Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan (Hebrew: אריה משה אליהו קפלן; October 23, 1934 – January 28, 1983)[1][2] was an American Orthodox rabbi, author, and translator best known for his Living Torah edition of the Torah and extensive Kabbalistic commentaries. He became well-known as a prolific writer and was lauded as an original thinker. His wide-ranging literary output, inclusive of introductory pamphlets on Jewish beliefs, and philosophy written at the request of NCSY are often regarded as significant factors in the growth of the baal teshuva movement.[3][4][5]
For the comic-book writer, see Arie Kaplan.
RabbiAryeh Kaplan
October 23, 1934
January 28, 1983 (aged 48)
Rabbi, Writer, Physicist
Rabbi, Writer, Physicist
Rabbi
Adas Israel, B'nai Sholom, Adath Israel, Ohav Shalom
Physicist
14 Shevat (next occurs on February 12, 2025)
Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Finkel, at the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem
Early life[edit]
Aryeh Kaplan was born in the Bronx, New York City, to Samuel[6] and Fannie[7] (née Lackman) Kaplan[8][9] of the Sefardi Recanati family from Salonika, Greece.[2] His mother died on December 31, 1947, when he was 13, and his two younger sisters, Sandra and Barbara, were sent to a foster home. Kaplan was expelled from public school after acting out, leading him to grow up as a "street kid" in the Bronx.[10]
Kaplan did not grow up religious, and was known as "Len". His family had only a slight connection to Jewish practice, but he was encouraged to say Kaddish for his mother. On his first day at the minyan, Henoch Rosenberg, a 14-year-old Klausenburger Hosid, realized that Len was out of place—he was not wearing tefillin or opening a siddur—and befriended him. Henoch Rosenberg and his siblings taught Kaplan Hebrew, and within a few days, Kaplan was learning Chumash.[10]
When he was 15, Kaplan enrolled at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, and at age 18 (from January 1953 until June 1953) was among "a small cadre of talmidim" selected to help Rabbi Simcha Wasserman open Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon, a new yeshiva in Los Angeles.[11]
After his time in Los Angeles, Kaplan had a few small jobs including teaching at a Hebrew school in the Bronx and at Beth Torah in Richmond, Virginia (February 1955).[12]
In January 1956, Kaplan went to Israel to study at the Mir in Jerusalem. That year, he received semikhah (ordination) from some of Israel's foremost poseks, including Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and Eliezer Yehuda Finkel.[13]
Secular career[edit]
Upon returning from Israel in August of 1956, Kaplan became a Hebrew teacher at Eliahu Academy in Louisville, Kentucky.[14] and beginning in the 1957 fall semester studied at University of Louisville, where he joined Sigma Pi Sigma, the Woodcock Society, and Phi Kappa Phi and eventually completed his bachelor's degree in physics on June 11, 1961.[15] While in Louisville, he met Tobie Goldstein, whom he married on June 13, 1961, and with whom he had nine children.[9][16]
Kaplan is mentioned in Igros Moshe: he asked of and received a response from Moshe Feinstein regarding the matter of permitting/enabling a youth minyan to which parents would drive children on Shabbos.[17]
Kaplan then moved to Hyattsville, Maryland, in 1961 to study physics at the University of Maryland and begin his first professional position as a research scientist at the National Bureau of Standards's Fluid Mechanics Division, where he was in charge of magnetohydrodynamics research. Kaplan earned his M.S. degree in physics from University of Maryland in 1963.[9] After graduating, Kaplan remained at University of Maryland as a National Science Foundation fellow[18] through the fall semester of 1964.[19][20][9]
Literary output[edit]
Kaplan produced works on topics as varied as prayer, Jewish marriage and meditation. His writing incorporated ideas from across the spectrum of Rabbinic literature, Kabbalah,[33] and Hasidut, all without ignoring science.[34][35][36] The concise and detail-orientated character of his works have been described as reflective of his physicist training.[37] In researching his books, Kaplan once remarked "I use my physics background to analyze and systematize data, very much as a physicist would deal with physical reality."[38]
From 1976 onward, Kaplan worked to translate Me'am Lo'ez (Torah Anthology), which was originally written in Ladino and in time edited for Hebrew (1967). Kaplan was described as working with his typewriter, "the Me’am Loez in Ladino on one side of him and the Hebrew version on the other side, and he'd look from one to the other and back again, comparing and contrasting and typing away furiously the entire time."[3] Shortly before his death, he completed The Living Torah, an original translation of the Five Books of Moses and the Haftarot.
Kaplan was described by Rabbi Pinchas Stolper, his original sponsor, as never fearing to speak his mind. "He saw harmony between science and Judaism, where many others saw otherwise. He put forward creative and original ideas and hypotheses, all the time anchoring them in classical works of rabbinic literature."
Legacy[edit]
Kaplan's Living Torah was posthumously followed
by a work written by others for the rest of the Bible, The Living Nach (published in 3 volumes in the 1990s).
His works continue to be read, and his extensive references are used as a resource.[40]
His works have been translated into Czech, French, Hungarian, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese, Russian, German and Spanish.
In 2021, NCSY republished Kaplan's works.[41]
The Aryeh Kaplan Academy day school in Louisville, Kentucky, is named in honor of Kaplan.[42]