Thursday, April 30, 2015

A Jewish Response to Nepal

In a message I sent to our Beit Midrash email list this week, I asked people to contribute to our UJA's Emergency Relief Fund for humanitarian aid, to be administered via the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

As I wrote the request, I remembered a brief exchange I had with a congregant about a dozen years ago. In the wake of another natural disaster, I had encouraged people to contribute to an aid campaign. My congregant said to me, "We need to use our money to help our own community; the outside world isn't going to help us, when we need it." He was factually correct; I don't imagine that the Nepalese will build bomb shelters in Israel (although Israeli relations with Nepal aren't bad), or support Jewish schools in Toronto.

I was also reminded of another congregant, who noted to me that the Torah's commandment to love others applies specifically to your fellow Jew (Vayikra 19:18) or to a non-Jew who comes to Judaism (ibid. 19:33). He, too, was correct.

I feel that both of my interlocutors were missing a key point, though.

It is true that the nations of the world will likely not come to view us as family, even when Israeli aid arrives in the form of a mission more than double the size of any other. And it is true that the Torah limits love - the state in which we identify with others, seeing them as part of ourselves, loving them "as ourselves" - specifically to those with whom we share the most intimate values and beliefs. [See, for example, Rambam to Avot 1:6, who specifies sharing of values as the highest form of kinship.] Nonetheless, our tolerance for suffering shouldn't depend on the identity of the sufferer. How can our pure soul not writhe in pain when it witnesses others in agony? How can it not be personally offended by the existence of unremedied suffering?

This is why we act on behalf of those who will not reciprocate and who are not "ours". As I once heard Rabbi Baruch Weintraub note, the Talmud (Bava Metzia 33a) writes that when we are sensitive to the pain of others, when we are personally offended by the suffering of others, then we are obligated to act.

Our sages taught us this lesson of action in numerous ways. They criticized Noach for failing to reach out sufficiently to his neighbours, and praised Avraham for attempting to influence the fate of his. (Bereishit Rabbah 30:9-10, although one could also read this source as a function of love for G-d) Rambam wrote that we dare not fall into cruelty; we aspire to the sensitivity displayed by G-d, regarding whom King David wrote, "His mercy is upon all of His creations." (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avadim 9:8 and Hilchot Melachim 10:12) Our Sages wanted us to understand that even when we don't share a common identity with others, we do share a common humanity with them.

I have made a contribution; I hope that the readers of this blog will be able to do so as well.

15 comments:

  1. So, how do you understand לא תחנם?

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  2. R' Tzvi-
    As Rambam does: ואסור לרחם עליו. I understand רחמים as a function of אהבה; this is seen in the way that the Targumim render אהבה as רחמים (see Onkelos to Bereishit 22:2 and 25:28, for example). As I wrote in the post, one may not see them as like-minded, intimately sharing our values/ideals; they don't. It cannot be כמוך, since they are not כמוך.
    There is a difficulty, in that Rambam writes אסור לרחם עליו, but he also invokes ורחמיו על כל מעשיו as a model for our behaviour. Rav Aharon Soloveichik solved the problem in עוד ישראל יוסף בני חי by limiting ורחמיו על כל מעשיו to an עכו"מ who accepts the 7 mitzvos, but it's a challenging read. I wonder if there are not two forms of רחמים.

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    1. That's an interesting and creative mehalach, and I like it. But that notwithstanding, it seems clear in Shulchan Aruch and Poskim that unless there is a benefit to the giver, or a darkei shalom concern, then a donation would be prohibited.
      I suppose you can argue that the imitatio Dei benefit of Rachamim is a benefit to the giver, but if so why do we ever need the darkei shalom heter?

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    2. Thanks, but I'm not sure you are correct. If so, what is the justification for the Rambam's language in Hilchos Melachim?
      As far as why we need the darkei shalom "heter", I don't think it's a heter; it's an imperative, which is stronger than ורחמיו על כל מעשיו.

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    3. I think the imperative argument would require the chesed even if there's no shalom concern. That doesn't seem to be the view of the SA. I am away from my Seforim and working from memory, so may be remembering incorrectly.
      My primary point is that there may be a difference between rachamim and donations. Sensitivity and reaching out may be viewed differently than financial assistance. As noted below in my reply to Reb Micha, RAL obviously differed.

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  3. And what about לא מורידין ולא מעלין?

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    1. I'm not sure, but the problem goes back to the Rambam himself, in squaring his language in Hilchos Melachim 10:12 with his language in Hilchos Edus 11:10. I believe there are answers (and see footnote 157 here), but I'm not confident enough to suggest them yet.

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  4. Yeshivat Har Etzion ("Gush") re-emailed notes of a talk by R' Aharon Lichtenstein zt"l gave after the great tsunami of 2004. Between Rav Aharon's recent passing and the relevance of much of it to our response to the earthquake in Nepal, someone at the Gush thought it would be appropriate reading now. The essay is available here.

    While discussing R' Aharon's rather universalist attitude, and since people raised the Rambam... RAL holds that "darkhei Shalom" is not about a pragmatic strategy to keep the peace, but a fulfillment of emulating G-d.

    The Rambam gives two meqoros for showing chessed to non-Jews: darchei Shalom and "mah Ani ... af ata", citing a number of examples from seifer Bereishis. R' Aharon holds that in other for the Rambam not to be soseir himself, we must understand darkhei Shalom to be a manifestation of vehalakhta bidrakhav. It's not "merely" a survival technique, it's the iqar of yahadus!

    (BTW, capitalizing Shalom is a personal conceit. As "Shalom" is a sheim, "darkhei Shalom" might be a twist on "derakhav".)

    My understanding of lo sechaneim is not tzedaqah or chesed, but gift giving. Compare YD 151:11,12 is explained by the Taz s"q 8,9. For lo sechaneim to apply, the motive has to be purely motive. The Taz explains that the SA permits giving a gift to any non-Jew you know because then there is also a concept of a favor exchange -- the gift has an element of payment for favors given or to be given later.

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    1. From memory, the examples of the SA in 151 are chesed, e.g. Burying dead, visiting sick etc.
      RAL made an appeal for the boat people in the BM of Gush. Even if it is a moral imperative, it would be interesting how it squares with SA.

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    2. I miss the question. RAL's point was that the Rambam uses "darkhei Shalom" and "mah Hu niqra ... af atah ..." interchangably, and thereby concludes that darkhei Shalom is about imitating the Source of Peace.

      So, since RAL believes that Hashem would help the boat people (if He ran world ran that way), we are obligated mipenei darkhei Shalom to help the boat people. Or the tsunami victims. And presumably also, the victims of this earthquake.

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  5. My question, to both you (really RAL) and to the Baal Hablog, is simple. What are we to do with the halacha of לא תתן להם מתנת חנם? I understand the ethical, moral and even Torah imperative to help. But what do we do with the SA, even according to the Taz, that you quoted? The gemara in gittin is clear that the Darkei Shalom is only relevant when the indignent Jews and nonJews are together. The Bach brings sources to rule leniently, and does, which the Taz is presumably based on, but the Rambam is clearly stringent, as the Bach shows.
    And I don't think it's at all clear that the Bach and Taz would agree that Darkei Shalom applies to an anonymous donation thousands of miles away.
    I love your approach, but just am not convinced that the halacha supports it.

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    1. I already pointed to the SA and the Taz. The issur is very limited, and only includes social gifts. If it doesn't include business gifts, why assume it includes tzedaqah? Especially since the SA excludes giving tzedaqah, not only when they come amongst Jewish collectors., as as noted by the acharonim on the page,

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    2. Because the reasoning for business gifts is that they will be reciprocated. I think that there is a clear Shalom aspect, as the gemara intended it, when a non Jewish collector comes to you that cannot be extended to unilateral giving with no chance of reciprocation.

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    3. But again, the SA in the very next se'if (YD 151:12) allows tzedaqah. And as the Shakh (s"q 19), the Bach, the Taz (s"q 9) and the Gra (s"q 20) all point out, the SA states this as a general rule, not limited to non-Jews coming to collect among the Jews.

      So the SA can't understand lo sechaneim as including tzedaqah, it would be self-contradictory.

      You can insist that the difference between business gifts and social gifts is where you put it, but it's simpler to say that the SA makes the chiluq I suggested.

      As for explaining how the SA's conclusion follows from the gemara... The Gra points you to the Ran. I didn't pursue it, but perhaps you have the time.

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    4. I saw the Bach quotes it as well. Will do further research. Thank you

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