Law, order, justice -- and an open mind: Shofetim 5784

Law and order are the hallmarks of a functioning democratic society. The idea that someone who has suffered damage or hurt can receive fair redress through an equitable system of established justice is central to the concept of a free society that grants individual rights to its citizens. But dictatorships also provide law and order for those who live under their rule—and perhaps rather too much of it. It is in this contrast that we find an eternal contest between an ordered and properly functioning society and respect for an individual’s inherent freedoms and rights. 

Anarchy and dictatorial rule are literally poles apart. The Torah addresses this issue while allowing for a great deal of human and national choice in the matter. The general tenor of Jewish tradition is to be wary of big and powerful government. Avot teaches us not to make ourselves known to government, adding that the nature of government is to demand, albeit in a seemingly benign manner, much from the individual. Thus government appears friendly and helpful when it is for its own benefit to do so—but it may be unavailable to help the individual who is hard pressed and in need of outside help. Even so, Pirkei Avot also stresses the necessity for government and the requirement to pray for its success and welfare, for otherwise civilized life could not exist. As in all matters of human existence, the Torah here demands from us a good sense of proportion, wisdom and sophistication in dealing with government and society. The Torah does not lay down absolute rules, but rather establishes general parameters for righteous judicial systems and equitable standards of law enforcement. 

The Torah is clear in its condemnation of corruption and bias, especially in judicial and legal matters. The poor and the wealthy, the scholar and the unlettered, the well-connected and the unknown—all are to be equal before the eyes of judges and the law. The Torah defines true justice as being the pursuit of righteousness and fairness by just means. No unjust means can be condoned, even in the pursuit of apparently righteous causes. 

The Torah abhors every form of corruption in all forms, basing its attitude on recognition that corruption is a natural state of being for humans. We are all somehow corrupted by our past experiences and our pre-set worldviews. It is interesting to note that, for example, the outcome of many cases brought before the United States Supreme Court is almost always predictable, given that the individual justices reflect strongly held views held before they hear an appeal. They are certainly not corrupt in the criminal sense of the word, but in the world of the Torah they are certainly not free from the taint of corruption. The Torah demands an open mind, a listening ear, flexibility of thought and an understanding of human nature and of the ways of the world from those who would serve as judges of other humans. These qualities are not found in abundance, but they are to be searched for and respected in Jewish life and law. True and absolute justice may be unattainable in this world, but the concept of true justice must always be present in all matters of Jewish law and life. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Exclusiveness and Tolerance, by Jacob Katz (Book of the Month, Elul 5784)

 Jacob Katz, born in 1904 in Magyargencs, Hungary, was an acclaimed Jewish historian and educator. He was also something of an innovator, bringing sociological methods into play in his study of Jewish communities, with special attention to changes in halachah and Orthodoxy. In his youth he pursued both religious and secular studies, receiving rabbinic ordination and a doctorate in social history. Awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1980l he died in Israel in 1998.

Published in 1959, Exclusiveness and Tolerance is a scholarly account of one of the most difficult and persistent issues faced by Jews in the diaspora: how to live as Jews in a non-Jewish world.

Subtitled ‘Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval & Modern Times’, this work is divided into three sections. The first sets out the author’s methodology and terms of reference. The second reviews the 10^th to 14^th centuries and the third spans the 16^th to 18^th centuries. In an even-handed approach, Katz examines both Jewish and Christian sources and materials.

You can find this book here in Beit Knesset Hanassi, in the Marvin N. Hirschhorn collection.

Comfort from our Calendar: Re'eh 5784

In the middle of Moshe’s lengthy oration to the Jewish people about their history and destiny, he surprises us by inserting a review of the year’s calendar holidays. The calendar has always been central to Jewish life and its survival. Indeed, during the dark regime of Stalin, Soviet Jewry was forbidden from owning or possessing a Jewish calendar. 

The depth of Soviet Jewry’s loyalty to its inner faith is evidenced by the fact that, somehow, millions of Soviet Jews still knew when the Jewish holidays would occur. For the calendar is the rhythm of our lives. It evokes memory, hope and a feeling for the timelessness of Jewish life and its traditions. As such, the mere existence of the Jewish calendar posed a threat to the cruel and atheistic Communist regime that ruled in its time over a large part of humankind. In reality, for the Jewish people the calendar does not only mark the passage of time gone by: it also focuses on time that is yet to come—on the future—which always offers brighter prospects than they experienced in the past. 

One of my younger grandchildren proudly told me that he had calculated how many years in the future a certain anomaly on the Jewish calendar regarding the date of erev Pesach would occur. I bless him that he lives to see it—but he is already certainly enthusiastic about the prospect and looks forward to its happening. 

By supplying us with a vision of the future, our calendar gives us a chance to feel that we are to some extent the masters of our own fate and that we can, by our own efforts, have some influence in determining our destiny. 

The Jewish calendar marks the progression from one holy day to the next. We are always on the way to celebrate and commemorate our obligations to serve our Creator. Though numerous sad days have been introduced into our calendar since the time of Moshe, the Jewish calendar still remains upbeat, exuding spirit and joy, family and hospitality, compassion and appreciation of life and its bounties. 

The parsha of Re’eh almost always falls in Elul, the month that leads us into the glorious days of Tishrei, to our days of awe and compassion and to Succot with its celebration of Torah and its commandments. The review of the Jewish year, which occupies a great deal of this week’s parsha, is therefore most fitting, for it prepares us not only for the month ahead but for the coming year generally. Though our future remains unknowable, we can nevertheless fee; secure, comforted by the centuries-long consistency of our calendar. Since our calendar reminds us daily of our uniqueness as a people and of the eternity of our Torah and our faith, this week’s review fits well into Moshe’s overall message. It also reminds us the passage of time is itself one of life’s gifts that is bestowed upon us by our Creator.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein 

Manna, midrash and mishnah

[Jeremy Phillips writes] Here's the devar Torah I gave yesterday at se'udah shelishit for parashat Eikev.

Shabbat shalom to all and sundry! I hope you’re enjoying your se’udah shelishit. We have all manner of delicacies here: salmon, herring, rogalech—but there’s one thing missing from the table that we find in today’s parashah: it’s the mon.

Mon, the manna from Heaven, occupies a prominent place in the lives of the dor hamidbar. It makes its debut in Parashat Beshalach, where it gets its name from the fact that our ancestors hadn’t a clue what it was. Mon is really a play on words: it’s an Aramaic homonym: it can mean “what” and it can also mean “a food ration”.  It’s a similar play on words to something we increasingly rely on in our joined up 21^st century lives: the WhatsApp, or as some people call it, the WhatsUp.

So mon gets a plug in this week’s leining, at Devarim 8:3:

וַיְעַנְּךָ, וַיַּרְעִבֶךָ, וַיַּאֲכִלְךָ אֶת-הַמָּן אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יָדַעְתָּ, וְלֹא יָדְעוּן אֲבֹתֶיךָ:  לְמַעַן הוֹדִיעֲךָ, כִּי לֹא עַל-הַלֶּחֶם לְבַדּוֹ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם--כִּי עַל-כָּל-מוֹצָא פִי-יְהוָה, יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם

And He, i.e. God, afflicted you, and made you hungry, and fed you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers knew, so that He will make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that emanates from the mouth of the Lord does man live.

There are many midrashim associated with the mon. One is that it tasted like whatever you wanted it to taste like. This makes it a sort of celestial opposite to the ubiquitous Pot Noodle. The Pot Noodle comes in many different flavours but they all seem to basically taste the same, the mon was the same substance for everyone, but its taste was always different in their mouths.

Another popular midrash has the mon falling at the doorstep, or should that be the tent-flap, of the totally righteous, and then falling proportionately further away, depending on how wicked you were. It’s a lovely concept, but can we take it literally? If it was factually true, I doubt that Korach’s credibility with his followers would have stood so high, what with everyone watching him trudge right to the edge of the camp every morning to fetch his distant breakfast. Be that as it may, we can’t ask a kashya on a midrash, so we should let the matter drop.

Mon also has an interesting place in the Torah sheb’al peh, since it has a cameo role in Pirkei Avot, at Avot 5:8 when it is listed as one of the 10 (or is it 13, or 14) things created on erev Shabbat bein hashemoshot.

So what’s the big deal with mon being created on erev Shabbat? According to Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski (in his Visions of the Fathers) there’s a common thread that joins all the items that God created a split second before Shabbat: they would all have been unnecessary had Adam HaRishon not sinned. But because he brought sin into the world and internalized it, God had to create a panoply of things that would enable us to face a life in a world in which sin existed. So to purify us and get us ready to receive the Torah and inherit Eretz Yisrael, we now had to go down to Mitzrayim, then we had to be brought out again, given the Aseret Hadibrot, taught to read and write and to be able to build a Temple with a mizbe’ach on which we could bring offerings to serve as a kaparah for whatever we had been up to. So …

…If Adam HaRishon had not sinned, we would never have left Gan Eden in the first place. We would never have needed the rainbow, Miriam’s well, the mouth of Bilaam’s donkey or any of the other items created bein Hashemashot. This only leaves one outstanding issue: why did God leave it till the last minute before making these things?

Here again we have an answer, and it lies in the power of teshuvah—something that, according to the Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, was created even before God made the world. Teshuvah has its own creative force. If you commit a sin, you bring evil into the world and this is bad news—for you, and for everyone else. But if you do teshuvah, your sins are forgiven and, once you achieve kaparah, the stain, the blemish of your averah is laundered away. Better still, if you do teshuvah me’ahavah, out of love of God rather than fear of Him and the retribution be brings, your averot are turned retrospectively into mitzvot.  Alas, Adam HaRishon hadn’t learned this and hadn’t worked it out for himself. If he had repented before Shabbat, his sin would have been wiped out, the world would be back to its pre-sinful state, we would all be living a life of simple innocence before God and we wouldn’t even be wearing figleaves. So God held out till the last minute before making his final list of creations—just in case Adam HaRishon made it in time. Anyway, that’s how and why God created mon just before Shabbat came in, and many fine Jewish families all round the world emulate God by leaving everything till the very last moment before Shabbat comes in.

It's the small things that count: Eikev 5784

Eikev—the word itself and the parsha generally—stresses the cause-and-effect equation that governs not just Jewish history but the history of all human civilization. Both the happy events in our lives and the sad ones are conditioned on previous human attitudes and actions. Life eventually teaches us that there is no free lunch. The rabbis stated it succinctly in Avot: “According to the effort (or hardship), so too will be the reward.” 

There really are no shortcuts in life. All attempts to tailor eternal Jewish practices and values to fit current fads and societal norms have ended in abysmal failure. The path of Jewish history is littered with the remains of people and movements who looked to reform Judaism and improve it—but instead only succeeded in making it irrelevant to their followers. 

The Torah emphasizes that Moshe raised the people up so that they would be closer to Heaven; he did not degrade Heaven by dragging it down to the level of the people. The tragedy of much of American Jewry and of many secular Jews today is not that Judaism is too hard. Rather, it was rendered too easy, too convenient—and thus void of any meaning in their everyday existence. As Moshe generally does in the book of Devarim, so too in this week’s parsha does he emphasize the difficult times that the people endured in their forty-year sojourn in the desert of Sinai. 

Moshe does not promise his people a rose garden in the Middle East when they enter the Land of Israel and conquer it. He warns them instead of the consequences of abandoning God and Torah. God is exacting: He does not tolerate the easy path that leads to spiritual weakness and eventual physical destruction. Rashi comments in our parsha that this message is particularly true regarding the “small” things in life that one easily crushes under one’s ekev (“heel”). It is the small things that truly characterize our personality in our relationships with others and with our Creator as well. 

I have noticed a trend in contemporary society that, when eulogies are delivered, they concentrate on the small things in life—stories, anecdotes, memories and personal relationships—rather than on the deceased’s public or commercial achievements, no matter how impressive they might have been. It is the small things in life that engender within us likes and dislikes, feelings of affection and love, emotions of annoyance and frustration. Our Torah too is comprised of myriad details and minutiae. The God of the vast universe reveals Himself to us, so to speak, in the atom and the tiny mite. For upon reflection and analysis there are really no small things in life. 

Everything that we say and do bears consequences for our personal and national future. It is this sense of almost cosmic influence, which every individual exercises in their everyday life, that lies at the heart of Torah and Judaism. We build the world through our own lives’ seemingly mundane behavior. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Community Beit Midrash: the OU comes to Hanassi

We are delighted to announce that, in the wake of the OU's having to relocate many of its activities on account of ongoing major building projects in Jerusalem, a new program has been launched. Community Beit Midrash in Rechavia is a full morning English-language learning program, hosted here at Beit Knesset Hanassi. You can check out all the details below.

We welcome this program and wish it every success. Do come along and give it your support!

Being the first to greet others

[Jeremy Phillips writes] I was asked to prepare a devar Torah for se'udah shelishit yesterday in the event that there was some time to fill after the sponsors spoke. As it turned out, there was no spare time -- but it seemed a shame to let the devar Torah go to waste so I have posted it here: 

At Avot 4:20, Rabbi Matya ben Charash opens his teaching with the following short piece of advice: 

הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם (“Be first to greet everyone else”). 

This is a really problematic mishnah and I’ll explain why.

Almost all of the middot in Pirkei Avot can be done by everyone without any problem, because no-one’s good middot interfere with anyone else’s. For example, we can all judge other people favourably. We can all open our houses to the poor. We can all say a little and do a lot, and so on. If I do it, you can do it too. In fact, the more the merrier.

But this is not so with being the first to greet someone else. This mishnah is what in game theory we call a zero-sum game. If I greet someone first, they can’t greet me first. My greeting trumps theirs, as it were. If I win, they lose. But if I’m busy checking my smartphone and I don’t see them creep up on me and say hello, it’s they who win and I who lose.

Acknowledgement of this middah is the subject of a practical outcome, I discovered back in the 1980s when I joined the Bridge Lane Beth Hamedrash in NW London’s Jewish epicentre of Golders Green. The shul was founded after WW2 largely by a core of German Jews whose families hailed from Frankfurt, Munich and Altona, and I learned much from them about the parameters of derech eretz. Some of their customs were quite quaint. For example, I don’t think that anywhere in chazal is it taught that, when you greet a lady, you should first doff your hat.

Anyway, one of the first things I discovered about them was that, if I greeted them with the words “Good Shabbes”, they would infallibly reply “Good Shabbes, good Shabbes”. I was really puzzled by this behaviour. Since Hillel at Avot 2:6 teaches that someone who is timid will never make a good student, I took what to me seemed the incomparably bold step of asking a crusty old yekke why, when I greeted him with the words “Good Shabbes”, he and his friends would always answer me twice. He pointed to the words of R; Matya ben Charash in this mishnah. I had won by greeting him first with the words “Shabbat shalom”. His kenas, his punishment as it were, was to acknowledge his failing by greeting me twice.

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There is of course far more to this mishnah than meets the eye, and our commentators have had a field day with it. Some commentaries suggest that the thrust of this teaching lies in its tail—that you have to greet everybody, whoever they are. In other words, the duty to greet applies to all people and should therefore apply even to a non-Jew (commentary ascribed to Rashi), an idolator (Bartenura) or an enemy (R’ Shmuel di Ozeda, Midrash Shmuel). Rabbenu Yonah adds his mysterious pennyworth to the debate when he says that these words are mussar—but he inconveniently does not spell out what that mussar is, unlike R’ Shmuel di Ozeda. He agrees that this is a mussar teaching, and pointedly observes that it’s not enough to deign to return someone else’s greeting if that person should greet him first: you have to be first to pounce.

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According to Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau (Yachel Yisrael) Rabbi Matya is actually reminding us that greeting another human being should not be a mere mechanical act or conventional social reflex. As he, when a Jew greets another person, the word used is שָׁלוֹם (shalom, peace”). To offer another person peace is to confer a blessing. By being first to greet others we express our peaceful intent—with one major caveat. There is no magic power in the word shalom: as important as it is for us to choose the right words when we greet others, it is equally important for us to greet them with a friendly disposition (Shammai at Avot 1:15). Growling “shalom” while you scowl at them is unlikely to produce the requisite effect. So I suggest we all practise our best smiles whenever we greet each other.