Will we ever graduate High School?

(On re-read this post seems kind of dull to me, but it's what's on my mind today. Feel free to scroll down to more interesting material from previous days, I won't be insulted. I had a much better post here: The Increasing Irrelevance of the American Jewish Community.)

One of my favorite reads, Mother in Israel, ran an interesting story on Monday and I’ve been mulling it ever since I saw it:

A large day camp also attended the zoo today. A camper, who appeared to be about seven, began throwing water bottles into the bird lake. Another camper pointed this out to the counselor. "Wait!" she called. "Is that my bottle?," and proceeded to examine it. "Oh, it's not mine," she decided, and returned it to the camper. Who promptly threw it into the water. . . .

I’ve been mulling it because this story encapsulates so much of what I see in myself, and in others around me, in scenes where intervention is warranted.

It reminds of something that happened to me just last night, when I was sitting at a table at a social gathering and someone started reporting a nasty rumor about the head of a local Jewish institution – and for what felt like forever, no one spoke up to stop him. Frankly, I wasn’t even the one who spoke up in the end, to change the subject.

Start with the givens:
- Throwing plastic bottles into the bird lake is wrong. Yes? (You nod here.)
- Camp counselors are supposed to keep their seven-year-old charges from doing things that are wrong. Yes? (Nod again here.)

Or:
- Reporting nasty, unsubstantiated rumor is wrong. Yes? (Nod. An “Amen” would be appropriate as well.)
- We are supposed to quash conversations which involve nasty, unsubstantiated rumors. Yes? (Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-MEN!)

So why doesn’t the counselor do anything? Why doesn’t anyone at the table say anything?

Psychologists point to something called the Bystander Effect, under which individuals witnessing an emergency will intervene, but members of groups witnessing the same emergency will not intervene. Everyone expects someone else to do it, and feels less personal responsibility.

I agree with this observation, but I think there’s more involved. It’s peer pressure, a fear of condemnation by others, and it’s so powerfully, fundamentally instinctive, and so reinforced by our youthful and adolescent experiences, that we don’t grow out of it after high school… or even after marriage and four kids.

I’ve been working in “Youth and Prejudice” conferences for years, and we always talk with the high schoolers about what keeps them from intervening, from becoming a
“rescuer” instead of a “bystander.” The answer is always the same: Peer Pressure.

Peer pressure, in this context, means that if I see what I think is a dangerous situation, and no one else is acting, on some level I question myself, “They’re not acting – maybe I’m reading the situation wrong. Maybe what I think is appropriate, is not appropriate.” And I am less likely to act, unless I am a supremely arrogant person or someone practiced in bucking community opinion.

Some 15-20 years ago I was in a beit midrash in a summer camp’s Kollel when Rav Herschel Schachter entered to deliver a guest shiur. Rav Schachter walked to the front, and en route noticed a pencil, and stooped and picked it up. That pencil must have been there for hours. No one else had picked it up. Why? Because no one else was doing it, so it didn’t seem like something to do.

Personal note: It’s the same thing when you see a tissue on the floor in shul. Why don’t you pick it up? Yeah, YOU - you know who I mean. Is it your bad back – or is it the fact that if no one else has done so, the tissue must not be worth intervening? (And who knows – maybe it’s for some bizarre ritual… yeah, let the rabbi do it.)

It’s the same thing at the table last night. No one else is saying anything to stop him. Maybe the story is true and I’m the only one who doesn’t know? Or maybe they’re not saying anything because speaking up will only make things worse and stir up the conversation? Better to speak, or to quietly look away? Follow the pack.

And let’s look at our camp counselor. No one else is stopping the child. Maybe that bird-lake-spot- is actually where the bottles should go. Or maybe this child isn’t old enough to understand, so I should let it go. Or maybe they tried before and the kid went wild.

I don’t think the blasé response is a function of not caring; I think it’s that society, the people around us, are telling us not to care. If no one else cares, then that voice inside telling me to act is clearly wrong.

I’m not going to make the Pinchas connection – I have a different topic to speak about this Shabbos. But you can connect the dots at home.

I'm not deceiving myself, I just think positively

Warning: quasi-rant ahead.

The other day, someone told me that he is a “last-minute type of person.” From my perspective, though, he isn’t a “last-minute” type of anything; he’s lazy and irresponsible, and until he stops deceiving himself about it he won’t be able to change.

I see two steps in this sort of self-deception:
1) Transform the negative behavior from an action into a character trait
2) Find positive language to express it

Herewith some examples of “thinking positively” in order to fool ourselves:
I don’t fail to respond to email in a timely fashion; I’m an “old-fashioned letter-writer.”
I don’t refuse to give tzedakah; I’m “careful with my philanthropy.”
I don’t waffle; I’m “sympathetic to all perspectives.”
I don’t attack other people ad hominem; I just “get carried away in my passion.”
I don’t speak insensitively; I “shun political correctness.”

Imagine if the villains of the Torah could have used this method:
Paroh didn’t deny Divine authority - he was a “control freak.”
Bilam didn’t sell himself to the highest bidder - he was a “money player.”
Haman didn’t try to destroy the Jews in revenge for Mordechai’s disrespect - he was “an aggressive kind of guy.”
Mahmoud Ahmedinajad isn’t anti-Jewish - he just believes strongly in his cultural values.
(I’m sure there are plenty more; I’ll leave them to the comments section.)

This brand of positive self-redefinition is like the software programmer’s trick of labelling a bug a “design feature.” We avoid self-awareness, and we avoid apologizing and having to change, by re-labelling our weaknesses as character traits.

Where does this come from? The art of the cover-up often starts with parents and teachers and sympathetic friends, who use this method to avoid offering honest criticism. “He’s really a good guy, he just…” “My son is great at, he just ….” But flattery will get society nowhere.

Of course, if you lie to yourself but don’t let it affect social behavior, that’s only your problem. Self-delusion could, theoretically, be limited to personal delusion. Had Kayin kept his delusions to himself (“I’m not failing to give my best crops; I’m careful with my philanthropy”), Hevel would have survived.

But self-delusion is rarely a bloodless sport, because we live in a world of other human beings with whom we interact, and who are affected by the negative traits we conceal from ourselves. Shuls, community organizations, businesses, book clubs, we all depend on other people to function responsibly and productively, and when people turn a blind eye to their own character defects, the world suffers.

The answer isn’t for us clear-sighted people to go around highlighting everyone else’s flaws. Somehow, I don’t think תוכחה of “You’re not a last-minute type of person, you’re lazy,” or even something more mild, is really going to inspire change in all but a masochistic few.

No, the answer, as always, is to start by working on ourselves.

Too bad I don’t have any problematic traits to change.

Daf: Sotah 42-44 - Hockey sticks, Shma, Jobs and Women in the Military

As always, please read with a gemara in front of you.

42a
Note the Rambam on the mishnah, describing a military precursor of the hockey stick in his explanation of קלגסין.

Why is reciting Shema morning and evening considered to be such a crucial merit on behalf of the Jewish people? It might be the declaration of faith, but it also might be the passage of gemara in Menachot 99b which views the morning and evening Shema-recitation as fulfillment of the mitzvah of studying Torah in the morning and evening, a merit which supports Heaven and Earth themselves (אם לא בריתי יומם ולילה חקות שמים וארץ לא שמתי).

Note that according to the gemara's order of the wartime border-speech and battle-speech, the Torah's presentation of the two speeches is backward.


42b
As was noted by an attendee here at the Daf in Allentown, the connection between Arpah and the Plishtim is odd; Arpah was, after all, a Moabitess (א:ד - ויקחו להם נשים מואביות), and she is described by Naami as returning home (א:טו אל עמה)!


43b
Note the debate between Rashash and Maharshal, related to Rashi ומאי שנא ילדה בילדה.


44a
The gemara here says that participants in an illicit marriage are liable only once they live together sexually. This matches the Sefer Chasidim (שפג), in his comment that the idea of Bashert – that marriages are predestined – isn't really about marriage but rather is a predestination that a certain man and woman will be together sexually.

The gemara's suggested order for developing one's life is (1st) House, then (2nd) Finding a livelihood, and then (3rd) Getting married. This fits the order of the pesukim in the Torah, in the section on war (Devarim 20).
On the other hand, the Rambam (Mishneh Torah Hilchot Deiot 5:11) presents the order as (1) Livelihood, then (2) House, and then (3) Getting married, following the order of the Tochacha-curses in Devarim 24.
The Kesef Mishnah explains that the first two can be in either order; the point is to do them before marrying.
The Maaseh Rokeiach offers another approach: The Torah's example of a livelihood is in harvesting a vineyard, for which one must wait through 4 harvests before first being permitted to eat the grapes. Therefore, one starts with the vineyard/livelihood, then gets the house, and then is able to enjoy the fruits of the vineyard/livelihood – all before getting married.


44b
Note that the gemara mentions a bride going to war, and the Rambam cites this as law (Mishneh Torah Hilchot Melachim 7:4) – since when do we have female soldiers recommended in the gemara?
The Tiferet Yisrael (on our mishnah) and the Radvaz (on the Rambam) both suggest that this refers to providing support in preparing the roads and supplying the army.

The gemara’s example of a violation of a rabbinic law is that of speaking between donning the arm and head tefillin. Among other answers, some suggest this is because the soldier must combine his strength and his Torah wisdom – and he cannot have any interruption between them.

Of Silent Prayer, Synagogue Design, and Tzimtzum

Reb Gil writes here about noise during davening - noise from talking, and noise from other people who are davening.

The former type of noise is not of great interest to me; I think the primary reason for talking during davening is not sinfulness but rather thoughtless synagogue design, cramming people close to each other for 90 to 150 minutes during which they are supposed to be unnaturally focussed only on prayer and not at all on each other.

The latter, though - noisy davening - is something I’ve been contemplating lately.

The gemara actually presents four different reasons to recite Shemoneh Esreih silently:
1) Chanah prayed silently (Berachot 31a)
2) Silent prayer shows faith in Divine omniscience (Berachot 24b)
3) Loud prayer would embarrass sinners who wished to admit their sins (Sotah 32b)
4) Loud prayer would distract others (Berachot 24b)

It is also noteworthy that the Aruch haShulchan (Orach Chaim 101:8) adds a fifth factor: A hushed demeanor is appropriately respectful when standing before royalty.

(Note that there are also reasons to daven aloud; see Biur haGra Orach Chaim 101 להגביה and Aruch haShulchan Orach Chaim 101:7-8.)

But let’s look at this on a more abstract level. Certainly, silence is of practical value - סיג לחכמה שתיקה as well as נצור לשונך מרע - but silence is also an expression of spiritual depth.

Consider Avraham’s silence at the instruction to slaughter his son Yitzchak, and the accolades he earns for his unquestioning loyalty.

Consider Aharon’s silence at the death of Nadav and Avihu, and the praise heaped upon him for his articulate inexpression.

Consider Chanah’s silent plea for a child. Despite the fact that the gemara reads all manner of imprecation into her non-words, the plain presentation is of a servant of Gd, nobly stoic in her suffering.

Consider the Davidic counsel of דום לה' והתחולל לו, Pray silently for Gd and tremble (Ibn Ezra's translation) for Him .

And, finally but most significantly, consider the contrast between Eliyahu’s thundering rage and the Divine קול דממה דקה with which Gd rebukes him, a sound so thin as to be nearly inaudible, and yet deep enough to contain the majesty of the Creator of All.

This is a silence of presence, of pent-up power, of tzimtzum, of a Being who surely can thunder like Eliyahu but who chooses the containment of Chanah.

To me, the silence of Shemoneh Esreih is an attempt to capture this noble state of expressive restraint.

And yet, the Rambam (Hilchot Tefilah 5:9) and Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 101:2-3) do not choose this route, but instead opt for the prosaic, if socially praiseworthy, concern of distracting others. Oh, well. There's a lesson in that, too.

The Next Phase in Rabbinic Training: SimCity, SimPlant, SimChildren, SimShuls

[Note: This week’s Haveil Havailim is here.]

First came SimCity, a computer game in which players could experiment with zoning and urban planning and monitor their results. Later editions like SimEarth and SimLife were variations on the same theme, with larger ecosystems.

Then came The Sims, and players managed the lives of characters in a household.

This past May I heard about SimPlants, in which people experiment with care of a potted plant.

In all of these SimSystems, players receive feedback and scores letting them know how they are doing. As a parent, I would love to use SimChildren, to experiment with virtual children before making a real-life decision:

- It’s Friday morning and the two-year-old has a low fever. Motrin seems to handle it, and he isn’t complaining about his throat, but what if it is strep? Shouldn’t we get him checked so that he won’t have to go through Shabbos with strep (and infect every other child in shul)? But that would mean losing a couple of hours sitting in the doctor’s office, and it’s probably just a 24-hour virus….

- The pre-school teacher thinks your child needs occupational therapy for fine motor control. You think your child is just a little immature. Do you follow her recommendation and sign up for twelve weeks of OT/PT? Or do you wing it?

And those are just the small stuff; what happens when you get to choice of high schools, driving lessons and a car, teenage friends and dating…?

SimChildren, coded by experienced parents with no fewer than eight children of their own, would remove much of the mystery, allowing accelerated responses to these difficult decisions.

But professionally, as a shul rabbi, I would really love to see SimShul, in which a rabbi or president could experiment with a virtual congregation. For all the work underway to improve rabbinic training - and there’s a lot of good work out there, from Young Israel’s rabbinic training program to the RIETS training programs to the Legacy Heritage Foundation/Center for the Jewish Future’s rabbinic mentorships to Yeshivat Chovevei Torah’s pastoral preparation - the best tool would definitely be SimShul.

With SimShul, you can try whatever you like, and see the results before taking the risk: Raise the mechitzah, cut down on kiddush spending, add ויתן לך on Saturday night, increase the number of allowable הוספות (extra aliyot) in the Torah reading, lengthen the Shabbos morning derashah, dump that guy from the board, eliminate the Shabbos morning derashah, start a building campaign, you name it.

We would need different versions, I think, for different religious stripes, different demographics, different cities with different personalities. Just within the Orthodox community there’s Yeshivish, Modern Orthodox/Centrist, Shteibel, Carlebach, Historic Institution, Startup, Breakaway, Chabad, New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Chicago, Small Town, Young, Older…

Yes, this would be a little complex, but think of the benefits... I would pay good money for this.

Daf: Sotah 38-41 - Torah Reading, Hakhel, Flattery and more

Lots of very interesting material in these pages of gemara; as always, please read with a gemara in front of you.

38b (in addition to the notes on 38b from the last Daf segment here)
The gemara mentions that financial need is considered an אונס situation, a condition which forces one into conduct that is not halachically ideal, but is acceptable due to duress.
For similar ideas, see the mishnah on Beitzah 35b, as well as Shitah Mekubetzet there on the difference between that case and the one on Shabbat 126b of clearing a storage area on Shabbat to make room for learning Torah. See also Berachot 30a on davening earlier than appropriate before a business trip, and Moed Katan 14a on searching for your own lost property rather than preparing for Yom Tov.

The gemara says that we aren’t concerned about tall people constituting a physical interruption when standing between shorter people and the kohanim. Rashi (end of the page) explains that this is because it would be impractical to worry about this (אין לדבר סוף). It is odd to see impracticality as a halachic consideration; we do invoke אין לדבר סוף in the beginning of Yoma, but as a practical consideration, not a halachic consideration!


39a
See the Maharitz Chayes on how the gemara knows that the kohanim have a mitzvah to bless the nation with love, specifically.

The verb אדבריה is usually associated with setting up a student as a speaker before a sage. See Maharitz Chayes on this.


39b
The classic long “Amen” sung by the baal keriah before beginning an aliyah has a liturgical purpose: It warns everyone to stop talking before the reading begins, per our gemara here. See Mishneh Berurah 141:17.

The gemara here does not explain why the person who reads the Haftorah must also read from the Torah. Ulla, in Megilah 23a, explains that it’s for the sake of the honor of the Torah.

The gemara talks about waiting to start the Haftorah until the Torah is all wrapped up. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 147:7) explains that this is in order to allow the גולל (wrapper of the Torah) to complete his task and listen to the Haftorah. However, the Mishneh Berurah (147:22) notes that no such concern applies regarding the יהי רצון recited on Mondays and Thursdays.


40a
Tosafot כל seems to believe that dreams have real power, such that one is in real danger if he has a bad dream. This seems to run counter to Berachot 55-57, where the great majority of sages weigh in saying that dreams are largely a function of psychology! Perhaps Tosafot is referring to psychological danger - but note that Ibn Ezra to Bereishit 40:8 says we rule, as a matter of law, with the view that dreams are considered potent.

The Maharsha explains that R’ Abba’s humility is greater than that of R’ Avahu because R’ Avahu endures public embarrassment rather than private.

On people’s preference for aggada: Shabbat 115a and 116b says one should not read Tanach on Shabbat, because it draws the heart away from the Beit Medrash. The same draw is noted for non-law-oriented aggada passages of learning in our gemara, and in Rashi Shmot 13:5.

Rav Pappa here merges existent versions of liturgy to create one text for all to read; he does similar things with the berachah for seeing a rainbow (Berachot 59a) and the berachah at the end of megilah reading on Purim (Megilah 21b). (R’ Akiva Eiger notes some further places on the page, but I didn’t look them up to see whether those are Rav Pappa or not, and I don’t remember off-hand.)


40b
See Tosafot וכל כך and ומנין.

Rashi קומו וברכו’s explanation of the inclusion of מן העולם ועד העולם in berachot is odd; see Rashi on Berachot 54a and Rashash there on which berachot contained that text.


41a
Rashi here justifies bringing Sifrei Torah to the Beis haMikdash on Yom Kippur by (1) taking the view that one may transport items on Yom Kippur, or that (2) Yerushalayim was considered encloseable by an Eruv. The latter view is problematic, in light of the gemara (Pesachim 66a) about the debate on how the Jws could get Korban Pesach knives to the Beis haMikdash when erev Pesach was Shabbat. (unless they were coming from outside Yerushalayim?)

Note that although we always say the King leads Hakhel, and our mishnah says it here, this isn’t necessarily so. The Torah does not specify a King, and they didn’t have an halachic king until Shaul.

Regarding the “You are our brother” line addressed to King Agrippas, see Rashi here, Rashi on 41b and Tosafot on 41b אותו היום.

Rashi on the mishnah ושמע seems to have an order of the Hakhel reading that varies from that of our mishnah?

The tithes were considered important enough to be included in the reading for Hakhel. Similarly, see Yevamot 47a that this is one of the issues of which we must inform a potential convert, apparently because the consequences of failure to tithe properly are dire for the nation as a whole.


41b
The gemara here goes on at length regarding the evils of flattery. There are two kinds of flattery: False praise, and Praise of wicked behavior. Here we are talking about the latter variety, which is particularly pernicious as it undermines society. See mishnah Shviit 4:3 and Gittin 62a, and Magen Avraham 347:4, among other sources on praising and flattering people who are acting improperly. As Tosafot says here: Better to keep your mouth closed.
On the other hand, the former is an issue of lying in general; see Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel’s famous debate about how to praise a bride, in Ketuvot 16b-17a.

Rashi here מאתחלתא דמועד has one view on why Hakhel could not be on the first day of Yom Tov; see, though, the opposition of Tosafot כתב, printed on 41a.

The Increasing Irrelevance of the American Jewish Community

In the past year I’ve watched three of my rabbinic peers, all in the 30-40 year old prime of their rabbinate, announce their aliyah. I’ve cheered on several congregants along their path of aliyah over the past few years. While much of the decision-making process for these olim has been individual, focusing on factors like children’s education or job situation or personal Zionism, I also see in it a sign of the increasing irrelevance of the American Jewish community. (Note: This isn’t a value judgment, just an observation.) Just as individual Jewish communities move their centers of gravity over time, so the world Jewish community is inexorably moving its center to Israel.

This is not a religious statement about the centrality of Israel for Torah observance, it’s not a Zionist statement about the future of Jewish life, it’s not a negation of everything American life has offered Jews for centuries. It’s just a recognition of a social shift which is already underway.

Certainly, the American Jewish community is currently the wealthiest and most politically connected in the world, but I’m looking at this community’s relevance for the future of the Jewish people, and I see three major signs of communal irrelevance: Satellitism, Entropy and Individualism.

Satellitism:
The American Jewish community is losing its relevance because, religiously as well as politically, the American Jewish community functions increasingly as a satellite of Israeli Jewry.
For education of our children, for Birthright connections, for halachic guidance, for the leadership of institutions which address issues of modernity in the context of Judaism, we look to the Israeli Jewish community. Much of our political leadership is currently in America, and much of our philanthropic is as well, but this landscape is shifting.

Entropy:
The American Jewish community is losing its relevance because its institutional infrastructure is decaying and is not being replaced.
This is true across the spectrum of religious observances. From schools to philanthropic umbrella organizations to synagogues, the problem of funding as well as communal participation (and even communal interest) is proving difficult to solve. Major challenges include the tuition crisis, the drift away from umbrella philanthropy, Jewish disaffiliation from JCCs, and the tendency of younger Americans not to affiliate with synagogues. Just look at the numbers at the Jewish Databank’s surveys; it’s all there in the community studies.
Much institutional time and energy is being devoted to finding solutions to these major problems.
Non-Orthodox movements have developed an approach of solving the problems by negating the questions. Example: Intermarriage is not a problem, because intermarrieds can now be members, are seen to be making a legitimate lifestyle decision, and are labelled as “on the cusp of Jewish confrontation with secular society.” The biggest question is how we can serve them. Another example: The choice of sports activities over religious school is not a problem, because one can engage in sports Jewishly, and religious schools can fit everything into one afternoon a week.
Orthodoxy has done no better in solving these problems. Schools are underfunded, JCCs and Umbrella philanthropies are ignored. Institutional dissolution is considered acceptable; we’ll just look elsewhere to meet our needs. Creative, effective solutions are few and far between.

Individualism
The American Jewish community is losing its relevance because American Jews seem to be more committed to the welfare of the individual than the welfare of the community.
There just seems to be little interest in guaranteeing the future of Jewish life in America. Intermarriage rates are one indicator of this problem. Affiliation with institutions is another. A third indicator is the failure of the Jewish community to adopt any sense of sacrifice for the sake of the future. George Hanus’s “Five Percent for Jewish Education” plan is a program which could work, but I’d like to see it at 10% or 15%. It’s not going to happen, of course; too many of us are more interested in Caribbean vacations and building on to our homes and purchasing fancy cars. Think back to great-grandparents who had little to spend on food, and yet they gave money to Hebrew Loan Funds and to support mikvaos, and contributed their time to Jewish community infrastructure; today’s level of consumerism would have been unthinkable to them.

Ultimately, this may just be the natural evolution of a community, from its early growth to its institutional strength to its senescence. It may be a function of the failure of Jewish education for some, and the success of Jewish education for others, leading each group to abandon this community, whether to pursue Jewish oblivion or to pursue aliyah. Call it a Divinely orchestrated pattern of events, if you like.
As I see it: American Jewry will remain as a Jewish community, at least for the foreseeable non-Mashiach era, just as there are Jewish communities in South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the FSU and Hong Kong. However, it will be a community with decreasing potency and decreasing leadership. The strongest institutions will open branches elsewhere, particularly in Israel, and those branches will eventually become their centers. Our children and their children will increase their rates of aliyah. Kibbutz Galuyot will happen naturally. בעתה אחישנה.

A big question, and Sotah 36-38

First, a question: I’ve been mixing gemara notes and derashot and personal observations on the rabbinate and life in this blog, and I’m not sure it’s jelling well. What do you think? Split off gemara notes and derashot into a separate blog? Or leave it all together, because that's the way my life works anyway?

As always: Best to read these notes with a gemara in front of you. Some big points on parenting and society toward the end. I'm working on a computer that doesn't have Hebrew options, so please bear with the annoying transliterations.

36a
The Maharsha addresses the question of how we know that the tzirah did not cross the Yarden with the Jews; the gemara here just seems to take it as a given.

See Tosafot esrim who provides the Yerushalmi’s version of the alignment of tribal names on the two stones of the Ephod, including the interesting idea of splitting the name of Binyamin. (This Tosafot, as well as the very interesting Tosafot mai, address points published on 36b in the gemara.)

36b
Make sure to see Tosafot la'asot and b’otah.

Fascinating: Back on 10b we credited Yehudah with “sanctifying Gd’s Name in public” by acknowledging Tamar’s righteousness (a troubling concept, as we noted here). Here, though, we have the same statement regarding Yehudah, but we understand it to refer to Nachshon ben Aminadav, descendant of Yehudah, and his bold march into the Yam Suf at the head of the Jewish people.

37a
At Yam Suf (the Sea of Reeds), with the Egyptian army bearing down on the Jews, the Jews cry out in frustration and anger, asking why Moshe took them out of Egypt to die at the sea. Moshe rebukes them, and says Gd will fight for them. Gd then says to Moshe, “Mah titzak eilai? Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Jews to go forward, and you raise your staff and stretch it over the sea, and split the sea.” The opening line of “Why are you crying out to Me” is problematic – we don’t find Moshe crying out to Gd.
The gemara here offers one solution, by adding that Moshe was davening to Gd, it just wasn’t mentioned in the Torah's text.
Another approach I’ve seen parses the sentence, “Mah titzak? Eilai!” “Why are you shouting? Rally to Me!”
As some commentators note, though, the most straightforward read is that Moshe represents the nation, so that “Why are you crying out to Me” is addressed to Moshe as the nation’s representative. The only problem with this read is that “you” then transitions from “you the nation’s representative” to “you Moshe” without textual hint.

See Tosafot v’hayu.

37b
Here we receive a huge lesson in parenting. The parent who creates a mamzer is responsible for the fact that the mamzer child, frustrated with Judaism, leaves the religion. The same is true for any parent who – by refusing to educate a child properly, or by failing to be a good role model – leads a child to abandon a good path for a bad one.

The gemara’s harei kvar neemar is reversed here, and should not be taken literally; kvar is a reference to a later pasuk, not an earlier one.

38a
See Rashi on the mishnah, and Tosafot O, on the meaning of the word kinui here in the gemara.

38b
Rashi here, Upatarnuhu, says something of crucial importance for society. He explains the case of eglah arufah, saying that if I don’t aid a traveler, so that the traveler then goes hungry, and that traveler then turns to theft and is killed in trying to steal food, then I am responsible for his death. Because I failed to provide proper social services, I am responsible for the needy person’s life of crime. Senator McCain, Senator Obama, are you listening?

I'm sending my children to Jewish Hogwarts

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

Today I sent my 7-year old daughter to Hogwarts; my 9-year old son goes later this week. For the former, Hogwarts is a Jewish summer day camp in my in-laws’ community; for the latter, it’s Camp Mesorah in Guilford, New York.

One of the many fascinating Harry Potter themes in the early books is that of the outsider-child who suddenly discovers that he is not alone in his idiosyncrasy, but that there are, in fact, a world of others who resemble him, who do what he does, who know what he knows, and who also live a life that is out-of-step from the masses.

For better or for worse, I’ve never really felt out-of-step. I grew up in New York, went to a Hebrew Academy school and Camp Raleigh and then Camp Morasha, along the way finding many lifestyle-reinforcing peers whose homes, Jewish lives and interests resembled my own. Sure, plenty of local homes displayed December lights and Halloween décor, and of course there were questions of, “Why don’t we do that?” but it was never terribly intense; we had our own circle, and that more than sufficed. I was secure enough that I could ride the LIRR and subway with a gemara and not feel uncomfortable.

Fast-forward to an experience of mine on a YU Summer Kollel (now re-packaged as “Summer Torah Seminars”) in Charleston, South Carolina. A woman described how local Jewish boys had been goggling at some coveted new toy in a store, and one had remarked to another, “I hope my folks get that for me for Christmas,” because he was embarrassed to be heard mentioning Chanukah. (Today, Adam Sandler may have changed all that, but this was pre-Sandler.) I sympathized with the kids, but I couldn’t really understand what was going through those kids’ minds, not having grown up in that environment.

Today, I have a stronger sense of what those kids felt. Thank Gd, we have many young families here for a community of our size, but each of my older children has only 4 or 5 kids in class at school whose Jewish beliefs and practice match our own. I know that in some communities even that number would be significant, but to me it seems small, especially given that it’s only 25%-30% of the total class for each of them. They certainly feel more isolated than I did at their age.

So we’re sending them to Jewish Hogwarts for the summer, to camp experiences where my daughter will have 15 or so bunkmates who live as she does, and where my son will be immersed in a camp of 500+ kids who, by and large, practice as he does. For my daughter the experience will be less intense, as is appropriate for day camp. For my son it will be, I think, a real eye-opener. I’m very curious to see how he will evolve over the course of the summer, and what it might mean when he returns.

The Politics of Privilege (Derashah: Korach)

After last week's derashah, I just wanted to present a quiet, laid-back dvar torah. Here it is:


At least one element of presidential campaigns is guaranteed: Every four years, one major candidate, if not both, will be accused of being part of a privileged elite. Think George Bush Sr and his surprise at seeing a supermarket scanner, Bill Clinton and his Rhodes Scholarship, John Kerry and his money, or the current President Bush and his oil wealth. Now, Barack Obama is hearing it for his Ivy League education and law career.

We don’t like to entrust authority to a privileged class. As William F. Buckley wrote in 1963, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” We worry about government by people who don’t share our interests and ideals. But, as our parshah shows, that worry is misguided.


Moshe’s life is proof that the privileged can lead, that the trappings of upper class power and prestige do not automatically rob a person of that basic human empathy which enables one descendant of Adam and Chavah to attend, with selfless sensitivity, to the needs of others.

As Korach accurately charged, Moshe was blessed with all manner of privilege - political, priestly and prophetic - but one would be hard-pressed to find a leader who ever cared for his flock as Moshe did, who took more literally than Moshe the responsibility of carrying the nation כאשר ישא האומן את היונק, as a nurse carries a nursling.

This message is brought home in the heart of the book of Bamidbar, as Moshe’s career is contrasted with those of three other parties, each of whom shared some of Moshe’s privileges, but each of whose actions varied sharply from his.


First, we met the Meraglim, the Spies of last week’s parshah, who were introduced as ראשי בני ישראל, leaders of the Jewish people. These were the diplomatic representatives of each tribe, much as Moshe was the representative of the nation. Both they and Moshe were treated with special privilege, and one might have expected their leadership to resemble that of Moshe.

In practice, though, the Meraglim were a leadership bust, surrendering to their most basic fear of the Canaanites, and according to some commentators surrendering to their fear of losing their positions of power. Contrast that cowardice with Moshe’s heroism in wars against various nations, and with Moshe’s willingness to share authority and power with Yehoshua and the elders.

Clearly, political privilege does not determine leadership style.


Second, we meet Korach, who, like Moshe, is a member of the priestly class of Leviyyim. He, like Moshe, is of the Kehat family, who carried the most sacred implements of the Mishkan. Given that he and Moshe are both privileged to be Leviyyim and Kehat descendants, one might have expected Korach’s leadership to resemble that of Moshe.

But, in practice, Korach was selfish, seeking more power for himself. He demanded that Aharon surrender his position as Kohen Gadol, but he never offered to surrender his own special benefits. Contrast that with Moshe’s willingness to offer the priesthood to Korach and his group - Moshe sought nothing for himself.

The privilege of priesthood, then, does not determine leadership style, either.


And then, in two weeks, we will encounter Bilam, who, like Moshe, was a prophet. As the midrash explains, Bilam was specifically given the equivalent of Moshe’s abilities, so that the non-Jewish nations could not protest that they had not been given a Moshe-like leader. Bilam, like Moshe, communicated with Gd easily and frequently, and one might have expected his leadership to resemble that of Moshe.

Instead, we find that Bilam used his prophetic powers for his own aggrandizement, seeking to convince Gd to support his bid to curse the Jews so that he might earn a big payday from his sponsors. Contrast that with Moshe’s insistence of לא חמור אחד מהם נשאתי, I have never taken anything, not a single donkey, from the Jewish people.

The privilege of prophecy also does not determine leadership style.


Through these three contrasts, Sefer Bamidbar teaches us that a human being neither gains nor loses his concern for others and or leadership potential because of the gifts of his particular life. Or as J.K. Rowling put it, through the mouth of Albus Dumbledore, “It is our choices that define us far more than our abilities.”

Moshe lives that doctrine, and with all of his class privileges, Moshe’s response to Korach provides textbook instruction on how to sympathize with others: Despite Korach’s obvious selfish phoniness, and despite the very personal nature of Korach’s accusations, Moshe takes Korach’s charges seriously because he knows that among Korach’s followers, both the vocal and the silent, there may be some who are convinced by his questions, who are drawn by the populist rhetoric of “Moshe has arrogated power for himself.” And so Moshe prudently offers Korach’s group a chance to bring incense themselves, even though he knows they are doomed to failure, and so Moshe patiently visits the tents of Korach’s followers to seek peace. This is the behavior of the עניו מכל אדם, the most humble of all, who seeks not to gain but to serve.


The political spin doctors, in urging us to be swayed by the privileges we do not share with specific political candidates, are presenting a misleading doctrine. By dint of common humanity and personal humility, any one of us can see the needs of others, and be motivated to meet those needs. This is the true test of our leaders, and of those who would lead us next.

-
Note: Buckley's quote is credited to his 1963 work, Rumbles Left and Right, but I have not seen it in the original book.

Daf: Sotah 33-35 - lots happening here

There's a lot going on in these pages; I've just added some notes on a few of the many issues. As always, read with a gemara in front of you, but I have taken a few extra minutes to try to make some of these items comprehensible for those without a gemara.

33a
The gemara says that the entire Torah is supposed to be read in the original Hebrew. Rashi and Tosafot Shantz disagree on the application of that statement, as far as whether it refers to the weekly Torah reading or only to the biblically required Torah readings. Of particular note is the marginal comment on the Tosafot Shantz, suggesting that Parshat Parah is biblical.

Do the angels only speak Hebrew, or do they speak all non-Aramaic languages? See the Maharsha. (And boy is that topic odd – especially as it has halachic ramifications!)


33b
Tosafot and the Maharsha seem to have different explanations of the question of והלא לא ראו את הגלגל – Tosafot מול understands it to be asking that one cannot see Gilgal from Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval, but the Maharsha seems to think it is asking that the Jews cannot see Gilgal from their desert location.

The gemara lists times when Kohanim carried the Aron. See the Gilyon haShas on other times the Aron was carried by Kohanim. The Radak he cites asks and answers as Tosafot וכשהחזירוהו does here.


34a
I would have assumed the “300 mil” number was just an exaggeration, as is the gemara’s evaluation of the distance from earth to the clouds (in other discussions), but Tosafot יותר does not think so.


34b
See Tosafot כחנייתן on the matter of how the Jews crossed the Yarden.

The idea that a person could walk faster than water travels downstream is odd, to say the least. Rashi רבה and Tosafot מר both wrestle with this issue, and develop different solutions.

Regarding the issue of naming someone for an event that has not yet happened (as in the case of נחבי בן ופסי and סתור), see the Maharsha in Berachot on naming Ruth רות for the deeds of her descendant Dovid haMelech. Naming has elements of prophecy associated with it. See also our earlier discussion on Leah naming Yehudah for what he would do in the future.

The gemara here famously describes Moshe re-naming Yehoshua before his espionage mission; the Maharsha says that Yehoshua’s earlier labelling of “Yehoshua” in the Torah is only because his name would be changed later.

See Tosafot אבותי on the question of whether the deceased actually know what is happening in this world – and follow up in that gemara in Berachot 18-19 on this issue, particularly given the comment in the margin here. Based on our liturgy, such as some of the Tisha b’Av kinot, we certainly believe that the deceased do find out what is happening in this world.

See the Aruch on ענק; he renders it as neck.


35a
The Torah Temimah, commenting on the story of the spies, explains why the spies should have suffered particularly from wounds to their tongue and belly, and from the dreaded askerah death. The tongue was for lashon hara. The belly was for slandering Israel, which is seen in the gemara as the navel of the world. Askera is considered an appropriate punishment for lashon hara [but see also Pesachim 105a, where it is also a punishment for eating before havdalah…]

The idea of Dovid being blamed for Uzza’s death, when Uzza acted independently, is reminiscent of an issue discussed in many halachic authorities, of one’s liability for the death of a person who is doing a job for you. The Mahari Weil ruled that one is spiritually liable for the death of a person who is doing a job in his employ, and the issue has been greatly debated since. See Sanhedrin 95, Mahari Weil 125, Maharshal 96, Maharam Lublin 44, Beis Yosef at the end of Choshen Mishpat 188 (on financial liability), Tzemach Tzedek (the earlier) 6, Chasam Sofer 177, Avnei Nezer Yoreh Deah 478.


35b
Rashi’s explanation of בעבר הירדן is interesting; see also Rashbam to Devarim 1:1. There are others who are more troubled by this phrase.

If the Jews are not supposed to accept peace with the Canaanites they encounter, how do we understand Rachav’s survival? Tosafot לרבות gives one answer here, and this approach is seen in Malbim to Yehoshua 2:12 as well. Radak to Yehoshua 6:25 gives a similar answer, saying she converted. On the other hand, Ibn Ezra to Shemot 20:7 says that the oath bound the Jews, despite their mitzvah regarding her.

To Coach a Committee

I’ve probably sat on a dozen boards, as well as many more committees, over the past dozen years. I've been through the meetings from gehennom, I've doodled on innumerable pads, I've yawned through redundant reports and debates that went nowhere. But I've also seen a lot of good work, and I think I’ve picked up a few things about how to chair these entities, and how to lead organizations in general. It's pretty much common sense, but on the chance that this formulation will help someone, here are my thoughts:

I like to draw an analogy between a committee chair and the coach of a sports team.

I see three requirements for a sports coach, and a committee leader:
1) Know the game
2) Be aware of your role and your limitations
3) Respect your team

First: Know the game
The most celebrated coaches, it seems to me, are students of the game, constantly reviewing video, reading books, analyzing plays. They also plan ahead, sometimes far ahead, studying personnel and schedule and training in order to optimize their team’s function.

The same is true in committee work, I find: A committee chair who doesn’t prepare properly is not only wasting an opportunity; she isn’t coaching well. The best committee chair is the one who understands the committee’s tasks, who studies the committee’s capabilities, who trains committee members, who looks at challenges as well as opportunities and prepares for each.


Second: Be aware of your role and your limitations
Far too many coaches hang on long after they have ceased to be effective, struggle along in bad relationships with the players, and don’t make proper use of their players, or their assistant coaches and staff. The best coaches know their relationships with the players, know when a relationship isn’t working and try to fix it, and delegate properly.

Again, the committee analogy is apt: A committee chair who is disconnected from the committee members, or who does everything himself, or who lets the ball drop because of inappropriate assignment of tasks, is a poor coach. The best committee chairs know how to use their co-workers, how to lead and delegate, and how to step down as well.


Third, and perhaps most important: Respect your team
A coach must respect his team for the time they put in, for the creativity and energy they bring to the table, for the sacrifices they make for the sake of the institution.

We all know committee chairs who do this, as well as committee chairs who don't. The most frustrating chairs, for me, are the ones who don’t plan well, who schedule meetings or projects at their own convenience instead of that of the committee, and who run the actual meetings lackadaisically.

The chairs I have most enjoyed, on the other hand, keep a tight agenda at the meeting itself, do a lot of the meeting-work in between formal meetings by keeping in touch with the participants, and generally show in every communication and action that they respect the time and ideas and effort of the participants.


It’s popular for people to say, “I hate meetings,” and to groan at the announcement of a new committee. I don’t buy into that. I love meetings, and committees – as long as they are done right. Sure, committees and meetings can be a nightmare, but when committees operate well, it’s like watching the Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls, or Mark Messier’s New York Rangers (that was not Keenan's team), or Bill Walsh’s 49’ers. Those are teams I want to join.

Why Orthodoxy? Part III of III

This series of posts summarizes a non-proselytizing talk I delivered at a Conservative Temple a while back, on “Why I am an Orthodox Jew.” I decided to post it after Gil at Hirhurim started posting a series on "Why People Become Orthodox." You can find the latest in that series here.

In Part I I talked about the passion of Orthodoxy, contrasting Kafka’s critical description of his father’s Judaism with Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik’s description of his own, impassioned Torah study experience.

In Part II I talked about the credibility of Orthodoxy’s tradition-bearers and the diversity of Orthodoxy’s appeal and reach.

4) An Intellectual and Practical Challenge
Orthodoxy appeals to me because applying tradition to modernity is a huge challenge.

Orthodoxy requires intellectual breadth and depth, to handle issues as wide-ranging as surrogate motherhood and downloading music from the Internet and genetically modified foods.

Orthodoxy is practically challenging, too, but that is to Orthodoxy’s advantage. Here’s Naomi Schaefer Riley speaking in the Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Reviving Judaism":
Religious groups that have grown the fastest in recent years (including Orthodox Judaism) are the ones that demand the most of their adherents, not the ones that offer religion (and refreshments) cafeteria-style.

On the other hand, I look back at Kafka’s comments and see what happens when religion is not challenging.


5) Hope for the future
And, last but not least, Orthodoxy has great hope for the future.

In this I don’t only refer to the standard statistics about the future of each denomination, its intermarriage rates and its rates of disaffection. (Although I do take pleasure in noting Marshall Sklare’s 1955 prediction in “Conservative Judaism: An American Religious Movement” – Orthodox adherents have succeeded in achieving the goal of institutional perpetuation only to a limited extent; the history of their movement in this country can be written in terms of a case study of institutional decay.) I refer also to the way Orthodoxy looks at the future of Judaism, the Jewish people, and the world, at what is, and at what we could make of it.

I refer you to this 1975 talk by Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, entitled “Concepts in Jewish Education”:

[Commenting on Genesis 44:19-20, Yehudah speaking to Yosef, viceroy of Egypt: “My master asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or brother?’ And we told my master, ‘We have an aged father and a young child of his old age…’”]

He [the teacher of Rabbi Soloveitchik] said: Joseph was not talking about a visible father…but about a mysterious hidden father… he inquired about existential parenthood, not biological parenthood. Joseph was anxious to discover whether they feel themselves committed to the origin… Do you look upon your father as branches look upon the roots of the tree? Do you look upon your father as the foundation of your existence? Do you look upon him as a provider and sustainer of your existence?...

Are you modest and humble? Do you believe that the old father, who represents the old tradition, is capable of telling you something new, something exciting, something challenging that you did not know before, or are you arrogant, insolent, vain, and demand independence from the father?

He addressed himself to the one who had a reputation as a prodigy, whose father was a blacksmith: Who knows more, Izhik who knows 150 pages of Gemara by heart, or his father Jacob the blacksmith who could hardly read Hebrew, can hardly daven? Are you proud of your father, are you humble? If a Jew admits the supremacy of his father in effect he recognizes also the supremacy of the universal father, who is very, very, very old and is called ‘atik yomin’.

…You can then also interpret in the same manner the second question: “Do you have a brother?”... Does your time awareness encompass the present, or the future as well? Does my existence embrace my parents, family, friends or generations before me? Do you plan not for the world of today, but for the world of tomorrow?

Do you believe in the improbable, in the fantastic? Do you behold a vision to make the improbable and fantastic happen so that it can turn to reality? Do you believe what the future can bring?

The brothers responded: Yes master, we do have a very old father. We feel that we are all deeply rooted in him… Yes master, we have a young talented bright child with a shining eye representing the world of tomorrow. This child is challenging us to make the generations unborn yet possible and to make non-being emerge as something real.

I am Orthodox because I love the fervor.
I am Orthodox because I believe the history of our tradition.
I am Orthodox because I appreciate diversity.
I am Orthodox because I embrace the challenge.
And I am Orthodox because, to paraphrase Rabbi Soloveitchik, I believe in the improbable, in the fantastic. I behold a vision to make the improbable and fantastic happen so that it can become reality. I am Orthodox because I believe in what the future can bring, and in what I can bring to the future.

Daf: Sotah 31-32

Some interesting points here, both in terms of gemara approach and in terms of philosophy. Enjoy, preferably with a gemara in front of you.

31a
The gemara debates whether to read Yeshayah 63:9 as בכל צרתם לא צר or as בכל צרתם לו צר, whether Gd is troubled, or not troubled, when are are troubled. Why doesn’t the gemara point out that the word itself is subject to קרי and כתיב variation in the Masoretic text? We know that קרי and כתיב variants are employed throughout the gemara.

Also: It’s odd that the gemara here omits from the לא-לו discussion the most famous such variant, from Vayyikra 25:30. That variant is discussed in the gemara, just not here.

The gemara here seems to shift gears in its translation of יראה – at first it refers to fear of punishment, but then it seems to shift to awe of Gd. See the Torah Temimah to Devarim 7:10, note טו; he is adamant that יראה as used in this context refers not to fear of punishment, but to awe of Gd.

31b
It seems odd that we would believe a single witness here, particularly one who has an axe to grind. I would remind the reader, though, that this is a case of רגלים לדבר, the equivalent of a driver pulled over for erratic driving, with an open beer in the car. Even before the breathalyzer, there is a circumstantial-evidence argument to support the contention that he was driving drunk. Here, too, קינוי and subsequent סתירה establish a suspicious fact pattern before we ever arrive at the single witness to a sexual act.

32a
Although one may be able to fulfill certain obligatory prayers in English, that’s only fine for the first time or the second – one should still work to learn to daven in the original!

32b
Note that Rashi (at the top) has a different text in our gemara, using the pasuk of ואמר אל האשה.

Rashi here, on ארמי אובד אבי, varies from his commentary on the Torah. On the Torah he assumes that אבי is Yaakov, but here he says it is Lavan who is “my father”! Of course, in his commentary to the Torah he is citing the Sifri and explaining it, and the Sifri varies from our gemara, but I still find his version here very interesting and worth further analysis.

Our gemara here provides one reason for the silent Amidah; the more famous reason is in Berachot 33 or so, from Chanah.

Note that Chullin makes it clear that an observer in the Beit haMikdash will still know which korban a person is bringing, despite the fact that the location for חטאת and עולה are the same. We still try to provide whatever concealment is possible.

Here, once again, we find the tension between public acknowledgement of sin and concealment of error. Yehudah was praised earlier in Sotah for publicly acknowledging error (הודה ולא בוש), but as we have pointed out in earlier Daf comments (such as here), we also say אשרי נשוי פשע כסוי חטאה, better not to admit sin aloud, if the sin is not already commonly known, lest that admission de-sensitize people to wrongdoing.

The Condescending Tzedakah Collector

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

[Warning: Rant ahead]

I think it’s safe to say that most people are sensitive to, and do not appreciate, condescension. Our antennae are calibrated when we are children, beginning the first time a patronizing relative, teacher or other adult praises some work of art or scholastic effort with out-of-line rhetoric and soaring accolades which in no way match reality.

We understand that this is an insult to our intelligence, and it is all the more offensive for its attempt at deception.

A great example: A woman once told me how her daughter, as a five or six year old, came to over a period of days with increasingly primitive works of art, until the mother finally gave a less-than-enthusiastic response. The girl told her she had just wanted to see what it would take to get her mother to drop her over-the-top praise.

Personally, I have very little tolerance for patronizing treatment. I’d rather hear an overly harsh critique than receive a let’s-make-him-happy, smile-and-nod response to a class or speech. Aside from its basic insulting character, condescension plays on my insecurities; it makes me wonder what people are really thinking, and just how many of them are thinking it.

Unfortunately, in my line of work I get exactly that treatment, and not infrequently. It comes with being in a position of some authority – people who want something from me may think that flattery is the best way to get it.

So I’ll have someone tell me how wonderful a speech was, as an introduction to asking me to bring in a relative or friend as a speaker.

Or someone will talk about how great things are in the community, as a preface to selling a new initiative.

And the worst are the fundraisers.

A fundraiser was the spur for this post: I recently had a collector from a major yeshiva come through town and spend a few days here. After maariv he came to me and said, "Rabbi, that was just such a beautiful shiur you gave! It was g'shmak-"

I don’t know what else he was going to say, because I cut him off, saying I had to run. I couldn’t stomach it; he was talking about a 3-minute, between-minchah-and-maariv dvar torah, not a class or lecture. What kind of naïve idiot does he think I am?

The same fundraiser wasted a gift of a speaking opportunity by using almost all of his time to tell the community that we always, surprisingly, attract a good class of congregants despite the challenges of our area, we have a nice seudah shlishis in shul, we have children in shul, that we somehow manage to give our children some Judaism, and that we maintain a minyan morning and night... And all of that, here in Allentown, who would have thought?

All of those things are true, frankly, but it was just the way he said it – and no, I don’t think I am being hyper-sensitive, others pointed it out as well – that conveyed to me and to others who were present, “I’m trying to find something good to say before I hit you up for a donation.”

Tell it to me straight. Even better, skip the telling and just make your pitch for what you want. I’ll respond a lot better for it.

[End of rant]

Why Orthodoxy? Part II

Again: This comes from a non-proselytizing talk I delivered at a Conservative Temple a while back, on “Why I am an Orthodox Jew.”

In Part I I talked about the passion of Orthodoxy, contrasting Kafka’s critical description of his father’s Judaism with Rav Y.D. Soloveitchik’s description of his own, impassioned Torah study experience.

2) Credibility
Beyond the passion of Orthodoxy, I find Orthodoxy more credible, by dint of its tradition and of those who have conveyed the tradition.

It seems clear to me that there must be a tradition accompanying and explaining the Torah’s text, for everything - even the ability to identify letters and words - requires a tradition. This is true for any published text, and certainly for one conveyed across generations, cultures and continents.

Hillel said as much in his conversation with a would-be convert who didn’t want to know about rabbinic teachings (Shabbat 31a):

A non-Jew came to Shammai and asked, ‘How many Torahs do you have?’
To which Shammai replied, ‘Two: The written Torah and the spoken Torah.’
The man said, ‘I trust you for the written Torah, but for the spoken Torah I do not. Convert me on condition that you will teach me the written Torah.’
Shammai rebuked him and removed him angrily.
The man came to Hillel, who agreed to convert him.
On the first day Hillel taught him א ב ג ד.
The next day, Hillel reversed them.
The man said to him, ‘Yesterday you didn’t say that!’
Hillel replied, ‘Aren’t you relying on me for this? So, too, rely on me for the spoken Torah.’

This point has been made many times since the days of Hillel, and it remains true today.

More than that, though, I trust those who have conveyed the Torah, because of their expertise in it. That Abbaye and Rava are able to speak to issues of law and ethics in all of the diverse areas they address, as can their predecessors and their students, with an incredible breadth of knowledge at their fingertips and an incisive analytic ability they bring to bear on every page and line, demonstrates their expertise in the Torah they conveyed to us.


3) Diversity of Appeal
The third of my five reasons is the Diversity of Orthodoxy.

I hear a lot about how Orthodoxy seems so monolithic, but that’s far, far removed from the truth. Orthodoxy is not a rigid set of rules; rather, it’s an approach of respecting tradition and applying it to modern situations. And because it isn’t a set of specific rules, it encourages diversity bounded by tradition.

The following beliefs are all legitimately Orthodox:

Every woman should have the right to choose an abortion
The American government should prohibit abortion

Jews should get together with Christians to discuss issues of mutual interest
Jews and Christians should not get together for such discussions

The Israeli government should be willing to trade land for the sake of achieving peace
Land in Israel should never be given away

We have great diversity in Orthodox personalities: Poets and Pietists, Exegetes and Literalists, Mystics and Rationalists, Intellectual elitists and Populists.

All sorts of isms exist within Orthodoxy – Zionism as well as Anti-Zionism, Feminism, Humanitarianism – and their common denominator is that Orthodox approach of applying tradition to modern situations.

Often within the same personality we find great breadth:
Rambam – Doctor, Philosopher and Talmid Chacham
R’ Yosef Karo – Mystic and Legalist
Sara Schnierer – Outspoken advocate for women’s education and tz’nuah eishet chayil
(In fact, this diversity is so broad that it gives us problems – we have all kinds, even Neturei Karta.)

There are Orthodox communities which emphasize Torah study, there are Orthodox communities which emphasize Prayer and closeness to Gd, and there are Orthodox communities which emphasize social work.

I know there is diversity in Conservative, in Reform, etc. But, to me, this is a different kind of diversity; it’s diversity in which all spring from the same tradition and are trying to fit into that tradition, and are finding a place for their uniqueness.

More to come in the exciting conclusion, Part III.

Daf: Sotah 27-30

Most of this is pretty technical and will appeal only to people who are already learning Sotah. Still, there are more general comments here and there.


27b
Our mishnah lists chiddushim (novel lessons) introduced on the day R’ Elazar ben Azaryah took over from Rabban Gamliel in the beit midrash. It is not coincidental that R’ Yehoshua figures strongly in this mishnah – he was squelched at times by Rabban Gamliel, and one of those incidents was what led to R’ Elazar ben Azaryah taking over.

It’s interesting to see R’ Akiva involved in aggadata, non-legalistic gemara; at times (such as Sanhedrin 38b), sages rebuke him saying that he would be better off in legal analysis, saying כלך אצל נגעים ואהלות!

The use of לאמר on this page as “To repeat” is interesting. We have 3 other definitions for לאמר:
1) Tell this to others;
2) “Saying” (as in, “This was the message, saying…)
3) בדרך דרש, the gemara in Yoma 4b parses לאמר as לאו אמור, meaning, “Don’t repeat what you are told, unless you are told explicitly, ‘אמור Say it’.”

At the end of the mishnah, it appears that ירא אלקים is used to refer to fearing punishment rather than being in awe of Gd. [We’ll discuss this more, Gd-willing, on 31a when the gemara returns to the topic.]


28a
At the top of the page: The gemara suggests that the Sotah water will not affect a woman unless her husband is innocent of sin. Rashi takes this as a sin related to her Sotah process – his having lived with her after the סתירה. Ramban, though, is broader, taking it as any sin of sexual impropriety.


29a-b
The attempts at a קל וחומר logical argument are quite difficult here, from the perspective of logic. We compare food, which is a שני or שלישי or touched by a טבול יום and is therefore, itself, disqualified from use, with a person who is a טבול יום or מחוסר כפרה and there he disqualifies items he touches. The two are not really comparable. Further, in the argument on 29b to deduce from מחוסר כפרה to שלישי food, the fact that a מחוסר כפרה cannot eat from a קרבן is not because of טומאה, but rather it is from his ritual ineligibility due to the fact that he has not brought his קרבן!


30a
It appears that they never answer R’ Yochanan’s question in this discussion.

Note that in the middle of the page our gemara plays an interesting switch, changing the way we define the numbers of ראשון, שני, שלישי. Instead of looking at them the normal way, as counting the distance from the original טמא entity, we now look at them by what they can generate – how many layers of טומאה can emanate from them.


30b
The word לא at the start of the third line should be לאו to be Aramaically consistent.

See Tosafot מר on whether the law of Techum Shabbat is biblical, and what might be the source פסוק.

On the last line, the word עוברים should be עוברין to be Aramaically consistent.

Of Myanmar and Canaan: Ethnic Cleansing or Termination of an Unworthy Society? (Derashah: Shelach)

I know this will be a controversial speech, but I've wanted to speak about this for years. So here goes!


The forty years we spent in the desert were a disaster for us - an entire generation of Jewish men died, and everyone else waited to enter Israel. But to another population - the Canaanites - those forty years were a reprieve, a last breath of survival before the Jewish people entered and launched a series of wars which we call כיבוש הארץ but they would have called Ethnic Cleansing.


“Ethnic Cleansing” - some prefer Genocide - sounds harsh, but think about it: The Torah instructs the Jews as they enter Israel, “לא תכרת להם ברית ולא תחנם, Do not make a covenant with the Canaanites and do not show them favor,” but instead go to war with them. This sounds like a blueprint for the massacre of an indigenous population, and the wholesale takeover of their land.
How do we justify this? How do we hold up our beautiful Torah as a light unto ourselves, let alone the nations?


Some address this problem by pointing to Yehoshua’s warnings - the sages teach that Yehoshua sent messengers into Israel before we crossed the Yarden River, offering the chance for native Canaanite tribes to move out or to accept the Noachide laws. Indeed, the Girgashi fled the land. Rachav’s family, in Yericho, is an example of a clan that accepted Yehoshua’s terms.


But this doesn’t really address the problem: Fundamentally, what gave us the right to enter a land and forcibly evict its societies?


Here is a fundamental Torah principle: Individuals, by definition of their basic humanity, have an automatic right to life - and so do societies. And just as individuals have laws by which they are obligated to live, so societies are judged by their adherence to certain laws - and just as individuals are punished for violation of the law, so societies are punished for their violations of law.


Individuals have a right to life and dignity which stems back to our common parentage of Adam and Chavah. As the classic work Metzudat Dovid records, “All of us are brothers because all of us come from the same womb, that of Chavah.”


All of us, Jew and non-Jew, regardless of nationality or race or gender or anything else, are created בצלם אלקים, in the image designated for us by Gd, and therefore, as the Rambam wrote, we are obligated to treat every human being with basic כבוד, basic respect. A human being’s life must be honored, even if he is not particularly wonderful.


However, every person is also charged with fulfilling the basic Noachide laws - Not to murder, not to steal, not to worship idols, not to practice sexual immorality, not to blaspheme against Gd, not to eat meat that came from a live animal, and to help create a system of justice - and violation of those laws carries with it harsh penalties.


The Torah applies the same combination of respect and responsibility to societies:
• The seven Noachide laws center around the logical steps for building proper societies.
• We are taught that HaShem waited 26 generations to give the Torah, in order to provide humanity with time to learn to get along together first.
• We are taught that HaShem honored the unity of the people who built the Tower of Bavel, and spared their lives, even though they had built the Tower for the sake of rebellion against HaShem!



But societies, like individuals, are held to moral standards. As the gemara explains, “When HaShem saw that the nations did not keep the Noachide laws they had been commanded, He exiled them from their land.” This Exile is a nation’s death knell - for almost every nation in the history of mankind, exile from its land has meant dissolution of the national identity. Exile is the Death Penalty, writ large. And the Torah believes in a Death Penalty not only for individuals, but also for societies.


This may sound harsh, but it actually reflects the beliefs of most human beings in America, and worldwide.


Think back a few weeks to the polygamist sect in Texas, accused of abusing young girls. By what right did the government break them up? They didn’t meet the criteria of a basic society.


Or think globally: This was the basis for opposition to the government of the former Soviet Union, and it is the basis for the opposition to China today. Think of Myanmar, and the government which was so concerned about its own survival that it did not allow in rescue workers, that it barred humanitarian aid from suffering children. You saw the pictures of the devastation - Who among us would not want to see that government dissolved, that society re-worked entirely?


Indeed, naive trust in government led the America administration to push for democratic elections among the Palestinian Arabs a couple of years ago, and they got Hamas in return - because not every government deserves to rule.


The Torah shows us the same lesson, repeatedly; as Ramban wrote, the purpose of the entire book of Bereishis is this lesson, to teach us what HaShem rewards and what HaShem punishes.
We watch Noach’s world sink into חמס, into abuse and kidnapping and theft, and HaShem says, “This society does not have the right to survive.”


We see the city of Sdom display barbaric cruelty to strangers, and HaShem says, “See that? This society does not deserve to survive, either.”


We see it among Jews, too - Korach’s crew is condemned to die, and so are the men who follow the Meraglim in our parshah. Social obligations are across the board, for Jew as much - or more than - for non-Jew.


Which returns us to the Canaanites, a set of populations whose eponymous ancestor mocked his disgraced grandfather Noach, who displayed sexual immorality regarding Sarah and Rivkah, who cheated Avraham when selling him a grave for Sarah and who destroyed Yitzchak’s wells, who displayed cruelty in Shechem in their treatment of Dina and did not bring a rapist to justice, who worshipped the many gods of their pagan system - in short, who violated pretty much every one of the Noachide laws - until Gd decreed, “Enough.”


This is the invasion which the Torah justifies - not an act of ethnic cleansing, not an act of genocide, but an act of justice against a society which had long ceased to respect what the Torah considers a responsible ethical code.


HaShem said to Avraham, hundreds of years before bringing the Jews to the land, “The fourth generation of your exiled descendants will return to this land” - but not until then. Why? כי לא שלם עון האמורי עד הנה, because the Emorites do not yet deserve to vanish; their sin is not yet at a level warranting their national dissolution.


HaShem told the Jews themselves in the desert, לא בצדקתך וביושר לבבך אתה בא לרשת את ארצם, כי ברשעת הגויים האלה - You are not acquiring this land because you are so wonderful, so righteous. Rather, HaShem has decided that this society of cruelty must cease to exist, and you are the tool by which HaShem will achieve that end.


That explains the Torah’s view of ancient conquest - but I am still bothered by the ramifications today: Where is the limit for us, today, to keep us from using this biblical text as justification for international violence? What will prevent us from emulating the Muslim genocides of the 7th century, or the Crusader massacres of the 11th century? Those people also thought Gd had authorized them!



To me, the answer is in the system itself, in the Torah’s own standards and expectations, on two levels:


First, in the standard we set for going to war: If war is simply a land grab, an attempt to aggrandize our kings and enrich our treasuries, then we are as ugly as those other nations I just mentioned, guilty of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the worst way. The standard must be that which is set by Gd in the Torah - which is why, halachically, the Jewish nation is not permitted to go to war without the authorization of the Sanhedrin, the high court, as well as the prophecy of the אורים ותומים, and why the army was led not by expert warriors but by a specially appointed Kohen Gadol.


And second, but perhaps more important, is the standard we set for ourselves: Our conduct, not just in war but in our day-to-day national function, must meet the highest standard, lest we be as guilty as those we uproot. Even in war, which brings out the worst in people, our soldiers are expected to conduct themselves morally. And in peace we are expected to build a society which will be the moral envy of the world. The greatest refutation of our critics, the greatest response to those who read the wars of Bamidbar and Devarim and Yehoshua and cry “Genocide,” is the ethical, moral, enlightened society we create in times of peace.


Sometimes Jews become impatient with what we see in Israel, with flaws of society, the same problems which plague nations everywhere. But this rejection of what Zecharyah called the יום קטנות, the “day of small things,” would be short-sighted.


Rav Leibele Eiger noted that in our parshah, the Canaanites are repeatedly described as העם היושב בה, and העם היושב עליה, the nation that lives in this land. This land is no longer theirs; the land is due to transition from ארץ כנען, Land of the Canaanites, to ארץ ישראל, the land of Israel. But the name ארץ ישראל doesn’t actually appear until the book of Shemuel, centuries after the Jews cross the Yarden. It took a long time to earn the title.


Gd-willing, there will come a day when all of us will make aliyah, when all of us will reclaim our portion in the land. On that great day, which I daven will be soon, we will face the same society-building challenge that was put before our ancestors 3400 years ago. If we remember the lessons of the Torah about what HaShem condemns and punishes and what HaShem desires and rewards, about society’s worth and society’s responsibility, then we will merit to help build a land worthy of that title, ארץ ישראל.



-

Notes



1. Metzudat Dovid is to Iyyov 31:15. The "26 generations" is from Avot d'R' Natan. Ramban's note is to the beginning of Bereishit. Yehoshua's warnings are mentioned in Yerushalmi Sheviit 6:1. The "day of small things" is from Zecharyah 4:10. R' Leibele Eiger is cited in Mishlei Chasidim al haTorah to Parshat Sh'lach. The first mention of ארץ ישראל in Tanach is Shemuel I 6:5, but see also Yehoshua 11:22.



2. Re: Noachide laws, see the 7th chapter of Sanhedrin, where there seem to be more than 7 on the list.



3. R' Saadia Gaon is the one who observed that the 7 Noachide laws are essential to building a society.



4. Ibn Ezra has a very different version of the Tower of Bavel.



5. The gemara about exiling the nations for failing to fulfill the 7 mitzvot is in Bava Kama 38a. There is a different take in Avodah Zarah 2b, which talks about the mitzvot the nations accepted and did not practice, and how the nations lose reward for those mitzvot they fulfill - but do not receive Exile as a punishment. Apparently, failure to fulfill mitzvot they have accepted means they lose גר תושב status and so lose their special reward. Failure to fulfill mitzvot they have been commanded means they lose all status and are forced to cease to exist.



6. Perhaps Dovid haMelech's military advice on Berachot 3b was about Canaanites?

Why Orthodoxy? Part I

Gil at Hirhurim is running a series of views on Why people choose Orthodoxy, starting here. His theme reminds me of a talk I gave at a Conservative synagogue a couple of years ago. They invited in a series of rabbis from different approaches – Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist and Reform – to talk about why they follow the approaches they do. I had the unenviable task of giving the first week’s presentation, but I did end up enjoying it. I have an audio recording somewhere... I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

Disclosure: Technically, I didn’t “choose” Orthodoxy – I grew up in an Orthodox home, and have varied from that Orthodoxy only to go a little to the left or right. However, I have chosen Orthodoxy insofar as I choose to continue to live this life in this way, every day, and I used my session to explain why I do that.

And one more important point: The goal was not to proselytize. I didn't go out there telling people to be one thing and not another. I am quite aware that some of the things I described about Orthodoxy exist elsewhere, in Judaism and beyond, and sometimes in stronger doses than exist in my own Orthodox life. My purpose was only to answer the question: "Why am I Orthodox?"

I started out with the story of a woman who goes into a post office and asks for a book of stamps for her Chanukah cards.
The clerk asks, “What denomination?”
“Oh, good heavens!” she replies. “Have we come to this?! Well, all right, give me 50 Conservative, 2 Orthodox, 37 Reform and 11 Reconstructionist.”

I continued to explain the five major attractions I feel in Orthodoxy:
-Its dynamic energy and fervor
-Its credibility
-Its diversity
-Its intellectual and practical challenges
-Its vision for the future

1) Dynamic Energy and Fervor
I cited Franz Kafka’s essay (“My Father’s Bourgeois Judaism” a.k.a. "Letter to My Father") on the Judaism of his youth, in which he wrote the following to his father:

Four days a year you went to the synagogue, where you were, to say the least, closer to the indifferent than to those who took it seriously, patiently went through the prayers as a formality, sometimes amazed me by being able to show me in the prayer book the passage that was being said at the moment, and for the rest, so long as I was present in the synagogue (and this was the main thing) I was allowed to hang around wherever I liked.
And so I yawned and dozed through the many hours (I don't think I was ever again so bored, except later at dancing lessons) and did my best to enjoy the few little bits of variety there were, as for instance when the Ark of the Covenant was opened, which always reminded me of the shooting galleries where a cupboard door would open in the same way whenever one hit a bull's-eye; except that there something interesting always came out and here it was always just the same old dolls without heads….
That's how it was in the synagogue; at home it was, if possible, even poorer, being confined to the first Seder, which more and more developed into a farce, with fits of hysterical laughter, admittedly under the influence of the growing children…
How one could do anything better with that material than get rid of it as fast as possible, I could not understand; precisely the getting rid of it seemed to me to be the devoutest action.

In contrast, I see great passion in the beliefs and practice of today’s Torah-observant Jews, across a spectrum that runs from the Charedim of Bnei Brak to the JOFAs of Manhattan.

Listen to Rav Soloveitchik’s famous words on the passion in teaching Torah today (you can find more here):
The old Rabbi walks into the classroom crowded with students who are young enough to be his grandchildren. He enters as an old man with a wrinkled face, his eyes reflecting the fatigue and sadness of old age.
The Rabbi is seated and sees before him rows of young, beaming faces, clear eyes radiating the joy of being young. For a moment, the Rabbi is gripped with pessimism, with tremors of uncertainty. He asks himself, "Can there be a dialogue between an old teacher and young students, between a Rabbi in his Indian summer and students enjoying the spring of their lives?" The Rabbi starts the class in Talmud, uncertain as to how it will proceed.
Suddenly, the door opens and an old man, much older than the Rabbi, enters. He is the grandfather of the Rabbi, Reb Chaim Brisker… The door opens again and another old man comes in. He is older than Reb Chaim, for he lived in the seventeenth century. His name is Reb Shabtai Cohen, known as the Shach, who must be present when civil law is discussed. Many more visitors arrive, some from the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and others harking back to antiquity--Rabbenu Tam, Rashi, Rambam, Raavad, Rashba, Rabbi Akiva, and others. These scholarly giants of the past are bidden to take their seats.
The Rabbi introduces the guests to his pupils, and the dialogue commences. The Rambam states a halacha; the Raavad disagrees sharply, as is his wont. Some students interrupt to defend the Rambam, and they express themselves harshly against the Raavad, as young people are apt to do. The Rabbi softly corrects the students and suggests more restrained tones. The Rashba smiles gently. The Rabbi tries to analyze what the students meant, and other students intercede. Rabbenu Tam is called upon to express his opinion, and, suddenly, a symposium of generations comes into existence. Young students debate earlier generations with an air of daring familiarity, and a crescendo of discussion ensues.
All speak one language; all pursue one goal; all are committed to a common vision and all operate within the same categories. A mesora collegiality is achieved, a friendship, a comradeship of old and young, spanning antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. This joining of the generations, this merger of identities will ultimately bring about the redemption of the Jewish people. It will fulfill the words of the last of the Hebrew prophets, Malachi, "And he [Elijah] shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers" (3:24). The Messianic realization will witness the great dialogue of the generations.
After a two or three-hour class, the Rebbe emerges from the chamber young and rejuvenated. He has defeated age. The students look exhausted. In the mesora experience--giving over from generation to generation--years play no role. Hands, however parchment-dry and wrinkled, embrace warm and supple hands in a commonalty, bridging the gap which separates the generations.

Continued in Part II and Part III.

Daf: Sotah 22-26

Most of the notes on these pages are technical in nature. The casual reader may find some of the notes on 22b and 26a interesting, though.

As always: Best read with a gemara in front of you.


22a
The term צליינית seems to me to come from the same Aramaic root as leads to צלותא, meaning “prayer.”

In the line בתולה דנפלה it should say either בתולה שנפלה or בתולתא דנפלה. It’s either Hebrew or Aramaic, not a mix.


22b
When people say one does not understand his rebbe “until 40 years,” they usually take that as the age of 40 – but see Tosafot, who says it’s 40 years from the time one begins learning. This is important because in the 17th century (starting with the Shach to Yoreh Deah 246:6, I believe) the age of 40 was given as the earliest age to study Kabbalah. If the source is our gemara, then it should be from forty years after one begins learning Torah.

The gemara here is quite concerned about the appearance of self-righteousness. In general, we call this יוהרא; it is brought in halachah in terms of such practices as bowing very low for Modim and taking on extra fasts.

Tosafot לעולם has his famous discussion here (and in four other places) regarding the value of engaging in Torah and mitzvot for the sake of personal gain [good], as opposed to doing so for the sake of gaining power over others [very, very bad].


23a
See Tosafot כל. The initial assumption is that Rashi is referring to a husband’s obligation to fulfill his wife’s korban obligation, but he concludes that Rashi was actually referring to the husband’s rike in ownership of the korban.


24a
See Rashi vs. Tosafot on the difference between the titles of איילונית, עקרה and אינה ראויה לילד. Tosafot assumes that Rashi defines עקרה as a woman who consumed a potion meant to keep her from bearing children, but this is difficult – Rashi on 25b אבל איילונית says that עקרה is the result of a physical wound!


26a
This is strange – Rav Nachman on 25b presented a דברי הכל universal view regarding איילונית, but on 26a (middle of the page) he acknowledges that this is actually a debate among the Tannaim. I haven’t seen anyone comment on this here, but see Tosafot Sanhedrin 2b where Rabbi Avahu does this and Tosafot discusses it.

Don’t be surprised about the preference for male children; as the gemara elsewhere explains, this was an economic preference – the males were the ones who would be the primary wage-earners, and parents expected their children to support them in their old age.

Re: the skin color preference, it is clear in various sources that the Jews of that period, like people of any period, preferred their own appearance as the ideal aesthetic. See, of course, Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Rashbam on Bamidbar 12 regarding the אשה כושית. See also Abarbanel on Bereishit 10 and Amos 9:7, and Ibn Ezra and Radak to Amos 9:7. See also Midrash Tanchuma to Noach, 13.

There is a lot of discussion re: the סריס at the bottom of the page here; Rashi on our Mishnah contradicts Rashi in the Gemara. See Tosafot. See the Rashash, who seems to go with Rashi on our mishnah as opposed to Rashi on our Gemara.


26b
Note the different views in Rashi and Tosafot on שחוף.

I was troubled by the fact that here it seems the husband’s קינוי warning must specify a sexual act, but since the beginning of Sotah we have defined קינוי as “אל תסתרי עם איש פלוני,” “Don’t be alone with that man!” I sent this question to R’ Mordechai Kornfeld’s Kollel l’Iyun haDaf, and they pointed me to Rashi Yevamot 55b, where he writes that “Don’t be alone” is presumed, by default, to refer to “being alone for the sake of a sexual act.” That is valid – as opposed to a warning which specifies a non-sexual act.