Parshat Tzav – Shabbat HaGadol (April 1st, 2023)
Jewish Geography
A few decades back it was common when meeting someone new to start the conversation by asking them what they did for a living. This was consistent with the ethos of both capitalist and communist cultures emphasizing one’s contribution to the economy as the measure of their worth and place in society.
Today, the evolution of the “gig economy” of freelancing and “sessional” work has changed that. The social sensibility shifted when “so, what do you do?” was found to convey a prejudice against those who “stay at home” and those who have serial precarious jobs. It is as if asking communicates an unconscious bias that such people have opted out, or failed to make the grade to secure real jobs and careers. While the question of one’s occupation might merely be a way to get acquainted and look for common interests, it always had an element of asking indirectly, “what is your net worth?” or “where should I rank you on my social or professional hierarchy?” However, it is now the norm to be “between jobs” way more often than it was a generation ago.
It is natural to be curious about any new acquaintance. These days the polite – and politically popular – alternative to “what’s your occupation” seems to be to ask people to declare their identities. First in the universities, and increasingly in the workplace, people volunteer and invite others to ‘declare’ their pronouns and acknowledge the historical inhabitants of the lands they are on. This, too, serves as a way of projecting an identity. It replaces the social hierarchy of how much one earns, with a hierarchy of virtue signals. Most people want to avoid the faux pas of “what is your profession,” and prefer to keep their political beliefs private, so they turn to what seems a neutral question, “where are you from?”
However, this too can be a sensitive question. Somewhere in the evolution of this shift from what we are, to who we are, the question of “where are you from?” has also become fraught with potential conflict. For a while, asking “where are you from?” was not a problem. Sometime in the early years of social media, social justice activists started arguing that the question was racist against people of colour. For example, in Canada asking someone who looked like they could have been born in Asia where they were from implied that they must be Asian because they look ‘different’ from Canadians who are assumed to be normally ‘white’. There was much commentary on this in social media. Now it is taken in certain circles to be a given that some people asking some others where they are from is a form of racism.
This question of one’s place of origin and its relationship to one’s identity is very old. The Torah records that the 17-year-old Joseph who was sent into slavery in Egypt had to introduce himself as an Ivri – a Hebrew. His Egyptian masters referred to him as the Na’ar Ivri – the Hebrew lad. The designation also belonged to Avraham who is also called Ivri, presumably because he came from across the river or beyond the Jordan.
The term seems to denote one as a permanent stranger, someone not of this place. In contrast, the Midrash Rabba takes issue with the fact that the daughters of Yitro identify Moshe as an Egyptian man. He must not have looked much like a Hebrew at that stage, even though he had already risked his life for the Hebrews. To the Midianite women, Moshe seemed perfectly Egyptian.
The term Hebrew seems to fit the story of the Jews throughout the centuries. We are from elsewhere, always across the river, never entirely of this place, or any one place. The Seder in many ways serves as our origin story. It reaffirms where we are from. In the telling and retelling, it also reaffirms who we are.
The story tells of how we came together as a people, how we became attached to Gd, and why we have such particular dietary restrictions. The story also explains our character, why we need to have compassion for strangers, why we make having guests a priority, and why our best geographic designation is wandering.
Even the Haggadah does not belong to a single place. Parts were written in Tiberias, parts in Babylon, and parts in France or Germany. It helps us tell ourselves where we are from as if the tent of Avraham or the caravan of Moshe was as much of a fixed place as Paris or Buenos Aires. But we are also reminded of Rabbi Akiva plotting against the Romans in B’nei Brak and of the crushing work of the clay pits of Egypt. There is something about the telling that gives it the formative – rather than performative – designation of being the place where we are from.
The Sephardic Jews have a custom of asking Seder participants, “where do you come from?” The participants respond, “from Egypt.” The leader then asks, “and where are you going?” “To Jerusalem,” responds the participant. This ritual makes the question of geography one of the central ones of the night.
This point can equally be seen through its opposite when the prophet Ezekiel retells the story of the Exodus and the formation of our people. In his era, he told the Jews that they are the sons of Hittites and Amorites. He told them that they had strayed so far from their origin that they lost their identity.
Seder night with its ritual, its story, its journeys, and its foods creates both an identity and a memory for a people who seem to have wandered to all lands, who live in almost every country, and yet are all from the same place. In reciting that “we were slaves in Egypt,” the “we” is our preferred pronoun, and the journey from Egypt to Israel – and then beyond and back – is our land acknowledgement. Here, in Canada, as in all other lands of the diaspora, we acknowledge that we are visitors, settlers as it were. In our hearts and rituals, we pray that we will again be restored to our historical and traditional homeland. As ever and always, next year in Jerusalem.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rosenblatt with Dr. Terry Neiman
Parshat Vayikra (March 24th, 2023)
This Shabbat we start a new book of the Torah, and it starts in a most peculiar way. Most of us look at the portion from inside of a book – a Tanach – yet it looks differently. The Parsha this week opens with the word VaYikra ויקרא and its written with a tiny aleph א. There are many interpretations as to why the ketiv כתיב – holy calligraphy – of the aleph is so small. Here is one of my favourites:
Rav Shlomo Carlebach often told the story of the Munkatcher passport. In this story, his uncle asked the Munkatcher Rebbe for a passport to travel from Munkatcher to Berlin just before WWII. Considering the climate of the times the request seemed impossible to fulfill. After many hours, the Rebbe emerged from his private chambers and gave him an empty piece of paper soaked with tears with which Shlomo’s uncle was escorted everywhere in Germany with great honour.
Rav Shlomo explained that the Munkatcher passport surfaces over and over in our lives. When a bride walks around the groom, they give each other the Munkatcher passport. When children are born they close their eyes and cry, giving to and receiving from their parents the Munkatcher passport. And when we stand near the Kotel to pray before the Lord, we do so with the Munkatcher passport. And, concluded Rav Shlomo, when we begin the Talmud, we start on the second page — daf bet. Where is daf aleph, the first page? It is empty, absolutely empty. It is the Munkatcher passport.
Rav Shlomo never explained what the Munkatcher passport meant, but for me, it represents infinite love. Hence the aleph of Vayikra is small to remind us of the importance of approaching God with daf aleph, with the Munkatcher passport — symbolic of the unconditional love that we ought to have for God and that God has for us and that we should all have for each other.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbanit Ahava Schachter
Parshat Vayakhel-Pedukei (March 17,2023)
Keep the family together
[Note: the following is Rabbi Rosenblatt’s March 11 2023 Shabbat drasha]
It is often said that good fences make good neighbors. However, fences make bad neighborhoods. The world has evolved in the past 15 or so years into a place of fantastic fences, both real and virtual, that allow us to retreat into conflict-free space. Yet, those fences have also polarized societies across the globe. The fences provided by social media allow for anonymous vitriol to spew forth into the public conversation. Worse yet, we learned from the Facebook files published in the Wall Street Journal that the ability to comfortably set the fences of one’s social media feed has created increased political polarization in Europe. The United States also seems more polarized in the social media era.
It seems that Israel is no different. The headlines from Israel mention the words civil war more than any time in recent recollection. The nation of Israel may be having the governance argument that it has delayed since Ben Gurion called for a constitutional effort 75 years ago. Both sides have cogent arguments as to the democratic bona fides of their positions. However, the chasm between the sides of this debate is not only wide, it is ferocious.
In Parshat Ki-Tisa the Torah presents the narrative of the Golden Calf. Prima facie this is a story about sin. However, it is also a story about separations – camps if you will. The separations begin when Moshe remains separated from the people longer than expected. That triggers a panic. The people have lost their connection to Gd. They try to regain it through misguided means. The result – the Golden Calf – is an act of betrayal, a spiritual adultery which drives a wedge between them and Gd. Gd says to Moshe, “I will destroy them and make a nation out of you [Moshe].” Moshe refuses by summarizing their shared experience of the Exodus.
As Moshe returns down the mountain he famously shatters the tablets. Some commentators explain that Moshe does so to erase the law that had been broken. With the commandment “you shall make no idols” [literally] broken on the ground, the nations would be spared. Other commentators point out that now that the people have broken the law and are separate from Gd. Moshe refuses to be in a separate position. He literally breaks the laws, so as to remain with them. Others point out that many commandments crumbled with those tablets: idolatry, yes, but also murder. It is at the next moment that Moshe calls out, ‘whoever is for Hashem come with me’. Those who refuse to abandon the anarchy of the cult of the calf are cut down. Even the bonds of family do not hold up to save those who have chosen to abandon the law.
Moshe has said to Gd, ‘I cannot live without them’. Then he returned to them and broke the laws. It is clear that they cannot live without the laws. At this point Gd says, ‘you can have the laws and them, but I, Gd will move out’. The tent of the meeting is then moved out of the camp of the Israelites. God tells Moshe, ‘an angel, messenger of Gd, will take them into the land of Israel’. Yet, the people are resolute. They cannot live at this distance without Gd in their midst.
Finally, the covenant of reconciliation comes, It is the covenant of forgiveness where the rigidity of the ten commandments is replaced with mercy and patience. If the ten commandments use the words lo yinakeh – you will not be cleansed – then the covenant of forgiveness insures, yinakeh – you will be cleansed.
The story of the calf shows the bonds of nation near breaking. However, the conclusion of the story is that the people cannot live without Moshe, Moshe cannot leave them behind, they cannot live without Gd, and they cannot live without the law – the Torah. The ingredient that holds it all together is forgiveness.
The virtue of this reading is that it teaches us that no one is left behind. Many a sinner there may be, but Moshe fights to avoid leaving anyone behind.
Israel is itself a miracle. It also required many helping hands. Rav Kook gave a eulogy for Theodore Herzl, who was not a religious man. Rav Kook uses the concept of Mashiach-Messiah son of Joseph for Herzl. He saw that this man of secular values was indispensable to Klal Yisrael. The secular Zionists were very important; without them it is hard to imagine the State of Israel could become a reality.
On the other hand, without the religion of Israel, without the yeshivot and rabbis in hundreds of generations, Ben Gurion would not be able to get up in front of the United Nations and say, “more than 3300 years ago…our people left Egypt, and every Jew in the world,.. knows what day they left. And he knows what food they ate…. And we say our two slogans: ‘Now we may be enslaved, but next year, we’ll be a free people.’”
The great rabbis of the yeshiva need the tax-paying, country-defending secular Jews. The State of Israel also needs those who preserve the very heart of Jewish identity and who contribute much to Torah scholarship and literacy. Neither group can afford to leave the other behind.
Israel is bereft, sorely bereft, without either of these sides. Maimonides compares the kingship/government to a shepherd – their job is to keep all the sheep in the flock. Elected officials certainly come to office with a mandate from the voters. It would seem that the lesson from Maimonides and the Golden Calf is that the nation needs to find a path to its desired government while keeping the family together. May the efforts to find a compromise and keep the family together succeed.
Parshat Ki-Tisa – Parshat Parah (March 11, 2023)
A golden calf and a red cow
One of my dearest students from my time at the University of Illinois is a brilliant but quirky young man from India. Orphaned of his mother at a young age, he was raised by his aunt and uncle who are devout Hindus. According to nearly all halachic authorities, Hinduism is genuine biblical idolatry. Hindus will readily tell you that their various deities are expressions of a single Divine essence, so the idolatrous element isn’t necessarily a multiplicity of gods. But offering incense, libations and bowing down before statues?… There’s really no way around being idolatry as defined by Torah Law. My student, being inquisitive as he is, always had a problem with the physical forms of worship. His family and teachers were willing to engage in conversation about the nature of true self, reincarnation and other questions of a spiritual nature, but when it came to “why do we offer food to statues?”, his line of questioning was always met with some variation of “that’s simply the way we do it, you must accept that”.
Not surprisingly, this insistence upon something to which his intellect objected, and being shut down for ‘asking heretical questions’ led him straight into a period of atheism. While he began by rejecting the Hindu faith he was brought up in, he found similar resistance to questioning among Christians as well. Their insistence upon making “a leap of faith” was objectionable to him. “If you are so convinced of the truth of your doctrine, why must you reject my inquiry?” It wasn’t until he came to university and encountered Jews that he found a religious tradition which not only tolerated questioning of basic tenets, but even encouraged and celebrated probing inquiry. There were definitely times that his questions could dominate a conversation as he challenged ideas that students raised within Judaism were happy to take for granted, but his genuine curiosity and yearning for truth was something I always appreciated.
Now, it’s not obvious that idolatry and resistance to questioning are essentially linked. However, a close look at the confluence of Parshat Ki Tissa, which centers on the sin of the golden calf, and Parshat Parah, the special maftir which always follows Purim and introduces the Red Heifer, reveals a nuance about Jewish faith which makes the connection clearer. These two parshiot go together in most non-leap years, and the connection between them is more than bovine coincidence. Rashi (on Num. 19:22) relates the two passages with a parable. “It is like a servant woman in the palace whose infant son soils the throne room. They say, ‘let the mother come clean up the excrement of her son’. So too, the Red Heifer comes to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf”. Both cows are burned, ground to a powder and dissolved in Water. So we need to understand how the Red Heifer is a fitting prescription for the spiritual malady which drove us to idol worship at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Ex. 32:1 – “And when the people saw that Moshe delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aharon, and said to him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this man Moshe, who brought us up out of the land of Miżrayim, we know not what is become of him.”
Two things strike me in this verse. First, we were entirely uncomfortable with “not knowing”. Secondly, in that discomfort we demanded of Aaron that he make us gods “which will go before us”. Not ‘show us the way’ nor ‘lead us’. Rather a banner which we could “follow” but essentially one that we control. Our sages taught that we only undertook that sin in order to remove from us the burden of responsibility to Torah and give us pretext for licentiousness, usurping God’s throne and claiming it for ourselves. “We can do whatever we want.”
This supplanting of Divine authority with our own is the hallmark of idolatry. Nobody worshiped Thor, Zeus, Baal or other idols because they believed in the deity’s vision for the Earth. People worshiped a pagan deity either because they feared their power and wanted to be in their favor or because they wanted that power used for their own purposes and therefore sought to ‘bribe’ the deity. In either case, the aim is to manipulate the deity, not submit to their benevolent guidance. So, in order to claim authority for our own desires, we need a god of human making, or as Isaiah puts it, (2:8) we “bow to the work of our own hands”. Hence the assertion of unprovable doctrines which must simply be accepted and may not be questioned.
Now, it isn’t as though we Jews don’t have doctrines which we believe are true. Take for example Maimonides’ thirteen principles of Jewish faith. These principles are derived from the Mishna that begins “the following have no portion in the World To Come…”. Clearly, anyone who does not ascribe to them is outside of our faith. Yet, for us, questioning these principles is by no means apostasy. Quite the contrary, by codifying them, the Rambam is inviting us to question them, confident that if we are earnest in our search for truth, we will arrive at the same conclusions. And if you don’t, that’s ok too. It’s ok to disagree with the Rambam. In Judaism, we are comfortable with machloket, difference of opinion. Questions are far more precious than answers because ultimately each answer is only AN answer, not THE answer. This comfort with fractures of opinion stems from our relationship to God as Mystery.
For us, faith is not a function of the mind, accepting against reason that which we are told. Rather, Jewish faith is a commitment to action in accordance with Torah, coupled with an embrace of our ultimate ignorance about God. As my father Z”L put it, “if you worship a god you understand, it isn’t God you worship”. Any complete system which claims to fully comprehend God is merely an idol. God simply doesn’t fit into the Human mind.
When Moshe is pleading with Hashem to forgive us for the sin of the golden calf, he asks Hashem, (33:18) “Please, show me your glory”. God responds with (33:20) “You may not see my face; for no man shall see me and live.” Rather, (33:23 “you can see my back”. So, is that a “yes” to Moshe’s request to see God’s Glory, or a “no”? In the very first chapter of the Mishneh Torah, The Rambam suggests it is a “yes”. God’s incomprehensibility IS His Glory. Our embrace of the Mystery is what gives our people fluidity of doctrine while maintaining a relationship with Hashem through our performance of Mitzvot.
Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than with the Mysterious Mitzvah of the Red Heifer. The Torah calls’ the red heifer חוקת התורה “the ordinance of the Torah”. This means that it is a mitzvah which our mind isn’t capable of fathoming. That doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to contemplate it and find meaning in it. We are invited, even commanded by God to do just that. Just don’t think you’ve fully got it. It is meant to be a mystery which leaves us full of wonder and amazement. This is what makes it the perfect antidote to idolatry. Whereas idolatry fills the void of not-knowing with a self-serving mechanism of control, the Red Heifer invites us into not-knowing by trusting God’s vision for our purification.
On Purim we celebrate our not-knowing by reading a book called מגילת אסתר which translated literally means “showing that I’m hiding”. How befitting that we now prepare for Pesach by embracing our ignorance of God and highlighting our trust in His love for us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shlomo Schachter
Parshat Tetzaveh – Shabbat Zachor(March 4, 2023)
Self-Doubt and the False Premise of Amalek
By Rabbanit Ahava Schachter Zarembski
Feeling stuck in winter? Here’s a recent experience that came from this winter and is one we can see in community building: I live across the street from an elderly man who lives alone. I don’t see him much, but I think often about his well-being. He is occasionally visited by his daughter. On a recent visit by her, I ran outside to say hello and inquire about my neighbour’s health. At the same time, the woman in the house to the left, whom I had never met came out. I said hello, introduced myself, and then introduced the two of them. It turns out they grew up living next to each other (for 20 years!) and it was the first time they had met. Sometimes, we see someone so often that we feel we’ve missed the opportunity to introduce ourselves. It feels rude. How do I see you so often and not know your name? Do I feel vulnerable when I say, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name? And is this vulnerability a weakness? So we doubt ourselves, and we never introduce ourselves…and it becomes 20 years of disconnection.
This Shabbat, we read the Maftir Zachor et Amalek, which describes the nation attacking the Jewish People in our journey.
- Amalek and the destructive power of self-doubt.
Amalek is described as our quintessential enemy, and our sages play with why. First, they explore the Gematria (the mathematical equivalent of) Amalek (= עֲמָלֵק (240. It is equivalent to the Hebrew word for doubt (= 240) ספק .
By connecting the two words, our sages help us understand that our greatest enemy comes from doubting Hashem – and thereby doubting ourselves. We are all,חלק אלוקים ממעל, part of the living God. Our self-doubt, our internal Amalek, attacks that. And when we get our egos out of the way and clear ourselves out to be vessels of the divine we can bring God’s light to the world without fear. When we doubt ourselves we block ourselves and we prevent bringing in such light.
- Amalek and the mistake that vulnerability equates to weakness
Amalek attacked us from the back, where our most vulnerable – our elderly and our children – were travelling. Yet in Judaism, our vulnerability is our greatest strength.
Dr. Brene Brown, professor of sociology at the University of Houston, speaks to this point. She explains in her famous 2010 Ted Talk, neurobiologically we need to connect. It’s why we are alive. And in order to connect we need “excruciating vulnerability”. We need to allow ourselves to be seen. That vulnerability takes courage and strength. Amalek was wrong. Our vulnerability is not our greatest weakness, it is our greatest strength.
- Amalek and the destructive nature of disunity
The Parsha explains, “Amalek waged war on the Jewish People in Rifidim”.
וַיָּבֹא עֲמָלֵק וַיִּלָּחֶם עִם יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּרְפִידִם.
The Sefat Emet draws our attention to the name of the place בִּרְפִידִם (Refidim). Highlighting the letters רְ פִ דִ when rearranged make that word when reorganized is פ ר ד meaning separation or disjointedness. When the Jewish People are not unified or disconnected that is when our enemies come. The antidote to that comes to us several Parshas later, as we received the Torah in Parshat Yitro is unity – acting as our 11th-century commentator Rashi explains כאיש אחד בלב אחד, as one person with a single heart.
What is it that we’re supposed to learn from Parsha today we often hear of the power that comes from Jewish unity. And that is true. When the Jewish people are unified as one man with one heart, we are at our strongest. I also want to highlight for us this week that being vulnerable is a strength. Our self-doubt, our internal Amalek, keeps us closed. The false perception that one has to be that reaching out to connect is a weakness rather than a strength. Believe in yourself, trust yourself, and allow yourself the vulnerability to connect with others. It is the best way to share our light, and bring the Divine light into this world. May our actions bring glory to the Divine and the ultimate healing of the world.
Parshat Terumah (February 24, 2023)
The Science, The Government, and The People
It has been three years since pandemic-related policies were first implemented by governments – or were first imposed on the public, depending on how one views such things. We have had plenty of time and experiential learning to evaluate vaccine directives, travel/transit restrictions, mask mandates, social/physical distancing rules, and hand sanitizing, to name a few.
An oft-repeated statement was that policy-making “should follow the science.” Politicians and policy managers at all levels of government were supposed to be informed and guided by epidemiology and other evidence-based sciences. Actually, they were informed by people who practice in those fields of study. Often experts in the same field disagree. However, the evidence-based ethos of the so-called scientific method is designed to evolve and resolve such disagreements, as long as we “follow the science.”
Three years into the pandemic the results are mixed. Covid has been made less lethal, thanks in part to various efforts to contain its spread and vaccinate as many people as possible. However, the different policy regimes that prevailed – for example between China, Australia, Canada, and Sweden – do not collectively validate “the science” which we were supposed to trust in any one of those places.
This week British researchers at Cochrane Library in a well-designed meta-study published evidence that the world got lots of the science wrong. Mask mandates, airport screenings, and the like were ineffective during the pandemic. Many of the critics of public health policymakers are taking a celebratory lap, and revelling in the news.
It would be easy to fall into a kind of chicken-and-egg argument over how science drove the policy or policy drove the science. That is because science is supposed to inform us, but how anyone acts on that information is a complex web of social and technological realities. “The science” can only inform us if our own experiences are part of the evidence database. That does not happen when the vast majority of communication flows only from the government minister to the public.
A good example of this is found in Steven Epstein’s Impure Science: AIDS, activism, and the politics of knowledge – a study of the HIV/AIDS movement, beginning in 1981. This activist movement was able to have a profound impact on medical culture in dealing with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s. There were three key factors that were similar to the beginnings of today’s Covid pandemic, as follows.
· a pressure to know and name the cause of a mystery disease;
· a pressure to treat symptoms and limit the spread of the disease;
· a lack of knowledge needed to find a cure or vaccine – the research was new and emerging.
The public felt excluded by doctors and policymakers who controlled the institutions charged with managing the epidemic. However, the population that was directly affected, or closely related to them, was demographically similar to that of the doctors and public health officials who controlled what it meant to “follow the science.”
In 1981, governments had a monopoly on knowledge and authority in science and medicine. However, members of the public were able to educate themselves; they were angry at the medical establishment, desperate to make sure that those in charge were truly “following the science.” They had the skills to earn advanced degrees in specialized fields. They had access to libraries and educational resources needed to learn the languages of medicine, law, and public policy. Indeed, many already had such knowledge and could support fellow activists in acquiring the skills. In doing so they were able to hold researchers and policymakers accountable, speaking their language. They improved the research, data gathering, and communication process by adding needed knowledge that could not be gathered otherwise. They became what Epstein calls a “knowledge-empowered movement.”
By comparison, today’s social media and the internet have made knowledge gathering and sharing effortless. Free flow of information eroded the collective trust in the government experts during Covid. Governments from Washington to Ottawa to Beijing were ultimately forced to yield and accommodate public pushback against those in power. The public forced its way into the decision-making process. The law must accommodate human nature if it is to serve the interests of the constituents that those in power intend to govern.
Today’s Cochrane report stripped out the statistical noise by using only randomized, controlled studies. They found that when analyzing by those standards the measures that inconvenienced us made no real impact on the spread of the virus. Those included the airport screenings and the mask mandates, even the use of n95 masks. The researchers argue that compliance was generally poor. On a regular basis one could observe individuals wearing masks below their noses, or even on their chins.
If there had been a knowledge-empowered movement for the Covid pandemic the following lessons would have been brought to the attention of policymakers.
· The world is full of scientists and experts who have confirmation bias – interpreting the next experiment as a confirmation of previously held theories. Scientists and politicians needed to revise their thinking constantly, based on both theory and feedback from the public.
· The laboratory standard simply did not translate to the real world. If the weak link in the system is human compliance, then mandates need to account for actual human needs and everyday practices. Human nature is complicated; ignoring it or denying it is not “following the science.”
The Cochrane report teaches us much about science, law, and humanity in ways that are resonant to anyone who follows how the Talmud writes laws. The Torah takes an evidence-based, knowledge-empowered approach to law based on human nature. One may not impose a law on the people which they will be unable to implement or tolerate.
One of the earliest examples of this was a proposal to outlaw consumption of wine and meat after the destruction of the Temple. Perhaps, like the United States in the 1920s, the rabbis thought they could enforce Prohibition. The people rejected this measure. The rabbis had to withdraw the proposed law (Tosefta Sota).
Another example was an attempted prohibition against raising small livestock – e.g., sheep. The reasoning was that owners were inclined to illegally graze their sheep on the well-manicured lawns of their neighbors. Why did the rabbis not impose a similar prohibition on horses or cattle, which presumably eat more? Small animals were readily imported, whereas large animals could not be at that time. In short, the law was untenable because people could not live with such a prohibition.
Legal scholar Rabbi Gerald (Yaakov) Blidstein explains that the reasoning behind such a limitation is flawed in theory and in practice. The rabbis cannot implement, or impose – depending on how one views such things – laws that will be ignored and scoffed at by the public. Doing so solves nothing, and undermines the rule of law generally.
Therefore, the law must be careful to account for human nature. Human nature cannot be predicted. There has to be a test period after new laws are introduced, informed by actual practices. In Talmudic terms, if the people did not observe the law, then the law became void. A different, tenable law would have to be enacted to deal with emerging situations.
The outcome of such a process is that when designing laws, especially for public health and safety, one must respect human nature and plan for it in policy. Today’s public health officials are fine, caring scientists who have brought enormous benefit to our society with science. Even Einstein made poor predictions in the absence of experimental evidence. We should not assume or expect public health specialists to do what Einstein could not.
The Cochrane report, Impure Science, and the Talmud argue from experience and theory that our public health experts need to be psychologists as much as epidemiologists. Policymakers cannot be merely gatekeepers who stand between experts and the public. They must be mediators between those who speak the language of science and those who speak the language of everyday life. It is important that they continue to have our trust. It is also important for them to admit mistakes and miscalculations, like Einstein and the rabbis of the Talmud.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rosenblatt and Dr. Terry Neiman
Parshat Mishpatim (February 17, 2023)
This week’s Parashah contains as many as 53 commandments (Mitzvot).
I wish to focus on a unique one, that contains astonishment and extreme feeling:
כִּֽי־תִרְאֶ֞ה חֲמ֣וֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ֗ רֹבֵץ֙ תַּ֣חַת מַשָּׂא֔וֹ וְחָדַלְתָּ֖ מֵעֲזֹ֣ב ל֑וֹ עָזֹ֥ב תַּעֲזֹ֖ב עִמּֽוֹ׃
When you see the donkey of your enemy (*your hater) lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it.
The verse describes a situation in which a donkey lies down under its load, a load that has been shifted from its place, or an excess load placed on the donkey, and as a result, the donkey lies down. There is no doubt that we are facing animal cruelty. The donkey is tormented.
The words your hater (שֹׂנַאֲךָ֗) are dominant in the first part of the verse. If this is the picture, then it can be implied that you can ignore it, continue on your way, and maybe even be happy for the hater’s misfortunes.
The second part of the verse “וְחָדַלְתָּ֖ מֵעֲזֹ֣ב ל֑וֹ” (and would refrain from raising it) can be read in two forms:
- “and would refrain from raising it?” – “you must nevertheless help raise it!” That is, before us is an astonishment and a question, followed by an answer.
Will the fact that he hates you prevent you from coming to his aid?
You are not exempt. You must help him. That is, the feeling of hatred towards the owner of the donkey is not relevant to the situation. You must overcome this emotion and help. - “and would refrain from raising it“, you do not have to help if the owner of the donkey does not bother with the work but leaves it to others.
You must help him on the condition that you “you must nevertheless help (*him) raise it“. (Of course, this does not refer to the case where the owner of the donkey is unable to perform the work due to some disability).
In both cases, we have a clear educational message.
This situation is very relevant to our lives. How can we rise above the feeling of hatred towards the other and help him in his distress?
A person who evokes such strong emotion in us is a very significant person in our lives.
Hate is not the opposite of love. Apathy is the opposite of love. In other words, we have a situation that can be corrected.
“When you see the donkey of your enemy“…in the first step, see the donkey of your enemy. Separate the donkey from your enemy. The donkey is not the hater, he is tormented and deserves help. While working together with the hater in order to unload the load from the donkey’s back, there will naturally be an interaction with the owner of the donkey, hereinafter – your hater. Working together for a worthy goal will bring you closer. A conversation will develop, which will be resulted in gratitude for the help.
You will discover that your enemy is a human being, a complex creature who, like every human being, is bad but also good, who is basically like you. You will be able to see him holistically and not only through the narrow perspective because of which he is defined as a hater.
The result is extremely rewarding because man’s hardest struggle is with himself. Victory in such a struggle makes us better, more aware persons. Persons who question, and reexamine paradigms. Persons who have the courage to say goodbye to what is no longer relevant or useful, in favour of another, more correct worldview. When we wean ourselves from hatred, we give a gift not only to others but first of all to ourselves.
Rabbi Ishai Gottlieb
Parshat Yitro (February 10, 2023)
Judicial Matters in Israel in 1311 and 5783
For the past 75 years we Jews have had spirited disagreements about the policies of the State of Israel: land for peace, military strategy, German reparations, and army exemptions to name a few. The dispute du jour is judicial reform. This is an oddly abstract, inwardly focused issue for a people accustomed to debating life and death security questions driven by external threats. Israel is a Jewish state, but not a theocracy. As such, its modern secular system of law and justice must be consistent with Jewish interests, even if it is not going to have – by any stretch of the imagination – a strictly Torah system of law and justice.
The Torah perspective on the judiciary is first outlined in this week’s parsha – Yitro.
My aim is to describe how the Torah in abstract and in practice have handled the question of Judicial review of law. This is not an attempt to endorse or criticize the current override clause being proposed by the Knesset.
The Torah judiciary system was born out of the inability of Moshe – Judaism’s most authoritative rabbi, judge, and legal authority – to answer every legal question. Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law, tells him that he cannot be the sole arbiter of the law because “ נבול תבול גם אתה גם העם הזה–this will surely wear out you and this nation.“
The Hebrew word navol can mean a physical withering or a moral corruption. These dual interpretations are supported by a review of the Torah commentaries and a survey of the language structure of the Tanach. From this we learn that Moshe needs a system to preserve the Torah. The system that is implemented assigns small local courts or judges to small units of the population. It presumes that the local courts may lack expertise or knowledge required to solve all the legal questions presented. They can elevate the case to a court assigned to a larger segment of the population. For example, a court for an area comprising a village might defer a case to a higher court that serves 10 or even 100 villages. Only matters that no court can resolve go to Moshe.
This is not a system of appeals. Appeals, if in order, are not addressed at this stage. The courts are presumed to be infallible. This is explicitly stated in Devarim 17:11 as follows; “you shall act in accordance with the instructions given you and the ruling handed down to you; you must not deviate from the verdict that they announce to you either to the right or to the left.”
The Talmud interprets this to mean that even if the court tells you that your right hand is your left, you must obey. The Talmud similarly defines the high court, known as the Sanhedrin, to have ultimate and absolute legislative and judicial authority. It does not describe any appeals process. Quite the opposite, it says, “a court may not deliberate on a matter that has already been resolved by a previous court.” (Bava Batra 138b)
Nevertheless, there are several sources that seem to recognize that courts might err. There is the Mishnah in Horiyot which seems to suggest that the judge who knows that the Sanhedrin has erred in a matter of Torah law must act according to his conscience and against the rule of the Sanhedrin.
Reconciling this Mishna with the other sources that give the Sanhedrin ultimate and absolute authority is both challenging and highly technical. The crucial point for our discussion is to recognize that the Torah acknowledges a need for challenging the authority of the court.
On a practical level, rabbinical courts did allow for appeals. Jewish courts were active in the Middle Ages in autonomous Jewish communities from Valencia, Spain to Veloshin, Lithuania. Almost all of them had a form of appeal for the decisions of a local Beit Din. Some communities sent appeals to the Chief Rabbi (Castile), some referred appeals to special courts of appeal (Turkey), others to heads of the Yeshiva (Italy), and still others to the communal legislative body (Moravia). (See Jewish Courts and Their Procedures in the Post Talmudic Era, Simcha Asaf 1924). The common denominator seems to be a recognition that judicial review is necessary to ensure confidence in the system and to protect against the local tyranny or corruption.
When Israel formed in 1948 it did not adopt a Talmudic system of law or courts. It adopted a version of the status quo that had existed in Mandatory Palestine. The government began with a constitutional conference that never created a constitution. Instead, it evolved into the Knesset.
This left Israel without a constitution. In the early years of the state, the administrative bureaucracy had most of the power and the courts defended the rights of people or institutions against the administrative state. An example is the case of freedom of speech for the newspaper Kol Ha’Am vs Minister of the Interior, where the court upheld the right of the newspaper criticize the government’s foreign policy.
In place of a constitution, Israel began passing basic laws such as the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty in 1992. The court interpreted this law as its authority to strike down laws passed by the Knesset that violated basic laws. According to Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democracy Institute, “ the court has intervened … to protect the rights of Israelis, paving the way for women to become fighter pilots … and preventing discrimination by ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi high schools against Sephardic students.” (WSJ Jan 11, 2023).
Today, the Knesset is proposing an override law, which would enable it to override a court decision by a majority vote. The debate on this is complicated, like debates here in Canada about the intent, use, and effect of invoking the notwithstanding clause.
To be fair, there are strong arguments on all sides. The courts assumed a power that was not granted by the electorate explicitly. The judges are not elected. The Knesset is trying to concentrate all power and oversight into a single branch of the elected government.
The Torah has always been skeptical of any such aggregation of unbalanced power. The 8th chapter of the Book of Samuel famously warns against the power of the king. Parshat Yitro is the beginning of the discussion for the diversification of the power of the court.
The various sources presented above represent other examples of that limitation. Thus, the Torah seeks to limit the power of the kings and the courts. The solution to the current judicial crisis remains for each side to imagine what powers they would want if they were in the minority position for decades. What limitations would they want on the powers of each branch of government? What powers would they relinquish to those who are unelected or who are not subject to elections?
Ultimately, the concern is about how to achieve a balance of power. The Torah clearly does not accept that the power is to be monopolized by or even skewed to the government or the policy of the moment. The Torah is consistently in favour of distributing authority evenly and limiting power at every level.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rosenblatt and Dr. Terry Neiman
Shabbat Shirah (February 3, 2023)
Have you ever watched a Bollywood film? India’s film industry actually produces more movies per year than Hollywood, and those films reach a larger audience as well. Epic multipart historical films portraying episodes of India’s rich history are common, and they easily rival Peter Jackson’s acclaimed Lord of the RIngs films. Of course, there are also comedies, dramas, horror films – the entire range of cinematic expression. Across genres, however, Indian cinema features something unique – musical interludes with elaborate choreographed dance routines. This is not only because song and dance are considered integral forms of performance (you don’t deserve to be a movie star unless you can sing and dance!) but these musical interludes are also a critical piece of the storytelling, conveying an emotional overtone or providing insight into the character’s inner world. The subtle differences in morale between two enemy camps or the playfulness of true lovers, while hard to convey in dialogue, becomes evident through their song.
Music has a way of conveying a feeling that words or actions cannot. When we sing along, we feel the feelings conveyed in the music without having to go through the medium of our intellect. For this reason, music played a vital role in obtaining prophecy in the Biblical period. Take for example Saul, the first King of Israel. After being anointed by Samuel, it was not until he heard the music of the prophets that he too was bestowed with prophecy. (I Samuel, 10;5, 10) “as you enter the town, you will encounter a band of prophets coming down from the shrine, preceded by lyres, timbrels, flutes, and harps, and they will be prophesying… And when they came there, to Giv’a, he saw a band of prophets coming toward him. Thereupon the spirit of God gripped him, and he spoke prophecy among them.” Later on, when the spirit of Hashem was taken from him, only David’s playing of the harp could soothe him. Music holds a key to our hearts, mysterious as it is powerful.
Special music for special moments adorns our sacred occasions. The special tune we use to coronate the King on Rosh Hashanah and the somber intonation of Kol Nidre immediately summon us to the affective posture of the Yamim Noraim. It is said that these tunes are mere fragments of the great musical tradition of the Beit Hamikdash. This body of music is a perfect embodiment of Torah Sh’baal peh – living oral traditions which were lost with the destruction of the Temple. Nevertheless, we at least still preserve the memory that we once had such music, and we repeat daily that song which was once spontaneous.
This week’s Parsha, Beshalach, narrates our dramatic exit from Egypt, Pharaoh’s pursuit of us and salvation God wrought on our behalf by splitting the sea and His vengeance upon the Egyptians. And then, as if it were a Bollywood epic, a song spontaneously breaks out. This song at one of the most iconic moments in the Torah is recorded word for word in the Torah as sung by everyone. As an encore, the musical number It’s followed by a women’s refrain, replete with drums and dance. Our sages tell us that it was a moment of mass prophecy, that “even the maidservant saw at the sea a greater revelation of Godliness than Ezekiel’s vision of the Divine Chariot” which we read on Shavuot. The exuberant feelings of joy, relief, awe of God and reverence for God and Mosheh could only be expressed in song.
Centuries later, when they standardized prayers into what we now have in the siddur, The Men of The Great Assembly saw fit to include The Song of The Sea in its entirety as part of Psukei D’Zimra, and we reenact the Splitting of the Sea both morning and night by saying the “Mi Chamocha”. Yet somehow, the way we do it fails to capture the essence of the moment, or even reflect the jubilation expressed by words themselves.
“Praises to the most high Almighty, blessed is He, and He is blessed. Moses and the Children of Israel sang a song to You with great joy, and they all proclaimed:
Who is like You among the mighty, Adonoy! Who is like You— [You are] adorned in holiness, awesome in praise, performing wonders! With a new song the redeemed people praised Your Name at the seashore! All of them gave thanks in unison and proclaimed Your sovereignty and said: Adonoy will reign forever and ever.”
Look now how we actually say it. Do we sing with great joy, praising in unison? NO. Mostly we just mumble it to ourselves under our breath. At best we sing the “mi chamocha” as a mournful dirge. We’re saying the words, but without the musical dimension we fail to bring the moment to life.
And who can blame us? Moments of spontaneous song are rare in real life. How many of us have actually had a Bollywood moment?
On one occasion at U of I we did have such a moment. As it happens most years, there was a BDS initiative on campus, and it was brought to a referendum of the entire campus, nearly fifty thousand students. It just so happened to be in Adar, in the week leading up to Purim on Saturday night. The Jewish community mobilized itself, tabling on the quad, making posters everything we could do in order to let the greater community know how divisive and alienating BDS is to Jewish students. The referendum was on Wednesday, but by the beginning of Shabbat, the final results hadn’t been announced. As the community gathered for kiddush on Shabbat eve, excited students ran into the Hillel building bursting with the news, We had defeated the BDS initiative by a huge margin! Without prompting, students spontaneously broke out singing “Am YIsrael Chai” and dancing with true joy.
For these students, Purim just came to life. “They wanted to kill us, we won, let’s party” wasn’t once upon a time. It was here and now, and the only way to express the joy, relief and pride they felt was to sing and dance. That’s what Mi Chamocha should feel like. When they established the siddur, part of the intention in including the verses from the Song of the Sea was to capture the spontaneity of that moment, and to help us cultivate that kind of joy.
Shabbat Beshallach is also called Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of Singing. The Maccabeats showed us how powerful an experience musical davening can be. Let’s keep that ball rolling and give ourselves permission to really feel joy.
Shabbat Shalom
