Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, z’’l
As an Italian Jew and as a European Rabbi, I want to remember Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, who passed away on 15 November 2017, 26 Cheshvan 5778. He was 82 years old. For 25 years Rabbi Laras had been the Chief Rabbi of Milan, the city where I grew up and studied at University.
Rabbi Giuseppe Laras was a giant in Interfaith relations. He led the Milan Jewish community when the local Catholic archbishop was Carlo Maria Martini. Both sophisticated and erudite intellectuals, Laras and Martini have worked together, openly and behind the scene. They have written documents and statements that other Rabbis and bishops have used as a basis for historical steps, such as the pope’s visit at Rome’s synagogue.
Rabbi Laras was not an easy man. He took interfaith relations very seriously. He was never afraid of pointing out areas on which the Church had to work, in order to improve its relations with the Jewish people. He followed closely the Catholic world and did not hesitate to air his concerns. In 2010, Rabbi Laras boycotted the papal visit to the Rome synagogue, because the then pope, Benedict XVI had praised his predecessor Pius XII, who during the WWII was not exactly adamant in his opposition to antisemitic policies.
The other field of expertise of Rabbi Giuseppe Laras was Jewish Philosophy. Especially Medieval Jewish Philosophy. He had published countless books and scholarly articles on Rambam, Ramchal, Nachmanides and the like. Rabbi Laras’s favourite author was, of course, Rambam, Moses Maimonides, whose work he had begun researching as a sort of pioneer in Italy when he was a Rabbinical student.
At the time such a passion for Philosophy was suspicious for more senior Rabbis. A philosopher is used to ask questions, such as: Why we do this? How can be sure that God exists? What is the nature of God? Asking this sort of questions at the wrong time carries the risk of not finding the proper answer. And you may find yourself without reasons to keep the mitzvot and/or to lead a halachic lifestyle. Philosophy is not always popular in Orthodox Jewry. Nonetheless, Rabbi Laras continued his studies in Philosophy, and after the ordination, he took time to learn with great scholars such as Neshama Leibowitz and Leon Ashkenazi, “Manitou”.
In the 90s, after having authored several scholarly publications, in Italy, France and Israel, Rabbi Laras was appointed lecturer in History of Jewish Philosophy at the newly established Chair, in Milan University, in the Philosophy Department. That building was next to our own, History’s (and it was far better heated!) There, Rabbi Laras had taught Jewish Philosophy, to a growing number of students, Jews and not Jews, and from every background.
Every student was fascinated by Rabbi Laras’s reputation and was proud to be taught by that Rabbi, who was so a friend of the bishop as they have appeared together on TV. On my way to the History Department, sometimes, I used to bump into Rabbi Laras. A tall, imposing figure, wearing a black coat, with his long American cigarette between the finger, and a Borsalino hat on his head. Clearly at home, among academics!
Those years I, together with other crazy individuals, was laying the foundation for the first Reform synagogue in Italy. I was, as you can imagine, somehow fearful of being reproached by him. Even if clean shaved and without showing off his tzitzit, yet, he was an Orthodox Rabbi and I was in his eyes a sort of troublemaker. I did not know that Rabbi Laras himself had expressed, behind closed doors, his support for what was known at the time in Italy as the “British model”. Setting up different interdenominational, or cross-denominational, Jewish institutions. Welfare institutions, Zionist institutions, even, in small cities, youth movements, open to Jews of all denominations, Reform and Orthodox alike. All represented by a “Jewish Parliament” as the Board of the Deputees, in charge of relation with the State.
Among his colleagues, Rabbi Laras did not win the majority in such a debate, and the Orthodox Rabbis in Italy have refused to deal with us ever since. But it was a great vision. To create Jewish institutions open to every Jew, especially to the secular Jew, while keeping theological differences only inside the synagogues, as if they were different minhagim, customs. Remarkably, a whole section of Rabbi Laras’ will, a letter to the Italian Jews, published the day after his death, is devoted to the need of such an “institutional revolution” in Italian Jewry.
There is a thread that binds together the scholar of Medieval Philosophy, the Orthodox Rabbi who wants to make room for the secular, and the Interfaith intellectual authority. And this thread is the faith in human reason.
Rabbi Giuseppe Laras deeply believed and has taught with his example and through his intellectual journey, that human nature (as a Medieval Philosopher would have said) is inherently good. And that evil, is an accident, an obstacle that can be overcome with more dialogue between human beings, more reflection of the foundations of our faiths, more study of our traditions.
Does it look cheesy? Does it seem banal, coming from a Rabbi, a spiritual person? Well, think that that Rabbi, when he was 8 years old, saw his mother disappearing inside a police station, in German-occupied Italy. The Nazis have ordered her to present to the police station, with small baggage and together with her son. While he and his Mum were walking toward the police station, the policeman who was holding him let him go all of a sudden. It was obviously planned. His Mum had bribed the Fascist police.
Rabbi Laras survived the Holocaust in this way while losing his Mother, who was killed in Ravensbruck. Many people, whose life had been marked by this kind of tragedy, develop resentment or a desire for revenge. They remain stuck in the circle of hate and despair.
Others and Rabbi Laras was among them, are strong enough not to lose faith the God and in humanity. They remain certain that the goodwill prevail and that evil is just an imperfection in God’s creation, an imperfection that we human beings have the duty to amend and correct.
For a strange coincidence, another great soul has left Milan last week. Sheikh Abdel Al Walid Pallavicini, an Imam, an expert in Islamic Law and an authority in Italian Islam. Sheikh Pallavicini used to live next door to Rabbi Laras. And like Laras, Pallavicini also was a man involved in Interfaith activities. They belonged to the same generation (Pallavicini was slightly older, 91) They have worked together, as Pallavicini was first and foremost an academic, worldwide known authority in Islamic mystic literature. For his piety and kindness, Pallavicini was respected by everyone he met. The Muslim Italian community mourns his departure with deep sadness.
I don’t know where Rabbi Laras is now. As a Jew, I don’t have a clear opinion regarding the afterlife. But I like to imagine that somewhere there is a conversation going on between Laras and Pallavicini. Between the Rabbi who grew up as an orphan because of the Holocaust, and the descendant of one of a noble Italian family who converted to Islam as a teenager while in Egypt. Two equally tall, imposing, yet soft-spoken men. Perhaps they are talking about Jewish Philosophy, or Islamic theology, in the way it used to happen in Medieval Spain, among Jews and Muslims cultivated men (an elite, I know! But it happened).
Perhaps, as respected scholars always do, they are helping each other with the references, the footnotes and the sources. Or maybe they are just talking about Philosophy with that Jewish doctor who wears the turban and was sitting on a comfortable sofa waiting for them. You know: Maimonides.
May the memory of Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, Yosef ben Shmuel, become a blessing and let us say Amen.
Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue, November 2017