Some haskamos, if you take the time to read them, contain all sorts of interesting, sometimes spicy, tidbits, perspectives, and ideas
W
hen most people open up a sefer, they usually skip the introduction. Introductions, though, often contain the best parts of a sefer — some even call the introduction “the soul of the book.” But even within the small group who read introductions, precious few actually read the haskamos, the approbations. Many earlier seforim featured approbations in lieu of a copyright — the haskamah would be a detailed letter from a Torah authority explaining when, if ever, other editions would be printed. Nowadays, haskamos serve a different function. Most are just general approbations about the work. Sometimes, when the phrase “Michtav Brachah” is triple underlined, it’s pretty clear it’s even not really a haskamah at all. Some haskamos, if you take the time to read them, contain all sorts of interesting, sometimes spicy, tidbits, perspectives, and ideas. With Shavuos around the corner, you might want to make sure you read the haskamos to see whether the Torah you’re about to learn is, in fact, accepted. Here’s my top-5 list of the types of haskamos you’ll find in seforim.
If you use the references on any shidduch resume, you can be sure that the people you call have glowing feedback on the person you’re calling about. “Oh, Chavie, mamash an amazing girl — she’s like a daughter — when she bakes challah, as she does every week, the tears from her davening mix into the dough; that’s what gives it that extra delicious zest.” For once, I want to call a reference and get a drop more honesty. “Oh Baruch? Yeah, he’s okay. Definitely makes it to Shacharis two — sometimes three — times a week. Good guy, sits in the back. But I’ll be frank, I dormed with him, and he’s a mess, I would NOT live with the guy — wait, what’s this call about?” So anytime I read a haskamah that is critical of a sefer, I look at it as a badge of honor for the confidence of the author.
Instead of stacking the deck with glowing praise, a dose of honesty and critical feedback shows you that the author is not afraid to highlight that some disagree. My favorite is Rav Michel Feinstein’s haskamah to Rav Yitzchak Adler’s sefer Iyun B’Lomdus. The sefer presents methodology for different types of chakiros in lomdus. In Rav Michel’s haskamah, boldly printed inside, he reminds the author that there is no need for using newfangled fancy Hebrew words to analyze Gemara. Save your “manganons” (Hebrew for mechanism) for Tel Aviv, just some good old-fashioned “cheftza/gavra” for me, thank you very much.
In a shiur at Shaalvim, Rav Hershel Schachter quoted Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, who said that even if a sefer wasn’t that noteworthy, one good idea in the entire sefer justified printing the entire work. When Rav Schachter finished the shiur, the rosh yeshivah of Shaalvim approached him and said with a wink, “your entire shiur was worth listening to just for that one anecdote!” And, indeed, sometimes the best part of a sefer is not what the author wrote, but rather the haskamah. Just like the suit makes the man, the haskamah can make the mechaber. Rav Shach’s reputation spread across the Torah world after people saw the glowing haskamah penned by the Brisker Rav to the Avi Ezri. The most famous examples of haskamos making the sefer are any seforim with approbations from the Vilna Gaon. There are only a handful of works with the imprimatur of the Vilna Gaon, but that may be all you need to justify owning the work. Legend has it that the Vilna Gaon gave one of his haskamos to someone who was staying in his house for Shabbos, so he felt bad saying no. (When I published my sefer, B’Rogez Rachem Tizkor, I secured my haskamos by inviting myself to the homes of rabbanim and then refused to leave until they gave me one. A week or so after moving in, I got haskamos from the entire extended family.)
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