Author: devora

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Festivals of Faith: Reflections on the Jewish Holidays

Indispensability: Myth and Fact*

Recently, I paid two calls upon two different individuals. One was a condolence call to a mourner sitting shiv‘ah. The other was a sick call to a patient in a hospital. By a remarkable coincidence, each of these told me of something he had learned from his experience, and the results were identical.

“From my experiences during this confinement, away from my normal activities,” each of them told me, “I have discovered a marvelous truth. To my great relief, I now realize that I am not indispensable. I had always thought that if I took time out, away from my business or practice, all of it would collapse hopelessly. Now I see that I have been away from my office, my business, my home; and while all might have benefited somewhat by my presence, and I  might have done things somewhat differently, nevertheless, my absence proved to be no disaster. It is both a welcome and a humbling thought! I am not as crucial to their survival as I thought I was! From now on, therefore, I shall give more time to my wife and my children, to discovering the wonders of the world about me, to attending to my synagogue, to developing my own mind and cultural level. I never realized I could do all these things and get away with it. Now I have learned—and not only I but my family as well will be the beneficiary of my discovery.”

I believe all of us can appreciate the simple truth in these remarks. I submit to you, therefore, that the good Lord has given us an easier and more pleasant way to learn that truth than by suffering. He has given us the sukkah and the festival of Sukkot.

The essence of Sukkot is Tzei mi-dirat keva ve-shev be-dirat arai (Sukkah 2a)—leave your permanent home, and for seven days dwell in this temporary booth. Normally, the interpretation of the significance of this commandment points out the independence of man from his possessions. You need not have a fine home and expensive appointments in order to survive. Consider how for seven days you can get along without them. What you do need is God, the tzila de-mehemanuta, the shadow of faith. Your home is not indispensable to you. (Cf. Rashbam to Lev. 23:43, and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb, vol. I, pp. 124 ff., Grunfeld translation.)

I prefer to interpret the meaning of Sukkot in the reverse direction, by emphasizing the converse: you are not indispensable to your home, to your society! When a man leaves his dirat keva, his lavish home and complex society, and for seven days he moves out—whether completely, or at least partially, for meals—he discovers that they survive even without his presence! By moving out from under a roof to under the sekhakh, he learns what the patient does in the hospital and the survivor in the house of mourning—except that he learns it through simhah, not anguish: that, in a great measure, the world can very well get along without him.

This is a sobering thought, for by destroying the myth of our indispensability, it makes us feel that we are not the center of the world, that we are essentially dependent beings. And it is also a liberating thought, for it assures us that we can now learn, throughout the year, to pay more attention to the things in life that are really important, and that we will not thereby be endangering the existence of the other, mundane affairs.

Perhaps, then, we ought to take a little bit of Sukkot with us through the rest of the year. Every day, a waft of the sukkah’s atmosphere ought to inspire us to “let go” for a short while and divert our attention to ourselves, our minds, our hearts—our neshamah. The world can get along without us.

Bratzlaver Hasidim offer us a remarkable suggestion: every day ought to contain at least one “dead hour.” All our waking hours are so filled with “life,” with nervous tensions of all sort that afflict us in the course of our daily affairs in commerce, in business, in professions, in society. Our emotions are engaged with others, our feelings entangled with them, our sensitivities inflamed with real or imaginary slights to our pride, our minds overflowing with a myriad of details and plans, worries and concerns on paying bills, satisfying employers or employees, pacifying clients or customers, meeting the competition, keeping up with the neighbors. These so-called “live” hours are so preoccupied with other people that we utterly ignore our own selves. No wonder we have so little inner peace, inner tranquility. We are “alive” so tensely, so neurotically, so busily, that we head straight for the psychiatrist’s couch and for spiritual oblivion. Hence, say the Bratzlaver Hasidim, keep one little hour set aside as your “dead hour.” Make no appointments, answer no phone calls, read no newspapers, keep away from radio and television, see no people, write no memos to yourself. Be “dead to the world”—and alive to yourself. Banish all your usual problems from your mind. Think of where you are going in life—or, perhaps, where life is taking you; the difference is worth thinking about. Ponder your own conduct, and what it is doing to you and to your character and personality. Project into the future—that of yourself, your children, your community. Make a heshbon ha-nefesh with yourself that may help you redirect and reorient your day-to-day activities. And if you are not the contemplative kind, then pull your mind out of the sucking whirlpool of daily business and elevate yourself to a new and higher kind of existence by reading that which is enduring, reviewing the sidrah, finding inspiration to a higher-than-animal existence through art or music, studying a blatt gemara—dead to the world and alive to yourself. One “dead hour” a day can make all of life worth living!

This ought to be one concrete, felicitous result of the message of Sukkot. For the Bratzlavers’ “dead hour” is the essence of Sukkot: you can get away from under your dirat keva, from your normal routine, and into the sukkah under God’s great heaven, without permanent damage to all the intricate goings-on in that home or office or factory, the dirat keva.

But when we say that Sukkot teaches us that man is not indispensable, does that mean that he is expendable, that there is no area of life where he is indeed indispensable?

No, there are areas where man is crucial, where there can be only dismal failure without him. If in his mundane affairs, his dirat keva, his presence is dispensable, then in the sukkah, symbol of the spiritual world, man is indispensable! A sukkah without a Jew to make Kiddush in it is meaningless. There is nothing holy about it. Strange as it may sound, in matters of the spirit God needs man! Ha-Kadosh barukh Hu mit’avveh li-tefillatan shel tzaddikim (Yevamot 64a)—God deeply desires the prayers of the righteous. His purposes in the world cannot be fulfilled without men—without each individual man or woman called upon by Him to contribute to the building of malkhut Shamayim, the Kingdom of Heaven, the God-approved society and world. If any one of us fails in his or her spiritual mission then, as our Sages were wont to say, God’s Name is incomplete. Here each of us is truly indispensable.

The Talmud (Sukkah 53a) tells us an interesting story of the renowned Hillel at the simhat beit ha-sho’evah, the joyous celebration at the drawing of the waters which took place in the Temple on Sukkot.

When Hillel would reach the heights of happiness at this occasion, he  would say: Im ani kan, ha-kol kan; ve-im eini kan, mi kan, “If I am here, everyone is here; and if I am not here, who then is here?”

A strange remark, is it not? Hillel the humble, the gentle, the meek—is this sentiment worthy of him: I am indispensable? The Jerusalem Talmud (Sukkah 5:4), which understood the quotation to refer to Hillel himself, therefore rightly asks: Ve-killusin Hu tzarikh? Does God need Hillel’s praise and celebration that he should regard himself as so important? For the same reason, Rashi is moved to interpret the remark as being a quotation by Hillel of God, of the Shekhinah. Hillel, speaking in God’s name, says, “If I am here, that is sufficient, for if I am not here, who is?” That is, nothing else counts. Yet this too is strange, for Hillel was a sage, a rabbi, and not a prophet, and hence not given to speaking of God in the first person.

Even stranger is a sentence attributed to Hillel which follows immediately upon the one mentioned (cf. Rabinowitz, Dikdukei Soferim): Im attah tavo el beiti, ani avo el beitekha; ve-im attah lo tavo el beiti, ani lo avo el beitekha, “If You, O God, will come to my home, I will come to Yours [i.e., the Temple]; but if You will not come to my house, I will not come to Yours.” What an astonishing expression! Is Hillel striking a bargain with God, making conditions about reciprocal hospitality with Him?

I believe that Hillel was guilty neither of arrogance in saying “im ani kan ha-kol kan,” nor of religious commercialism in saying “im attah tavo el beiti.” What he meant was simply to teach what we have been saying: that man is not indispensable to the mundane world and its affairs, but is indispensable to the world of the spirit, of Torah, of Temple, of Ha-Kadosh Barukh Hu. For this is what the great Hillel said: Im ani kan, ha-kol kan—if I am here, in the Beit ha- Mikdash, in God’s house; if I am here at the festival of simhat beit ha-sho’evah, the drawing of the waters, which tradition has understood symbolically as the drawing of the Ruah ha-Kodesh, the holy spirit, from its divine source; when I am involved in the life of spirituality and sanctity; then if I am here, all is well.
But if I am not here, im eini kan, then mi kan, then I must feel that I am responsible for the fact that the holiness of the Temple is diminished, that the joy of the simhah and the whole spiritual enterprise is a failure—for here, in this House of God, I as a human am indispensable!

And then Hillel continues, not by setting conditions in negotiations, but by stating an indisputable fact of spiritual life: im attah tavo el beiti, when You come to my home, O God, when I understand that my home, my office, my factory, all my mundane affairs, all my successes and triumphs, all are Your doing, that only because You are present do my home and career exist, that it is You Who have given me the intelligence and the substance, the health and the wealth, the confidence and the mazzal to be what I am and have what I have, and that I am only ancillary, and my presence and services can be dispensed with; when I realize that in beiti, in my mundane life and the world, You are indispensable and I am not, then it is equally true that ani avo el beitekha, then
I am important, nay indispensable, to the existence of Your house, the Beit ha-Mikdash, the universe of the divine spirit. When a man has grown in spiritual maturity and understanding to appreciate his real place in the world, to acknowledge God as the cause of his success, then he is great enough spiritually to be crucial to the existence of God’s house. When we know we need God, He knows that He needs us! However, im attah lo tavo el beiti, when I am so foolish that I give You no entree to my home, when I think I can get along without You and that it is I who am indispensable, that it is my wisdom and my shrewdness that have built my house and my career and my business, then ani lo avo el beitekha, then I have no business in Your home, then You can get along very well without me. If man thinks he does not need God, then God knows He does not need man. The man who considers himself self-made and worships his maker is ignored by God.

Here then is an invaluable lesson for us from Sukkot: into the sukkah for a week’s time, enough to learn that the world can get along without you, but that God cannot.

Abolishing the myth of indispensability from our daily concerns will prevent us from entertaining exaggerated notions of self-importance and will inspire us to plan those “dead hours” which can grace all of life with meaning, with serenity, with a touch of poetry. And affirming our indispensability to the spirit, to Torah, to the synagogue, to Judaism, and to God’s purposes will give us a new insight into our true significance and our lofty place in the world. Vaani be-rov hasdekha avo beitekha. Only when I realize that my whole life, my very self, my ani, my family and livelihood and joys and pleasures, all are the result of Your indispensable hasadim, Your kindness; only then avo betekha, do I have the right to enter Your House, Your Holy Temple, and only then may I be
considered indispensable to its prevalence in the world.

---

*5724 (1963)

Excerpted from Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Birkat Yitzchak Chidushim U-ve’urim al HaTorah

 

 

פרשת וילך

התורה היא שירת החיים של איש ישראל

איתא במגילה (דף ג’ ע”א): ויהי בהיות יהושע ביריחו וישא עיניו וירא והנה איש עומד לנגדו וכו’, אמר לו: אמש בטלתם תמיד של בין הערבים, ועכשיו בטלתם תלמוד תורה, אמר לו: על איזה מהן באת? אמר לו: עתה באתי! מיד: וילן יהושע בלילה ההוא בתוך העמק, אמר רבי יוחנן: מלמד שלן בעומקה של הלכה. ואמר רב שמואל בר אוניא: גדול תלמוד תורה יותר מהקרבת תמידין שנאמר עתה באתי, ע”כ. ולכאורה צ”ע דמשמע שם דתלמוד תורה והקרבת תמידין ענין אחד להם, וכדחזינן שכלל המלאך במוסרו שתי העוונות האלו בחדא מחתא, עד כדי כך שיהושע נסתפק לפני המלאך, על איזה עוון יצא הקצף, אם על ביטול תורה או על ביטול תמיד, וענה לו המלאך שביטול תורה חמיר טפי מהקרבת תמידין, ומכל זה משמע שביטול תורה וביטול קרבן תמיד הם מענין אחד, ולכאורה צריך ביאור שייכותם זה לזה.

והנראה בזה, בהקדם דהנה בתוס’ שם ד”ה אמש בטלתם תמיד של בין הערבים הקשו, וז”ל: וא”ת והיכי משמע לישנא דקרא דבטלו התמיד ותלמוד תורה, ויש לומר דהכי פירושו, מדקאמר: הלנו אתה – הכי קאמר בשביל תלמוד תורה באת, דכתיב: תורה צוה לנו, אם לצרינו – או בשביל הקרבנות שמגינים עלינו מצרינו. עתה באתי – פי’ ריב”ן על תלמוד תורה באתי דכתיב ביה ועתה כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת, עכ”ל. וצריך ביאור, מה שבחר המלאך לענות דווקא בלשון “עתה באתי” לרמז בזה על התורה דכתיב בה ועתה כתבו, ולמה לא ענה לו באותה מטבע לשון ששאלו יהושע על ת”ת תורה ציוה לנו וכו’, ושמעתי מחתני ר’ אברהם ידידי’ מושל שליט”א בשם הרב מפונוביז’ זצ”ל שאמר בזה ביאור נפלא, דהנה בעסק התורה ישנן שתי בחינות, האחת, עצם קיום מצות תלמוד תורה מצד עיקר חיובה ומצוותה, וזוהי תורה ציוה לנו, ופסוק זה קאי על הציווי והחיוב שבלימוד התורה, והשניה, שהתורה היא שירת החיים של איש ישראל, כדכתיב: ועתה כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת, וזהו מה שענה לו המלאך, שאם כי אמנם מצד מצוות ת”ת יתכן שיש פטורים, שהרי מפאת מאמץ המלחמה ביום כמעט בלתי אפשרי הוא ללמוד בלילה, ואונס רחמנא פטריה, אבל מצד הבחינה של שירה שיש בתורה כאן אין פטורים, ועל זה היתה התביעה. וביאור הדברים הוא שאמנם אמת הוא שישנם מצבים שקשה לאדם ללמוד, אבל אם זוכה הוא למתיקות התורה, יכול הוא ללמוד בכל מצב, ואדרבה תמיד משתוקק לתענוג של תורה, ואין לו סיפוק בלא עמל התורה, וממילא אינו יכול שלא ללמוד, וזוהי שירת החיים שבתורה המרומזת בפסוק ועתה כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת.

ולפי זה נמצא שעיקר טענת המלאך אל יהושע מתייחסת דווקא לחלק השירה שבלימוד התורה, שמצד קיום זה אין מקום לפטורי אונס וכיו”ב, ולפי זה שפיר מבואר זיקתם זה לזה, של עוון ביטול תורה וביטול הקרבת התמיד, שהרי בדין כתבו לכם את השירה הזאת, נתחדש שיש בלימוד התורה קיום של שירה ועבודה, מעין קיום של עבודה שבמקדש, וכמו שדרשו חז”ל: עבדהו במקדשו, עבדהו בתורתו, ומצד קיום דין שירה ועבודה, וודאי שיש מכנה משותף בין שתי מצוות אלו, וכמו שנתבאר דשירת התורה ג”כ בגדר עבודה היא, ודמיא לעבודה שבמקדש.

Excerpted from Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Birkat Yitzchak Chidushim U-ve’urim al HaTorah

 

פרשת נצבים

מאה קללות בתוכחה

“ומדרש אגדה, למה נסמכה פרשת אתם נצבים לקללות, לפי ששמעו ישראל מאה קללות חסר שתים, חוץ ממ”ט שבתורת כהנים, הוריקו פניהם ואמרו מי יוכל לעמוד באלו, התחיל משה לפייסם וכו'” (רש”י כט, יב).

והנה עיין בכלי יקר שהקשה למה בחרו בלשון “מאה חסר שתים”, היה לו לומר ‘צ”ח’, וביאר, דבאמת יש מאה, בהוספת מה שנאמר: “גם כל חלי וכל מכה אשר לא כתוב בספר התורה הזה יעלם ה’ עליך עד השמדך”. ומה שלא נכללו בתוך המאה הוא משום שהן קללות שלא נכתבו בספר התורה, ולכן אמרו שיש כאן מאה חסר שתים, והשתים הן אלו שלא נכתבו. ועל כן: “נבהלו נחפזו רעדה אחזתם בעבור שתים אלו שחסרו ונסתם מהותם ויראו מהם שיעשה בהם כליון” – לשון הכל”י שם.

והנה במשנה במגילה (לא, ב) איתא דקורין ברכות וקללות שבמשנה תורה קודם ר”ה, ומה שנוהגים היום לקרות פרשת נצבים קודם ר”ה, הוא משום דברכות וקללות היא הכריתת ברית שבערבות מואב וזה נמשך בפ’ נצבים – “לעברך בברית” וגו’, והזכרת הברית צריכה להיות קודם ר”ה (ובפרט שבנצבים מוזכרת מצוות התשובה).

והנה לפ”ז נראה מקור למנהגנו לתקוע מאה קולות בר”ה, שהרי בקשתנו לסליחה ומחילה בר”ה מבוססת על הברית, וכפי שאנו אומרים בנוסח הסליחות (ליל יו”כ): “לברית הבט”, ואשר על כן מאה הקולות באים כנגד המאה קללות כדי להיטיב לנו שלא תבואנה עלינו ח”ו הקללות המוזכרות בתוכחה.

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Festivals of Faith: Reflections on the Jewish Holidays 

Let There Be Light*

One of the fascinating minor themes in our rabbinic literature concerning the shofar is that of confusing and confounding Satan, the devil or angel of evil. Thus, we blow the shofar all during the month of Elul le-arbev et ha-Satan, in order to confuse Satan as to when Rosh Hashanah falls (Rosh ha-Shanah 16b). Before sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, we recite six verses from the Psalms, beginning with Koli shamata. The initial letters of these lines spell kera Satan, “destroy, or confound, Satan.” And, finally, we sound the shofar twice, one series before the Amidah and another during its repetition by the cantor, again le-arbev et ha-Satan, to confuse Satan (see Rosh ha-Shanah 16b, especially the Yerushalmi quoted in Tosafot, s.v. kedei).

What does all this mean? Are we involved in a kind of game with the devil? Is this an echo of a non-Jewish mythology?

I believe not. I believe that there is a far deeper Jewish thought in these words, one for which the expression le-arbev et ha-Satan is a kind of poetic garment. This idea, of which shofar comes to remind us, is that we right-thinking, well-meaning, loyal Jews—that we must not be confused! Satan always seems to be better organized and more efficient. The forces of evil and tyranny on the international scene are usually far more effective and disciplined than those of democracy and peace. The Satan within each of us is usually far more competent and energetic than our yetzer tov, our inclination for the good.

For most people, concentration, single-mindedness, and determination are more prevalent when they are in the casino than when they are in the synagogue. On Rosh Hashanah, we are invited le-arbev et ha-Satan, to change roles with Satan, to confound him and, in turn, to learn from him the secret of how not to be confused.

Confusion is, indeed, the hallmark of our times. We are confused by the daily anxieties of existence, the senseless anguish and the seeming emptiness of life all about us. We are confused by the apparently suicidal inclinations of world leaders, who explode atom bombs with no thought to the irreparable damage inflicted upon generations unborn. We are confused by the conflicting claims pressed upon us by the differing interpretations of Judaism, both those to the right of us and those to the left. We are confused by the clash of religionists and secularists in the State of Israel. We are confused by the strange kind of world in which our children are growing up—indeed, by our children themselves, their dreams and ambitions, their fears and piques, their aradoxical, ambivalent attitudes toward us—rebelliousness on the one hand, love on the other.

Those of the younger generation are especially bewildered. The intense competition of diverse doctrines and different philosophies for the mind and heart of a young person invariably leaves him or her deep in doubt and perplexity. Around his head there swirls a series of smiling salesmen, as if in some weird nightmare, each offering his product and clamoring for its acceptance. Which shall it be: Genesis or evolution? Moses or Marx? Determinism or free will? Shabbat or Ethical Culture? Neturei Karta or Ben-Gurion? Loyalty to parents and past or a clean break and new horizons? A generation is growing up that is genuinely confused.

Of course, confusion is not a good thing. Philo taught that “confusion is a most proper name for vice.” Indeed, many a sinister crime in our society has been lightly dismissed as the doings of “that crazy mixed-up kid,” as if confusion were some delightful affectation to be expected of an adolescent.

On Yom Kippur, we confess to the sin of confusion: Al het she-hatanu lefanekha be-timhon levav. And R. David Kimhi, the great grammarian, tells us that the word le-arbev, “to confuse,” is related to the word erev, “evening” or  “nighttime,” because then all is confused and dim (commentary to Gen. 1:5). Confusion is, surely, a darkness of the mind and heart.

And yet the person gripped in confusion ought not to despair. The fact that it is regarded as a het, or sin, means that it can be avoided or voided and banished. Confusion is often a necessary prelude to clarity and creativity. Before the world took the form its Creator ordained for it, it was tohu va-vohu (Gen. 1:2)—void and chaotic, all confusion. Only afterwards, after the darkness on the face of the deep, the erev of irbuv, did God command “Yehi or—let there be light” (Gen. 1:3)—and there was light! Creative thinkers or writers or artists know that immediately before the stroke of inspiration, there must be a period of tohu va-vohu and irbuv, of true confusion.

In this spirit and with this knowledge, let us think of how we of this confused generation ought to respond to the challenge of shofar to achieve clarity and emerge from our perplexity.

Three ways of emerging from this perplexity commend themselves to us. The first way is consciously to have a scale of values. There can be no meaningful existence unless one knows what is more  important and what less so, what is right and what is wrong. In Judaism, this scale of values is not a matter for every individual to invent for himself. It is contained in the Torah. To know values, therefore, one must learn Torah. That is the first great requirement.

Of course, that sounds so self-evident as to be a truism. Yet it is not always accepted. I have more than once been exasperated in discussing this fundamental question of the values of life with young people who prefer to argue from a confusion born of ignorance, and who are dogmatically certain that they cannot be enlightened by Torah. It is remarkable how a single semester of comparative religion can qualify a youngster to pass judgment on religion without ever having to read the Bible, study the Talmud, or even glance at the inside of a siddur. So it must be stressed again: the first way to climb out of the web of religious confusion is to study Torah—not just to read a bit or discuss, but to study. After the tohu va-vohu, the chaos and the void, as we mentioned, there came the creation of light. Our Rabbis (Bereshit Rabbah 3:4) observed that light is mentioned five times in this portion, and they asserted that it was ke-neged hamishah hummeshei Torah, corresponding to the Five Books of Moses. Only through the study of Torah can there be that enlightenment that will form creative clarity out of formless chaos. Ignorance leads to a distorted scale of values and even greater confusion. Study alone can clear up perplexity.

The second way of banishing confusion also sounds deceptively simple. It is faith. By this I mean not only faith in God but faith in the soundness of your values, and faith that ultimately they will be clear to you even if now you are somewhat vague and do not understand them completely. You must have patience and confidence if you are to dissipate the clouds of confusion. When the psalmist spoke those glorious words of faith, “Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me” (Ps. 23:4), he may have had our problem in mind. Even when mentally we walk through the valley of doubt and emotional perplexity, covered by the dark shadows of intellectual chaos, when our problems mount up on both sides of us like steep cliffs so that we seem dwarfed in a deep valley, even then we must not fear, for God is with us. Confusion can be cleared up by the faith that it will be cleared up.

Here we can learn a lesson from Satan, who always has faith in the persuasiveness of his case. The grafter is deeply convinced of the irresistibility of corruption. The unscrupulous advertising man knows for certainty that the shameless exploitation of sex will sell everything from cigarettes to convertibles. What we need is le-arbev et ha-Satan, to change roles with Satan and learn from him confidence in our convictions and values. We must not be diffident in presenting our case to the world. We must not so lack confidence in our tradition that we allow the spokesmen for Judaism to be not the genuine gedolei Torah, but outright secularists or half-assimilated political leaders. We must have sufficient faith in the irresistibility—and invincibility—of Torah that we will spare no effort in increasing the number and quality of day schools in the United States this year. During the year when we celebrate the Diamond Anniversary of Yeshiva University, our faith is doubly justified—and must be twice as effective. Hashem ro‘i lo ehsar, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, or fail” (Ps. 23:1), was interpreted by one Hasidic sage to mean, “I shall never fail (lo ehesar) to know at every moment that the Lord is my shepherd (Hashem ro‘i).” With this confidence and faith and patience, we can overcome our confusion.

Finally, in addition to obtaining a scale of values through the study of Torah and having faith and confidence in them, we must be prepared to live practically and decisively by these same values.

It is not enough to “have” values; one must live by them, or else they are meaningless. Just studying and having faith is not enough. One must act by them clearly and constantly. The eminent Harvard professor, the late George Foot Moore, once said that the difference between philosophy and religion is that religion does something about it. There must be a commitment in action. No young person—or even ancient person—can ever emerge from doubt or perplexity merely by pondering Judaism. You have got to take the plunge into the deep waters of the Torah and Talmud and actually swim in it, live it. You must experience Shabbat and tefillin and the striving for kedushah. You must practice kashrut, refrain from lashon ha-ra and sha‘atnez. Unless you have tasted Judaism in actual practice, you cannot escape from your perplexity. You may study the doctor’s prescription and have faith in his competence, but if you do not take the medicine, you will not get well.

In Pirkei Avot, we read that az panim le-Gehinnom; bosh panim le-Gan Eden (Avot 5:24). That means, literally, that a brash, brazen person will go to Gehinnom, whilst the quiet, shamefaced person will enter a more cheerful residence—Paradise. One rabbi, however, interprets this mishnah as a complaint rather than a prediction. Why is it, he says plaintively, that when it comes to Gehinnom, to doing evil and cooperating with Satan, we are always az panim, bold and decisive and brash? When it comes to Gan Eden, however, to good causes such as charity or attending the minyan or a lecture of Torah, we suddenly become bosh panim—shy, reticent, hesitant, withdrawn! If we are to escape the confusion of our times, we must be willing to live Judaism as decisively and as boldly as we ordinarily would be bold and decisive in indulging our own pleasures.

My words are meant for all people who are sensitive to the crises and demands of our times, but especially for young people who, in their first encounters with our bewildering civilization, still feel acutely and poignantly the anguish of confusion, the collision of cultures, and the impact of opposing standards and principles clashing head-on. To you I emphasize that you have in Judaism, the ancient-yet-new Judaism, values tested in the crucible of history and found to be durable for ages yet unborn. Throughout all vicissitudes, these values have been available to all who have been willing to study its sacred literature and discover its eternal light. Have patience with it, even as it has had patience with you and us for so long. Have faith that it will stand you and justify your loyalty to it. But above all—do it, live by it, make it an integral part of your life, now not later, today not tomorrow. That is what shofar tells you: Ha-yom harat olam—today is the birthday of the world. Today you create your own private world anew, and a great, noble, exciting, and meaningful world it shall be.

For those of us who agree with this proposition but who by nature tend to take their time and procrastinate, who promise themselves to think the matter through, but not right now, let me leave you with this one story told by R. Hayyim Sanzer. A poor village woman with a large family one day luckily found an egg. She called her family about her and beamingly told them the good news. “But,” she said, “we are not going to eat it now. First we shall borrow a hen so that the egg will hatch. Then this new chicken will lay eggs, and they will hatch more chicks. When we have enough, we shall buy a cow, and by selling its milk, we shall be able to buy many cows, then a wagon, and then . . .” And then, to her utter dismay, the woman looked down and realized that the precious egg had fallen to the ground and broken.

Let us dispense with all the grand plans for the future. Let us put aside our well-intentioned promises and resolutions about how we shall pay attention to our Jewishness when we finish school—or when we are married—or when we have children—or when our children are grown up—or when we have retired. We must, like Abraham responding to God’s command to proceed with the akedah, arise early in the morning. We must begin not later, but now, this moment, with an iron determination to emerge from our confusion and live by Torah. For if we wait, time passes all too quickly, and ere we know it, the egg has broken and the bubble of life has burst.

Ha-yom harat olam. Today is the birthday of the world. Today each of us must create anew the patterns of his life. With the clear call of the shofar, let us determine le-arbev et ha-Satan, to confound all that is evil and bring clarity to our lives. Through Torah let there be light—and may we see the light. Amen.

---

*1961

Excerpted from Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Birkat Yitzchak Chidushim U-ve’urim al HaTorah

 

פרשת כי תבוא

ברוך אשר יקים את דברי התורה הזאת

ארור אשר לא יקים את דברי התורה הזאת לעשות אותם ואמר כל העם אמן (כז, כו)

“כאן כלל את כל התורה כולה וקבלוה עליהם באלה ובשבועה – לשון רש”י, ולפי דעתי כי הקבלה הזאת שיודה במצות בלבו ויהיו בעיניו אמת ויאמין שהעושה אותן יהיה לו שכר וטובה והעובר עליהן יענש ואם יכפור באחת מהן או תהיה בעיניו בטלה לעולם הנה הוא ארור אבל אם עבר על אחת מהן כגון שאכל החזיר והשקץ לתאותו או שלא עשה סוכה ולולב לעצלה איננו בחרם הזה כי לא אמר הכתוב אשר לא יעשה את דברי התורה הזאת אלא אמר אשר לא יקים את דברי התורה הזאת לעשות כטעם קיימו וקבלו היהודים. והנה הוא חרם המורדים והכופרים. ובירושלמי בסוטה ראיתי: אשר לא יקים, וכי יש תורה נופלת, ר”ש בן יקים אומר זה החזן … ואמרו על דרך אגדה: זה החזן שאינו מקים ספרי התורה להעמידן כתקנן שלא יפלו. ולי נראה, על החזן שאינו מקים ספר תורה על הצבור להראות פני כתיבתו לכל כמו שמפורש במסכת סופרים שמגביהין אותו ומראה פני כתיבתו לעם העומדים לימינו ולשמאלו ומחזירו לפניו ולאחריו שמצוה לכל אנשים והנשים לראות הכתב ולכרוע ולומר וזאת התורה אשר שם משה וגו’, וכן נהגו”. אלו דברי הרמב”ן ז”ל (כז, כו).

ומבואר בדברי הרמב”ן שנקט שהציווי “ארור אשר לא יקים” אינו מתייחס לקיום המצוות אלא לעניני אמונה ובטחון בה’ וחשיבות התורה. וביאר בזה הרמב”ן דהיינו להראות הכתב לציבור בעת ההגבהה, שענינה הוא להראות לציבור שחיינו מרוכזים סביב לתורה. ועל דרך זו יש ג”כ לבאר את דברי הירושלמי שע”י הכריעה ואמירת וזאת התורה וגו’ מראה הציבור שהתורה היא מרכז חיינו. ולפ”ז מובן שפיר מה דקאמר הגמ’ במגילה (לב, א) דהגולל ס”ת “קיבל שכר כולן”, דהגולל ספר תורה יש בידו לא רק קיום מצות תלמוד תורה כמו שיש לעולים אלא דיש לו קיום של החזקת התורה ולכן נוטל שכר כנגד כולן. וממו”ר מרן הגרי”ד זצ”ל שמעתי שהטעם שהגולל נוטל שכר כולן, הוא משום שגדול שימושה יותר מלימודה (ברכות ז, ב), שהגולל שמשמש התורה גדול מהקורא שהוא לומדה.

Excerpted from Rabbi Hillel Goldberg’s Countdown to Shabbos: Bringing the Week into Shabbos, Bringing Shabbos into the Week 

Shabbos as ONE

Just as we are commanded to put Shabbos at the center of our lives, we are also commanded to work for six days. This is a both a religious and a logical prerequisite for experiencing Shabbos as it is meant to be. Unemployment, laziness, or a lack of satisfaction at work is not the preferred way to come into Shabbos. (I explore this in Chapter Six.) Even so, something more than six days of work are available in advance of Shabbos. This emerges from a Talmudic debate between Shammai and Hillel (Beitzah 16a).

If Shammai the Elder came across a delicacy early in the week, he would set it aside for Shabbos. If, later in the week, he would come across an even nicer delicacy, he would set it aside, and eat the first item. Thus, he considered his weekday meals to be in honor of Shabbos. Hillel the Elder would eat whatever came into his hands, confident that he would find a fitting delicacy for Shabbos at the end of the week.

Shammai was thinking of Shabbos all week long, while Hillel was “laid back.” Ostensibly, Shammai and Hillel differed. Not really, I would argue. Both Shammai and Hillel lived without modern techniques of farming or food distribution, without grocery stores brimming with every imaginable, delicacy, spice, treat, and dessert, and without liquor stores. It was necessary to set aside a delicacy for Shabbos as soon as possible (per Shammai), or it was advisable to trust in God that He would provide it just before Shabbos (per Hillel).

Neither condition applies today. Any imaginable treat for Shabbos is available any time, virtually anywhere in the Western world, at a price affordable to virtually everyone. We cannot say with certainty how Shammai or Hillel would respond to our conditions of plenty. We can say that these conditions complicate the effort to make Shabbos special, but also enable us to see the common ground between Shammai and Hillel. Both were saying: Focus on Shabbos. Whether one needs to exploit the earliest opportunity to make certain that Shabbos will be special, or whether one can trustingly wait until the end of the week—either way, focus on Shabbos.

When one does not wake up to Shabbos at the last moment, the easier it is to put the week away and settle into Shabbos. The more the mental anticipation of Shabbos, the less likely one will speak about upsetting matters on Shabbos (Chapter Four) or find the holy day stale (the at-risk teen’s complaint). The more one focuses on Shabbos during the week, the more grateful one is when it arrives.

The closer to the Shechinah one becomes.

The greater the glimmer of truth one sees.

 

And . . . the holiness of Shabbos can be extended. The melaveh malkah, the (not necessarily large) meal after Shabbos on Saturday evening, eaten to two lit candles, breaks what would otherwise be a black-and-white, abrupt departure of the Shabbos Shechinah with the recitation of Havdalah. Candles not only at the onset of Shabbos but at the close of Shabbos, fine food not only on Shabbos but after Shabbos, can extend Shabbos into the week.

Shabbos is an end unto itself. It is not a rest stop for the sake of recovering one’s energy for the coming week. Shabbos is a time to be; not a time to act or plan. Even so, Shabbos has a positive effect on the coming week. Shabbos refreshes. In removing one from daily demands and duties, Shabbos restores perspective and reignites commitment. Paradoxically, this is so only if one shuts out the week on Shabbos and allows its blessings to envelop one totally. When Shabbos is for Shabbos, and only for Shabbos, only then does it prepare the mind to take on the challenges in the week ahead. It’s a paradox.

And so, Shabbos is more than one day a week. It is a circle, even beyond the extension of Shabbos into the week via the melaveh malkah. For six days, one can taste the coming Shabbos. As Joseph Lieberman put it, “I have always been able to work harder on the six days knowing that the seventh day of rest is coming.”

May I wish you a “Good Shabbos”. . . and, a “Gut Voch,” a good week, too.

They can go together.

As . . .

One.

Excerpted from Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Birkat Yitzchak Chidushim U-ve’urim al HaTorah

 

פרשת כי תצא

ארבעים יכנו

“והיה אם בן הכות הרשע והפילו השופט והכהו לפניו כדי רשעתו במספר; ארבעים יכנו לא יוסיף פן יוסיף להכות וגו'” (כה, ב-ג)

א. עיין ברש”י (ד”ה במספר) שכתב, וז”ל: “ואינו נקוד במספר (בניקוד קמץ), למד שהוא דבוק לומר במספר (בפתח) ארבעים ולא ארבעים שלמים אלא מנין שהוא סוכם ומשלים לארבעים והן ארבעים חסר אחת”, עכ”ל. והוא מהגמ’ מכות (כב, ב).

והנה עיין במדרש תנחומא (פ’ במדבר סי’ כג) דאיתא התם: “ולמה ארבעים – אלא האדם הזה נוצר לארבעים יום, ועבר על התורה שנתנה למשה בארבעים יום, ילקה ארבעים ויצא ידי ענשו”, עכ”ל. והנה מדברי המדרש תנחומא מבואר דעיקר חיוב מלקות הוא ארבעים ורק דהתורה פיחתה המספר לל”ט, דאם לא כן אין כאן תאימה לארבעים יום של נתינת התורה וארבעים יום של יצירת הולד. ולכן פירוש “ארבעים יכנו” הוא ארבעים ממש ולא עד ארבעים, ורק דהתורה הורידה המספר לל”ט מלקות.

ועיין ברמב”ם (הל’ סנהדרין פי”ז ה”א), וז”ל: “כיצד מלקין את המחוייב מלקות. כפי כחו, שנאמר כדי רשעתו במספר. וזה שנאמר ארבעים שאין מוסיפין על הארבעים אפילו היה חזק ובריא כשמשון. אבל פוחתין לחלש שאם יכה לחלש מכה רבה בודאי הוא מת. לפיכך אמרו חכמים שאפילו הבריא ביותר מכין אותו שלשים ותשע שאם יוסף לו אחת נמצאת שלא הכהו אלא ארבעים הראויות לו”, עכ”ל.

ועיי”ש בכסף משנה שכתב, וז”ל: “מדברי רבנו נראה שמה שאינו לוקה ארבעים שלימות הוא תקנת חכמים שכך כתב לפיכך אמרו חכמים ולמד כן ממה שאמר רבה שם כמה טפשאי שאר אינשי דקיימי מקמי ס”ת ולא קיימי מקמי גברא רבה דאילו במספר תורה כתיב ארבעים ואתו חכמים ובצרי חדא הרי שהחכמים הם שעשו כן ואע”פ ששם דרשו מדכתיב במספר ארבעים ולא כתיב ארבעים במספר נראה שסובר רבינו שהוא אסמכתא בעלמא. ויותר נראה לי דלטעמיה אזיל שכל דבר שאינו מפורש בהדיא בתורה קרי דברי סופרים וחכמים קבלו ממרע”ה דרשא זו ומטעם זה”, עכ”ל.

והנה גם במדרש תנחומא שהבאנו מבואר כשיטת הרמב”ם דמדאורייתא חייב במלקות ארבעים, וחכמים הם שאמרו שילקה ל”ט שאם ילקהו עוד אחת יותר נמצא שלא הכהו רק את הארבעים הראויות לו, שהרי במדרש תנחומא אמרו שמנין הארבעים של מלקות הוא כנגד ארבעים יום שניתנה בהם התורה למשה.

והנראה בביאור שיטת הרמב”ם, דגם הרמב”ם סבר דמלקות הוי ארבעים חסר אחת מדאורייתא, שהרי משלשים במלקות, ואם היה המספר ארבעים ממש נמצא שאין כאן שילוש. ועוד, דאם מדאורייתא צריך ארבעים הרי הל”ט אינם חפצא של מלקות, וכדי להגין עליו שלא ילקה אחת יותר הרי הלקהו שלא כדין ל”ט פעמים שאינם מלקות אלא חבלה בעלמא. אלא דנראה דכונת הרמב”ם הוא, דעל פי הכתוב כפשוטו היה צריך ללקות מ’ אלא דמקבלה שקבלו חכמים ממשה לוקה ל”ט ולא מ’, וכמש”כ הכס”מ בסוף דבריו.

וראיה לזה הוא גם מהגמ’ במכות (כב, ב): “אמר רבא כמה טפשאי שאר אינשי דקיימי מקמי ספר תורה ולא קיימי מקמי גברא רבה דאילו בס”ת כתיב ארבעים ואתו רבנן בצרו חדא”. דהנה אם פירוש ארבעים הוא עד ארבעים ולא עד בכלל, א”כ מהו הכח הגדול של חכמים בהלכה זו, הרי זהו פירוש ארבעים דהוא ל”ט, דלא עד בכלל. אבל אם הפסוק כפשוטו היה מתפרש ארבעים ממש, ועל ידי קבלת חז”ל הורידו אחת, א”כ זהו דבר גדול וצריך לעמוד מפני הגברא רבה שדבריו, ע”פ קבלתו, הם עוקרים הפירוש של ארבעים. (ועיין בלחם משנה שעמד על זה). ולכן דייקה המשנה לכתוב ארבעים חסר אחת ולא ל”ט, משום דע”י קבלת חז”ל חיסרו אחת מן המנין ארבעים הכתוב בתורה.

ואחר הדברים האלה מצאתי שבמנ”ח (מצ’ תקצד) עמד בזה דלהרמב”ם אי מדאורייתא חייב מלקות ארבעים ורק חכמים הם שמיעטו את המנין לל”ט אין המלקות ראויין להשתלש. ובאמת יש להקשות כן לפי שיטת רבי יהודה במשנה דמלקות הוי ארבעים ולא ל”ט, וקשה הרי גם לרבי יהודה צריך מלקות הראויין להשתלש, וצ”ל דמכת ארבעים לחוד, ומנין הפחות מארבעים דינא אחרינא יש להן וצריך להיות ראויין להשתלש. וצ”ע.

והנה עיין בתרגום יונתן בן עוזיאל שכתב על הפסוק “ארבעים יכנו”, וז”ל: “ארבעים יצליף וחסר חד ילקיניה, לא ישלים דלמא יוסף למלקיה על תלתין ותשע אלין מלקות ויסתכן”, עכ”ל. הרי לרבי יונתן בן עוזיאל פירוש המלים “ארבעים יכנו” הוא, שהשליח ב”ד מרים ידו (“יצליף”) להכאת פעם ארבעים אבל אינו מלקהו, דהמלקות בפועל הן ל”ט, אלא דמרים ידו עוד פעם להשלים מס’ ארבעים, אבל אינו מוריד השבט בפעם האחרונה מפני שעלול להוסיף על המספר ויבוא לידי סכנה. ונראה דזהו מקור לדברי הרמב”ם, דבאמת היה צריך להלקות ארבעים ולכן מרים השבט גם בפעם הארבעים אלא שאינו מלקהו בפועל שהיה חייב להלקותו ארבעים אלא דכיון שיסתכן על ידי אותו מכה, רק מרים ידו. וכך פירשו חכמים הפסוק על פי קבלתם, וכל זה דינא דאורייתא.

[וי”ל שעצם מה שמרים ידו להלקותו בב”ד הוי חלות שם ולכן נחשב לארבעים. ויש להוכיח שעצם ההרמה להלקות הוי חלות שם ממה שהמרים ידו על חבירו להלקותו נקרא רשע (סנהדרין נח, א) וכן פסק הרמב”ם (הל’ חובל מזיק פ”ה ה”ב), וז”ל: “אפילו להגביה ידו על חבירו אסור, וכל המגביה ידו על חבירו אע”פ שלא הכהו, הרי זה רשע”, עכ”ל.]

ב. עיין בגמ’ (דף כג, א): “תנו רבנן אין מעמידין חזנין אלא חסירי כח ויתירי מדע. רבי יהודה אומר אפילו חסירי מדע ויתירי כח”. והרמב”ם (פט”ז מהל’ סנהדרין הל’ ט) פסק כרבנן, וז”ל: “האיש המכה צריך להיות יתר בדעה וחסר בכח”.

והנראה דרבי יהודה ורבנן לשיטתייהו קאזלי. שלשיטת רבנן מה שלוקה ארבעים חסר אחת, אף דבקרא כתיב ארבעים, הוא משום שדרשת חז”ל מיעטה את מספר המלקות ע”פ עומק הבנתם של חכמים בדרכי תלמודה של תורה שלא יבוא לידי תוספת על הארבעים שנתחייב באמת (ויעוין מלבי”ם על אתר (פסוק ג) מה שביאר בדברי הרמב”ם בפרק י”ז מהל’ סנהדרין הל’ א’). ולכן לרבנן צריך שיהא המכה חסר בכח, שגם בזה חסה עליו תורה. אבל כיון שכל זה תלוי בדרשה צריך שיהא החזן יתר בדעה שידע שדרשת חז”ל הפקיעה פשוטו של מקרא ואינו חייב ארבעים מלקות אלא ל”ט. וכמו שאמר רבא: “כמה טפשאי שאר אינשי דקיימי מקמי ספר תורה ולא קיימי מקמי גברא רבה, דאילו בס”ת כתיב ארבעים ואתו רבנן בצרו חדא (מכות כב, ב)”. אבל לר’ יהודה שחייב מלקות ארבעים כפשוטו דקרא, כיון שלוקה ארבעים כפשוטו דקרא אין צריכים חזן תלמיד חכם, דהיינו יתירי מדע, שידע זאת, שכל אדם יודע דבר המפורש בתורה ויכול החזן להיות אף מי שחסר בדעה.

 

Excerpted from Rabbi Dr. Norman J. Lamm’s Derashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages – Deuteronomy, co-published by OU Press, Maggid Books and YU Press; edited by Stuart W. Halpern

An Unforgettable Devar Torah*

Memory and forgetfulness are subjects for study by psychologists, neurologists, and cyberneticists. It is for them to learn and explain the “how” of these processes, the mechanisms and the dynamics.

But these two themes are also the substance of spiritual life. Many Torah commandments refer to remembering and forgetting. We are commanded to remember, amongst other things: the Sabbath, the day we left the Land of Egypt, what the Lord did to Miriam (and, thus, the teaching that no one is infallible), how we angered the Lord in the desert, and, to be aware of our own penchant for ingratitude.

Similarly, there are commandments concerning forgetfulness. Most prominent is the commandment of shikheĥa (Deuteronomy 24:19) – that if one has harvested his field and forgotten a corner, he must not return to it but leave that forgotten corner for the poor. Even more paradoxical is a commandment to forget (although it is not worded explicitly in that manner). We must forget grudges, insults, hurt: “You shall not take revenge, you shall not bear a grudge” (Leviticus 19:18). Forgetfulness is even considered a blessing. The Talmud (Pesaĥim 54b) teaches: “It is ordained that the dead be forgotten from the heart.” Rabbenu Bechaye has pointed out that this is a great blessing, for if man were always to remember the dead, he soon would be laden with such grief that he could not survive emotionally or spirituality.

But most often, and most usual, forgetfulness is regarded as an evil, as a sin. Thus, the Rabbis taught (Avot 3:8), “If one forgets a single item from his studies, Scripture considers it as if he were guilty with his life.”

And, of course, the source of all these commandments is the concluding portion of our sidra: Remember what Amalek, that barbaric and savage tribe, did to you… “You shall not forget” (Deuteronomy 25:17).

But this commandment not to forget is problematic. After all,  everyone forgets. Forgetting is natural; it is part of both our psychological and physiological selves. It is not a volitional or deliberate act. How, then, can the Torah consider it a sin if we forget?

Permit me to recommend to you an answer suggested by Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, the first Gerrer Rebbe, known to posterity by the name of his great halakhic work, Ĥidushei HaRim. Forgetfulness, he says, often depends upon man. For we are not speaking here of simple recollection of facts, but the kind of forgetfulness that implies the emptying out of the mind, the catharsis of the heart of its most basic spiritual principles, of the very props of its identity. And this kind of forgetfulness has its roots in arrogance.

When a person’s mind is preoccupied with itself, it has little place for what is really important – and thus forgets it. Hence we read (Deuteronomy  8:14): “And your heart shall be lifted up, and you will forget the Lord your God who takes you out of the Land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.”

Similarly, we are commanded to remember and not to forget Amalek. Now, the numerical value of the Hebrew word Amalek is 240 – the very same numerical value as the word ram, the word we use when we say that the heart is being lifted, raised, exalted, supercilious! When a person is filled with conceit, he falters and forgets.

Too much ego results in too little memory. An absent mind is the result of a swelled head. A high demeanor results in a low recall. If your heart is arrogant, you will forget Amalek. This is the arithmetic of mind and character.

Indeed, this potential for forgetting who we truly are is a human, if not a specifically Jewish, weakness. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook has taught us that the root of all evil is that we forget who we are, our higher selves. We turn cynical and act as if man is only an amalgam of base drives, of ego-satisfactions, of sexual and material grasping. We forget that, in addition, man is capable of noble action, of sublime sentiment, of self-sacrifice. When we forget that, we are in desperate trouble.

Most Jews who assimilate today, unlike those of the early and middle parts of this century, do not do so primarily because of self-hatred, but because of a massive act of ethnic forgetfulness. And such national absent-mindedness, of forgetting our higher identity, is often the result of “And your heart shall be lifted up.” Our memory is weakened by excessive affluence and too much self-confidence. We American Jews act as if our liberties and successes are self-evidently our right. We act as if our good fortune is deserved. And so, “And your heart shall be lifted up,” leads to “and you will forget the Lord your God.” And what do we most often forget? Amalek!

I read recently that a Swedish gentile woman, who has several times been proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize because of the hundreds of Jews she saved during the Nazi occupation, said in an interview that only once in her life did she entertain hatred for a fleeting moment. It occurred during a visit she paid to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, in Jerusalem. She noticed an American Jew who was there, and who said to the guide: “I don’t understand why they didn’t fight? Why weren’t they real men?” She was seized with anger, and said to him: “You look fat and prosperous! Have you ever been hungry a day in your life? Do you have any idea what it is like to be starved almost to insanity, surrounded by powerful enemies, aware that no one in the world cares for you – and you have the unmitigated nerve to ask that question?”

I confess that in reading the interview, I shared her hatred – but only for a fleeting moment. One cannot hate fools. One can only have contempt for them.

Certainly, we are subject to that weakness of forgetting time and again. Only a year ago Israelis – and Jews throughout the world – were afflicted by over-confidence, and the Yom Kippur War was the result. I should hope that we Jews are bright enough to have learned from this experience.

Most importantly, one of the things we must never dare to forget is the contemporary Amalek, the Holocaust. The news that the younger generation of Germans does not want to be reminded of it, that they feel they did not participate in it, comes as no surprise to me. But Jews must never fall into the trap of “And your heart shall be lifted” and hereby forget Amalek. Remember and do not forget! The Holocaust must constantly become part of our education, commemoration, and motivation for further study and spiritual development.

Conversely, if we remember Amalek, that will lead to a realistic assessment of ourselves, and we shall be able to avoid the pitfall of a “lifted heart.”

The United States and the entire Western world are today in the doldrums. We are, all of us, in a pessimistic mood about the economy, something which affects each and every one of us. If the Lord helps, and we all escape economic disaster, then perhaps we will have learned to rid ourselves of the cultural and psychological and moral signs of decadence in our culture, all these corruptions the result of “And your heart shall be lifted,” over-confidence inspired by affluence.

So, the Ĥidushei HaRim has given us an unforgettable devar Torah about forgetfulness and arrogance.

It is a lesson worthy of our deep thought and meditation.

Remember it. Do not forget.

---

* August 31, 1974

Excerpted from Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Unlocking the Torah Text – Devarim, co-published by OU Press and Gefen Publishers

Rabbinic Infallibility

Context

A passage critical to the ongoing application of Jewish law is found in Parshat Shoftim:

If a matter of judgment shall baffle you, between blood and blood, between verdict and verdict, between plague and plague, matters of controversy in your gates, you shall rise up and ascend to the place which the Lord your God shall choose.

And you shall come to the Kohanim, the Levi’im and to the judge who will be in those days, and you shall inquire, and they will tell you the word of judgment.

And you shall do according to the word that they will tell you from that place that the Lord will choose, and you shall be careful to do according to all that they will teach you.

According to the teaching that they will teach you and according to the judgment that they will say to you, shall you do; you shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you, right or left.

Commenting on the phrase “you shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you, right or left,” the classical Torah commentator Rashi observes: “Even if they say to you concerning the right that it is left and concerning the left that it is right. How much more so if they say to you that the right is right and that the left is left.”

Questions

Rashi’s interpretation of the text is difficult to understand. Would the Torah command us to follow the halachic decisions of the rabbis even when we know those decisions to be wrong? Does rabbinic decision trump Torah law?

Furthermore, an examination of the Sifrei, the Midrashic source quoted by Rashi as the basis of his position, reveals a striking variation from our text of Rashi. The Sifrei states that the rabbis must be obeyed, “even if it appears in your eyes [that the rabbis are telling you that] right is left and that left is right.” By omitting the Sifrei’s critical phrase “if it appears in your eyes,” Rashi seems to expand the Sifrei’s requirement to obey the rabbis from cases when you believe that they are wrong to cases when you are certain that they are wrong.

Finally, compounding the questions on Rashi is a passage in the Talmud Yerushalmi that clearly contradicts the position of this great scholar: “You might think that if the sages tell you that right is left and that left is right, you must [still] heed them. Therefore, the Torah states, ‘you shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you, right or left.’ [This text indicates that you should only obey the rabbis] when they tell you that right is right and that left is left – only if they tell you what you know to be true.”

Does Rashi go beyond the apparent position of the Sifrei and maintain that the rabbis must be heeded even when we are certain that their decision contravenes Torah law? If he does so maintain, do others agree with him? What justification can be cited for their position?

Approaches
A
Some commentaries, unwilling to accept the possibility that Rashi would  obligate compliance to an erroneous rabbinic decree, insist that even Rashi’s mandate of obedience only extends to cases where it “appears” that the rabbis are mistaken. In situations of certainty, when the rabbi’s decision is clearly flawed, Rashi would agree that their decree should not be obeyed.

Other authorities, including the Siftei Chachamim, explain Rashi’s position by proposing what is, in essence, a doctrine of rabbinic infallibility. In situations where you are convinced that the rabbis are wrong, the Siftei Chachamim declares, “do not ascribe the error to them but to yourself. For the Holy One Blessed Be He continually places of his spirit upon the guardians of His holy [Torah], and He will protect them from all error, that nothing should emerge from their mouths other than the truth.” (See Bamidbar: Beha’alotcha 7a, for discussion concerning the origin and character of rabbinic authority.)

Offering a different rationale, the Abravanel explains that the application of any legal system, even Torah law, will not always yield the truth. The halachic rule, for example, that places the burden of proof in monetary cases upon the claimant fails to address those occasions when a justified petitioner lacks proof of his claims. In order to address such situations, when the letter of the law does not support what they perceive to be true, the rabbis are granted the authority to contravene normative legal principles. To a halachically knowledgeable observer such rabbinic decisions would appear to be fundamentally flawed. The Torah ordains, therefore, that such an observer should not question the rabbis’ decision but should, instead, recognize their halachic right to operate beyond the letter of the law.

Each of the above approaches obligates the observer to recognize, in a case of doubt, that the error rests in his own judgment and not in the judgment of the rabbis.

B
Some authorities, however, are willing to take Rashi’s apparent acceptance of rabbinic authority even in the case of actual error at face value.

The Ramban serves as a bridge towards this position. On the one hand, this sage opens and closes his remarks on the subject by apparently limiting Rashi’s position to situations when “you think in your heart that the rabbis are mistaken. On the other hand, the Ramban clearly sttes that when faced with a situation of apparent rabbinic error, an individual should not say, “How can I possibly eat this forbidden food?” or “How can I possibly execute this innocent man?” Instead, this individual should recognize that the same God Who commanded him to observe the law also commanded him to act in accordance with rabbinic mandate. God gave man the Torah “as taught by them [the rabbis], even if they are to err.”

Such overarching acceptance of rabbinic authority, the Ramban argues, is essential to the preservation of the uniform character of Jewish law: “The Torah was given to us in written form and it is known that not all opinions will concur on newly arising matters. Disagreements would therefore increase and [were we not to insist upon compliance with rabbinic mandate] the Torah would become many Torahs.”

When faced with a conflict between deeply held perceptions of the truth and the health of the continuing halachic process, the Ramban believes the choice to be obvious. The very survival of the Jewish people depends upon a stable, shared legal tradition. The decisions of the rabbis, even when flawed, must, therefore, be heeded.

Consistent with this explanation, the Ramban, in his commentary to the Rambam’s Sefer Hamitzvot, draws a fascinating distinction between two separate situations of perceived rabbinic error. An individual sage who notes that a rabbinic court has erroneously permitted a forbidden action, the Ramban argues, should continue to follow his own dictates and personally act in a more stringent manner. If the court, however, considers the sage’s arguments and still retains its original leniency, the sage must then follow the majority rabbinic mandate so that uniform communal practice will be preserved.

Channeling the Ramban’s clarion call for consistent halachic practice, the Ba’al Hachinuch is even more emphatic on the issue of actual rabbinic error: “Even if the rabbis err and we perceive their error, we should not disagree with them but, instead, practice according to their faulty decree. It is better to suffer one error and for the entire community to remain loyal to their wise counsel than for each individual to practice according to his own counsel, and for the Torah to be destroyed.”

These overarching arguments for communal halachic consistency underlie a well-known Mishnaic narrative concerning a public dispute between the two towering sages Rabban Gamliel (then nasi of the Sanhedrin) and Rabbi Yehoshua.
When Rabbi Yehoshua disputed Rabban Gamliel’s calculation of the calendar, Rabban Gamliel declared: “I decree that you should appear before me with your staff and your money on the day when, according to your calculation, Yom Kippur falls.” (These acts would be considered a desecration of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.)

After consulting with his colleagues, Rabbi Yehoshua complied with Rabban Gamliel’s decree and, on the very day that he reckoned to be Yom Kippur, traveled with his staff and his money to appear before Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh. Upon seeing Rabbi Yehoshua before him, Rabban Gamliel rose, kissed Rabbi Yehoshua on the head and exclaimed, “Come in peace, my master and my disciple – my master in wisdom and my disciple because you have accepted my words!”

Halachic tradition thus records Rabbi Yehoshua’s willingness to set aside his own certainty concerning the holiest day of the Jewish year in order to preserve consistent communal practice.

C
Finally, a more foundational approach to the issue of rabbinic error can be gleaned from the Rambam’s analysis of halachic process, recorded in his introduction to his commentary on the Mishna.

(Note: A longer discussion of these points can be found in our volume on Shmot: Parshat Yitro 5. The information contained there is critical, I believe, to a real understanding of the process of Oral Law. For the purposes of our current study, however, I will summarize some of the salient points.)

Halachic process, the Rambam maintains, is built upon the central tenet that after transmitting the written text together with specific oral laws to Moshe, God “steps back” and hands divine law over to man for interpretation and application. As God retreats from active involvement in decision making, He relinquishes His infallible control over the course of the law. The rabbis, using the rules of study transmitted at Sinai, become charged with analysis of the text and with the application of its laws to ever changing times and circumstances. Limited man, prone to error, is now divinely authorized to determine halacha’s path, and God Himself agrees to accept the conclusions reached by man as law.

While the authorities of other faith traditions, such as Catholicism’s pope, claim to speak in the name of God, halachic authorities speak for themselves. They do not sit and wait for divine inspiration, but instead turn to their books. Armed with the law and with the talent granted to them by God, they attempt to reach divine truth in any given situation. These scholars find reassurance, however, in the knowledge that if they have remained loyal to the process of study in a real  attempt to find that truth, God will accept whatever conclusion they reach. In this way, Jewish law continues to address cutting-edge issues in our day, from genetic engineering to space travel to intellectual property, and remains relevant, coherent and consonant with the foundations of the law at Sinai.

In other words, if they are true to their calling, the rabbis can’t be wrong. It’s not that rabbinic authorities are infallible, but that the definition of truth within the halachic process has changed. Truth is no longer defined by objective fact, but rather by loyalty to the process. Such loyalty preserves the halachic process itself, and is therefore more important than any one specific decision. Once a rabbinic decision has been reached through appropriate study of the text and faithful application of the law, by definition, that decision is correct.

In light of the Rambam’s analysis, Rashi’s approach to the issue of rabbinic error becomes fully comprehensible. An individual must follow the dictates of the rabbis, even if he is certain that they are objectively flawed. Within the halachic realm, such retrospective objective analysis is immaterial. If the rabbis have followed the system with loyalty, their decisions are correct, “even if they tell you that left is right and that right is left.”

Excerpted from Rabbi Menachem Genack’s Birkat Yitzchak Chidushim U-ve’urim al HaTorah

 

פרשת שופטים

לבו של המלך הוא לב כל קהל ישראל

שום תשים עליך מלך אשר יבחר ה’ אלקיך בו מקרב אחיך תשים עליך מלך לא תוכל לתת עליך איש נכרי אשר לא אחיך הוא (יז, טו)

שמעתי ממו”ר הגרי”ד הלוי סולובייצי’ק זצ”ל שתפקיד המלך הוא לאחד את העם. וכן מבואר ברמב”ם בספר המצות מצוה קע”ג, וז”ל: “היא שצונו למנות עלינו מלך ויקבץ כל אומתנו וינהיגנו”, עכ”ל. ולכן גבי מצות הקהל שהמצוה היא להקהיל את כל העם אנשים ונשים וטף, המלך הוא זה שקורא באזניהם (עיין רמב”ם פ”ג מחגיגה הל’ ג), כיון שזהו תפקיד המלך לאחד את העם כולו, אנשים נשים וטף. ועיין מה שכתב הרמב”ם על מה שכתוב בתורה “לא ירבה לו נשים ולא יסור לבבו” (דברים יז, יז) בפ”ג מהל’ מלכים הל’ ו’, וז”ל: “על הסרת לבו הקפידה תורה שנאמר ולא יסור לבבו, שלבו הוא לב כל קהל ישראל לפיכך דבקו הכתוב בתורה יתר משאר העם, שנאמר כל ימי חייו”, עכ”ל. וזהו כוונת הרמב”ם במה שאמר “שלבו לב כל קהל ישראל” – שהוא חייב לאחד את כל העם. ע”כ דברי הרב.

ולפ”ד רבינו זצ”ל מובן היטב למה צריך למנות מלך דוקא “מקרב אחיך”, ולהרמב”ם צריך שיהיה ישראל ולא מגרים מצד אביו ואמו. שאחרי שתפקיד המלך הוא לאחד את העם, לכן צריך שיהיה מקרב העם ולא איש נכרי אפילו מצד אחד מהוריו. ולפיכך יש ג”כ איסור מיוחד במלך שלא ירום לבבו מאחיו, שהרי עליו לתת לבו בכל עת על הצורך באיחוד שורות העם, וזהו מה דכתיב “לבלתי ירום לבבו מאחיו” (יז, כ), שהרי לבו הוא לב כל קהל ישראל וכדכתב הרמב”ם.

וזהו הטעם לזיקה המיוחדת שישנה בין מלכות בית דוד וירושלים הנקראת עיר דוד – והמקדש, בכך שאין ישיבה בעזרה אלא למלכות בית דוד בלבד, כי ירושלים והמקדש מראים על איחוד כל העם [ולכן איכא למ”ד דירושלים לא נתחלקה לשבטים], ועיין ברמב”ן בחידושיו (תענית טו, א) שכתב דהמקדש הוא כנופיא דכל ישראל.

ועל פי האמור עד כה נבין ג”כ מדוע נתן יעקב אבינו את המלכות ליהודה ולא ליוסף, שהרי בתחילה ודאי חשב יעקב לתת המלכות ליוסף ולכן נתן לו הכתונת פסים שהוא סימן למלכות, עיין ברמב”ן עה”ת שמלבוש זה היה מלבוש בני המלכים, אבל לבסוף נתנה ליהודה. שאף שיוסף בעצמו היה מלך במצרים ולכאורה מסוגל למלכות, אבל המלך צריך לאחד את העם, ויוסף היה סיבת פירוד העם ומחלוקת בין השבטים, אבל יהודה שהציל את יוסף מאחיו שרצו להרגו, וגם ניגש אל יוסף במצרים כדי להציל את בנימין, הוא היה זה שיהיה יכול לאחד את העם, ולכן ניתנה המלכות לו ולא ליוסף. [וענין זה נתבאר בדברינו לעיל בספר בראשית פר’ וישב אות ג’ יעו”ש.]