources and interconnections. Nevertheless there were some points that didn't jibe. I approached R' Kotler to discuss the lesson. He was surprised that I had been able to follow. When I presented my objections to him, he reflected for a moment and then replied that he would give a follow-up lesson where these difficulties would be examined. This gave me an instant reputation as some sort of genius (iluy), and after a short while, I was accepted into the inner elite group.

My years in Lakewood were pleasurable and profitable.... At the same time the lessons of Rabbi Kotler and my contacts with fellow students were making me aware of some basic methodological flaws in their approach. The desire to shortcut their way into the Talmud without a systematic and methodological knowledge of basic Jewish texts made their analysis skimpy and haphazard...The dialectics that were being applied to the study of Talmud were not only making shambles out of the text, but, what was more disturbing to me, they were also depriving the very concept of Jewish law, Halacha, of all meaning. Since everything could be "proven" and "disproven", there were no absolute categories of right and wrong. Accordingly, the only possibility of morality is for the faithful to surrender himself to an assigned superior authority; it is the faithful's duty to obey this authority simply because it is the authority and because he is faithful. More precisely, devotion is not to be measured by an objective halakha (it has been destroyed by dialectics) but by obedience. Within this system of morality there was no uniform duty. It was the privilege of the authority to make special dispensations and allowances (hetarim) to some of the faithful; conversely, the authority could impose some new obligation and duties on all or a part of the faithful."

This approach seemed to Faur to be at odds with the approach upon which he was reared in Argentina. It was here that Hakham Faur first met and befriended Shlomo Carlebach.

Rabbi Faur left the yeshiva with a view to fortifying his knowledge of Tora with an academic background. With this in mind, he chose to study Semitic Philology accompanied by George Lasry. They were the first Jews to be accepted at the University of Barcelona since the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 during the Spanish Inquisition. It was during Faur's time at Harvard University that Harry Austryn Wolfson persuaded Faur to inquire about the department of Semitic Philology at the University of Barcelona.[3] Faur and Lasry graduated in 1961, Faur with a degree in Semitic Philology and an M.A. in Semitic Languages; the title of his master's thesis was "La Espiritualidad Judia," a basic explanation of Jewish spirituality. In 1963, Faur received his Semicha (contemporary rabbinic ordination) from hakham Suleiman Haggai Abadi, head of the Beth Din (Jewish court) of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Faur completed his doctorate in Semitic Languages (which he received in 1964), writing a thesis on "The Masorah to the Targum Onqelos." Later that year he left Spain to participate in a three-year fellowship at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, under the supervision of the eminent professor of Talmud, Saul Lieberman. In 1966, Faur was ordained as a dayyan (judge) in Family Law (Even Ha'ezer) by hakham Matloub Abadi, and was further ordained as a dayyan by hakham Suleiman Haggai Abadi in 1968, this time in Civil Law (Choshen Mishpat).

Rabbinic career

Hakham Faur began teaching at the Sephardic Ahi Ezer Congregation and opened a Yeshiva in Brooklyn NY. During this time, he brought many people back to halakhic observance and created a renaissance in the learning of Tora in accordance with the Sephardic traditions. Ralph Betesh, later one of the leaders of the Jewish community, recounts how for the first time, people heard of great Sephardic luminaries such as Don Isaac Abarbanel, R. Bachya ibn Pakuda and R. Moshe Hefez. Rabbi Faur's influence in bringing the younger generation back to the traditions of Halakha and Tora was very substantial and many of the community's lay and religious leaders were his students (or students of students), among them Dennis Dweck, Rabbi Moshe Shamah and Mickey Kairey. In the biography of Nouri Dayyan entitled, 'Nouri: The Story of Isidore Dayan', by Devorah Glicksman (2016), a character by the name of Kohelet Ovadia, may have been intended to represent Rabbi Faur during this period.

In 1967, on the advice of hakhamim David de Sola Pool and Matloub Abadi, a leader of the Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn, originally from Aleppo (Halab), Faur accepted a faculty position at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, where he developed a close relationship with Abraham Joshua Heschel, professor of Jewish Ethics and Mysticism. Faur left the school in 1985, when the Graduate Rabbinical School began admitting women. Rabbi Faur later sued for breach of contract, arguing that by admitting women in such a manner, the seminary was in effect forcing him to resign.

Rabbi Faur received the support of the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, Jacob Kassin, who signed an open letter attesting to Rabbi Faur's religious standing.[4]

In the summer of 1987, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Jerusalem, hakham Shalom Messas, convened a Beth Din which examined various allegations against Rabbi Faur. These allegations were later formulated in a letter, and in an ad in the Haredi weekly, Yated Neeman on February 8, 1988, in protest of his appointment as rabbi to the Syrian Congregation Shaare Zion in New York City. The letter criticised Rabbi Faur for teaching at a Conservative seminary, charged that “his books emit an odor of Heresy,” argued that he was controversial, accusing him of "speaking improperly about great medieval Ashkenazic sages" and asserted that he was “a threat to the purity of faith and religion in the congregation.” The declaration was signed by seventeen Rabbis. The Beth Din came to the conclusion that he was innocent of all charges.[3] Chief Sephardic Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu later affirmed the decision as well.[5] After the controversy ended Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu stated about the incident: ‘the greatest Sephardic Hakham living in the US today is Rabbi Faur.’[6]

In 1987, Faur took a position as the Ezra Sensibar Visiting Professor at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago, where he taught until 1993. Faur went on to teach Talmud part-time at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, until 2003. From 1996 until 2007, Faur also taught law at Netanya Academic College, which was founded in 1994 by a team from Bar Ilan University in Netanya, Israel.

In Israel he dedicated himself to teaching and writing and occasionally taught in Sephardic communities; he was invited as a guest speaker by rabbis such as R. David Sheloush, the then chief rabbi of Netanya, and R. Ezra Bar-Shalom, who then resided in Ramat Aviv.[3]

Published works

Faur wrote nine books and over 100 essays and articles on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from linguistics to historiography to rabbinic law.

Books

Articles

References

  1. http://www.moreshetsepharad.org/AUTOBIOGRAPHIES.html José Faur CV
  2. Papo, Joseph M., Sephardim in Twentieth Century America, Pele Yoetz books (1987)
  3. News: 2020-08-03 . The Torah of Hakham José Faur . 2022-04-01 . Tablet Magazine.
  4. Shapiro, Marc B., Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox, University of Scranton Press (2006)
  5. News: The Torah of Hakham José Faur . Tablet Magazine . 3 August 2020 .
  6. Web site: Spring 2021 . Hakham Yosef Faur: A Model for Orthodox Modernity . 2022-05-01 . IDEALS.

External links

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