Better Let Rabbi Meir Mazuz Say It [Updated]

I've been meaning to write a post like this for a long time.

From Dr. Marc Shapiro's blog:
"R. Mazuz is a very interesting personality. To begin with, he had a close connection to Habad for many decades, having taught in a Habad school in Tunis in the 1960’s. Yet when he saw the Messianic fever and other problems in Habad, he publicly condemned what was going on and wrote a long letter detailing his objections.[12] In addition, he was very vocal in support of the Gaza settlers.[13]
He is also the only one of our gedolim who is an expert in arcane areas such as grammar,[14] Masorah, and medieval Hebrew poetry.
In fact, since he is an expert in this latter field, I knew that I could ask him a question about which most other gedolim would probably have no clue what I was talking about. One doesn’t need to have read Steve Greenberg’s book, or have listened to some of the gay advocates speaking around the time of the recent Jerusalem parade, to know that man-boy love is a theme in a number of medieval Hebrew poems.[15]
I raised this issue with R. Mazuz, and was pretty sure that he would answer the way he did:

חס וחלילה להאמין שחכמי ספרד כתבו שירים מענין משכב זכור. וראה בסוף ס' תחכמוני שהביא עשרה שירים לקלל ולארר נבל אחד שכתב "לו שר בנו עמרם פני דודי" וכו'. צבי חן הוא כינוי לעלם יפה ואין בו כל דופי. חוקרי זמננו מהרהורי לבם ותעתועי רוחם כותבים מה שכותבים

(The reference to the Tahkemoni can be found in the Warsaw, 1899 edition, ed. Kaminka, pp. 430ff.)

R. Mazuz is also the final halakhic authority for the Tunisian community. With the death of R. Shalom Messas, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, I think that after R. Ovadiah, R. Mordechai Eliyahu and R. Shlomo Amar, R. Mazuz is the most important of the Sephardic rabbis in Israel. He is also very close to R. Ovadiah, who has had a long attachment to Kise Rahamim. The yeshiva is unique in that it focuses on the old Tunisian approach to the study of Talmud (the Tunisian iyyun), and from very young the students are taught to master the art of Hebrew writing [16] and to acquire wide-ranging knowledge of Tanach. We are clearly dealing with an unusual man and an unusal yeshiva.
Returning again to the Chavel edition of the Ramban, I should mention that R. Mazuz is pretty harsh in his evaluation of it, and he lists a number of errors.[17]
When I first starting looking into the Thirteen Principles, I wondered how, in the Eighth Principle, Maimonides could insist on complete Mosaic authorship, and assert that denial of this equals heresy. After all, there is a view mentioned in the Talmud, and quoted by Rashi on chumash, that the last eight verses were written by Joshua. And yet, people were saying that since kelal Yisrael accepted the Ikkarim, this view must now be regarded as kefirah. I asked R. Mazuz about this and he replied:
ולענין שמנה פסוקים אחרונים ודאי האומר שכתבן יהושע אינו נחשב אפיקורוס ח"ו

I was also curious to know what he would say about study of the Ralbag’s Milhamot ha-Shem, which differs with Maimonides’ principles when it comes to creation ex nihilo and God’s knowledge of particulars.[18] He wrote to me as follows:

ודברי רלב"ג במלחמות ה' ידועים. וזו היתה צרת הפילוסופיא היונית שלכדה ברשתה רבים וכן שלמים (כמו שלכד יצה"ר דע"ז בזמנו את מנשה בן חזקיה וחבירו ואפ"ה למדים מהם הלכה למעשה ע' סנהדרין דף קב ע"ב). בס' מלחמות ה' אסור ללמוד רק מי שמילא כריסו ש"ס ופוסקים וצריך לעיין בו משהו לפי שעה. וכבר כינוהו הרב אברבנאל והיעב”ץ "מלחמותיו עם ה'" (ח"ו). אבל בפירושו על התנ"ך מותר ללמוד ויש בהם דברים נפלאים וחכמה עמוקה, אם כי לפעמים "נטה מדרך היושר. וה' הטוב יכפר בעדו

[End of quote from Dr. Shapiro's post.]

Now I'm wondering out loud:

Why does Dr. Shapiro consult Rabbi Mazuz? Obviously, he seeks to get a scholarly opinon on certain matters of Jewish scholarship.

But then, why does Dr. Shapiro pump him up by giving him the title of "gadol" and why ask him various hot-button hashkafa questions like who is or isn't a kofer and what his position is vis-a-vis the Ralbag's Milchamos Hashem? It would seem that Dr. Shapiro is looking for authoritative religious validation about certain controversial hashkafic positions. (I would conjecture that he was taken by surprise by Rabbi Mazuz's strong language against the Ralbag, comparable to the language by the Ashkenazi gedolim against Slifkin's books.)

But does Dr. Shapiro accept Rabbi Mazuz as a religious authority on these hashkafa issues?

I wouldn't bet on it. Dr Shapiro writes that he was only "curious to know what he would say". Sounds pretty non-committal.

This means he probably won't consider retracting his book on Jewish theology --which gives implicit Orthodox validity to the controversial positions of the Ralbag and others,-- just because this gadol says its forbidden like avodah zara. Dr. Shapiro is too modern to cave-in to any gadol's opinion.

[UPDATED: The Orthodox Freelancer seems to think I view Dr. Shapiro's book primarily as a religious work with a religious message and not a scholarly one. I don't know how he got that idea from the sentence above. I wrote that the theological validity he conveys through the book is only implicit and that's what I meant. This implicit validity he imparts to some heretical opinions cited in his book is powerful enough to warrant a retraction of the book or serious revision. The Orthodox Freelancer was kind enough to provide a vital quote that conveys this implication quite well. Dr Shapiro writes:

"While it is true that some of these individuals are only minor figures, and thus probably not an acceptable source for those seeking to create a new Orthodox theology, they are still significant from a historical standpoint, that is, when one seeks to document how traditional figures did not feel bound by the Thirteen Principles."

The clear implication is that the MAJOR firgures cited in this book (like the Ralbag) are in fact an acceptable source for those seeking to create a new Orthodox theology!]

But if Dr. Shapiro's own favorite gadol puts down "חוקרים" left and right, and condemns various works of rishonim as outside the pale, we need to ask ourselves the question:

What religious validity is left in Dr. Shapiro's life work?

Answer: Don't look to Dr. Shapiro's works for religious validation for left-wing hashkafos. He's clearly a "חוקר" who is marching to the beat of his own drum.

Follow him at your own risk.