"G-d, please bring back my son"

[Note: My shiur on Rav Kook's "HaShofar", a poem which we discussed last week, is now on-line here.]

Rabbi Moshe Alshich's son left Judaism; the circumstances are not recorded, although someone has written on the Alshich's Wikipedia page that he was "taken" and he became Muslim. The Alshich asked the Ari z"l for help, and the Ari gave him a kabbalistic prayer to recite, for Gd to help his son return. As the story is told by the Ari z"l's main student, Rav Chaim Vital, the son returned to Judaism.

Of course, the idea of praying for others' repentance is basic to Judaism; we do it all the time, such as in the blessing in the amidah which asks Gd to bring us back in complete repentance. And yet, the idea of praying for an individual highlights what we are really doing: We are asking Gd to hijack people's hearts, to change their minds. [This is more troubling than asking Gd to hijack my own mind, in which case it is not truly an act of hijacking at all.]

This raises philosophical questions:
• What happened to Free Will?
• What happened to the talmudic dictum, "All is in the hands of Heaven, other than awe of Heaven"?
• Of what value is repentance which is not only catalyzed by, but actually performed by, Divine intervention?
• And a child of the modern age may well be offended: Who are you to judge others, and pray to Gd that they be reformed?

I intend to speak about this in a pre-Selichos shiur on the first night of Selichos; for now, the prayer itself appears below, as it appears in three editions with significant variations.


1. R' Chaim Vital, 16th century Tzefat, Shaar Ruach haKodesh, pg. 24b

יחוד א' להחזיר את הרשע בתשובה והוא להר״מ אלשיך זלה״ה על אודות בנו שנשתמד ולמד לו מורי זלה"ה שיכוין ליחוד הזה להשיבו בתשובה והועיל לו ושב לדת ישראל: כבר ידעת כי בברכת השיבנו אבינו לתורתך שבתפילת י״ח היא בבינה הנק׳ תשובה ולכן בהגיעך בברכה זו בתפלתך תאמר תפלה זו קודם החתימה: יהי רצון מלפניך ד' אלקינו ואלקי אבותינו שתחתור חתירה מתחת כסא כבודך ותקבל בתשובה את פב״פ כי ימינך פשוטה לקבל שבים בא״י הרוצה בתשובה

The first yichud is to return a wicked person in repentance. This was for Rav Moshe Alshich, regarding his son who had assimilated, and my master taught him to contemplate this yichud to return him in repentance. It was effective for him, and he returned to the religion of Israel.
You know that the blessing of "Return us, our Father, to Your Torah" in shemoneh esreih is in the emanation of Understanding, which is called Return, and so when you reach this blessing in your prayer, recite this prayer before the end: "May it be Your will, HaShem, our Gd and Gd of our ancestors, that You tunnel beneath Your throne of honour and receive the repentance of so-and-so, for Your right hand is extended to receive those who return. Blessed are You, Gd, who desires repentance."

2. R' Zvi Hirsh Kaidanover, 18th century Vilna, Kav haYashar 5

וזה יאות לכל בר ישראל להיות זוכה ומזכה לאחרים, ומכל שכן שצריך אדם להתפלל על רשעי הדור שיחזרו בתשובה, כדאיתא בגמרא בברכות בברוריה דביתהו דרבי מאיר שאמרה ״יתמו חטאים״ כתיב, ולא ׳חוטאים׳. על כן אסדר אני לפניך לכל איש ואשה לומר יהי רצון זה בברכת ״השיבנו אבינו לתורתך, וקרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך״, ויאמר: ״יהי רצון מלפניך ד׳ אלקינו ואלקי אבותינו שתחתור חתירה מתחת כסא כבודך לתשובת פלוני בן פלונית וכל העוברים על מצותיך, יהופך לבבם לעשות רצונך בלבב שלם, כי ימינך פשוטה לקבל שבים, והחזירנו בתשובה שלימה לפניך, בא״י הרוצה בתשובה״

This is good for every Jew, to earn merit and provide merit for others, and certainly one must pray for the wicked of the generation to repent, as is seen (Berachot 10a) that Beruriah, wife of R' Meir, said, "It is written, 'May sins end,' not 'May sinners end.'" Therefore, I will arrange for each man and woman to say this prayer in the blessing of, "Return us, our Father, to Your Torah, and bring us close, our King, to Your service."
He should say: May it be Your will, HaShem, our Gd and Gd of our ancestors, that You tunnel beneath Your throne of honour for the repentance of so-and-so and all who violate Your command. May their heart be reversed to perform Your will wholeheartedly, for Your right hand is extended to receive those who return. And return us with complete repentance before You. Blessed are You, Gd, who desires repentance.

3. R' Chaim Dovid Amar, 18th century Morocco, Tefillah l'Dovid, Hashiveinu #212, pg. 52a

כתב האר״י (שער היחודים דכ״ג ע״ג) מי שיש לו בן או אח או קרוב אחר ח״ו שהטה מדרך טובה לדרך רעה או שהלך לתרבות דעה, יתפלל בתפילת י״ח בברכה זו זה הנוסח, ואז מובטח שיהפוך לבו לטובה בעזה״י. וצריך להתפלל עכ״פ שלושים יום ערב ובקר וצהרים, ובפרט בימי אלול שאז הוא עת רצון, ומכ״ש על עצמו שצריך שיתפלל שיהפוך לבו לטובה. וז״ל: השיבנו אבינו לתורתך וקרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך והחזירנו בתשובה שלמה לפניך. יהי רצון מלפניך ד' אלקינו ואלקי אבותינו שתחתור חתירה מתחת כסא כבודך להחזיר בתשובה שלמה כל פושעי ישראל ובכללם תחזירני אני פב״פ ופב״פ בתשובה שלמה לפניך ד', כי ימינך ד' פשוטה לקבל שבים. ברוך אתה ד' הרוצה בתשובה.

The Ari wrote: "One who has a son or brother or other relative who has strayed from the good path to the bad or who is engaged in bad behaviour, Gd forbid, should pray this text in this blessing in shemoneh esreih. He can be certain that this will turn his heart for the good, with Gd's help. He must pray at least thirty days, evening and morning and afternoon, and especially during Elul, the time of desire. He certainly should pray thus for himself, that Gd turn his heart to the good.
This is the text: Return us, our Father, to Your Torah, and bring us close, our King, to Your service. And return us with complete repentance before You. May it be Your will, HaShem, our Gd and Gd of our ancestors, that You tunnel beneath Your throne of honour to bring back in complete repentance all of the sinners of Israel. Among them, return me, and so-and-so, with complete repentance before You, for Your right hand, Gd, is extended to receive those who return. Blessed are You, Gd, who desires repentance.

Involuntary Homosexuality and Free Will

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here; my apologies for the belated link.]

Note: In the following post I take as a given that homosexual activity is a transgression against the Torah, and that homosexual attraction involves a desire to sin. I know this offends some; feel free not to read on.

One of the more interesting questions to emerge in the debate about homosexuality in the Orthodox community is this:

Judaism teaches that we have Free Will. If same-gender attraction has a biological or otherwise involuntary basis, then hasn't Gd created an overwhelmingly powerful, Free Will-robbing drive to commit a sin?

Or, to put the shoe on the other foot: Can you believe that Gd would prohibit an activity for which a Jew has a powerful involuntary drive?

To my mind, the answer is Yes and Yes. It is entirely possible for the general doctrine of Free Will to co-exist with the possibility of an overwhelming, involuntary drive for a specific sin.

Consider the following three sources:

R’ Eliyahu Dessler, Michtav meiEliyahu, Kuntrus haBechirah Perek 2:

כל אדם יש לו בחירה, היינו בנקודת פגישת האמת שלו עם האמת המדומה, תולדת השקר. אבל רוב מעשיו הם במקום שאין האמת והשקר נפגשים שם כלל. כי יש הרבה מן האמת שהאדם מחונך לעשותו, ולא יעלה על דעתו כלל לעשות ההיפך, וכן הרבה אשר יעשה מן הרע והשקר, שלא יבחין כלל שאין ראוי לעשותו. אין הבחירה שייכת אלא בנקודה שבין צבאו של היצר הטוב לצבאו של היצר הרע.

Every person has choice, meaning the point at which his personal truth encounters imagined truth, the product of falsehood. However, most of a person’s actions occur in a place where truth and falsehood do not meet, at all. A person is trained to practice much truth, and it will never dawn upon him to do otherwise. Similarly, a person may practice much evil and falsehood without comprehending, at all, that it is inappropriate. Choice is relevant only at the point which is between the forces of the yetzer hatov and the forces of the yetzer hara.

R’ Tzadok haKohen of Lublin, Tzidkat haTzaddik 43, based on Moshe’s defense for the Jews after the Golden Calf (Berachot 32a), in which Moshe compared the Jews to a child who has been given all of the desires and means for sin, and abandoned to the advances of evildoers:

פעמים יש אדם עומד בנסיון גדול כל כך עד שאי אפשר לו שלא יחטא, כדרך שאמרו חז"ל: מה יעשה הבן שלא יחטא

Sometimes a person will face a test which is so great that it is impossible for him not to sin; it is as the Sages said, ‘What could the boy do, to avoid sinning?’

Talmud, Bava Batra 16b:

אין אדם נתפס בשעת צערו

One is not held responsible for actions taken during his moment of pain.


So Rav Dessler acknowledged that there are times when a person is drawn into transgression by forces that are beyond his control [note that he was discussing environment rather than biology], and he will not have free will in such cases.

And Rav Tzaddok said that there are tests one cannot pass; one may well be set up to fail. Of course, he concludes his discussion by saying that one can never know that he is facing such a test, and so one must always try – but the point remains that Gd may well create a prohibition that a given person, in a given situation, cannot observe.

And the gemara in Bava Basra states explicitly that people may well face situations in which they are not held responsible, because of overwhelming conditions.

Note: NONE of this is meant to in any way permit, exonerate or otherwise sanction homosexual activity. My point is not to raise the banner of אונס, of extenuating circumstances, and suspend the rule of halachah.

My point is only to say that the existence of a biological or otherwise involuntary basis for homosexuality does nothing to undermine the doctrine of Free Will.

Derashah: Behar - Iron Man, Shimshon and Us

[This dvar torah doubles as the introduction to our Daf Yomi siyyum on Nazir.]

Iron Man. A Batman sequel. An Incredible Hulk sequel. Hancock. Narnia. Indiana Jones. Is it just me, or has heroic testosterone hijacked Hollywood?

During the past seventy years, American entertainment has actually gone through three periods of focussing on larger-than-life heroes, and, interestingly, each period has come at a time of grave crisis:
• The first was during the 1940’s and World War II;
• The second was during the 1960’s, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War;
• And now we’re in the third, at a time when America’s future, and even its present, seems more fragile than it has in a generation.

The focus on heroics and saviors is understandable: When we feel uncertain, when we sense that our world is dangerously out of control, we seek a hero to save us.


Judaism actually encourages us to feel that the world is out of our control, and to look specifically to a Hero with a capital H - HaShem - to save us. הכל בידי שמים, the Gemara says - all is in the hands of Heaven - and the corollary is that it’s not בידי אדם, not in our hands.

In fact, our parshah reminds us of that message, with the mitzvah of Shemitah. Under the laws of Shemitah, which apply specifically in Israel, we go for a year without planting our fields, and we abandon any wild growth for anyone and everyone to take.

As Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explained it, this Shemitah mitzvah acknowledges our lack of control. He wrote, “In order that Israel’s land, intended for the realization of Israel’s task, should not, through the sin of pride of possession become the cause of Israel’s downfall, Gd ordained shemittah” and other land-oriented mitzvot. We surrender our power and turn to Gd to orchestrate our future.

Taking it a step further, the Torah’s description of Shemitah explicitly demands our surrender, predicting that as the Shemitah year approaches and we contemplate surviving without the produce of our fields, we will ask, “But how are we supposed to survive? הן לא נזרע ולא נאסוף את תבואתנו!” And the Divine Hero replies, “וצויתי את ברכתי לכם, I will provide blessing for you.” That’s it - just rely on the ultimate Hero, HaShem.


But we don’t always look to HaShem to save us.
There is a second half to the Hebrew phrase I quoted before about Divine control. I said הכל בידי שמים, that everything is in the hands of Gd, but the end of that phrase is חוץ מיראת שמים - not everything is in Gd’s Hands, Gd left our awe of Gd, our self-control and self-discipline, our choice to observe mitzvot and live Torah lives, in our own possession. We will never be forced to discipline ourselves, we will never be forced to keep mitzvot. Control of the world may be in Gd’s hands, but control of ourselves is in our own. We are the heroes.

This heroism is not the Hollywood definition, the gamma ray-irradiated, ninja-trained, technologically amped-up muscleman. Instead, it’s the message of Pirkei Avot: איזהו גבור? הכובש את יצרו Who is mighty? One who controls himself. It’s the message of Mishlei: ומושל ברוחו מלוכד עיר, One who controls himself is mightier than the conqueror of a city.

When a Jew realizes that he is out of control - that he’s spiritually erratic, that she’s losing her temper, that he’s making bad decisions, that she’s getting so caught up in various pursuits that she has no time to work on internal growth - then it’s time for the Jew to become a גבור, and to get himself under control.


Perhaps the best example of this comes from the gemara just completed by our Daf Yomi: the gemara of Nazir.

A Nazir vows not to drink wine so that he won’t become intoxicated; not to cut his hair so that he will be repellent to others; and not to become tamei from dead bodies so that he will have to separate from human society.

The Gemara asks, “Why does someone become a Nazir?” And it answers its own question, saying, “He sees the results of sexual immorality, and decides to swear off wine.” The Nazir feels that he is losing control of himself, and decides to become the hero. The Nazir asserts control of his life.


The best example of this is the most famous Nazir in Jewish history: Shimshon.

As Rav Tzaddok haKohen of Lublin explained, Shimshon was destined to be a great Jewish leader, he had the potential to move mountains both physically and spiritually, but his sole weakness was a congenital lack of control. He had a natural wild side. And so HaShem told Shimshon’s mother to raise him as a Nazir, to have him stay away from intoxication, and from society, in order to keep himself under control.

For many years this nezirut worked and Shimshon served as a righteous judge, but ultimately, tragically, the nezirut did not keep Shimshon in line forever. He became involved with Philistine women, went to parties, brawled, and ended up squandering his significant talent.

Shimshon’s life warns us of what happens when we don’t keep close watch on ourselves. We leave the world up to HaShem, as the uber-Hero, but when we see that we are making mistakes, when we realize that we’ve lost focus, it’s time for us to step up and be our own heroes.


We generally don’t take on nezirut today, for the simple reason that without a Beit haMikdash, we cannot bring offerings to end the nezirut period. However, the concept of Nazir is still very relevant.

The Nazir takes control by imposing self-discipline in his eating, in his grooming, and in his assocations. The applications for our own day are obvious. A Jew can impose a limit on his gastric indulgence, can determine to stop dressing to impress, can retreat from society’s constant embrace. Not indefinitely, but for a period of time, in order to take charge of her existence.


To a certain extent, the members of our Daf Yomi have already taken the Nazir step. No, we aren’t teetotaling, long-haired, hermitish Nezirim, but dedicating an hour a day - the same hour every day - is a powerful statement of self-discipline.

I applaud the members of our Daf Yomi for their commitment to this sort of control. They are, in their own right, heroes.

But this is a heroism which anyone can take on. We don’t need gamma rays or a bullwhip; all it takes is the determination to direct our lives in the way we wish to go.

(And here I will do the siyyum on masechet Nazir...)

-
Note: For more on Shimshon and his Nezirut as self-control, see R' Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer's Bigdei Shesh to Shoftim 15, elaborating on the writings of the Tzidkat haTzaddik.

Note 2: Of course, the gemara is ambivalent regarding nezirut, despite the fact that HaShem included it as an option in the Torah. It seems to me that this is a matter of "In case of emergency, break glass."

Daf: Nazir 64-66

This concludes our Nazir comments. Some interesting material in here, but - as always - it will be more intelligible with a Gemara in your hands.

64a
Pseudo-Rashi, at the bottom of the page, says that water containing the ashes of the פרה אדומה would be dense, and therefore would float atop regular water. I’m not sure of the science here, but that seems a bit odd. Rashi was an experimenter, as noted in his commentary to the chumash (such as in his comments to Shemot 16:14 on the evaporation of dew from inside an eggshell), so I’m not sure he would have written this at all.
Perhaps the ashes would have some grease from the פרה אדומה, and would therefore have a floating film?

64b
The words ותיפטר משתיהן seem very odd here.

Also, we should probably have ואמר רב כהנא just below that, since it’s mid-sentence.

65a
See Tosafos אחד on why we would, or would not, identify an area as a cemetery based on one known body and two newly discovered bodies.

The description of Yosef’s removal from Egypt is cited as a source, or perhaps אסמכתא, for taking out more than just the body itself, but some area around it as well. This is problematic for two reasons:
1) Yosef was embalmed, and therefore he would not have decayed.
2) As the Tosafos Yom Tov (cited in the inside margin) notes, the midrash says that Yosef was not buried in earth at all, but in a box in the Nile.

The verb of פירש associated with R’ Elazar reminds me of פריך ר' אחאי and Tosafos’s comment (Ketuvot 2b) about specific verbs being associated with specific sages.

Note the debate between Tosafos and pseudo-Rashi as to the definition of קססות. The Rosh has a view that these are spices placed with the body; this was done in Talmudic times in order to dispel the aroma of decay.

65b
Note the debate between pseudo-Rashi and the Rosh about the definition of the word עילא. The "cause" definition takes it as עילה.

On the list of 7 things which may cause זיבה, one of them is called מראה. Pseudo-Rashi and Rosh (printed on 66a) disagree as to the nature of מראה.

66a
It seems that Chanah prays for Shemuel to not fear other people; this seems to indicate that many traits of character are Gd-given, or at least Gd-influenced. This fits the idea that HaShem creates us with traits, and our job is to balance those traits. Our Free Will is in the balancing act we perform.

Note that in translating מורה as fear, we equate it with מורא, a very different root.

66b
The Rosh says that the rule here for grabbing the “cup of blessing” applies not just here, but to all blessings.

The issue here of whether it is better to recite a blessing or to listen and respond Amen is particularly interesting in light of the view of Aruch haShulchan and Mishneh Berurah that when many families dine together, only one should recite Kiddush and the rest should answer Amen.

On to Sotah!