Shabbos: Deadly Lessons

. . . one who learns one thing from a heretic is liable to death . . . (75a)

You just can't trust heretics. They are prone to mislead. Take Robert Novak, for example. In October of '03 after the shit hit the fan, he explained the motivation behind his July '03 column on Joseph Wilson's trip to Africa as follows: "I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment." Yet in the column that caused all the fuss, Novak hardly pictured Joseph Wilson as a Democratic lackey:

His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Three months later, Novak wrote (indignantly) that "Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one." Gee, putting aside his (treasonous?) contribution to Al Gore, I wonder if his opposition had anything to do with the aftermath of a policy dispute in which his wife's career was destroyed. It is possible to learn from the words of a heretic, but it is deadly to assume that one is learning if one simply takes in their words without testing them. It was disingenuous for a seasoned professional like Novak to profess that he had not been told that Wilson's wife had a classified role that should not be disclosed publicly. In the infamous column he wrote simply, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Would a responsible journalist publish the name of an agency operative for no other reason than that he knows it? Wilson warned him as best he could without revealing classified information. He is quoted by Novak as telling him, "I will not answer any question about my wife." And Novak adds in October:

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name.

But he was suggesting that she would be endangered! To use a stronger word than "difficulties" would have been a security breach. Is Novak suggesting that he lacks the sophistication to understand communications from sources working with classified documents? Moreover, looking at Wilson's credentials, the central thesis of Novak's original smear, that Wilson's assignment was a nepotistic assignment, is unsubstantiated. As we can see, Novak doesn't prove it and is given a denial from the CIA. Would a former ambassador to Africa need his wife's recommendation to be assigned the mission he was given? And given Novak's statement that "The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into" the situation that Wilson was then sent to investigate, later claims that none of them were aware of the report are difficult to believe.

No, it is indeed deadly to learn anything from a heretic.

Shabbos: Learning from Heretics

. . . one who learns one thing from a heretic is liable to death . . . (75a)

You just can't trust heretics. They are prone to mislead. Take Robert Novak, for example. In October of '03 after the shit hit the fan, he explained the motivation behind his July '03 column on Joseph Wilson's trip to Africa as follows:
"I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment."

Yet in the column that caused all the fuss, Novak hardly pictured Joseph Wilson as a Democratic lackey:

His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Three months later, Novak wrote (indignantly) that "Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one." Gee, putting aside his (treasonous?) contribution to Al Gore, I wonder if his opposition had anything to do with the aftermath of a policy dispute in which his wife's career was destroyed.

It is possible to learn from the words of a heretic, but it is deadly to assume that one is learning if one simply takes in their words without testing them. It was disingenuous for a seasoned professional like Novak to profess that he had not been told that Wilson's wife had a classified role that should not be disclosed publicly. In the infamous column he wrote simply, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Would a responsible journalist publish the name of an agency operative for no other reason than that he knows it? Wilson warned him as best he could without revealing classified information. He is quoted by Novak as telling him, "I will not answer any question about my wife." And Novak adds in October:

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name.

But he was suggesting that she would be endangered! To use a stronger word than "difficulties" would have been a security breach. Is Novak suggesting that he lacks the sophistication to understand communications from sources working with classified documents?

Moreover, looking at Wilson's credentials, the central thesis of Novak's original smear, that Wilson's assignment was a nepotistic assignment, is unsubstantiated. As we can see, Novak doesn't prove it and is given a denial from the CIA. Would a former ambassador to Africa need his wife's recommendation to be assigned the mission he was given? And given Novak's statement that "The
White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick
Cheney, asked the CIA to look into" the situation that Wilson was then sent to
investigate, later claims that none of them were aware of the report are
difficult to believe.

No, it is indeed deadly to learn anything from a heretic.

Shabbos: Detached from the Ground

Many years ago, I was taking a Talmud class taught by Arthur Kurzweil at the National Havurah Summer Institute, wherein he taught that when a passage of Talmud is about an ox, if you think that the passage is really about an ox, then you're an ox. I was reminded of this lesson the other day as the veil lifted and I realized that the ox (Shabbos) was much more than an ox, and that the key to building a relationship with this difficult text is to look for the modern day situations to which the text might be applied. It was the transgressions of Karl Rove that opened this text for me, and that continues to open the text for me today.

Today's daf includes the case of someone who intended to lift something that was detached from the ground, only to discover that it was in fact attached to the ground and that by lifting it, he cut something that was attached; and it also includes the case of someone who intended to cut something that was not attached to the ground who discovered that it was attached to the ground. In the former case, he is not liable for an offering; in the latter case, he is. The contemporary question that I want to measure against this template is whether the waivers of confidentiality signed by White House senior staff are attached to the ground.

Every member of the White House staff signs an agreement that they will waive confidentiality when conversing with reporters. The waiver is a fence around a pattern of behavior designed to inhibit government officials from releasing unauthorized leaks. (And in the current administration, it is the rare leak that is not authorized.) Reporters protect the confidentiality of their sources because of an unspoken understanding that it is in the public interest to provide background information about government deliberations to the electorate and that it is in the administration's interest to be able to assess the public's tolerance for innovation (or recalcitrance) without attributing tentative musings to an identifiable official.

It seems to me that as long as the reporter's source is leaking information with the intent to inform the electorate of the parameters of an ongoing debate, the waiver is detached from the ground: i.e., the leaker deserves the reporter's protection rather than to be held liable against the waiver and (for example) Judith Miller should defy even the Supreme Court to protect the confidentiality of a source. HOWEVER, if the source's information is designed to destroy another's reputation or to put another person at risk, violating the spirit of the law (and perhaps even the letter of the law as well), then the waiver is attached to the ground and the reporter has no obligation to protect the source.

The facts as they have been reported suggest that Karl Rove's confidentiality agreement is attached to the ground. As a senior government official who, by his own admission at the very least responded to a reporter's hearsay about the identity of a CIA agent "I heard that, too," he committed a serious transgression. Whether or not Rove knew that the agent in question was a covert agent, he had an obligation to remain silent and refuse to corroborate the story until he determined whether the information was classified. He was under no obligation to confirm or deny the report and his confirmation was most certainly an unlawful act, if perhaps an inadvertent one. But whether inadvertent or deliberate, the underlying intent was to punish a political adversary, and the intent alone rooted the waiver to the ground.

Shabbos: Inadvertent Transgressions

In today's daf, the rabbis ponder multiple inadvertent transgressions. "All [R'yochanan and Reish Lakish] agree about a betrothed slavewoman that one is liable to only one asham for numerous violations when only awareness separates them, in accordance with the statement of Ulla." (72a). In plain language: if you inadvertently sleep with a slavewoman who is engaged to someone else on more than one occasion, gaining awareness between incidents that she is in fact engaged, you are only liable for one penalty. Is it that all those slavewomen look alike, or that it's dark, or that you forgot she's engaged, or is it like the fellow who designated the funds to pay his fine and then said, "Wait for me until I cohabit another time"?

In today's New York Times, spokesmen for the President of the United States are reported as attempting to argue that there was no transgression, and even if one took place, it was inadvertent. Talmudic scholars can appreciate the tortured logic by which Karl Rove may keep his job because Bush is on record that he would fire "anyone who leaked Ms. Wilson's name," while so far, it seems that "Mr. Rove discussed Ms. Wilson's role, though apparently without naming her." Was this an inadvertent transgression or a deliberate transgression by one who knew that once you identify a woman as the wife of so-and-so, it is not necessary to name her in order to make known about whom you are speaking?

What asham offering does Karl Rove owe to the American people? If Bush continues to rely on Rove's counsel, are we being asked to wait for him until he cohabits another time? Or, using the colorful language of an unidentified "former official," will the President "find a graceful way for Mr. Rove to exit . . . to 'get the benefit of the brain without the proximity of the body'"? If the latter, cohabitation ceases but transgressions nevertheless go on and on.