This photograph from the 'Shabbat Kodesh Supplement' of the newspaper 'Yated Ne'eman' is part of a 'feature article' published about the days 'between times', as experienced by previous generations. The story, about the two rabbinical brothers-in-law - Rabbi Meltzer and Rabbi Epstein - whose vacation they spent in the form of 'exchange of tractates' orally, arouses astonishment, excites, uplifts, and creates aspirations in anyone who encounters it for the first time.
But then I came across the book "Vemetoch HaOar" by the famous Maggid Rabbi Shlomo Levinstein, in which I read the story in a slightly different version. Rabbi Meltzer was also there, but he was joined by two other rabbis, Rabbi Sarna and Rabbi Kook. In Rabbi Levinstein's story, Rabbi Meltzer repeated Tractate Yevamot, Rabbi Sarna repeated Baba Batra, and Rabbi Kook repeated Shabbat.
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Whose story is true? The author's, or Rabbi Levinstein's? And really, what does it matter? Is the identity of the rabbis inherent in the story?
The YADI story that delays the action in the 'early days of the state' does not stand up to the test of reality, as Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein died in 1934 - 14 years before its establishment, but what arouses suspicion is not the strange date, but the absence of Rabbi Kook, who is noted in Rabbi Levinstein's story.
Did the writer of the story intentionally omit the name of the Rabbi? Was the Rabbi, considered the father of the Mizrahi movement, not a good fit for the radical newspaper? It doesn't seem likely. It is conceivable that the writer was not familiar with the original story, or that these were really two separate stories, and yet it seems that my not-so-impressive discovery contains a sharp sociological truth: myth, and in this case, the stories of the righteous, shapes perceptions of the present, and is in turn shaped to align with the perceptions of opinion leaders in the society in which it operates.
A myth is a story, a legend, events that some of them happened in reality and some did not, and it appears to serve a certain need. Researchers of collective memory explain that each generation tends to highlight the same patterns in the past that match its ideas and concerns. The narrative of society receives a softened, expanded, or reduced version according to its suitability to the current perception of society.
Arab society, for example, today portrays the Crusades in an almost polar opposite way from how they are described in the chronicles of Christians. To the reader of the two descriptions, it seems as if he is reviewing two completely different events. The Israeli-Arab conflict also takes on a completely different meaning among Arab historians. Why? Describing the myth in a certain way produces a psychological effect on the reader, and shapes personal and collective behavior.
Professor Emmanuel Sivan cites the heroic sentence of the Hebrew warrior Joseph Trumpeldor in his final moments, "It is better to die for our country," as a graceful example of a myth that is very far removed from reality. In fact, Trumpeldor uttered a Russian curse, and the myth of heroism and Tel Hai transformed it into an immortal sentence originally taken from Roman literature.
Am I burdening the poor writer of the 'Shabbat Supplement' with all this semi-academic text? No. It is possible that These are indeed two different stories that obviously happened in reality, but it is possible that Unconsciously, the original story about Rabbi Kook underwent a metamorphosis, becoming a narrower story about the two brothers-in-law that fit the worldview of the readers of 'Musaf Shabbat Kodesh' – Rabbi Epstein and Rabbi Meltzer.
The pattern of action that shapes myths according to the contemporary needs of society is one of the foundations of Haredi society, and a little digging into the history books of Haredi Orthodoxy, in Western and Eastern Europe, is enough to confirm this assertion.
Don't believe it? Read a little about the thought of Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, and now look for it in the ultra-Orthodox-Lithuanian narrative.
