A weakness of Torah and Talmud

Traditional rabbinic leadership in Europe was unable to adjust to the changing circumstances the Jewish people faced. The socio-economic changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment required of the rabbinate a better understanding of what was happening to the Jewish people and how traditional teachings needed to accommodate those changes. 

The problem with the rabbinate was not only that they didn't understand the politics of their host countries and of the international arena in which that politics had begun to play out; the problem with the rabbinate was that they didn't even comprehend their own rabbinic teachings well enough to know how those teachings needed to adjust to the changing circumstances in which traditional Jewish people were beginning to find themselves. 

It was a weakness of Torah and Talmud that caused the Jewish catastrophe in the 20th century. The rabbinic failure to comprehend the forces of modernity and to accommodate to them through a proper reading of Torah and Talmud was the great, tragic drama of modern day Jewish life. The problem with the European rabbinate was that they were Europeans.