Rabbis should support gun control

I spent the day in New York, and much of that time was in the airport, where the televisions seemed to be locked into all-Newtown, all the time. Interviews with counselors, coverage regarding the funerals, interviews with people who knew the murderer, and, of course, the discussion about gun control.

I know we want to have freedom. And I know that guns are needed for self-defense. And I know that eliminating guns won't eliminate murder. But as a Rabbi, this one is a no-brainer. Not in the sense that it's a pure halachic requirement – Rabbi J. David Bleich has already covered that one – but in the sense that legislation controlling access to heavy weapons would fit the standard model for rabbinic legislation created for the good of the community.

Worried about the right to bear arms? Rabbinic law is certainly in the habit of suspending individual rights for the perceived greater good, and certainly where that good involves saving lives.

Certain that this won't prevent a determined murderer? That's true – but rabbinic law regularly prohibits certain activities as a fence to prevent violation of biblical law, even though willful sinners will flout the rabbinic and biblical law.

Example: The sages prohibited raising certain species of animals in Israel, because those were known to invade others' property. (Bava Kama 79b) Certainly, that limited personal freedom. And certainly, that wouldn't stop criminals from grazing their animals on others' land. But the step was made, and it mattered.

If you believe in the idea of creating imperfect protective legislation rather than do nothing, then gun control is an obvious choice.

Added thought: 
Think that guns are needed for protection/deterrent? Suicide bombers have proven that people who are not sane, or who are not operating by normal standards, don't need deterrents. And as Newtown, Virginia Tech, Aurora and so on show, our possession of guns isn't doing a good job of either protecting or deterring.

I've lived in Canada for 3+ years now. There have been men who have picked up guns and shot randomly in public places - but far, far fewer than in the US over the same period, way out of proportion with the population differential.

Daf: Gittin 41-44 – Procreation, Shady outreach methods, Pleonasm, Freeing an עבד to enable mitzvah observance

Still catching up on old notes… for those who are interested, bear with me while I catch up. For those who are not interested, well, I guess it doesn’t matter whether I am caught up or not, right? Skip down the page to hear about evertything that’s wrong with rabbinic speeches.


Gittin 41b
The gemara here cites, as proof that an עבד should be allowed to marry, the pasuk of לא תהו בראה לשבת יצרה, “Gd did not create the world to be empty; Gd formed it for settlement.” They do not bring the classic פרו ורבו “Bear fruit and multiply.” Tosafot לא explains why.


Here we talk about forcing a person to violate biblical law, having him free his עבד, in order to enable the עבד to fulfill a mitzvah of procreation; this is odd, given that Shabbat 4a says we do not tell a person to sin in order to benefit others!
Tosafot כופין offers two approaches: 1) In the case in Shabbat 4a we are dealing with a sinner who did something wrong (putting dough in an oven right before Shabbat) to enter that position; here, the עבד did nothing wrong. 2) Procreation is a mitzvah which helps the community.
Both of these approaches open major questions regarding sinning to benefit someone else, and regarding Outreach methods. What would you think of a Jew who broke a Jewish law in order to become close with someone who was sinning, arguing that he was justified by Tosafot’s argument here – since he would be helping this person, who might then turn out to help others? Or what would you think of a Jew who lied to someone for the sake of “outreach,” making that same argument?

An important point of methodology: Why do we use logic here against a pleonasm (גזירה שוה)? This pleonasm is מופנה, utilizing textual anomalies on either side – so it should not be open to challenge! Tosafot מה suggests that even with a strong pleonasm, logic can challenge it, and result in us using different methods of analyzing those textual anomalies.


Gittin 42b
Tosafot הואיל explains that we need a גט שחרור (document freeing an עבד) in a case in which people might suspect that the עבד was not really freed. This bothers me; the gemara sounds as though the עבד is not free without this document, but in this case the document is really just supposed to be, per Tosafot, an extra protection for the freed עבד’s sake!


Gittin 43b
Note that the gemara here brings the imperative of פרו ורבו, Bear fruit and multiply, for an עבד – which it did not do back on 41b. See Tosafot back on 41b, and the Maharsha on that Tosafot.


Gittin 44a
The gemara at the bottom of this page is fascinating. Ordinarily we say מילתא דלא שכיחא לא גזרו ביה רבנן, that the sages did not make decrees for unusual cases. Here, though, they did make the decree – just not to be too harsh.

The gemara here discusses freeing an עבד in order to enable him to perform mitzvot, since his master has put him in a position where he will otherwise be unable to perform mitzvot. That sounds like it should be an automatic requirement – but we see in this gemara that the עבד has the right to say, “No, I’d rather remain an עבד even though that means I will not be able to perform mitzvot.”

Government as Economic Protector (Derashah - Reeh 5768)

[Haveil Havalim is here, and an excellent edition it is...]

I prefaced this derashah by noting that it is not an endorsement of any political party's platform. Afterward someone mentioned to me that it certainly isn't - it goes much farther than any of them dare...

Rising unemployment. Skyrocketing prices for food and fuel. A federal authority struggling to keep businesses and individuals afloat. And a leader arose who declared that we could solve all of our problems if only we would accept mutual responsibility and harness the power of government to protect the common citizen.

It sounds like the 21st century and a certain speech from this past Thursday night, but it’s not - the scene is actually 2200 years ago, in Israel, as the era of the second Beit haMikdash was on the wane. Under the dual strains of Roman oppression and harsh economic forces, the Jewish safety net of tzedakah was falling apart. Enter the Sages, who underscored the importance of communal generosity by taking key economic steps to protect the common citizen.


Here’s one example: Every seven years, at the end of the shemitah year, all outstanding debts are forgiven. Sounds good - not only are all Torah loans interest-free, but if you default, you can just wait for shemitah and then the debt disappears!

The problem is that most lenders, even those who can provide interest-free help, need to be re-paid - and so they stop lending money as the shemitah year approaches.

In the days of the sage Hillel, some 2200 years ago, our ancestors struggled under the Roman yoke and sought to protect whatever they had, refusing to lend money as Shemitah neared. So Hillel created a new economic safety net, subverting the law of shemitah with a document called a Prozbul which allowed debts to survive shemitah.

Hillel did not break biblical law; shemitah, by that time, was not biblically binding and continued only as a rabbinic memorial of the older practice. So Hillel weighed the importance of that rabbinic decree vs. people’s refusal to lend money, and decided to preserve the Torah’s mitzvah of tzedakah at the expense of the rabbinic. Hillel formalized the Prozbul document, and stimulated a healthier society.


Prozbul is a well-known step, but there are many more Talmudic examples of hands-on rabbis engineering economics, society and Jewish law.

The sages legislated protections for lenders, ensuring that loans would be re-paid with solid currency and simplifying the collections process.

They enacted consumer protection rules, too. One mishnah tells of the time two thousand years ago when dove merchants hiked the price of the birds for Temple offerings. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel responded to this price-gouging with a halachic ruling reducing the need for these offerings - and the price of birds tanked.

In fact, rabbis in 17th century Moravia and 18th century Algeria imitated this action; when fish merchants took advantage of our need for Shabbos meals and raised their prices, the rabbis banned purchasing fish for Shabbos, until the prices dropped.

The Talmudic sages regulated commerce to benefit the citizen, too, empowering town councils to do everything from setting prices and wages to forcing businesses to comply with communal standards. It sounds quasi-socialist, frankly.

The sages did this because they believed that tzedakah, and looking out for others, is not only a function of what we do as individuals - it a responsibility borne by corporate and communal government, and they were the government.


How did the Sages know that governments and communities are obligated to do this?

Rav Chaim Brisker saw it in a contrast between our parshah and a passage in Parshat Behar. In our parshah each individual Jew is instructed פתוח תפתח את ידך, Open up your hand to your brother. But in Behar we were instructed as a community, והחזקת בו, You shall uphold the hand of the needy.

Rav Chaim argued that not only is every individual required to think about the needs of others, but every corporate entity, every social group, every community, is obligated to think beyond the needs of its funding members, expanding to the needs of greater society.

In this Rav Chaim argued against the economics of Milton Friedman, who declared that a corporation, a community, owes a debt only to its funders, each in proportion to his investment. Rav Chaim said that corporations must have a selfless conscience as well, and must seek to meet the needs of society.


Potentially, this could lead to all sorts of interesting policy decisions.

Israeli economist Dr. Meir Tamari, a Torah-observant professor and author, is known for using
Jewish sources as a foundation for teaching Economics. He studied Rav Chaim Soloveitchik’s view on corporations and communities and concluded that, “In our day this would seem to apply to the pollution of the atmosphere or water through industrial wastes. ” For proof he pointed to the mishnah in Bava Batra which requires certain businesses, like threshing floors, tanneries and kilns, to locate beyond city limits - for the sake of the community.

It also means that a shul, a Jewish community, must look beyond its own membership and benefit others. Rav Tzvi Hirsch Weinreb, current executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, spoke this week in Denver, and in his remarks he delivered the following strong words:

Our neighbor is not merely the person who lives next door to us or across the street or even down the lane. Our neighbor may be very distant from us. Distant geographically. Our neighbor may be a victim of a tsunami halfway across the world. Our neighbors may be the suffering people of Darfur. Our neighbors may be those that are victims of the cruel war now going on in the country of Georgia, so far away geographically. As distant as they are, they are our neighbors. Our neighbors may be distant from us culturally. They may be different from us ideologically …

Sometimes our neighbor is poor, and then we must feed and clothe him. Sometimes our neighbor, she is ill, and then we must cure her and heal her. Sometimes our neighbor, he is bereaved, and he requires us to console and to comfort him. And sometimes our neighbor has been traumatized, and then we must render her whole… We must fashion a culture which is defined by loving kindness and by compassion.

These are not small words, this is a significant mission - mandated by the words of our parshah and those of Parshat Behar, and seen in the economic orchestrations of Hillel’s Prozbul and the other examples I presented earlier.


The Torah refused to accept any limits on what we might accomplish as individuals and as a society. פתוח תפתח את ידך, open up your hand, and there will be no more עניים, we are told.

Hillel refused to accept any limits on what we might accomplish, and he and his colleagues and his students acted to provide economic incentives and remove the obstacles to our communal generosity.

There are no limits on what our communities and corporations can accomplish - and, in the end, what those accomplishments will do for us. As the Rambam wrote, quoting the Haftorah from Shabbat Chazon, אין ישראל נגאלין אלא בצדקה, שנאמר ציון במשפט תפדה ושביה בצדקה, Our redemption will only come through the economic engine of tzedakah, as it is written, “Tzion will be redeemed with justice, and her returnees will come home through the merit of tzedakah.”

-
Notes:
1. I know quite well that the justification of Prozbul is subject to debate; I have adopted Rashi's understanding. See Rashi and Tosafot Gittin 36a, and my note at the end of Gittin 36a here.

2. Loan re-payment with quality currency is found in Gittin 50a, and the leniency in interrogating loan witnesses is in Sanhedrin 3a and Bava Batra 176a. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel's leniency regarding kinin korbanot is found in the Mishnah in Keritut 1:7. The Tzemach Tzedek (kadmon) 28, and R' Yehudah Ayyash (Beit Yehudah 32) were among those who applied this to modern price gouging by merchants for Shabbat food. Bava Batra 8b records the ability of communities to force businesses into line with communal practice - להסיע על קיצתן.

3. Rav Chaim's approach (as well as Tamari's application) is briefly cited in Moses Pava's excellent Business Ethics, pg. 70. Tamari's mishnah is Bava Batra 2:3

4. The full text of Rabbi Weinreb's remarks at the Democratic National Convention may be found here. I am not sure I agree with some of what he did here.

5. The citation from the Rambam is Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Matnot Aniyyim 10:1.

Gittin 36 - Written Torah, Prozbul, Shemitah and Yovel today, and Joyous Suffering

I had intended to record my notes on Gittin 36 through 38, but there’s so much on 36 alone that I have to settle for that. If you have the patience, and access to a gemara, you may find some of these interesting.

Or not.

Gittin 36a
Ordinarily, a vow taken “על דעת רבים - on the mindset of the community” cannot be nullified, for the mindset of the individual taking the vow, and any subsequent regret he feels, is irrelevant. Here, though, we say that such a vow may be revoked for the sake of a mitzvah. Tosafot explains that the community, it may be assumed, does desire that the mitzvah take place. Further, he says it is not a reference to the community in general, but rather to specified individuals - who could, I suppose, be polled for their approval.
However: What is the mitzvah in our case?!

The gemara mentions דיסקי as one way in which people would recognize the signatures of various sages. Rashi explains that דיסקי were letters of responsa, as well as letters of greeting.
This is one example, among several, that show there was a practice of recording Torah well before Rebbe canonized the mishnah. Elsewhere we have seen recordings of berachot, scrolls on which people recorded novellae cited in the beit midrash, and Aramaic translation/commentary in the targumim. The Sfat Emet (Megilah 3a) contends that the prohibition against recording Torah was specifically against publishing it.

The gemara here records Hillel’s justification for formalizing the Prozbul; the issue was a need to ensure a flow of (interest-free) loans. This was critical, since it was (and still is) the greatest form of tzedakah - it allows for a greater magnitude of aid than we could ever see from gifts. Therefore the sages made numerous enactments to encourage lending - this Prozbul, as well as requiring that debts be repaid with a strong currency, eliminating intense interrogation of witnesses and more. This is what the sages called שלא תנעול דלת בפני לווין, to keep the door from being closed before lenders.

Note the basic debate between Rashi and Tosafot as to how Prozbul works.

The gemara here says that Hillel could subvert Shemitah’s release of overdue debts because Shemitah is rabbinic rather than biblical today. This is a problem for the view (see Erchin 31b-32a) that Shemitah remained biblical throughout the second Beit haMikdash, when Hillel lived!
Tosafot here answers that Hillel created the enactment to apply after the destruction of the Beit haMikdash.
Ramban here finds that answer unacceptable, and argues that one must say it was rabbinic during the second Beit haMikdash.


Gittin 36b
Tosafot ותקון asks why the sages would have enacted a rabbinic memorial to shemitah, but not to Yovel. He answers that the prohibition against farming during Yovel, coming on the heels of Shemitah, would be too great a difficulty to impose rabbinically. Note that Tosafot must follow the system of counting that we use, that does not count Yovel as part of the Shemitah cycle. This is against the view that Yovel is part of the seven-year Shemitah cycle, and so is not always the year following Shemitah.

Rashi יחרם כל רכושו stresses that this co-opting of the property of people who did not return for the second Beit haMikdash was a verdict of the Great Assembly. Perhaps this is lest one consider it a הוראת שעה of a prophet, and therefore invalid as precedent for rabbinic action.

See Tosafot דאלימי on what kind of Beit Din is needed to perform a Prozbul.

I prefer to take שמחין ביסורין as “joyous despite suffering” rather than “joyous in suffering.” But I could be wrong.

Gittin 15-18 – Hand-washing, Dating a get, and the frequency of sexual immorality

As always, please read with a gemara in front of you. It will just make more sense that way.

Gittin 15b
The gemara discusses netilat yadayim, washing one’s hands for ritual purposes, and addresses the case of pouring water on one and immersing the other. At least, this is the way Rashi explains it. Rabbeinu Tam, though, (Tosafot הנוטל), has a different edition, in which the case is very different: A hand is washed from a single pour, instead of the usual multiple pours. Ordinarily we require two pours in order to remove the first water, which has contracted tumah (some do three, for separate reasons), but here we are saying that if the second pour with a double portion of water, that suffices.


Gittin 16a
The gemara talks about a get held by two deliverers. Rashi seems to say that both must, literally, grip the document, but Tosafot (אבל) disagrees.


Gittin 17a
I am very troubled by the יתד היא שלא תמוט answer offered by R’ Ami to justify issuing two contradictory legal statements, one stricter and the second more lenient. If R' Ami means that his former, more stringer position, is a decree to prevent trouble, then this decree will end up creating agunot unnecessarily, something the gemara has explicitly said we avoid (such as the bottom of 2b, top of 3a)!

R’ Yochanan and Reish Lakish offer reasons why we require a date on a get document. Rashash notes a third reason: To establish at what time the husband ceases to be “related to” his ex-wife’s family, for the purpose of validating or rejecting his role as a witness in a court case.


Gittin 17b
The gemara seems to say that extramarital sexual relations are rare and therefore not worthy of rabbinic decrees dealing with its occurrence. This does not seem to be the case, given various rabbinic enactments which are instituted for such cases, such as the preference for Wednesday night weddings in order to expedite a Thursday morning trip to court (Ketuvot 2a)! Tosafot זנות explains that sexual immorality is, indeed, not considered unusual; what is unusual is such an occurrence with witnesses and a legal warning.


Gittin 18a
Rav and Shemuel debate how to count the 3-month “havchanah” waiting period for a woman who has been divorced and wishes to re-marry. (The goal of havchanah is to ensure that we can properly identify paternity of a child born severeal months into her second marriage.) Rav says to count from the time the get is delivered, but Shemuel says to count from the time the get is written. The gemara says we follow Shemuel, which is unusual; we usually follow Rav on prohibitions, Shemuel on financial matters! Perhaps, though, we follow Shemuel here because of the latter amoraim who took his side – Rav Ashi, as well as Rav Kahana and Rav Papi.