04 Mar RABBI TEITZ: AN ONLINE PERSPECTIVE Remarks by R. Gil Student at Rabbi Elazar M. Teitz’s Sheloshim

You have heard
from others how
Rav Elazar Mayer
Teitz was a respected
community rabbi
and accomplished
educator who
impacted the lives of
thousands in his community. I am here to
talk about a completely different aspect of
his life. The Gemara in Bava Kamma ב“ע צב
discusses a number of popular sayings and
tries to find hints for them in the Torah. One
,כד הוינן זוטרי כגברי” :is sayings those of
when we were little, we were like adults,
כדרדקי דקשישא השתא, now that we are old,
we are like children.” This saying has
profound meaning on multiple levels and
particularly to anyone who has raised
precocious children and cared for elderly
parents. However, in today’s age, it takes on
new meaning. That saying perfectly
describes our interaction with technology.
When it comes to new technology, the
young take the lead and understand how to
use it. They are the adults. And those of us
with more “life experience,” struggle to get
things to work. If you need help changing a
setting on your phone, ask your child or
grandchild. As the Gemara says, when it
comes to technology, now that we are old,
we are like children who need help. And yet
some people defy that stereotype and break
away from the norm. Rabbi Teitz was one
such person when it comes to the early
Internet.
I’m not going to say that Rabbi Teitz was a
tech whiz because I’m pretty sure that is not
true. However, despite his age, he was active
in Internet Torah learning from almost the
beginning. He was a pioneering rabbi on the
Internet. Even before there was a World
Wide Web, there was Usenet, and on Usenet
there was a Jewish newsgroup called Soc.
Culture.Jewish.Moderated, or SCJM, where
people of all backgrounds asked questions
and discussed topics of Jewish interest.
Historians can correct me, but I believe that
SCJM was the first gathering place for
serious online Torah discussion. In the late
1990’s, Rabbi Teitz was active in SCJM
under a pseudonym, experimenting with
Jewish conversation online when it was all
very new. He was answering questions and
engaging in conversation with people from
all different walks of life, hearing from Jews
around the country and all over the world.
Through this experiment, Rabbi Teitz found
that people are thirsty for Torah and turning
to this new thing called the Internet to get
answers and, more importantly, find
friendship. He decided that he would be
there, but not as a rabbi answering questions.
You see, on the Internet, the world is flat.

There are no hierarchies. You can be the
greatest expert in the world and someone
with no background in the subject will feel
free to argue with you. You can have Yadin
Yadin from the Chief Rabbi of Israel and
someone with only a Hebrew school
education will disagree with you about what
the Torah says. One possible way to correct
this imbalance is to emphasize your pedigree
and your accomplishments. Many have tried
this and failed. Rabbi Teitz went in the
opposite direction. He became part of the
chevra, equal to others whose arguments —
their prooftexts and their logic — stand on
their own and not on his ample authority. On
SCJM, he used a pseudonym — perhaps
because he was experimenting or maybe
because he realized that using his name
would be counterproductive because it
would seem like he was asserting authority
as a rabbi. Authority is wasted on the
internet, even damaging because it directs
focus toward the individual and away from
the ideas.
In September 1999, Rabbi Teitz sent his
first contribution to the Avodah email list.
This email list, run for two and a half
decades by Rabbi Micha Berger, is a
gathering of individuals of varying
backgrounds — mostly men but not
exclusively, many yeshiva educated but
some with limited background — solely to
discuss Torah. Anonymity was not allowed,
so when I joined in November 1999 there
were questions about whether I was using
my real name. Members discuss every Torah
topic under the sun. Lomdus, Mussar,
practical halachah, dikduk — anything.
Keep in mind that at the time, the World
Wide Web was only a few years old. Most
people were new to email. At this time, there
were no blogs and no social media. The
Internet was still new and raw. Rabbi Teitz’s
impact on Avodah and its spinoff Areivim
would span 25 years and would influence
many people who went on to develop large
followings online and in the real world.
Looking back at his contributions over the
years, Rabbi Teitz seems to have focused on
tefillah and Hebrew language. His first
Avodah contribution was a comparison of
Hebrew and Aramaic grammar. He
continued discussing such issues but also
responded to other people’s interests. I
remember one occasion on which he
responded to the claim that Rabbi Akiva
Eiger holds that someone who says “Good
Shabbos” late Friday afternoon has
effectively accepted on himself the
restrictions of Shabbos. Rabbi Teitz pointed
out that R. Akiva Eiger did not say that but
rather said that someone who said “Good
Shabbos” on Shabbos may have fulfilled the
mitzvah of kiddush on a biblical level. There

are significant
p r a c t i c a l
implications to the
different claims and,
of course, Rabbi
Teitz was correct.
On another occasion,
he explained the
proper usage of the
terms “im yirtzeh

Hashem” and “be-
ezras Hashem.”

When stating the
intent to do
something, you add “im yirtze Hashem,”
indicating the awareness that man proposes,
but G-d disposes. When indicating the desire
for an outcome, you say “be-ezras Hashem,”
expressing the hope that He will bring about
the desired outcome. Such as: IY”H I am
going to the dentist tomorrow, BE”H he will
not find any cavities.
Rabbi Teitz wrote with precision and care.
When someone apologizes for typos caused
by spellcheck, really they are apologizing
for not bothering to reread their email or text
before sending it. Because who does that
nowadays? Who shows the care we used to
exercise when writing a letter in long hand
on a piece of paper? Rabbi Teitz’s emails
were meticulous because he read your email
carefully and then he responded like he was
writing a letter on paper, with forethought
and proofreading. Rabbi Teitz did not
contribute as frequently as others to the
conversation but when he wrote, you knew
he had read what others had written and then
submitted his own careful thoughts.
In his contributions, Rabbi Teitz shared
with us recollections of his own experiences.
For example, that in the 1950’s, Rav Elazar
Shach (by the way, another Elazar who was
called Lazer) and the entire Ponevez Yeshiva
would say Hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut. Or
that Rav Yechezkel Abramsky said that we
spill wine from our cups at the Pesach Seder
because we cannot fully rejoice when G-d’s
creatures, the Egyptians, drowned.
In the earlier days of the Internet, because
of my blog, I received many halachic
she’eilos via email. I generally directed
questioners to their local Orthodox rabbi but
sometimes it was clear that this was not an
option. In such cases, I would forward the
she’eilah to Rabbi Teitz and he would
answer the halachic question. Sometimes he
copied me on the reply and I was able to see
how he handled the often complex she’eilah.
One question that stays with me was from a
museum professional who acquired artistic
pictures and was unsure whether he is
permitted to hang them in his home. One of
the pictures depicts a Native American

transformation scene with a raven. Is this
picture avodah zarah, an idolatrous image
that we may not own? Rabbi Teitz replied
that it might be merely a depiction of an
item that was worshipped an a ritual, and not
the object of ritual worship itself.
Additionally, a gentile may have nullified
the picture when selling it, rendering it no
longer dedicated to that religion and
therefore permitted. Because of the two
doubts, Rabbi Teitz said, the painting is
subject to a s’fek sfeika and permitted. Such
argumentation is outside of my normal
capacity and I greatly appreciated being
witness to such a complex psak for a
complete stranger seeking halachic guidance
via email.
Unquestionably, the most remarkable
aspect of Rabbi Teitz’s writings is that he
did not draw on his own authority. He
treated everyone with equal respect and
expected nothing in return. Indeed, his
humility and simplicity caused a crisis on
the Avodah list. Someone who did not know
who Rabbi Teitz was kept calling him by his
first name, Elazar. It was embarrassing and
the moderator had to change the rule to call
everyone by an honorific rather than risk the
awkward situation in which a prominent
rabbi is called merely by his first name. This
was Rabbi Teitz’s way of leading in the
Internet era. He did not assert authority but
to the opposite, became part of the chevra
and led by example. His carefully thought
out contributions, his immense humility,
and his unfailing respect for others
demanded attention. I remember one
occasion in which he uncharacteristically
issued a mecha’ah, an objection to
someone’s behavior. One person responded
to another’s argument mockingly, including
mocking the writer’s name. While a third
party to this conversation, Rabbi Teitz
interjected forcefully that it is forbidden to
call someone by an unflattering nickname.
By standing up for someone else’s kavod, by
insisting on respectful conversation, Rabbi
Teitz immediately raised the tone and made
us all aware of the obligations we have
toward each other.

At the beginning of
Parashas Tetzaveh,
Hashem commands
ואתה הקרב :Moshe
אליך את אהרן אחיך
ואת בניו אתו מתוך
בני ישראל לכהנו לי
And take unto you your brother, Aharon,
and his sons with him, from among the
children of Israel, to serve Me [as kohanim].
Why does Hashem say “ישראל בני מתוך,
from among the children of Israel?” Isn’t
that obvious? The Midrash Rabbah (Shemos
Rabbah 37:1) sees great meaning in this
phrase which might explain a difficult
halachah. The halachah is that a convert to
Judaism, a full-fledged ger tzedek whom we
are obligated to love and respect, may not
serve in certain positions of communal
authority. Exactly how this is or is not
implemented today is not our concern right
now. Our concern is how we understand this
limitation. There are different ways to think
about this halachah but the midrash offers
perhaps another interesting path.
The midrash says that other nations, when
they need a leader, they search around the
world for the best they can get. When they

need a king, they
marry off the
princess to a
prince from a
n e i g h b o r i n g
kingdom or to a
great warrior.
When they need a
priest, they recruit
someone with
experience from
another country.
Not the Jews. We
promote from
within. When we
need a king, a
leader, a priest, a
minister we must
take from within
our people. We have confidence that our
communal leaders in their various capacities
will rise to the occasion. They will learn the
landscape and find the right skills that are
needed in every situation. We promote from
within and let people rise to the challenges
they face. This is just a thought but perhaps
the Torah does not allow converts to serve in
those roles of communal leadership to force
us to promote from within and prevent a

situation of finding an
outside leader and
converting him quickly.
We grow our leaders organically and
challenge them to rise to the need of the
hour. That is why the kohanim must be
specifically “from among the children of
Israel.”
Rabbi Teitz was just such a leader. While
firmly positioned in the traditional rabbinate,
he saw the Internet developing and created a
mode of leadership to fit this new medium.

Instead of leading with rabbinic authority,
he led with rabbinic example. Instead of
dictating Torah views, he explained and
argued for those views in the marketplace of
ideas. In this bold, new world, by lowering
himself he succeeded in raising others.
Rabbi Teitz rose to the challenge and became
the leader we needed, with 25 years of
success. May his memory be a blessing and
an example for all of us on how to rise to a
challenge in a new world and find the right
way to lead in uncharted territory.