ARCHIVES: The Thought of R. Joseph Grunblatt

Every year, around the 20th of Kislev (which this year falls out on this coming Shabbat), Queens Jewish Center marks the yahrzeit of its longtime rabbi, Rabbi Joseph Grunblatt zt”l, through a memorial lecture or scholar-in-residence Shabbat. As the current mara d’atra, I have the daunting task of introducing the program. The difficulty is twofold: First, most of the people in the room knew him, while I never had that privilege. More importantly, how can one adequately articulate the greatness and nobility of a rabbi who was in a class of his own? Besides being a tremendous tzaddik and a man of sterling character, R.Grunblatt was a talmid hakham, a teacher, an intellectual, an orator, a spiritual guide, a leader, an eved Hashem, and so much more. He could speak comfortably with children and adults alike; Soviet immigrants with no knowledge of aleph-bet and gedolei Torah alike. He was a pulpit rabbi and a rabbi’s rabbi.

Joseph Grunblatt was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1927, and spent the World War II years in England, where he learned under R. Elyah Lopian. Upon arriving in America, he learned at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, where he received his semikha, and also studied at City College and McGill University. After serving in pulpits in Saratoga Springs and Montreal, he came to Queens Jewish Center in Forest Hills in 1967 and served as the rabbi until retiring in 2007. In addition to his pulpit, R. Grunblatt taught at Yeshiva University as well as Touro University (Touro’s legendary Rabbi Dr. Bernard Lander was a past president of Queens Jewish Center).

Many have lamented that R. Grunblatt did not write and publish much. His derashot and shiurim were brilliant and spellbinding, but those who were not present would not be exposed to his thought and expression. (YUTorah houses about two dozen recorded lectures.) There are, however, two notable exceptions. His Exile and Redemption: Meditations on Jewish History (Ktav, 1988; sadly out of print), contains 21 essays intended to be read throughout “The Three Weeks.” In this volume, one can see his mastery of rabbinic literature, mahashava, and history, as well as his keen application of those topics to contemporary Jewish life and thought. The other exception is the several essays published over the course of two decades in the pages of TRADITION (available in the journal’s archives). As I surveyed this material earlier this week, I was struck by the timeliness and timelessness of his insights.

Two of these, “The Great Estrangement: The Rabbi and The Student” (1966) and “Jewish Perspectives on Campus Unrest” (1970), deal with youth, particularly those in their college years. His audience is not the youth themselves but those scratching their heads to understand the irreverent, even rebellious younger generation. In the first essay, he describes the obstacles that prevent his colleagues from reaching young people. In the other, he explains the psychology, from a Jewish perspective, behind the outrage of college students. In neither article does he dismiss these individuals; rather, he calls on his readers to better understand them. He does not stand in the place of the students but shows his willingness to dialogue and to understand them; to not preach and pontificate but to speak authentically to issues of genuine concern bothering thinking Jews. He places the burden on the adults and leaders to reach the youth. Both articles highlight the importance of authenticity and the peril for those who display a lack of leadership or a hypocritical form of leadership. Particularly with campus unrest, he suggests that while the behavior of students may appear to be “bad” and a product of “yetzer hara,” college-aged Jews have been deprived of a manner of projecting their “yetzer tov,” and “if we can show our youth how much God and the Torah care for man, we can eventually get them to care for God and Torah.” Here as well as in “Violence and Some Aspects of the Judaic Tradition” (1968), he highlights the moral cost of the Vietnam War and its negative impact on young people’s trust in authority. Indeed, in today’s world, it would be easy for an Orthodox rabbi to belittle the “social justice warrior,” yet R. Grunblatt’s approach would suggest that if we demonstrate Judaism’s care for justice, the “social justice warrior” would care about true social justice as well as Torah. Noting that Israel’s wars can be classified as milhemet mitzva and are necessary for its survival, he cautions that embracing an attitude that is too militaristic can both taint Judaism and the trust that young Jews have towards Judaism. If the role models are honest and authentic, their messages would be able to penetrate.

Likewise, in the later article “Confronting Disbelievers” (1987) he deals with the attitude towards non-observant Jews, or beyond that, those for whom Torah does not play a meaningful role in their daily lives. Here, too, his boldness can be seen as he respectfully differs from Torah scholars who hold a negative attitude towards non-observant Jews. His views were, overall, more traditional than liberal, and he never advocated compromising on halakha or core Jewish beliefs; rather, his greatness was founded on his ability to envision, before it was popular, the importance of relating “traditional sensitivities with modern sensibilities” (to borrow R. Dovid Bashevkin’s maxim).

This brief portrait and tribute does not do justice to the legacy of Rabbi Joseph Grunblatt, but from reading his published writing, one grasps the breadth and depth of his knowledge, and more so, his profound wisdom. In practice, R. Grunblatt was deeply traditionalist, as is the yeshiva world from which he came. But his openness, thoughtfulness, independence, and courage contributed to his ability to relate tradition and robust Avodat Hashem in a unique and powerful way.

Judah Kerbel is the rabbi of Queens Jewish Center.