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Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh (born 28 Cheshvan 5704/1944) is a prominent Chabad Rabbi and Mashpia. He is the Rosh Yeshivah of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah, and the leader of the Gal Einai organization.

[edit] Biography

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[edit] 1944 to 1983

Rabbi Ginsburgh was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1944. His father held a PhD. in education and consulted for various Jewish organizations.

As a child he was recognized as a prodigy and is reported to have appeared on radio helping other children with their homework.^{[citation needed]}

While living in Philadelphia, he met a descendant of the Nadvorna Chassidic dynasty and at the age of 14 became a baal teshuva. He attended the University of Chicago double majoring in mathematics and philosophy. Upon completing his degrees he moved to New York City and there completed a Masters in Mathematics at the Belfer Graduate School. At the age of 22, he decided to devote himself entirely to Torah study.

In 1965 he immigrated to Israel and learned in the Yeshivah of Kamenitz in Jerusalem. He spent 1966 through 1967 (including the Six Day War) learning in the Slonim shul in Tiberias. After the Six Day War, Ginsburgh returned to Jerusalem, and there, along with his future father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Segal, was one of the first to move into the Jewish quarter. At that time he came to study writings of the Chabad school of Chassidus in depth. That year he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and remained there for several months. When he returned to Israel he married, and began to teach Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, and Chassidut to a group of students in Jerusalem.

[edit] 1983 to 1988: The Shuva Yisra'el Yeshivah

In 1983 he was asked by the well-known Chabad Rabbi and Jerusalem philanthropist Yosef Eliyahu Deutsch to serve as the head of the Shuva Yisra'el Yeshivah on Yo'el Street. Rabbi Ginsburgh gave almost daily classes there in a wide variety of subjects, from the exoteric to the esoteric parts of the Torah. Many of these classes were taped and form a lion's share of the huge 15,000 lecture archive of his classes.

[edit] 1988 to 2001: The Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah

Until the retreat of the IDF from the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2001), he served as the Rosh Yeshivah of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshivah in Shechem and as the head of a Kollel in the ancient Shalom al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho.

He lives with his family in Kfar Chabad, Israel and delivers classes throughout Israel, the United States and most recently France. He devotes most of his time and resources to writing and publishing original works on Kabbalah and Chassidut that discuss a range of topics, from commentaries on the Chumash to the relationship between Torah and science. These books are published by Gal Einai, his organization, whose name is taken from Psalms 119:18.

He has published over 70 volumes of original work in Hebrew and another 13 in English. He is widely recognized as a unique and innovative voice in Orthodox Jewry today, especially in the areas of the interface between Torah, Judaism, and science, and the political future of Israel.

Ginsburgh's students include Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira of Yitzhar.^[1]

[edit] Method and philosophy

Rabbi Ginsburgh's singular mastery of Kabbalah, the esoteric tradition in Judaism, and Chassidut, together with his talent as a number theorist have led to the creation of a highly inspired and inspiring form of Torah scholarship. Rabbi Ginsburgh teaches with a firm and adamant commitment to the tradition of the sages, while at the same time offering surprising new insights and understandings to even the most well-known topics and issues in Torah.

Aside from his wide use of mathematical relationships (gematria) as a source for inspiration, his trademark is his use of Kabbalistic and Chassidic models to organize varying and differing opinions in any topic that he scrutinizes. Following the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Arizal), he calls this integrative method: making a partsuf.

On the political front, Rabbi Ginsburgh is an advocate for the reinstitution of Jewish monarchy in the Land of Israel as an alternative to the current model of parliamentary democracy.

[edit] Controversy

In 1994, Ginsburgh received much publicity on account of an article "Baruch Hagever"^[2] in which he praised Baruch Goldstein who had massacred 29 Arab worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.^[3]^[4] Rabbi Ginsburgh wrote that it is possible to view Baruch Goldstein's act as following five Halachic principles, namely "sanctification of God's name", "saving life" (referring to testimonies that he had allegedly received regarding a planned Arab massacre of Jews^[5]), "revenge", "eradication of the seed of Amalek" and "war".^[6] Motti Inbari commented on this:

In his writings, Ginzburg 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, and are effectively considered subhuman. Accordingly, for example, the commandment "Thou shall not murder does not apply to the killing of a Gentile, since "You shall not murder" relates to the murder of a human, while for him the Gentiles do not constitute humans. Similarly, 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.^[7]

[edit] Works in English

The Hebrew Letters: Channels of Creative Consciousness (1995, Hardcover, 501pp.)
The Mystery of Marriage: How to Find Love and Happiness in Married Life (1999, Hardcover, 499pp.)
Awakening the Spark Within: Five Dynamics of Leadership That Can Change the World (2001, Hardcover, 200pp.)
Transforming Darkness Into Light: Kabbalah and Psychology (2002, Hardcover, 192pp.)
Rectifying the State of Israel: A Political Platform Based on Kabbalah (2002, Hardcover, 230pp.)
Living In Divine Space: Kabbalah and Meditation (2003, Hardcover, 288pp.)
Body, Mind, Soul: Kabbalah on Human Physiology, Disease and Healing (2004, Hardcover, 341pp.)
Consciousness & Choice: Finding Your Soulmate (2004, Hardcover, 283pp.)
The Art of Education: Integrating Ever-New Horizons (2005, Hardcover, 303pp.)
What You Need to Know About Kabbalah (2006, Hardcover, 190pp.)
Kabbalah and Meditation for the Nations (2007, Hardcover 200pp.)
Anatomy of the Soul (2008, Hardcover 144pp.)
A Sense of the Supernatural: Interpretation of Dreams and Paranormal Experiences (2008, Hardcover 207pp.)

[edit] References

^ Matthew Wagner, "Book advocating killing gentiles who endanger Jews is hard to come by", Jerusalem Post, 11 November 2009
^ The title of the article literally 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, p259).
^ Motti Inbari, Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? (State University of New York Press, 2009), p132.
^ Don Seeman, Violence, ethics, and divine honor in modern Jewish thought, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 73 (2005), 1015-1048.
^ Kuntres Baruch Hagever. p.11, footnote 3
^ Kuntres Baruch Hagever, Introduction, p.3
^ Inbari, p134.

[edit] External links

[JP2-0] Matthew Wagner, "Book advocating killing gentiles who endanger Jews is hard to come by", Jerusalem Post, 11 November 2009

[1] The title of the article literally 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, p259).

[2] Motti Inbari, Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? (State University of New York Press, 2009), p132.

[3] Don Seeman, Violence, ethics, and divine honor in modern Jewish thought, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 73 (2005), 1015-1048.

[4] Kuntres Baruch Hagever. p.11, footnote 3

[5] Kuntres Baruch Hagever, Introduction, p.3

[6] Inbari, p134.

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