The King is in the Building (potential derashah for Vayelech, 5774)

[This is my Toronto Torah article for this week; you can download the entire issue here.]

The mother of all Jewish conventions, the septennial hakhel gathering features an assembly of Jews of all ages. As Devarim 31:12 records Moshe's instruction, "Gather the nation: men, women, children, and the stranger at your gates." After every shemitah year, on the second night of Succot, all who call themselves by the name Israel must assemble and hear sections of the book of Devarim read aloud. Historically, this reading was done by the king, in an area of the Beit haMikdash.

The Torah's demand that children participate in the celebration is unique among our mitzvot; in no other communal mitzvah does the Torah explicitly require their participation. The Talmud (Chagigah 3a) is sensitive to this quirk, and it suggests that the reason to bring the children is "to provide reward for those who bring them." This seems circular, though; does the Talmud mean to say that G-d created a mitzvah solely for the sake of rewarding those who fulfill it?

One might explain the Talmud to mean that those who bring their children will be rewarded by the very act of bringing them. For example: Sefer haChinuch (612) contends that hakhel increases our love of Torah, through the glory of this gathering. Perhaps, then, having our children at hakhel rewards the bringers, by inculcating love of Torah into those children.

Alternatively, Ibn Ezra (Devarim 31:12) sees the benefit of hakhel as educational; those who attend will be inspired to ask questions, and thereby to learn more throughout the year. Having our curious children at hakhel will inspire them to inquire and learn.

However, a third benefit of bringing children may be linked to the practice of having the king conduct the public reading. Rambam does not list hakhel as a king's mitzvah, and indeed the Torah does not identify the reader explicitly. However, our sages (Sotah 41a) took for granted that this should be the king. [See also Yereim 233 and 266, Tosafot Yom Tov to Sotah 7:8, and Minchat Chinuch 612:2.] Certainly, there is added splendour an gravitas when the king leads a ritual, but why this ritual, in particular?

Every seven years, during the period of shemitah, the normal rules of society cease to function: the fences surrounding fields are broken, the tithes that support the kohanim and leviyim are neglected, the heirarchical relationship between employer and employee is severed, hardworking farmers become men of leisure, and loans are forgiven and forgotten. This can constitute a healthy break for society, and a community's rules can be strengthened by this sort of periodic vacation. [See Jeffrey Rubenstein, Purim, Liminality and Communitas.] However, with such a haitus we risk the possibility that the community falls in love with its lawless vacation, and forgets to return.

This may be part of the role of hakhel: To remind the Jewish nation that its existence is still governed by the rules and institutions of the Torah. Thus the nation reads key biblical passages: the fundamentals of our faith; the tithes given to the kohanim, the leviyim and the needy; the monarchy; and the national covenant into which we enter at the end of the book of Devarim. (Mishnah Sotah 7:8; Tosefta Sotah 7:17) We re-commit ourselves to these obligations, and to our national structure.

Within this context, having the king perform the reading is entirely logical; the king is the heart of the command structure we reiterate with hakhel. And bringing our children is its own reward, for even children who are too young to comprehend the reading will realize that the entire community has assembled as one to hear the instructions of its king, and this will create a lasting appreciation for the honour of our government and society's institutions.

In less than one week, we will perform a version of hakhel as we gather to mark Rosh haShanah. Among the central themes of this day is the coronation of G-d as King, and this, too, is a necessary reminder. From Yom Kippur to Rosh haShanah there is very little in our lives that declares to us, "HaShem hu ha'Elokim!" We can go through much of our year, even while observing mitzvot, without devoting significant thought to the meaning and implications of the Divine Throne. So it is that once each year we set aside time to gather with the explicit aim of coronating our King. May we be personally and communally impacted by this grand celebration – and may we ensure that our children participate in the moment, so that they will be impacted as well.

Unity, Rav Kook Style

I came across Rav Kook's introduction to Shabbat ha'Aretz last week, and just loved it. Here it is in translation; it's perfect for after Tisha b'Av.

The ellipses are because I translated this for the new edition of Toronto Torah, where we have space limitations; feel free to read the full Hebrew, which I have included at the end.


All of the justifications I present on behalf of our brethren… who depend upon the permission and release [of the land] practiced in past sabbatical years from the rulings of sages who found this appropriate due to needs of that time, are only intended to inform people not to equate these labourers, who act based upon proper rulings, with those who violate the laws of Torah, G-d forbid.

It is also to strengthen our brethren, scattered in the diaspora, who yearn to come and settle in the desirable land and would do so if only they would be shown a way to be supported by the labour of their hands. They fear the halt of labour in contemporary shemitah, when the Divine blessing is still hidden until its revelation, may it come speedily. Especially those who desire to invest large sums to establish orchards, vineyards, fields of grain and pleasant gardens… As a result [of their fears] these people withdraw their hands from the holy land and sink themselves into the lands of the nations…

But it would be gravest desecration to deduce from this any laxity in this holy and beloved mitzvah [of settling the land] on the part of one in whose heart G-d has placed a pure spirit and sufficient courage and faith to practice the laws of shemitah fully! He will be blessed by G-d, who dwells in Zion, who wants the desirable land and the sanctity of her mitzvot…

This requires no announcement, but no individual or institution should use our words to compel work during shemitah, G-d forbid, even with the permission and release, on the part of these men of heart who have love of G-d and desire for His mitzvot in them. They desire with all their heart to guard and fulfill the mitzvah of shemitah as it is stated, without any of the leniencies offered due to contemporary difficulties. And certainly, these, too, in whose hands enters full observance of the mitzvah, must judge favourably, with total feelings of honour and love of Israel, all those whose individual or communal circumstances compel them to conduct themselves with this permission and release. "Do not think evil of another in your hearts… and love truth and peace." (Zecharyah 8:17-19)

Original Hebrew (also available on Hebrewbooks.org here):

כל הדברים אשר הרציתי ב"מבוא" להמליץ על אחינו יושבי אדמת קדשנו ת״ו הסומכים על ההיתר הנהוג משמטות שעברו ע"פ הוראת חכמים שמצאו את הדבר נכון להורות בו הלכה למעשה להוראת שעה, לא באו כי־אם להודיע שלא להשוות את העובדים הללו — העושים את מעשיהם ע"פ הוראה מסודרת — לעוברי חק תוה״ק חלילה. וכן למען חזק את רבים מאחינו פזורי הגולה, הכמהים לבא ולהאחז בארץ חמדה אם רק יראה להם דרך איך להתפרנס מעמל כפיהם, ופוחדים הם מפני הפסק העבודה בשביעית בזמן הזה, אשר ברכת ד' עודנה חבויה עד בא עת הגלותה ב"ב. וביחוד אותם החפצים להשקיע סכומי־כסף גדולים לכונן פרדסים, כרמים, שדי־תבואה, גני־חמד, שהם דואגים מאד מפני שביתת המסחר והפסק חבורו בשביעית, שעל־ידי־זה לא יוכל להתכונן במדה הגונה גם בכל ימות השנים

כולם. מתוך כך אלה ואלה מושכים את ידיהם מארץ הקדש ומשקעים עצמם בארץ־העמים, וקדושת חמדת ישיבת ארץ־הקדש ובנינה נעזבת מהם. לפיכך מצאתי לנפשי חובה, לבאר את תכן ההיתר הנהוג על־פי ההפקעה בעת ההכרח, למען דעת, שאם ידרש הכרח ישיבת

אה"ק להתנהג בו, הרי הדבר ערוך ונכון ע"פ יסודות נאמנים, וחלילה לעזוב משוס זה את חמדת ארץ צבי, ומעלות־בקודש העליונות, אל הפרט ואל הכלל האמורים. נזכרים ונעשים בישיבתה ובנינה ע"י עם ד' אסירי התקוה.

אבל הלילה וחלילה לדון מזה איזו התרשלות מקיום המצוה הקדושה והחביבה הזאת, לכל אשר נתן ד' רוח־טהרה בלבבו ודי אמץ ובטחון בנפשו לעשות ולקים את כל פרשת דבר השמטה, כהלכתה וכמאמרה  — ברוך יהיה לד' שוכן ציון החפץ בארץ חמדה ובקדושת מצותיה התלויות בה, אשר בהם אוצר חביון גנוז ושרש גאולת עולמים לגוי קדוש על אדמת הקדש.

וכגון דא ודאי אין צריך למודעי, שלא ימצא שום יחיד או מוסד, שישתמש בדברינו, לכוף חם ושלום לעבוד בשביעית, אפילו ע"פ סדרי ההיתר בדרך ההפקעה, את אלה אנשי לב אשר רוח אהבת ד' וחמדת מצותיו נוססה בהם. והם רוצים בכל לבם לשמור ולקיים את מצות השמטה כמאמרה בלא שום דרכי הקולות שנאמרו מפני דוחק השער. ובודאי ידעו גם אלה אשר תעלה בידם שמירת המצוה במילואה לדון לכף זכות בכל רגשי כבוד ואהבת ישראל את כל אלה שמצבם בפרט או מצב הישוב בכלל מכריח אותם להתנהג ע"פ סדרי ההיתר וההפקעה, "ואיש את רעת רעהו אל תחשבו בלבבכם והאמת והשלום אהבו."

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.

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."