Daf Am Haaretz

Head versus Heart

2010-07-10T11:30:00.004-04:00

I have been reading Richard A. Posner’s How Judges Think. Posner notes that a judge’s response to a case “is generated by legal doctrine, institutional constraints, policy preferences, strategic considerations, and the equities of the case, all mixed together and all mediated by temperament, experience, ambition, and other personal factors.” Thus, personal predilections foster both a Judge Shammai (focused on legal doctrine and institutional constraints) and a Judge Hillel (tilting toward policy preferences and concerned with the equity of the case).

Whether judges “think” at all is no more certain than whether you or I do. It has been suggested that our opinions may be more emotional reactions than intellectual conclusions. In an article in tomorrow’s NY Times Magazine, Judith Werner cites Richard Hofstadter’s classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life wherein he wrote that ‘Intellect is pitted against feeling . . . [and] against character, because it is widely believed that intellect stands for mere cleverness, which transmutes easily into the sly or diabolical.” In Warner’s article, whether or not judges think is not the point; the point is that judges facing senate confirmation hearings are cautioned not to risk “intellectually outshining the senators” (in other words, don’t let them see you think).

As this blog is at least ostensibly intended to focus on Jewish thought and/or Talmudic distinctions and processes, I will digress momentarily. The aforementioned Hofstadter is from the generation of Jews (on his father’s side) who were raised by parents for whom English was most certainly not their first language. Like my favorite non-Jewish "Jewish" straight man Bud Abbott, Hofstadter had one Jewish parent but was raised as a Lutheran.

In the 1940s, my English teacher, Alfred Kazin, often sat next to him in the great reading room of the 42nd Street Library. In Kazin’s journal, he wrote of Hofstadter, “His German-background Lutheran mother had died early; his Polish-Jewish father had given his gift for Yiddish an irresistible turn. Between two such worlds--who would have guessed that the middle name of this former Lutheran altar boy was Irving?--he had become the amused outsider who looked Gentile, was married to a Jew, and whose friends were regularly Jews.”

Another entry in Kazin’s journal on Hofstadter’s wife, Felice, will get me back to my main subject today-- head versus heart. Felice was one of the first women to be accorded the status of writer (as opposed to researcher at Time Magazine: “Felice loved being important to Time more than she could ever love Time itself. Writing up a frightful industrial accident in which a worker had been pressed to death by a machine, she had thought it clever to write that the victim could now be slipped under the door. On her way home she felt horrified by her callousness, rushed back to the office to change the piece, and found the managing editor roundly congratulating her.” Here indeed is an apt example of the heartlessness of clever wit that is associated with the moral bankruptcy of intellect. Anti-intellectualism may be America’s reaction to the Enlightenment, but many of us are so well educated that we are both for it and against it.

A recent current event illustrates the quandary. The decision by the United States District Court in Boston on Thursday essentially nullified the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and affirmed the right of the state of Massachusetts to guarantee rights to same-sex couples. What combination of “legal doctrine, institutional constraints, policy preferences, strategic considerations, and the equities of the case” led to this decision? As Kirk Johnson points out in today’s NY Times, the ruling affirms states’ rights and limits the authority of the federal government (if it is upheld). As such, it should be applauded by those whose primary agenda is to limit the power of the federal government. Of course, many of these are the same people who also insist on a traditional definition of marriage. The former is an intellectual position and the latter is an emotional response.

Personally, I have never understood why marriage is regarded as a civil matter at all. It has always seemed to me that any state or federal definition of marriage is tantamount to the legislation of a religious tenet that is particular to some but not all denominations of Judaism and Christianity (and probably all Muslims-- at least I am not aware of any Imams who perform same-sex commitment ceremonies). I share this understanding with the Gay rights groups who condemned the persecution of Fundamentalist Mormons for practicing polygamy. (Ironically, we must note that the support was not reciprocated: the polygamists regard any gay relationship as a sure path to eternal damnation.) By this line of reasoning, any definition of marriage must be considered unconstitutional and the state should get out of the business of issuing marriage licenses and focus solely on guaranteeing equal protection under the law to all married couples (or swarms, if we have the stomach to include the Mormon fundamentalists!), regardless of how they came to be united.

In any event, states rights is an unsatisfactory principle on which to hang a campaign to ensure equal treatment under the law. The principle that was last used in arguments to delay the adoption of federal laws to prohibit racial discrimination is not going to be our friend in the long run. But what options were open to the United States District Court in Boston? For this judge, the equity of the case weighed more heavily than the legal doctrine; institutional constraints were perhaps ignored in favor of strategic considerations. It will all undoubtedly end up in the Supreme Court, where an affirmation on the basis of states rights would be a stunning victory for gay rights in Massachusetts and a blow to prospects for a federal guarantee of gay rights. Are there other legal doctrines that permit affirming the decision? Is the court likely to reject the reasoning but not overturn the decision? If they do, will they return the case to Boston to be reargued or overturn the Defense of Marriage Act? Stay tuned to find out how these judges think.

The Second Candle

2009-12-12T17:33:00.004-05:00

The first candle: Ambassador Michael Oren described J Street as "a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It's significantly out of the mainstream," he said. "This is not a matter of settlements here [or] there. We understand there are differences of opinion," Oren said. "But when it comes to the survival of the Jewish state, there should be no differences of opinion. You are fooling around with the lives of 7 million people. This is no joke"

The second candle: Jeremy Ben-Ami of Jstreet, questioned by a reporter on Oren's remarks, replied, "Perhaps if he would meet with us, he could actually find out what we stand for, rather than having to misrepresent our position. I don’t quite understand how it is in the State of Israel’s interest to look at J Street as a problem, to write off an organization that represents a large number of American Jews."

I will not at this time go into all the nuances this exchange evokes. Nor will I do an objective analysis of the merits and faults of the two respective positions. But what I will do is share a personal reflection on how this exchange challenges my understanding of the meaning of Hanukkah:

If Michael Oren were to cast his remarks within the context of the story of Hanukkah, he would certainly cast himself in the role of Judah Maccabee and the people of Jstreet as the Hellenized Jews who lived in another country-- who he is in effect charging with looting the Temple. I hesitate to say this but if I am to be totally honest I have to say that if I found myself cast back into time within the context of the ancient story, I am more temperamentally suited to be a Hellenized Jew than a Maccabee. And when I think of the story of Hanukkah as the story of a civil war between two types of Jews, I don't know what there is to celebrate, especially when it is plain to anyone who cares to look that the war between the Jews continues.

Reflections on an Old Clawfoot Bathtub

2009-07-27T14:30:00.004-04:00

It's actually for a person's own good that he can't fathom or distinguish the difference between good and evil when he's a child. For if he could . . . he'd realize how much more self-sufficient adults were than he . . . And he'd die from worry and despair realizing the contrast between himself and adults.
--Bachya ibn Pakudeh, The Duties of the Heart (2:5)

In an Inn in Massachusetts, as I struggled to climb out of an old clawfoot bathtub, I reflected on how physically vulnerable I am destined to become should I be blessed with many more years. If climbing out of a bathtub is a challenge even now . . . (!) Yet also I remembered a time over fifty years ago when an ordinary bathtub seemed as huge as this clawfoot tub is for me today. I surprised my mother when I was quietly sitting on the toilet and she emerged from the shower completely naked, not expecting to see me. How lovely she looked! And how embarrassed!

At the bookends of life every mountain is harder to climb; every stream more difficult to cross. The scale of this bathtub catapulted me simultaneously to my beginning and my end. How much less self-sufficient we "adults" are than we sometimes realize!

Guilt Incurred Unwittingly

2009-03-27T16:00:00.000-04:00

In this week’s Torah portion, in Chapter 4 of Leviticus, we find the means to atone for guilt that is incurred unwittingly. For example, verse 2, “when a person unwittingly incurs guilt in regard to any of God’s commandments about things not to be done, and does one of them.”

It occurred to me that it is much easier to see how another person unwittingly incurs guilt but much more difficult to catch oneself. I am sure that my political and spiritual affinities carry with them assumptions about the character and motives of people who I see as a threat and that these assumptions are a barrier to performing some much needed tikkun olam. How do I get past these assumptions, not simply to atone for guilt incurred unwittingly, but to transcend it?

Verse 13 strikes me as especially timely because it is concerned with when “the whole community of Israel that has erred and the matter escapes the notice of the congregation, so that they do any of the things which by God’s commandments ought not to be done.”

There was an article in last Sunday’s NY Times that described the divide between two philosophies of military ethics. On the one hand, there is the code of military ethics and on the other hand, the military’s chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, who took his stand following a classical Hebrew text that says: “He who is merciful to the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful.” Rabbi Rontzki wrote that what others call “humanistic values” are simply subjective feelings that should be subordinate to following the law of the Torah. And he has also said that the main reason for a Jewish doctor to treat a non-Jew on the Sabbath, when work is prohibited but treating the sick and injured is expected, is to avoid exposing Diaspora Jews to hatred. It is easy for me to imagine how such a person might unwittingly incur guilt.

To be perfectly frank and rather harshly judgmental, such a person is the Jewish version of a holocaust denier. But rather than denying that the Holocaust occurred, such a person is denying that the actions that result from his own words are another sort of holocaust. I understand that this is not an evil person and that the guilt he incurs, he incurs it unwittingly. What I don’t understand is how he comes to see or feel the guilt; the gap between unwitting action and self-awareness seems too vast for me.

The specific commandments that one might unwittingly violate depend entirely on which commandments we value higher than others. We choose between the sanctity of land and the sanctity of life. Between the sanctity of Jewish life and the sanctity of all life. We chose unconsciously to hold one ideal and become blind to another. And, I repeat, it is much, much easier to see how another person unwittingly incurs guilt than to catch oneself.

RABBI EMANUEL RACKMAN Z'L

2008-12-07T20:17:00.006-05:00

Before the Law

The parable begins, "Before the law stands a door-keeper. A man arrives and asks to be admitted . . ." It is a well known story of Kafka's that ends badly because the man from the country (the am haaretz) has more faith in the authority of the door-keeper than he has in himself.

These reflections were prompted by the obituary of Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, who died this week in Manhattan at 98 years of age. Reading his obituary I was convinced that Rabbi Rackman could stand up to any gatekeeper. He earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1933, ordination as a rabbi in 1934, and a doctorate in public law in 1952. Moreover, he served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, where he encountered the Holocaust firsthand in his role as military aide to the European Theater commander's special adviser on Jewish affairs.

For my purposes, the story gets even more interesting when he was recalled to active duty in 1951 but discovered that the "doorkeeper" (in the form of the U.S. government) had stripped him of his security clearance because of his public opposition to the sentences of death in the Rosenberg case and his public support of Paul Robeson. Rabbi Rackman was no am haaretz. He waited on no gatekeeper: Given the choice of an honorable discharge or a military trial, he insisted on a trial and won his acquittal and a promotion. This man knew which gate was meant for him and he walked directly through it.

This morning I studied Zohar (as I often do on Sunday mornings) with two rabbis and another am haaretz (though one more knowledgeable than myself), and the question came up about whether today's orthodox Judaism is rigid or elastic compared to what it had been at the dawn of rabbinic Judaism. I wish I had had Rabbi Rackman's obituary to reference during that study session this morning, especially this quote: “A Jew dare not live with absolute certainty not only because certainty is the hallmark of the fanatic and Judaism abhors fanaticism, but also because doubt is good for the human soul, its humility, and consequently its greater potential ultimately to discover its Creator.”

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

2008-10-11T09:55:00.000-04:00

I have had a great deal of difficulty attempting to identify the underlying philosophy of the Bush administration. After seven years, it does not get any easier. For example, in the lead story of the October 10 issue of the Forward, it is reported that the Bush administration, unsurprisingly, takes a position against efforts by Muslim countries to expand the blasphemy laws that are in place in their own countries into a U.N. resolution. The surprise is that the position is based on the individual right to free expression, which is not something that the Bush folk have spent much time defending in the past seven years, especially when it comes to individual religious expression.

John Hanford, the Bush administration ambassador at large for religious freedom (imagine!), accused the Muslims of seeking "to weaken the freedoms of religion and expression by restricting the rights of individuals to share their views or criticize religions." The logical extension of this argument would seriously inhibit legislatures from basing any laws or regulations on religious beliefs alone. I think this is a fine idea, but I don't think that the Bush administration agrees.

For example, this administration would outlaw same-sex marriages even though marriage itself is a spiritual union between two individuals and many churches sanctify gay unions.

For example, this administration would outlaw abortions based on the religious belief that life begins at conception. (We can only be grateful that they aren't looking to legislate around masturbation!) Many religious leaders support a woman's right to choose. The Talmud suggests that a fetus is never a person, but a limb of the mother that may be amputated for the health of the mother.

For example, this administration would restrict access to birth control and forbid any health agency working in other countries seeking federal funds from dispensing information on birth control because they believe that intercourse is intrinsically for the purpose of procreation. This is a position of some religions but not based on anything but Scripture.

The Bush administration has made the philosophical leap to condemn countries that attempt to legislate their beliefs, but has yet to look into the mirror or into their own souls.

Three more months . . .

What Must We Teach Our Children Before They Can Read?

2008-09-13T09:03:00.005-04:00

MISHNAH. Course material and instruction shall emphasize that the pupil has the power to control personal behavior. Pupils shall be encouraged to base their actions on reasoning, self-discipline, sense of responsibility, self-control, and ethical considerations, such as respect for oneself and others. Course material and instruction shall teach pupils to not make unwanted physical and verbal sexual advances and how to say no to unwanted sexual advances and shall include information about verbal, physical, and visual sexual harassment, including without limitation nonconsensual sexual advances, nonconsensual physical sexual contact, and rape by an acquaintance. The course material and instruction shall contain methods of preventing sexual assault by an acquaintance, including exercising good judgment and avoiding behavior that impairs one's judgment. The course material and instruction shall emphasize personal accountability and respect for others and Pupils shall be taught that it is wrong to take advantage of or to exploit another person. [Actual language of 2003 Illinois legislation.]

GEMARA. Reb Johannan ben Cain said in the name of Rove Karl, "A child should have no knowledge of such matters. It would be better if they went about unaware of how to defend their purity." Reb Baruch HaBama said, "Let them know what they need to know and no more."

Aggadic Politics

2008-08-24T20:49:00.003-04:00

On the eve of the launching of Sefer Ha-Bloggadah, where the nature of aggadah itself will be the first topic for consideration, when it is also the eve of the Democrat's convention, my thoughts naturally drift to the role of aggadah in the shaping of American politics.

What, after all, is aggadah, if not the parable by which the truth is taught to the am haaretz? And what is a presidential election but a struggle to persuade the am haaretz to vote for this one over that one?

Last week we witnessed the spectacle of the presumptive candidates of the two major parties submitting sequentially to questioning by the founder and senior pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. And there is no doubt in my mind that the most important question posed to the two candidates was, "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" One said, "I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade." The other said, "At the moment of conception." The latter was met with applause.

I was saddened to be reminded that this is the standard by which our leaders are selected. The decisive issues will not be who can best manage our resources and represent us to the community of nations, but where does each stand on abortion, gay marriage, and evolution. It is as George Lakoff has been insisting for years: our ideas about politics and morality are not ideas at all, but emotional responses. In other words, our political decisions are not rooted in halakhah; they are purely aggadic.

As Lakoff has suggested (using different language), the Republicans have become masters of aggadic argument, while the Democrats have persisted in appealing to reason.

The rabbis take Ecclesiastes 6:2 as a sign-post warning of the danger of becoming a master of aggadot. Such a one "does not have the power to prohibit or permit, to declare unclean or to declare clean." The rich gift from God is the "evil I have observed under the sun" in Ecclesiastes 6:1. It is the nuance and ambiguity that can create a vivid teaching through paradox and in the process teach confusion. Evolution is "junk science"; life begins at conception; homosexual love is unnatural. These masters of aggadot campaign as if they will turn opinion into law and by extension make those they consider to be heretics into criminals.

There are masters of aggadot who lead voters from clear directions such as concern over how they will heat their homes or protect the value of their property or preserve their savings so that they can securely retire; these "masters" prey upon their fears that liberty is on the slippery slope to libertine. Their aggadot come to teach one despicable lesson: to fear freedom.

The rabbis warn us not to master all aggadot, but to study only the exemplary aggadot -- those "which are readily understood and deemed right by all men." I heard such an aggadic text just yesterday: "Tragedy tests us — it tests our fortitude and it tests our faith. Here's how Joe Biden responded. He never moved to Washington. Instead, night after night, week after week, year after year, he returned home to Wilmington on a lonely Amtrak train when his Senate business was done. He raised his boys — first as a single dad, then alongside his wonderful wife Jill, who works as a teacher. He had a beautiful daughter. Now his children are grown, and Joe is blessed with five grandchildren. He instilled in them such a sense of public service that his son Beau, who is now Delaware's attorney general, is getting ready to deploy to Iraq. And he still takes that train back to Wilmington every night. Out of the heartbreak of that unspeakable accident, he did more than become a senator — he raised a family. That is the measure of the man standing next to me. That is the character of Joe Biden."

I would prefer to live in a world where we chose our leaders through a process of rational deliberation. But as this is clearly not the case, I am pleased that I have found a candidate who can construct a teaching that must be readily understood and deemed right by all men. I would far rather be moved to tears by a candidate I can vote for than moved to fury by one who fails to convince me he has the power to prohibit or permit, to declare unclean or to declare clean.

The Religion of Secularism

2007-12-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

From Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech (December 6):

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Public acknowledgment of God "in the public domain" is all well and good, but the problem is that state-sanctioned acknowledgment of religion may, by accident or design, either compel innocent bystanders to practice someone else's religion or deny them the ability to practice their own religion. The December 14 issue of the Forward provided a good example of how this has worked in the past. This paper has a feature on its back page called ForwardLooking Back. It features brief excerpts from its archives from 100, 75, and 50 years ago. One hundred years ago, the news was as follows:

This week began with a giant whimper and not a bang, because of a new ruling that legally designates Sunday as a day of rest. And they mean it: Between the ultra-religious Catholicism of Judge O'Gorman and the club of Police Chief Bingham, nary a peep was heard out of weddings, parties, theaters, movies, dance halls, concert halls or saloons this past Sunday in New York City. The town was dead: it was like a terrible Yom Kippur. The city's streets were packed with people who had nothing to do but wander about. And at weddings in Manhattan and Brooklyn, they danced without klezmorim.

Imagine living in a time or place that the law prohibited having a band play at your wedding celebration! The people who "legally" designated Sunday as a day of rest got married on Saturday. The people who were obligated religiously to observe their day of rest on Saturday, were legally forbidden to hire a band on Sunday.

A hundred years ago, the Jewish dilemma would be of no concern to the powers that passed such laws. The mainstream belief was that Jews were a separate race: Jews were not white people, and only white men were privileged to share the "self-evident" truth in the constitution that all men are created equal. It is more puzzling that today, when gay people suffer less discrimination and marginalization than the Jews and blacks of a hundred years ago, they are not only denied the basic legal protections and benefits afforded to heterosexual households that are founded by a religious vow of lifetime commitment, but they are the target of specific schemes to deny them the right to take on this basic religious vow that many ministers and rabbis would willingly sanctify.

Marriage vows are, after all, religious vows first. Secondarily, they convey legal privileges and obligations. Those who would limit the legal definition of marriage are bringing a theological argument into the legislatures and courts, thus violating the separation we have made to protect religion from state interference; the very separation that Mitt praised in his "Faith in America" speech.

Even so, it seems that Mitt would protect us from our liberal churches and synagogues:

"We need an amendment that restores and protects our societal definition of marriage, blocks judges from changing that definition and then, consistent with the principles of federalism, leaves other policy issues regarding marriage to state legislatures." (Gov. Mitt Romney, Testimony, United States Senate Committee On The Judiciary, 6/22/04)

How do we rationalize federal protection of "societal definitions" when these definitions are contradicted by our religious communities? How do we reconcile "We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason" with protecting "societal definitions"? As long as there are ministers and rabbis who are willing to sanctify and recognize gay marriages, it should take no less than the repeal of the First Amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

The threat to our constitution does not come from the "religion of secularism." Mitt turned the constitution on its head when he proclaimed that freedom requires religion; of course, it is the other way around: religion requires freedom. Constitutional amendments that "protect" societal definitions threaten the freedom of religion. Paradoxically, a government free from religion is absolutely essential for the guarantee of religious freedom. It should be self-evident to all that the federalization of religion that Governor Romney proposes would be a far greater threat to our liberty than any religion of secularism.

Stillborn Rationalism?

2007-12-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

Note: This is the seventh (and final) post in a series of notes that I wrote as I read The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. The posts should be read in the following sequence: (1) Stillborn God?, (2) Why Believe?, (3) The Values Test, (4) Torah Rules, (5) "What Makes Man Religious at All?", (6) Genuine Religion vs Idolatry, then the following.

I have wanted to resume blogging for some time but felt obliged to finish this series of posts on Lilla's book before moving on to tackle other issues. Obliged to whom? Probably to Lilla. It was unfair to leave the many critical observations I made in the earlier posts in this series without balancing them by expressing my appreciation that the later sections of his book answer many of the questions that I raised as I wrote in the midst of my reading.

I finished the book several weeks ago and did not take detailed notes, so this will not satisfy my own standard for posting. It is simply better than leaving the other posts out there unresolved before moving on.

So, briefly: I now understand that Lilla's lack of references to Jewish philosophy in the first half of his extended consideration of the decline of political theology in Europe does not derive from an ignorance of, or lack of respect for, Jewish philosophy, but from his understanding (no doubt a correct understanding) that the Christian philosophers who influenced the evolution of politics away from its theological foundations were not themselves referencing any Jewish philosophers. When Lilla gets to the 19th Century, a time when Jews were finally welcomed as citizens in Europe, the Jewish contributions to philosophy and political theory are well represented. Ironically perhaps, the possibility of assimilation provided a fertile ground for the development of an alternative Judaism-- self-labelled "Reform" Judaism-- that related to traditional Judaism as Protestantism related to Catholicism. This bifurcation of Judaism thus opened doors for diverse Zionist impulses that replicated the Christian argument about whether a state should be based on religious and/or tribal affiliation.

Ultimately, Lilla's "Stillborn God" is the deracinated theology that portrays "religion as socially useful when rationally and morally reformed" (p. 300). Unfortunately, since terms like rational and moral will probably never be universally understood, the enforced separation of church and state will be utopian for some and dystopian for others.

The tension between politics and religion will clearly be the elephant in the room throughout the presidential campaigns that are now in full swing, and it is to that conversation that I intend to turn in my next postings.

Genuine Religion vs. Idolatry

2007-10-09T20:02:00.000-04:00

Note: This is the sixth post in a series of notes that I am writing as I read The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. The posts should be read in the following sequence: (1) Stillborn God?, (2) Why Believe?, (3) The Values Test, (4) Torah Rules, (5) "What Makes Man Religious at All?", then the following.

In my previous post, I wondered if it can properly be said that Hobbes effected any change in the discussion among theologians or only that he opened a discussion about theology among philosophers. On page 100, Lilla apparently concludes that the answer is that the former indeed cannot be said. Hobbes, he writes, "did not think it possible to liberalize and enlighten the Christian churches from within."

The question of whether there is a link between "genuine and idolatrous religious behavior" raised by Lilla on page 69, which also went unanswered through the reading covered in the last post, may be answered in the manner that Locke and Hume extended the philosophical challenge opened by Hobbes. At least Locke "thought it both necessary and possible to convince the Christian churches to liberalize themselves, doctrinally and organizationally." And Hume "could write as if this revolution in human self-orientation had already taken place."

Tolerant churches, coexisting peacefully, none insisting on an exclusive franchise on the ultimate truth-- this is indeed a religious sensibility that has shed all idolatrous trappings. Thus, in just three pages we have gone from a life that is nasty, brutish and short to a revolution in human self-orientation. As I can only take into account what I have read to this point, I can only hope that when I read further tomorrow I will not find that Lilla has yadda yadda'd the most interesting part.

"What Makes Man Religious At All?"

2007-10-07T20:19:00.001-04:00

Note: This is the fifth post in a series of notes that I am writing as I read The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. The posts should be read in the following sequence: (1) Stillborn God?, (2) Why Believe?, (3) The Values Test, (4) Torah Rules, then the following.

On page 69, Lilla asks the question that is set at the top of this post. He goes on to ask, "Is there a link between genuine and idolatrous religious behavior?" But before answering that question, he makes an assertion that I must dispute: "Thinking about such behavior was more highly developed in Christianity than in Judaism and Islam, no doubt because it faced a double polemical challenge from its very inception: against Roman paganism on the one side and Judaism on the other."

The "double polemical challenge" that Christianity confronted was not unique. The Talmud, for example, is a rich source of thinking about "such behavior." The rabbis who lived in the early days of Christianity were also challenged by Roman paganism and by sects who, like Christianity, adopted the Torah as their foundation document. Early references to Judaism's response to Christianity are simply harder to find, mainly because Christian political theocracies controlled the printing presses and suppressed Jewish texts that challenged the legitimacy of Christianity. (For a history of the suppression of Jewish sources and several samples of the suppressed text, see, for example, Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein, edited by Sharon Liberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein, Yeshiva University Museum, 2005; and Jesus in the Talmud by Peter Schäfer, Princeton University Press, 2007.

I am much less familiar with the Muslim experience, but expect that their own encounters with the Crusaders's swords must have prompted some thinking about "such behavior."

Lilla credits Christianity with evolving, beginning in the Renaissance, to incorporate "reason" into its lexicon. Is it churlish to note that when Maimonides did that for Judaism it was long before the Renaissance? Or that the culture that provided the intellectual space for Maimonides to be a major Jewish thinker was Islamic? Could one say that Christianity should at most be credited with catching up?

We are now one quarter through Lilla's text and at a pivotol moment in his text; for after having provided this brief romp through the unfolding state of the Christian world view, Lilla introduces Thomas Hobbes. And what an introduction! After musing, "There is more darkness in religion, perhaps a vast kingdom of darkness, than is dreamed of in Stoic philosophy," Lilla proclaims, "The greatest explorer of that darkness was Thomas Hobbes."

Hobbes's great achievement, according to Lilla, is to change the "traditional subject of theology-- God and his nature-- . . . to that of man and his religious nature." I wonder, however, if it can properly be said that Hobbes effected any change in the discussion among theologians or only that he opened a discussion about theology among philosophers.

Alas, perhaps Lilla is not describing the Christian rise from darkness into the light at all. Perhaps Hobbes's philosophy has no impact on theology, but provides instead a forum that no theologian would chose to enter. I don't know. I write these words as I read. My reactions only take into account what I have read to this point. Perhaps these doubts will be laid to rest. Perhaps they will multiply. Tune in later this week.

Torah Rules

2007-10-07T07:46:00.000-04:00

Lilla stumbles when he asserts that "When the ancient Hebrews were an independent kingdom, they had been ruled exclusively by the Torah-- that is, by divine rather than human law" (p. 56). If he means the written Torah, it was adequate for managing a Temple service that was based on offerings of grain and animals, but it falls short of being a comprehensive legal code. If he means the oral Torah, it suggests that he is unaware that it developed no earlier than Christianity. And while it is certainly true that a scriptural "justification" was claimed for every regulation in the oral Torah, this was often at the expense of the plainest meaning of the text; for example, the Rabbinic transformation of "an eye for an eye" to be monetary damages.

Lilla stumbles further when he continues: "But Christianity was not law-based, at least not in that earlier sense; it preserved the Decalogue but abolished the highly developed system of Jewish law in favor of a law of the heart." It is a Christian assertion that Christianity abolished Jewish law. Yes, it turned its back on the covenantal and priestly Judaism of its time, but that on which it turned its back was itself far less than the legal code that Judaism ultimately developed. Halakah did not precede Christian political theology. Hillel and Shammai laid the foundation for Rabbinic Judaism within a hundred years of the birth of Christ. The development and codification of Rabbinic Judaism unfolded simultaneously with the development of Christianity. Christianity could not abolish what had not preceded it.

Both Jew and Christian faced the same existential dilemma at the same time: the Torah could only serve as a blueprint if it was read esoterically, which is what the "New" Testament and the Talmud each did; the former attempting to step out of history while the latter remained firmly embedded in it, but both imposed a forced "deeper" reading than the surface of the text suggested. (One of my favorite study partners suggests that the dominant Jewish reading was halachic and the dominant Christian reading was aggadic. The important point for me is that the text was necessary but not sufficient for either interpretation.)

At this stage of development, the most important thing that Jew and Christian had in common was the unquestioned assumptions that the meaning of life was based in divine revelation, and that no meaningful order was possible that was not based on the revelation. Of course, there is irony that the ones who first believed that history had ended (the Christians) became a major historical force when they ultimately chose the sword as their means to resolve doctrinal disagreements. The Jews, on the other hand, were so far removed from power that they could be content to conclude most doctrinal disputes by declaring that "these and those" are both the words of God. The Jews never led an Inquisition.

The demand for esoteric readings only increased in confronting the Enlightenment. In the face of science's increasingly sophisticated understanding of the nature of the cosmos, Lilla cites Pascal (p. 63), who bravely reflected, "It is not only just but useful for us that God be partially hidden." Jewish sources confronted the dilemma of a hidden God hundreds of years ahead of Pascal. Moshe Halbertal, in his new book, Concealment and Revelation, traces the tradition of a hidden knowledge to the earliest Talmudic readings of Torah. From Bereshit Rabbah:

R. Yosi beRabbi Hanina said . . . In human practice, when an earthly monarch builds a palace on a site of sewers, dunghills, and garbage, if one says, "This palace is built on a site of sewers, dunghills, and garbage," does he not discredit it? Thus, whoever comes to say that this world was created out of tohu and bohu and darkness, does he not impair [God's honor]?

I doubt Halbertal would object to comparing this teaching to Pascal. But Lilla seems unaware that concern for the incompleteness of the revelation goes back to the dawn of theology. He asserts that "modern science broke an age-old link between God and man" (p. 65), but I think that the most he can establish is that it opened the door to philosophies and political systems that had no ties to theology. When science confronts scripture (as for example when the tohu and bohu of this week's parsha are interpreted by a physicist), even if it appears to "impair God's honor," it can still be affirming that there is an embedded revelation, though perhaps one that is yet to be revealed.

The relationship between theology and politics may likewise be hidden in this time and place, and the danger of revealing it, as much to our own as to God's honor. Science has merely peeled away another layer of onion skin between us and God's hidden majesty.

The Values Test

2007-10-04T07:37:00.001-04:00

James Dobson, on the OP-ED page of today's NY Times, wrote of "a meeting that occurred last Saturday in Salt Lake City involving more than 50 pro-family leaders." Those last two words jumped out at me; what exactly is a pro-family leader? And, in this polarized society, who are the anti-family leaders that pro-family leaders are called to stand tall and righteously oppose?

Patient readers discover the answer in the penultimate paragraph of his essay:

The secular news media has been reporting in recent months that the conservative Christian movement is hopelessly fractured and internally antagonistic. The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, for example, that supporters of traditional family values are rapidly “splintering.” That is not true. The near unanimity in Salt Lake City is evidence of much greater harmony than supposed.

Translation: Pro-family leaders are conservative Christians. If you are secular or non-Christian, you are not part of the conversation. Political theology remains a significant language in this country and, as Lilla asserts (see previous two posts), it is an exclusively Christian language that has been used to support a range of outcomes from revolution to repression.

Lilla suggests that even at its best, Christian theology is irrational. The most toxic symptom of this irrationality is its failure to engage in a conversation that acknowledges that Constitutional principles, which refuse to legislate theology, are, in their own peculiar way, sacred; that those who refuse to legislate morality are not indifferent to immorality, but are practitioners of a virtue less evident among the current crop of pro-family leaders: humility.

Why believe?

2007-10-02T19:20:00.001-04:00

Lilla (see previous post) rhetorically asks "Why is there political theology?" and immediately notes that this question is usually interpreted in connection with a response to why we believe in God. He insists that the proper question is "Why do certain religious beliefs get translated into doctrines about political life?" This question assumes that we make a conscious decision to translate inherited beliefs into political doctrines.

Did the rabbis of Sanhedrin choose to innovate doctrine by radical interpretation of Torah, or was it simply so urgent for them to reconcile reality with a foundational document, that they had no choice but to invent a new manner of reading? Lilla suggests that "even an arbitrary picture inherited from the tradition or society in which one lives can be given rational structure and rational justification," but it is not clear to me that rational justification is sufficient evidence of choice.

Lilla concludes that "The temptation is great to draw God closer to the world or cut him free from it" (p. 31), but is this not specifically a Christian dilemma? I submit that the Jewish solution is to cite the scripture that proclaims "It is not in heaven"-- i.e., the revelation was both necessary and sufficient and is left for us to study and draw from it our own conclusions. We may appear to be rejecting when we think we are radically interpreting, but those who have earned the authority to suggest new readings are always attempting to draw God closer; and we may be attempting (whether consciously or not) to cut ourselves free, but never to cut God free.

Stillborn God?

2007-10-01T21:25:00.000-04:00

Tonight I started reading Mark Lilla's new book, The Stillborn God. I'm reading it with Mike, my Talmud study partner from the days when I studied Talmud. We'll likely read 10-20 pages a day and talk three or four mornings a week about what we're reading.

At this point, I'm not sure that I will accept the premise, introduced on the second page of the text (page 4), that "Western liberal democracies have succeeded in creating an environment where public conflict over competing revelations is virtually unthinkable today." Is it not the competing revelations of science and Christian theology that have divided the American polity in the last two national elections?

Aside from terrorism, the major lines in the sand have been between theological orthodoxy and secular compassion. Only yesterday, John McCain's response to the question of whether a Muslim might be elected President of the United States, more than suggested that Christian theology remains a foundation for at least this Western liberal democracy. (McCain: "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that's a decision that the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know has a solid grounding in my faith.")

Is Western liberal democracy philosophically incompatible with McCain's sort of Christian chauvinism? Lilla suggests that it is: "The ambition of the new philosophy was to develop habits of thinking and talking about politics exclusively in human terms, without appeal to divine revelation or cosmological speculation." Such philosophy, however, has yet to permeate the political arena where McCain contemplates a Baptist conversion, Hilary Clinton speaks openly of her Methodist faith, and Giuliani is measured against his Catholic training.

Lilla's book may turn out to be a fine history of the development of secular political philosophy, but his suggestion that secular political philosophy has triumphed in this country may be extremely premature. Of course, no Western democracy is likely to be transformed into a theocracy in our lifetime, but theocratic-like declarations that categorize those who threaten us as evil, when coupled with suspension of rights for anyone accused of being an enemy combatant, bear too striking a resemblance to the act of throwing the heretics into the dungeons.

According to Lilla, "We are no longer in the habit of connecting our political discourse to theological and cosmological questions" (p. 7). Would that it were so. He concedes that the only barrier to making this (forbidden?) connection is "self-restraint"; even saying, "That we must rely on self-restraint should concern us" (p. 8); but how can he not see that no mainstream national figure exercises such restraint, and any who would do so would not get elected?

The theocracies of the Middle East are surely more restrictive, less happy places for secular humanists to live, but the developed world is not yet free from the shackles of political theology.

I began this blog thirty months ago to record my relationship to the Talmudic foundations of Judaism. Does a reading of The Stillborn God belong in this setting? To the extent that the philosophical disputes from which modern political philosophy emerged over several hundred years represent (in Lilla's words) "a continuous conversation, running over many centuries" (p. 12), they can be seen as well as a continuation of a conversation that goes back at least to Tractate Sanhedrin, if not even further into the past. And so, I continue to study.

All these parables really set out to say . . .

2007-09-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

Today, I facilitated a discussion on the Torah portion for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. I began by noting that the text of Genesis 22:1 says that “God tested Abraham,” and that this text is called by some “the testing of Abraham,” while others call it “the binding of Isaac.” And I asked if the name of the story changes the way we process it.

After ten minutes or more of spirited discussion I asked what kind of a tale this is, and I suggested that even for those of us who take the words as being Torah from Sinai, it is still permissible to ask whether this story is an account of literal truth or a story that comes to teach something; concluding that what I was really asking first was, would it be fair to call it a parable? And I noted that the dictionary definition of parable is “a short allegorical story designed to convey some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson.” Finally I asked if there is anything about the nature of an allegorical story that would preclude it from being rooted in reality? Following another ten minutes of discussion, I delivered the following d’var Torah:

Kafka wrote that “Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have.” Of course, Kafka well knew that so-called daily life is NOT the only life we have. What happens in this space and this time is something else. We could create a parable about it and perhaps, as Kafka suggested, it would be no use outside this space, but we are here now, and here it would be useful. (Personally, I don’t believe that where we are is ever as important as who we are, but I also don’t believe that Kafka would disagree.)

Kafka, also wrote of parables, “All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already.” Which is certainly true of the parable of the sacrifice of Isaac: it is incomprehensible and we know that already. But there is still the question of whether it is different to know it as Abraham than to know it as Isaac.

The question itself invites yet another parable, but that one we need to create for ourselves. And perhaps we need to know first whether we stand as Abraham or Isaac, and perhaps that is the greater challenge. I would begin by pondering the relationship of parenting a people to parenting a person because Abraham, in the parable in this parshe must parent a person to parent a people. For me, it almost writes itself:

The father of our people was, of course, Abraham. His father named him Avram, but Avram took the name of Abraham when he entered a covenant with God in which he swore allegiance to the Creator in exchange for certain considerations, including a promise of a multitude of descendants, present company included.

In contrast, my father was named Abraham by his father, but changed his name to Alfred in the 1940s with the expectation that an Anglicized name would make him less identifiable as one of the people of Abraham and thus more likely to be able to make hotel and restaurant reservations in this nation, which was then racially segregated and not only unselfconsciously Christian, but also a nation that regarded Jews as a different race.

My father, no longer named Abraham, was himself fathered by a man named for Isaac. So, the beginning of our people was a man who changed his name to Abraham and had a son named Isaac. And the end might have been a man who had a father named Isaac and changed Abraham to Alfred. Thus, my Jewish people nearly undid themselves in a reversal of how our people began.

Grandfather Isaac was a mystery to me. He spoke little English and was an observant Jew. His son, my father Abraham, was a man of this world, with no patience for our tradition. As a family and a people we ravel and unravel and ravel again. It would be difficult for me to truly understand what each sacrificed and for whom, but I also do not see a great chasm between my personal history and our destiny as a people; both begin with a covenant, whatever that means to us. They begin when we discover our identity and take a new name; and they begin again when we find ourselves responsible for a new generation. Who among us has not transformed ourselves and redefined our relationship to community and the larger mystery of the unfolding world? And who among us has never been confronted with an unacceptable choice that felt at the time as if the choice was either renouncing the world or annihilating our soul?

The parable of Abraham and Isaac does indeed encourage employing it to cloak our personal experiences in an allegorical form, especially if we follow Kafka’s notion of allegory as being incomprehensible. For example, I could make this very personal and speak of how I came to sacrifice my son and how no ram emerged before the knife was raised, and I would of course be speaking in parable about a singular experience that I continue to find incomprehensible.

There are certainly people who would consider me to be pretentious for speaking in parable when I speak of a moment that was most crucial to the formation of my understanding of who I am. But I would invite these people to consider how much more satisfying it is to ponder the crises of our lives when we dare to compare them to the yardstick of a great Torah archetype than what is more common these days.

The common reaction these days to any question to someone who has endured a hardship or trauma is to reply as if the person was only a witness and not the protagonist. You ask “How did it feel?” and he replies, “Well, you know, you feel some pain.” He doesn’t say, “I was in pain.” It’s like it didn’t happen to him. The narrative is one of denial rather than owning the experience. Likewise, these days, if God called to a 21^st Century Abraham, that Abraham might very well reply not “Here I am,” but “There you are.” For me, today, one of the powerful lessons I draw from the testing of Abraham is that his response to both God and Isaac when they called his name was “Here I am.”

So, there you are. And here I am. And my wish for all of us in the New Year is that we answer when we are called, and that we speak in our own voices, in the first-person, and from a place where we know who we are, whether that be Abraham, Isaac, or the ram in the thicket.

Am Haaretz from all over the world: take note . . .

2007-06-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

Machzor Vitry, 150

2007-02-22T21:19:00.000-05:00

At the writer’s Beit Midrash we were presented with a 12^th Century prayer that was recited at Havdalah before tasting the wine. The prayer began by earnestly entreating the angel of oblivion to “take away my foolish heart and cast it upon a high mountain.” The prayer itself was snatched by another angel of oblivion and dropped from the standard liturgy. Why would an angel of oblivion snatch a prayer and clutch it tightly to his chest? Perhaps he abhorred the prospect of being entangled in human confusion. A man might pray for relief from his foolish heart, not realizing that it is all he has to lose.

Or perhaps the need to excise this lost prayer for peace and freedom from sin is rooted in its prooftext. This prayer, which seeks a heart immune from hatred, cites Exodus 33 as justification for those who would dare to ask so much from God, quoted in 33:19 as saying, “I have favored who I will favor and shown mercy to whom I will show mercy.” The promise implicit in these words is that mercy is possible for at least some of those who seek it.

I look for these words in all my translations. The nearly literal Everett Fox renders it “that I show-favor to whom I show-favor . . . mercy to whom I show-mercy,” creating English compounds to communicate the chasm between the ancient and modern tongues; no more or less vague than the anonymous translator of the medieval prayer. The looser, modern JPS gives us “I will proclaim the name Lord, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show,” a kinder, gentler Almighty. The older JPS translation comes closest to the text presented to us: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” Understanding of the ancient Hebrew is perhaps tied more to the theology of the translator than it can be to any affinity for its original sense.

What hope is there in a prayer for a peace that transcends the temptations we constantly face to be angry and judge others? Rashi understands God’s promise as no longer limited to showing compassion when God desires to show it, but a new commitment to send no Israelite away from prayer empty-handed. Rashbam sees it as God’s promise to make Divine attributes clear. On the other hand, Ibn Ezra sees what appears to be the plainest meaning—that God “will grant grace only to those to whom [God] wish[es] to grant it.”

God’s “promise” is itself only a few verses away from Moses’s desperate gambit to save his people from God’s wrath following their construction of a Golden Calf: “if you would only bear their sin--! But if not, pray blot me out of the record you have written!” (Fox). (Note that JPS and even the staid Hertz use the em-dash to express the unfinished thought, though only Fox adds the melodramatic exclamation point!) Only Moses could dare risk being erased from the Book of Life to save his sinning tribe. Perhaps this is why the prayer was ultimately removed from the standard liturgy. Are we not far better off without prayers that depend on a Moses to protect us from our natural inclinations?

Our workbook juxtaposes this prayer with a text from Zedekiah the Physician regarding a “rabbinical legend” that anyone who drinks water at twilight on the Sabbath is stealing water from his dead. Twilight before havdalah is the time when the dead are permitted water. Drink then and it as if you are stealing from their cup. Why is this text presented here if not to remind us that none of us can drink from Moses’s cup or take the risks that Moses took for his people? Why is this text here, juxtaposed to a no-longer standard prayer for peace-- a prayer that one would recite before tasting the wine at Havdalah-- if not to remind us that we cannot, in the absence of the prayer, ever taste this wine again? We must not, as Moses did, dare ask God to erase us from the Book in exchange for peace for our people; we must never again pray for a peace that we do not deserve.

Sanctification Eludes Me

2007-02-02T21:47:00.000-05:00

I went to Limmud for the first time this year. [See my Limmud NY 2007 photos.] David Klinghoffer suggested that “Limmud New York, while conceived as a celebration of Jewish life, might more appropriately have been expressed as an act of mourning for what liberalism will do to our future.” I had a very different reaction.

From the first workshop I attended, which was Jacob Staub’s session on Spiritual Direction, to the last writing workshops by Kim Schneiderman and Patricia Eszter Margit, entitled “Soul Narratives” and “Writing as an Inward Journey,” I found inspiration to tap into my tradition and confront the challenging questions that Jacob set before us in the first session: What is God’s invitation to me at any given moment? What am I being called on to do?

I wanted to extend the Limmud experience beyond this long weekend and was determined to continue to practice the writing and journaling exercises that I took up in Kim’s and Patricia’s workshops. But I also knew that the distractions of everyday life would overwhelm me and dilute my best intentions. This determination needed an anchor.

The Skirball Center catalog arrived with the offer of an eight-week workshop, a “Writer’s Beit Midrash" for creative nonfiction writers. A financial commitment and a weekly obligation to show up might be just what I needed to keep myself on track and develop good writing habits.

I hesitated briefly in the face of the requirement to provide a writing sample. The application deadline was the next day and I had no writing that I considered finished. I imagined the judgment of the samples submitted to this writing workshop was designed to weed out rank amateurs such as myself, but I submitted the application despite my feelings, submitting a web link to one of these blog entries as my writing sample.

Shelly Fredman’s response could not have been more encouraging. I had passed the entrance exam! The final challenge was to properly structure the day so that I would complete all the work I had to do and get into New York before the class’s start time of 7:00 PM on Tuesday.

To do this, I had to be sure to allow enough time every Tuesday morning to run a series of updates to a rather complicated database and create and publish an agenda for a Wednesday morning meeting based on the contents of the database reports, allowing sufficient time to respond to any comments in reaction to the agenda and still be sure to leave my office promptly at 4:00 PM.

Everything came together. I left my office on schedule. My car was back in my driveway by 4:15, and I had a light snack packed and had begun the mile-long walk to the station by 4:25. I arrived at the train station by 4:45, a full five minutes ahead of the New York train.

I then cut a path through the waiting area to the men’s room. I found an unhappy black man glowering at the door. I shuffled past him and pushed against the door before I realized that there was a sign taped to it declaring that the rest room was out of order. The other fellow shook his head and began to walk toward the track as I weighed the contents of my bladder against the length of the train ride and decided that I was comfortable boarding without indulging in a precautionary visit to the toilet.

I should have sought out a toilet at the other end, but I didn’t. And as I walked uptown, the cold wind aggravated a developing urge to urinate that was undeniable by the time I reached 57^th Street.

For several blocks I had been searching for likely places to relieve myself. Fifth Avenue is saturated with upscale specialty stores, churches, and apartment houses guarded by uniformed door men. The specialty stores seemed well fortified and inscrutable; the churches had an inevitable gauntlet of homeless men clustered in their vestibules; and, while the doormen seemed my best bet, I suspected that the going rate to bribe a doorman was at least ten dollars and that the negotiations were likely to be awkward at best.

This part of the journey was not going well. I needed to stop, but any stop that was unsuccessful would hasten my losing control and wetting myself. The best strategy was to walk faster and hope I found a proper place to relieve myself before it was too late.

But then another disordered notion descended upon me: what was I even doing on Fifth Avenue? It occurred to me that Skirball was west of Fifth Avenue. Below 59^th Street that would be just a few feet west of Fifth Avenue, but I just then realized that at 66^th Street, east and west were separated by all of Central Park! I turned west and ran halfway to Avenue of the Americas before I double-checked this delusion and discovered that the address was in fact east of Fifth Avenue and that I had nearly gone way out of my way. It was already ten minutes to 7:00 and the urge to pee was nearly undeniable.

I ran north, screaming inwardly every time I was forced to stop for a red light, as crosstown traffic whizzed by, blocking my path.

I finally reached 66^th Street and rounded the corner. I could see that the entrance was at least 300 feet away as the wind picked up and dared my bladder not to burst. Immediately ahead, two parallel concrete partitions separated a construction site from oncoming traffic with a sidewalk grate between them. Barely three feet high, they obscured my desperate deed but did not entirely conceal it. There were no pedestrians on the street, but I faced a steady stream of headlights as I released my steady stream into the sidewalk grate. Thus humbled, I entered the Skirball Center for my first class.

It was not yet 7:00, but the other students and the teacher were all there, sitting round a square table. The group was a veritable Gilligan’s Island of writer castaways, the chance cross-section of New York Jewry I would have imagined in an adult education course if I had not been dreaming of legendary writers’ retreats in Vermont cabins deep in the woods, attended by invitation only, supported by generous grants. And who was I—Gilligan or the Skipper? Neither. I was the guy who peed on the sidewalk.

I always endeavor to make peace with my opportunities, so I embraced this gathering and listened attentively. I participated with enthusiasm, but I think that I talked too much at times and then held back at the end when it came time to read what we had written. This last move was possibly more arrogant than my overt participation. What I had written so pleased me that I fretted it would be cruel to read it in contrast to the hasty, unpolished offerings provided by the others. (Three days later it no longer seems nearly such a grand piece of writing!)

Sitting there, deliberately not offering to read, I was also puzzling over the teacher’s announcement that her critiques would focus on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. I wanted my weaknesses exposed and held under the microscope so I could transform them into strengths under the guidance of a professional tutor. But then I heard the offerings the others wrote that evening and I realized that this writer’s beit midrash was really a space to rehearse a personal dialogue with God; that whether we were writing of memories or hopes, goals or disappointments, we were writing prayers. And prayers are beyond criticism; subject to mercy, not judgment.

Was it ironic that the text we studied that evening was Leviticus 11:44-47? In this passage, God commands us to sanctify ourselves, to not make ourselves impure—“to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean.” How do I relate this text to the desperate physical struggle I endured on the street below? Did the resolution sanctify or pollute me? These are the ideas I wrestled with as I packed up and made my way back to Princeton.

I was hungry when I reached Penn Station. The light snack I had consumed several hours earlier had not sustained me, but I was mindful that we had just studied a text that concluded with the commandment to make a distinction “between the living things that may be eaten and the living things that may not be eaten,” and I wanted to find food that was designed to nurture rather than to stimulate a craving for more of itself. I wanted to find something other than those addictive fast foods that leave one spent but not satisfied.

Sanctification eluded me. I only came as close as a fried fish sandwich.

Rock Scissors Paper

2006-12-06T16:33:00.000-05:00

The photograph to the right of my blog posts has been replaced to reflect how I look now (and how I have looked since early October). This "new" look is not so new. It is a return to how I trimmed my hair and my beard for most of my adulthood. Looking at the photos side by side, I am startled by the contrast.

I liked the hair and would not have cut it without a lot of encouragement. (Or was that DIScouragement?) Comments like "What did you do to yourself?" were wearing me down. However, I was heartened by one distant relative who, seeing all that hair, asked me if I had taken a Nazirite oath.

Of course, I had not. Tractate Nazir makes very clear why such oaths are no longer possible and why they were always to be discouraged-- no longer possible because there is no Temple at which one can offer a sacrifice to be released from the oath; and always to be discouraged because they are egotistic expressions (of manic humility).

But in the spirit of a "good" Nazirite oath I was bearing witness to sin by refraining from cutting my hair to call attention to government policies of detention, interrogation and occupation that were not coming from a holy place and not likely to end up in one either. When people would ask, "What did you do to yourself?" I would respond that I took a Nazarite oath until that man in the White House would be brought down. Many people found me to be much more handsome when I put my appearance in that context.

Then when they asked why I cut it, I replied in the same spirit, with a statement that I swear is completely truthful even though the truth of it can never be documented: In early October I was visited by a bat kol who whispered in my ear that I could cut my hair. The election results speak for themselves.

Remember the teaching that the Torah is not in Heaven? It was seen by some as signalling the end of the bat kol. That, however, is not correct. It simply meant that we no longer heed heavenly voices if they oppose the majority. Clearly, my bat kol was a voice to be heeded.

When the Line Isn't Clear

2006-12-02T12:04:00.000-05:00

Today's NY Times reports on emerging responses to children who do not "conform to gender norms." They cite an increasing trend to regard gender variance "as a naturally occurring phenomenon rather than a disorder." We can be happy that the dominant culture is trending toward this outlook, but also note that in Judaism, this approach has been part of the philosophy since Talmudic times.

The aylonis, for example, is a woman who exhibits masculine characteristics and is incapable of bearing children. The saris is a man whose male parts do not mature. These are people who could be divorced simply because they were incapable of producing offspring, but the fact that they fall outside the range of gender norms is not otherwise stigmatized.

The fact that the Talmud can discuss such people so matter-of-factly stands out in a world where parents and schools continue to pressure children to suppress their instinctive modes of expression, even advocating the use of hormone blockers to delay puberty to avoid dealing with ambiguous gender identifications.

I'm not suggesting that this is a clear triumph for Jewish ethics, but it is another reason to study some of our oldest texts in search of answers to seemingly modern problems. Delaying the onset of puberty may be a desperate measure embraced by parents who are more fearful to discover who their children really are than they would be if they took for granted that there are many different kinds of children and they all have a place in the ongoing unfolding of creation.

This week, as Conservative Judaism wrestles with proposed new halakhic responses to gender identity, our ability to appreciate the breadth of gender identifications could not be more relevant.

Semicha!

2006-09-13T16:00:00.000-04:00

A great big mazel tov to Rabbi Moshe Silver on completing two years immersed in a private study program with a group of Rabbeim and other Chevra, primarily from Lakewood. In August, in the thick of the Lebanon crisis, Moshe and his wife flew to Yerushalayim where he wrote his final Bechinah (exam). On 20 Av (14 August) he received his Semichah. Moshe's blog ToratMoshe is a wonderful collection of over a year of Torah commentary.

Kaddish and 9/11

2006-09-11T17:57:00.000-04:00

A friend forwarded me a text that Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik of Forest Hills Jewish Center had posted on a private list. With Rabbi Skolnik's permission, I will post both his original post and my own response, which I had shared with him. (His permission: "Feel free to post them, with your response. I may or may not agree with you, but time does not allow me to get into it right now, and what you wrote is certainly not offensive to me in any way...")

Here's his post:

(1) Is it OK to say kaddish for a friend killed on 9/11?

Len Linder asked why not; well, the answer is it may not be permissable halachically. In general, kaddish is a responsibility that devolves on those who are halachically obligated to say it (i.e., mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, spouse). It is not, in general, a prayer that one says because one feels grief or sadness, or even an acute sense of loss. If you know that there is no one else saying kaddish for someone who has died, and no arrangements have been made, then you can take the responsibility to say kaddish (usually not undertaken by those whose parents are still alive). Most usually, this is an issue during the year (or 30 days) of mourning, and then, you should understand that taking on that responsibility means taking on that responsibility, morning, afternoon and evening, and not just when you may be in a service. I assume that Jack is referring to his friend who was lost on 9/11; if so, then my immediate answer would be to discourage saying kaddish unless you knew that the family was not. This is, again, a halachic issue, and not about what feels right and/or appropriate (though I most certainly understand and respect the impulse).

(2) Is it OK to say a generic kaddish?

If the entire community/congregation is saying the mourner's kaddish as part of an exercise in memory (like at the end of Yizkor), then it is certainly appropriate. Other than that, I'm not sure I know what a generic kaddish is. By the way, at our minyan this morning, we recited an El Maleh Rachamim for all the victims of 9/11... another Jewish way to remember.

(3) Should said kaddish be said on the secular date, 9/11, or the date on the Hebrew calendar, which is next Shabbat?

I would say that it should be on 9/11; it is a kind of secular yahrzeit, and should be observed as such. Our Jewish days of mourning are structured around the Jewish calendar, but 9/11 was not a Jewish event.

I dare say that all halachah sits on an aggadic foundation (see Heschel's Heavenly Torah) and that the aggadic foundation for saying kaddish on 9/11 includes the inviolable association of the secular date with the reckoning of its yahrzeit as Rabbi Skolnik suggests (aggadically), but, in addition, it also includes the aggadic foundation of why and how we mourn: In this case the "why" is as much for the death of innocence and a world-view firmly rooted in a sense of liberty and justice that our government has all too readily sacrificed, as it is for the death of people; and the "how" is by saying a prayer that affirms that there is but One True Judge in whom we put our faith. Can it ever be halachically unacceptable to affirm the righteousness of the One True Judge?

Just Remember This . . .

2006-08-17T17:10:00.000-04:00

The picture above this text was discovered during a simple Google search for images of Joe Lieberman. I copied it to display here for reasons that will become apparant as this entry unfolds. I am by no means certain whether the artist meant the image to be mean-spirited or not, nor am I certain whether my own observations on the Lieberman campaign will be taken in the spirit with which I offer them.

As regular readers of this blog well know, I strive to apply Talmud to the here and now. The text for today's entry was new to me when Jonah Steinberg distributed it for text study during his very worthwhile class at the National Havurah Summer Institute last week in Rindge, NH. Please do not hold Jonah responsible for how I come to interpret it here, since he never suggested that it be applied to the current circumstances in the state of Connecticut. [For more blogs on this Summer's NHC Institute, see Mah Rabu: Institute blog roundup.]

The text comes from Mishnah, Avodah Zarah, 2:5. It begins with Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Yehoshua walking on a path, and Rabbi Yishmael asking a question: "Why have they [the Sages] forbidden cheeses made by gentiles?' Most of the text is the back-and-forth between Yishmael and Yehoshua: Yehoshua explains how they reasoned their way toward the ruling and Ishmael offers reasons why they should have ruled differently. Eventually, Yehoshua tires of the argument and diverts Yishmael to the explication of a verse from the Song of Songs.

In the course of our hevruta study I came to understand that the context of this discussion was critical to unpacking it. Yishmael knew very well why the Sages had ruled as they had. And the Sages had likely taken all of Yishmael's arguments into account before making their ruling. Yishmael, however, was not willing to accept the decision of the majority.

In the NHC course that I taught this Summer, we studied that coiled serpent, the Akni oven, wherein Yehoshua declares that "it is not in Heaven" and Rabbi Eliezer is excommunicated for offering Heavenly voices as proof that the majority is wrong. It seems likely that Yehoshua's role here and there as the defender of decrees is a sign; and that he uses the erotic Song of Songs to gently turn Yishmael away from rebellion is another sign.

The consensus in Jonah's class was that the text comes to teach that new decrees should at the very least be allowed to sit unchallenged until the community has had a chance to assess their effect. They may be revisited after a proper test if they prove to be excessively burdensome or have unanticipated and unintended consequences, but first they must be accepted and given the benefit of the doubt.

Which brings me to Joe Lieberman. The decree of his party was delivered last Tuesday. They chose another candidate. They heard all the arguments he had to offer and the majority voted against them. Yet, like Yishmael, he would repeat the arguments as if there had been no decree.

Of course, the Democratic Party is not the Sanhedrin, but Senator Lieberman must realize that his current actions are the moral equivalent of excommunicating himself from the Democratic Party. We don't have to wonder who's kissing him now; and it sure ain't Yehoshua!

Chat Room Terrorists and Jurisprudence

2006-07-18T17:50:00.000-04:00

Following my last post, I received the following from Mike:

I think it useful to step back and see the chat room question (and as we will see a number of other current issues) as the working out in practice of the essential conflict in a decent society’s criminal jurisprudence. I assume that in American court room trials pretty near everyone does not want to see those innocent of a particular crime found guilty, but also does not want to see those guilty of a particular crime found innocent. Our entire criminal justice system is based on trying to find the best compromise between these two inherently conflicting goals. It is not true that our society works on the principle of not convicting even one innocent person, even if it means 100 guilty ones were also freed. The reason is that we assume the more certain that the guilty will be punished (even if that means punishing some of the innocent), the more punishment will act as a deterrent to future criminal behavior. Thus in some sense, our rules weigh the chance that innocent persons will are punished against the number of other innocents who are not victimized in the first place because the potential criminals are deterred by the likelihood of punishment. However (and here we do to a considerable degree follow the rabbis), we tend to strike the balance (and I certainly agree that we should) on the side of freeing the innocent (e.g. no hearsay evidence, let alone tortured confessions).

The difficulty arises when what we are trying to deter is not ordinary criminal behavior, but what we perceive as the extraordinary behavior we call terrorism. A few current examples

The Guantanamo “trials” – The Bush people want to totally change the balance. No rules on confronting (and thus being able to cross-examine) your accuser, on hearsay evidence, even on torture to get confessions. To convince us to allow that behavior, the administration has to make us see the people involved not simply as garden variety criminals, let alone enemy combatants, but as “terrorists”. One key counter argument (see today’s Times) as made by military people is that our “innocent” military people will then be treated the same way. In short, these mostly military people argue that to keep the balance at the same point for our “innocents”, we can’t move the balance sharply for the “terrorist” guilty.

Raiding Congressman Jefferson’s office – the prosecutor insists they are trying simply to catch a criminal, but absent the terrorist argument, they insist they are not changing the balance point, (even though they have no precedent for what they did). Yesterday a court agreed that they have not changed the balance from a legal perspective (although there will be appeals), but those of us who find their behavior outrageous essentially think they have radically (and more important unilaterally) altered how society has understood that balance. Indeed, I think there far less to say in defense of the administration on this issue than on Guantanamo, or

The chat room “terrorists” – The issue of whether mere speech is sufficient for conviction is one of the ways (in my view, of course, extremely desirable ways) that we set the balance to worry more about convicting the innocent than about freeing the guilty.

The difficulty is in deciding whether such essentially public speech (chat rooms are open areas) does sufficient immediate harm (in terms of seeming to allow society to appear to condone the uncondonable – think Holocaust denial), or long range harm (in allowing people to meet one another and form alliances etc), that we should change the balance point in favor of convicting the not actually yet guilty so as to increase deterrence (or as in this case to simply remove the potential offender). I’m not sure where I come out here, and would be interested in your views.

Mike describes our criminal justice system as more concerned with punishing the guilty and thus deterring others from committing crimes than with preventing the rare conviction of an innocent person. This is indeed how it often plays out. We share a concern that the balance will tilt to privilege punishing the guilty over ever worrying about convicting the innocent.

These are clearly not Sanhedrin rules, and while I do not mean to suggest that Sanhedrin rules would work in an age when forensic evidence and DNA can be more telling than witnesses, I would invite us to do the thought experiment of imagining how new classes of evidence might have modified Rabbinic stringincies.

For example, assuming that we are all "Torah scholars" to the extent that we "know" right from wrong and need not be "warned" when caught in the act, do we arrest those who have expressed an interest in committing the act but have taken no steps toward implementing that commitment? Mike suggests that criminalizing speech that describes acts that no civilized people would condone may tilt the balance vis a vis punishing the innocent to avoid freeing the guilty.

As Reed Chopper suggests, the category of chat room terrorists can be viewed through the Rabbinic lens of words as deeds. Mike offers the more challenging example of the Holocaust denier. Taking that example seriously, I begin by asking who the Holocaust denier harms? What action is effected by his words? Ultimately, I see the damage as being to the integrity of our memory and an assault on our heritage.

How do we measure this offence? Is it any different from the science-denier who defies the evidence of global warming and willfully perpetuates behavior that will ultimately make our land uninhabitable? Or the constitution-denier who would criminalize stem cell research (from a fundamentalist need that defies the separation of church and state) that might prolong lives and alleviate suffering?

These are crimes that our rabbis could not have anticipated. What evidence would they require to convict and what punishment would they impose upon the guilty?

Lighting a Virtual Fuse

2006-07-10T07:05:00.000-04:00

We Americans are currently debating the very Talmudic question of when a pre-emptive arrest is justified. On one side we have Michael Chertoff arguing that “We don’t wait until someone has lit the fuse to step in.” On the other side we have Martin R. Stolar arguing that “Talk without any kind of action means nothing.”

Assem Hammoud was arrested on April 27 in Beirut and accused of plotting to blow up a tunnel between New York and New Jersey. There is reason to believe that he participated in discussions contemplating the destruction of the tunnel, but neither he nor any of his associates had inspected the tunnel or even approached within a thousand miles of the tunnel. All the “plotting” occurred among participants in an internet chat room. The “plotters” had never met.

By American standards of criminal investigation, this is not much of a case. One would expect that a more deliberate investigation would have waited for the plot to unfold in more concrete terms. One might have some concern that an impatient investigator would attempt to accelerate the planning by offering to sell the plotters boots or fertilizer or a NYC subway map. (Among cases of preemptive detention, this one lowers the bar to encompass speculators and daydreamers.)

As Jews we have an even higher standard. If lives are in immediate danger, we act, of course. But no one is imprisoned for simply contemplating a crime, no matter how heinous. In fact, no Jew can be sentenced to death unless witnesses who see him about to commit a crime have warned him that he is about to commit the transgression.

The rules around convicting non-Jews are more lenient: no warning is necessary, but even so, the act must have been interrupted at a point where a clear and present danger had been established. What kind of heathens are those among us who imprison for merely chatting?

2006-07-02T08:21:00.000-04:00

Today is the first Sunday in July but that big color photo on the front page of today’s NY Times is not a scene of vacationers cavorting on the beach. Those crowds in the sunny (not Suni!) Sadr City district of Baghdad are wading in water created by burst pipes damaged by a car bomb that killed more than 60 in an Iraq market.

It’s our weekend celebration of Independence Day, America’s annual celebration of freedom. Like Shavuot, a covenanted people commemorate the receiving of a critical declaration (in this case the Declaration of Independence rather than the Ten Commandments).

Meanwhile, our attempt to free others has gone terribly awry. A few weeks ago when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki acted as if he were the freely elected leader of an independent country and suggested that he might offer amnesty to some insurgents, American politicians from both the left and the right cried foul.

The Prime Minister eventually said that attacks on American soldiers would not be pardoned. He was quoted in the NY Times as saying, “Americans came to Iraq to help make it free. . . . Therefore, out of respect for their contribution to Iraq, no pardon will be offered to their killers . . .”

But should he be compelled to tie his hands to paper over our gravest shortcomings? Consider the report in yesterday’s paper that American soldiers raped an Iraqi woman in her home and then killed her and three family members, including a child. Had the soldiers only (only!) killed innocent civilians, we might be inclined to imagine scenarios of mistaken identity or extreme stress under combat conditions leading to a deadly outcome, but once the sexual violation is added to the event, potential excuses dissolve.

The U.S. soldier who was recently kidnapped and killed in Yusufiya was from the same unit as those accused of rape and murder. If the Iraqi Prime Minister wants to offer amnesty to those related by tribe or blood to innocent victims of American troops, especially those who were violated and tortured before they were murdered, we the people of the United States should hang our heads in shame and proclaim our faith in the One True Judge. We should never be so arrogant as to proclaim “Our Country right or wrong” or reflexively defend the actions of those who disgrace the uniform they wear or violate their oath to defend liberty and justice for all.

4' x 4' x 20'' Formica

2006-06-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

In my previous post I mentioned that there were two articles in yesterday's NY Times and then focussed on the first one. The issues raised by that first article concerned our need as a nation to articulate and work toward a clear goal in Iraq: to protect the civilian population while restoring vital services and aiding the Iraqi government in developing a self-sufficient infrastructure. This was a rather broad agenda. As I wrote at greater length yesterday, our failures to train and discipline our own troops in Haditha suggest that we are not succeeding toward this goal.

I did not include my notes on the second of the two articles in that post because they are only peripherally related. It didn't feel to me that a discussion of the two articles belonged together in a single post. The connection is through Tractate Sanhedrin, which debates conditions for incarceration as well as the relative severity of punishments and the criteria for being a judge. The second article reported on a Pentagon inquiry by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica into interrogation techniques employed by U.S. Special Operations troops. The report concluded that harsh interrogation techniques that had been approved for use during a four-month period in early 2004 were employed long after the approval had been rescinded.

Among the questions our rabbis might ask: Should harsh techniques have ever been authorized? And, once rescinded, what lengths should have been employed to communicate the new rules of engagement? Perhaps we should also be looking at General Formica's qualifications as a judge and measuring them against our traditional understanding of the skills a judge must possess.

General Formica's own questions focus on the most specific detail in a style strikingly reminiscent of how our rabbis dissected the laws of damages in Bava Metzia. He pronounced the 17 days of bread-and-water diet that one prisoner had to endure "too long," though he added that "it would take longer than 17 days to develop a protein or vitamin deficiency from a diet of bread and water." The two seemingly conflicting statements provide the kind of puzzle that fans of the Gemara are accustomed to pondering.

Being accustomed to Talmudic disputes about the distance that must be maintained between corpses in a cemetery, I was surprised that General Formica's report glossed over the size of the detention cells at a Special Operations outpost near Tikrit ("three detainees were held in cells four feet high, four feet long and 20 inches wide, except to use the bathroom, to be washed or to be interrogated"). I am sure that at least one Sage would have insisted that a minimum width of 30 inches was required, another would have said 40 inches, and a third would have proposed increasing the length and decreasing the height or vice versa. General Formica's rabbinic-like pronouncement ignored these considerations and focussed on the duration of confinement, concluding that "two days in such confinement would be reasonable; five to seven days would not."

What's missing here is any criteria for selecting prisoners for this extreme form of interrogation or any formula for measuring success. Is two days in a cell the size of a steamer trunk an effective interrogatory method? Do we measure the effectiveness of the technique by the intelligence we extract divided by the number of innocent Iraqis whose spirits are broken by strenuous interrogations?

General Formica, whose report was completed over a year ago but only made public on Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU, told reporters, "I didn't find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse." Let's remember, however, that this is the judgement of a man who believes that two days of confinement in a cell four feet high, four feet long and 20 inches wide would be "reasonable." We need to consider not only duration and intent, but responsibility and results. This moral equation needs refining.

2006-06-17T13:11:00.000-04:00

Rules of Engagement

The debates in Tractate Sanhedrin to determine who is qualified to judge, setting conditions for incarceration, and the relative severity of various punishments provide a useful model for attempting to understand the American role in Iraq. The graphic shown above this paragraph is a portion of a visual representation published in today's NY Times to aid our understanding of the chronology of the killings of Iraqi civilians in Haditha on November 19, 2005. Two front-page articles raise issues related to the conduct of troops in Iraq that we can imagine the rabbis debating in principle and perhaps even with the specific known facts.

First, there is the question of whether the use of lethal force is permissible against those believed responsible for murder; in this case, by the planting of a roadside bomb. I believe that everyone would agree that if the marines believed that they were under attack and in immediate danger, the use of lethal force would be justified. Legally, the marines would be entitled to protect themselves under their own officially sanctioned rules of engagement. Some rabbis might suggest that if they were certain that their targets were attacking them, they were obliged to shoot to save themselves, but that they were first obliged to be certain that their targets were indeed attacking them. (In this case, if the marines did in fact share the certainty that they were under a sustained attack by their targets, they were mistaken, since their targets turned out to be innocent civilians. Nevertheless, their understanding of the situation at the moment they fired their weapons is the sole determining factor of their guilt or innocence.)

Second, there is the question of the responsibility of the governing authorities who establish the official rules of engagement and provide the only training and resources the marines receive before being handed weapons and placed in the line of fire. These marines had previously been stationed in Falluja, where the areas they patrolled had been cleared of civilians, and house-to-house fighting was the norm. Marines were trained in a technique called clearing by fire. In the Times article an unidentified marine describes the technique: "You stick the weapon around and clear the room," he said. "It's called prepping the room."

Since Haditha, unlike Falluja, had a substantial civilian population, the governing authorities did provide training between those two postings in how to protect civilians during combat. We need to know if the training included testing (or some other form of evaluation) and whether those who did not pass were held back. The soldier quoted in the last paragraph served in both Falluja and Haditha, and his last comment suggests that the training was ineffective: "You've got to do whatever it takes to get home. If it takes clearing by fire where there's civilians, that's it." The last sentence, which fails to meet the rabbinic standard prohibiting the destruction of innocent lives to save oneself, also belies the marines mission: Their role is to protect the civilians by putting themselves in harm's way. If the unidentified marine quoted here is representative, they understand their mission as "to do whatever it takes to get home."

As Congress (the closest deliberative body we have to a Sanhedrin in this sorry mess) debates whether we should remain in Iraq, they should also be defining what our goal is moving forward, and whether or not it includes putting the lives of our soldiers at risk to provide peace, security and freedom for Iraqi civilians. Moreover, we all need to come to terms with the consequences of failing to live up to our own highest standards. Whether or not the marines believed they were defending themselves or were caught up in an adrenaline and testosterone intoxicated vengeful rage and flaying out destructively with no clear target, the official account "that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed in a bombing . . . and that marines had killed eight insurgents"-- obviously false and self-serving statements that can only fuel the fires of hostility and mistrust among the Iraqis we deployed to protect-- has never been retracted. How can anyone respect or trust us when we let these falsehoods stand? This failure to acknowledge our responsibility does more long-term damage than the unfortunate incident it attempts to conceal.

Flames and Warrants

2006-06-16T14:37:00.000-04:00

"Keeper of the Klezmer Flame"

"Basically it's what musicians would call a fake book." (from NY Times, June 16, 2006)

It was reported in the New York Times today that German Goldenshteyn had a heart attack while fishing on Hempstead Lake on Long Island and died. For someone as besotted as I am by the oral tradition, it was most significant to read that, when he arrived in the United States in 1994, "he literally carried the . . . tradition with him in the form of handwritten notebooks filled with hundreds of klezmer tunes, many previously undocumented." [emphasis added]

It was from such notebooks that the earliest rabbis created the Talmud. Without the informal jottings for strictly personal use, there would have been no record of the teachings that became the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism. Goldenshteyn's life, his memory, formed the blessing that reminds us that what we hold onto during our lifetimes by writing them down, preserve memories that take on a life of their own.

As his friend Michael Albert said in the Times, "Basically, it's what musicians would call a fake book." For Goldenshteyn, "The primary purpose wasn't to preserve Jewish or Moldavian culture, but mainly so that the band would have more repertoire." The Talmud is, in this sense, a fake book, too.

The phrase "Justice Scalia surveyed changes in the legal landscape" should be as startling as the notion of Shammai ruling leniently. Nevertheless, Judge Scalia only strayed from his customary originalist perspective to be able to rule stringently in relation to the exclusionary rule. He is like the rabbi who ruled against the argument of a heavenly voice when it contradicted the majority but accepted it as proof when it confirmed his opinion.

Where others might see unreasonable search as a strong constitutional principle, this judge dismisses it as no more than "the right not to be intruded upon in one's nightclothes." (One would think an originalist would realize that the founding fathers, whose sleeping shirts concealed all, protecting one completely from immodest exposure, must have had something broader in mind.)

The police, in this case, had a warrant but failed to knock before entering. Hillel would have conceded Justice Scalia's point that the exclusionary rule is a heavy hammer to wield on a technicality but would have persisted in wielding it to protect the dignity and privacy of the accused. Scalia argued that the exclusionary rule was implemented to discourage constitutional violations at a time when law enforcers were not trained to respect newly articulated civil rights but that times are different and these discouragements are no longer needed.

I tremble at the prospect of how he will rule when presented with cases in which the government neither knocked nor had a warrant. Will the former originalist dismiss warrants as a transitional tool no longer needed in an age when Commanders-in-Chief are Deciders who no longer require a constitution to guide them?

Constitutions

2006-03-31T07:56:00.000-05:00

Three months later, I return to this space with less drive and intensity. I continue to study the daf, more or less; at this point a few weeks behind the "official" schedule. I have notes that I often promise myself I will refine and post here, but I've come to realize that if I insist on that being a prerequisite to keeping this space alive then this space will indeed go dark except for the robotic spammers who parasitically post their promotional announcements disguised as comments.

As to my current Talmud reading: it's a dry patch. There was an inspirational gemara that I incorporated into a d'var Torah last week. I hope to write up those notes this weekend. But mostly, I'm not engaged just now. Just to be clear: Talmud continues to engage me; I am speaking only of Tractate Pesachim as being a hard slog.

I continue to read and think about Talmud. Yesterday I picked up Moshe Halbertal's People of the Book, which opens with the following story, credited to an unnamed teacher:

Don't think that hell is where people are consumed by fire for their sins or that heaven is where they are rewarded with pleasures for their piety. What really happens is that God gathers everybody in one large hall. Then He gives them the Talmud and commands them to start studying. For the wicked, studying Talmud is hell. For the pious, it's heaven.

I would add that for this am haaretz it is sometimes heaven and sometimes hell, but it is the hall I find myself in.

My current secular studies include America's Constitution by Akhil Reed Amar. The miracle of self-governance (not in heaven) is shared by Rabbinic Judaism and our more recent set of Founding Fathers, so studying constitutional law does not seem very distant from studying halacha. In fact, Halbertal literally closes the gap when he notes that "If a text is authoritative, then the issue of who may interpret it is of enormous importance." We must be content to empower the Supreme Court to be the great arbiter of our constitution; but in the absence of a Great Sanhedrin, who should we empower to interpret our Talmud?

Eruvin: The "Constellation of the Calf"

2005-12-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

The area of a city is squared for the purposes of calculating the zone in which carrying is permitted on Shabbos. On 55a we learn that the square of the city is aligned north to south with "the constellation of the calf" (Taurus). The association of the calf with an astrological sign suggests that the worship of the golden calf may itself have been an attempt by a lost people who felt abandoned by their leader to find a true direction (i.e., north). It is an imaginative leap; perhaps more reckless than bold, but there it is. It is hard to imagine that the rabbis would use an astrological symbol (an idolotrous touchstone!) to align the boundaries of their cities. But perhaps their choice was between providing directions that might be misunderstood or using (profane) references that were commonly known, and they did what they had to do.

The rabbis are certainly concerned lest their leniencies lead to anarchy. Leniencies are permitted if the origin of a law is Rabbinic, but there are several instances when the rabbis chose a stringent approach "lest children come to think that" the absence of a mark here would lead to an absence of the same mark in other places (e.g., 59a).

In these pages, concern for the authority of the teacher continues (and I'll come back to that), but another element has entered the equation: the nature of the unlearned. Drunkenness is more common on Shabbas (61a). Brash and irreligious people are worried over, so that the Gemara even asks at one point, "Is a brash person in the same class as an irreligious person?" (69a). And the occasional idolater moves next door, compromising the sanctity of common courtyards but nevertheless convenient to have around when someone is needed to tote some hot water on Shabbas to minister to a freshly circumcised infant. One might rub shoulders with all sorts, and these rabbis might well have preferred a ghetto (or their own State), if it were only an option in their time. When one reads "If the idolater [who shared a residence with a Jewish person] died on the Sabbath . . ." (69a) does one suppress a smile, or perhaps wink, or does one tastelessly relish the notion?

Yet the twin foci of this tractate remain eruvin and the authority of the teacher. There is the question of whether a disciple may render a legal decision in his teacher's vicinity (62b), which leads to the question of whether the disciple may render a decision in the lifetime of his teacher (63a). [ArtScroll notes that "the distance required for a talmid chaveir to be permitted to render decisions is three parsaos, the area of the Israelites' encampment during the time of Moses (which is equivalent to 24,000 amos or between 6.8 and 9 miles)."] Thus concerns of both distance and time continue to relate to both eruvin and teachers.

A comic calculation of distance occurs in a discussion of the distance an intoxicated Torah scholar must travel before rendering a verdict (64b). Rabban Gamliel had consumed a reviis of Italian wine before being approached by a fellow who needed to have a vow annulled and he had the poor fellow walk behind him for three mils while Gamliel rode his donkey. ("Travel dissipates the effects of wine.") Rami bar Abba taught that "Someone who walks need only travel one mil." But humor aside, the serious point of the story is that a scholar must have clear head to find "grounds for regret" in order to annul a vow.

Eruvin: Enigmatic Speech

2005-11-28T19:11:00.000-05:00

In the several weeks since my last posting, I have continued to study the text. The disadvantage of not having the time to articulate a response to the text is self-evident (although beautifully articulated on 54b, where Rava teaches in the name of Rav Sechorah, in the name of Rav Huna: "If a person makes his learning into bundles . . . then his learning will diminish"). And if I lived in a place with clear boundaries where eruvim kept the secular out and drew the Jewish wagons into a circle around a Jewish campfire, it would be inconceivable that several weeks could pass without an opportunity to formally respond to the text.

Nevertheless, there is one advantage to having to account for a larger sweep in a single posting, and that is the perspective afforded by seeing how themes introduced early in the tractate are revisited, turned and turned and turned again. Thus, I come to this post not only with a healthy appreciation of the isolation and vulnerability of Jewish settlements in exile, but also with a heightened awareness that the theme that spoke to me several weeks ago-- the importance of choosing a teacher-- plays out throughout this tractate.

The two themes (the roles of the eruv and the scholar in sustaining the integrity of the community) converge on folio 36 where one teaching may not have had the support of its teacher but may have been offered "merely reporting the opinion of his teacher" but with no evidence that he personally concurred." (So much for picking one teacher and adhering to his judgment!) But the principle issue on this folio is the notion of establishing a conditional eruv: "A person may attach a condition to his eruv . . . if the gentiles come from the east; my eruv is to the west . . ." or "if a scholar comes . . ." Who can resist asking, but what if two scholars come, one from the east and one from the west? "If one of them was his teacher, he must go to his teacher; but if both scholars were his teachers . . ." he must chose which way he will go. Unless (be prepared for the punchline!) one follows R'Yitzchak who permits going toward the gentiles to flee from the scholar.

We've come a long way from picking one teacher and following all his rulings! It is more than humorous to suggest fleeing from scholars rather than learning from them! Perhaps it goes back to the dispute between Ishmael and Akiva on folio 13 where Ishmael warns that one mistake in transcribing the Torah could destroy the world. Some of the best Torah scholars are the most dangerous teachers: ArtScroll reports that "R'Akiva was such a brilliant logician, that he could cogently defend either side of a question." And his student, R'Meir, who was forced to find a different teacher, eventually also developed the same deadly brilliance. R'Meir could argue for either Hillel or Shammai . . . and did. But what gave Hillel the strength to prevail over Shammai was that, unlike Shammai, he studied his antagonist's arguments; Shammai apparently did not return the favor.

Even so, we should not assume we can determine whose opinion will prevail without studying the dispute: “Rav Mesharshiya said: these rules for establishing halachah are not valid. Rather, each case must be decided on its particular merits” (46b).

The student may have many fine teachers to chose from, but who will help him separate out the ones who are so intoxicated with their own brilliance that they will teach anything just because they can? And who will help him separate out the ones who have no sense of proportion, like Rav Adda bar Masna, who would not be drawn away from the study house by his wife's plea: "Your little children-- what shall I do for them to feed them?" Hundreds of years before Dickens and Scrooge ('tis the season), Rav Adda bar Masna replied, "Are there no more wild vegetables in the marsh?" (22a).

Perhaps these are not the right questions. Perhaps this Talmud, which only came to be written down when memories proved insufficient to preserve it, which only survived as the rough notes of teachers preparing their lessons, perhaps this Talmud is not directed at students at all; perhaps this is the Talmud for teachers-- the cautionary tales to keep them vigilent against a temptation to teach too freely the ways of reasoning before first teaching the reasons!

The teachers in this tractate are sometimes more concerned about their reputations than the integrity of their teaching. For example, Rav Sheishess said to Rabbah bar Shmuel, “If you meet Nachman and Rav Chisda, do not say anything to them about this Baraisa which refutes my view: it would be an embarrassment to me” (39b). And Aneimar told Rav Ashi that Rav Sheishess held differently but it isn’t clear whether this is because another teacher cited the case incorrectly or because the incident “never happened.”

All the laws taught in this tractate are the “new ones”— the laws derived by the rabbis from tenuous prooftexts, none of them explicitly spelled out in the Torah (21b). And throughout this tractate, the limits of reason are constantly tested. If a Baraisa assumes that “the Messiah will not come on the Sabbath or Yom Tov” (43b), there needs to be a reason. Could it be “because of the difficulties this would impose on people who would have to complete their preparations for the Sabbath or Yom Tov while taking out time to greet Elijah?” No, because if Elijah did indeed come, then “all the world will recognize Israel as the chosen people and they all will be servants to Israel . . . available to help complete the preparations.”

But as long as we’re waiting for the messiah, let us consider that the residents of Judea, who learned from only one teacher, retained their Torah knowledge, but the residents of Galilee, who did not learn from only one teacher, did not retain their Torah knowledge (53a). (Do I really have to tell you who the “extra” teacher in Galilee was?) The Galileans were known for using language “imprecisely” (talking in parables?). In one case, “a certain woman . . . came before a judge . . . to report the theft of a large tablet; however, her speech was indistinct and what she actually said to him sounded like . . . ‘I had a beam and . . . when they hang you on it your feet do not reach the ground.” ArtScroll never suggests that the rabbis are disparaging Christianity in a story of one who stole a tablet (from Moses?) and was hung from a beam (by the Romans?), but the editor does note that the text next “presents some examples of enigmatic speech employed for diplomatic purposes.” If these associations are my own personal delusions, then this text is far less interesting than it needs to be!

Eruvin: The Private Domain

2005-10-14T08:24:00.000-04:00

KEY TERMS AS DEFINED BY ARTSCROLL. CHATZEIR = courtyard. KORAH = a crossbeam, at least one tefach wide, reaching across a mavoi to serve as a rudimentary partition or a reminder of a mavoi's halachic status. MAVOI = alley; specifically an alley into which chatzeiros open. SUCCAH = temporary dwelling used during the festival of Succos.

As I begin to study this Tractate, which is concerned with the rules of transferring objects from one domain to another, I also am beginning to experience the effect of transfers that violate personal boundaries: nearly every day recently, anonymous contributors have posted to this blog, probably with the aid of some kind of robot, notices promoting their own blogs for life in the southwest, liability insurance, or sexual aids. And while all of these notices begin with some positive statement such as "You sure have a cool blog!", these are not readers, these are people from outside the chatzeir trying to sneak into my mavoi.

On the one hand, the only way to keep my space clear is to be my own gatekeeper; to review each submission as it arrives and refuse delivery of inappropriate submissions before you have a chance to see them. On the other hand, if I don't leave an opening through which you can easily enter, I may never see your best thoughts and questions. It is the same dilemma faced on 3a of this tractate. If ownership is shared, the integrity of the roof and entrance may be compromised more than if ownership is held by an individual: "Since a Succah is meant for the use of an individual, rather than of the public, he realizes his responsibility for it and is mindful of its condition. But in the case of a mavoi, which is meant for the public to use, they each rely on each other and they are not mindful of the korah's condition. For as people say: 'A pot in the charge of two cooks is neither hot nor cold'-- i.e., each one relies on the other one to do the necessary work, which as a result never gets done."

Not in Heaven

The Gemara executes a very interesting two-step after putting forward the Baraisa that "One who wishes to act in accordance with Beis Shammai's views may do so" (6b). It asks, how can this be? After all, a Heavenly voice had declared that the Halachah always follows Beis Hillel. Perhaps, it suggests, that this Baraisa dates from before the Heavenly voice? Or perhaps this teaching is the view of R'Yehoshua,"who pays no heed to heavenly voices" (7a).

This lack of respect for Heavenly voices derives from the famous incident of the oven in Bava Metzia (59b), where R'Eliezer's miraculous proofs are all overruled by the very same R'Yehoshua (who cites Scripture to prove that the Torah is "not in Heaven"). ArtScroll's review of the commentaries notes that the difference between the Heavenly declarations in the two cases is that in R'Eliezer's account the Heavenly voice is going against the majority while in Beis Hillel's account it is confirming the will of the majority.

This is part of a discussion in which the explicit question is whether to be lenient or stringent in determining practice; and what to do if two stringencies (or two leniencies) inherently contradict each other. The bottom line is that one should pick one teacher and follow all his rulings. This is good advice but, of course, not easy advice to follow amidst the uncertainty as to who taught what and in which context!

The Gemara accentuates the difficulty by (perhaps mischievously) following the teaching to pick one teacher by two instances of references to multiple rabbis with the same name. On 8b, "Rav Kahana bar Tachlifa cited the following ruling in the name of Rav Kahana bar Manyumi who cited it in the name of Rav Kahana the teacher of Rav . . ." and then "Rav Kahana said . . . 'I, whose name is also Kahana will say something about it. . ." Thus, chosing to follow "Rav Kahana" may lead to the question "Who's on first?"

Shabbos: It's Over

2005-10-05T17:41:00.000-04:00

A discussion on which animals may be fed on Shabbos and by what means is interrupted on 155b: "R' Yonah expounded at the entrance to the Exilarch's palace: 'What is the meaning of that which is written: The Righteous One knows the suffering of the poor?" Is the location of the teaching of political significance-- i.e., is R'Yonah playing Cindy Sheehan to the Exilarch's George Bush?

The Exilarch will return as the Tractate concludes, but first we learn that "no one listened" to Rebbi's prohibition of kneading "because of the lenient ruling of R'Yose the son of R'Yehudah" (156a). Is this bad? So much of this tractate is concerned with building higher fences. Yet this breach in the fence will ensure that animals will not go hungry. I repeat, is this bad?

Then, abrubtly, the focus changes and several teachings suggest that astrology influences fate (156a). They are not exactly refuted; rather, the text insists that "celestial signs hold no sway over Israel" (156b); over others, however, the hold is firm. Israel averts its celestial destiny by performing mitzvot (e.g., feeding the hungry on Shabbos). The text does not so much connect the dots as put them all out in a cluster for the reader to connect.

Finally, in the last scene of this tractate the Exilarch is found in his bathtub, where he is measuring the water on Shabbas. It's not a problem, we learn, because he was merely "busying" himself-- "not measuring for any purpose" (157b).

I'll leave it to Reed Chopper to defend the Exilarch, if he indeed needs defending. It does seem that his role in these proceedings demands some explication.

Shabbos: It's Not Over Yet

2005-10-02T14:00:00.000-04:00

The last comment to my previous posting congratulated me on completing Tractate Shabbos. However, it ain't over. Shabbos is, I believe, the longest tractate, and the daf yomi is still on Shabbos until October 6. Even so, anyone might have asssumed that I was done with the tractate, since I haven't posted in over two weeks. The fact is that I've been busy and have not had time to put thoughts out into the ether, but I have kept up with the reading and will here and now put out some of the observations that I scribbled down since last posting.

The Deeds of the Judges

If you see a generation upon which many troubles come, go and examine the deeds of the judges of Israel in that generation, for all misfortune that comes to the world comes only on account of the judges of Israel. (139a).

Often, when I encounter the phrase of Israel in the Talmud, I measure the effect of the text both with and without the phrase. It is easier for me to understand the phrase in the context of its time, when the exiled Jews were an unassimilated people in a hostile land. In such circumstances, Jews had no influence on how others judged us, but when we could choose to judge ourselves by a different (higher?) standard than the Romans (or Greeks or whoever is in charge at the time), rather than internalizing the judgment of the dominant power, then we may have transcended the literal definition of misfortune and seen our chosen-ness as a long-term advantage.

In times like these, however, when assimilation competes with standing apart as options for American Jews-- when chosen-ness is not a concept embraced by all practicing Jews-- the phrase of Israel interferes with my ability to apply the text. Seeing myself first of all as a participant in an American political sphere, but as not simply an American but as an American Jew or a Jewish American, I take the text to other places.

The deeds of the Judges are at the root of all the misfortune in the world, if there is indeed misfortune. And, of course, there always is. So, who are these judges? Do they include a president who can't coordinate a reconstruction effort in a foreign country or a storm-ravaged region of our own country without squandering resources and leaving chaos and wreckage wherever he goes? Do they include those who deliberate on who will be the new Supreme Court Justices. (They certainly include the judges themselves!)

The Talmud text is a powerful parable that inspires a worthwhile meditation.

Halakhah vs Aggadah

In my last post I began by examining "One may employ a subterfuge." (117b1). More than twenty folios later (139a) a legitimate leniency is hidden because those who are not Torah scholars "would likely adopt other groundless leniencies if they were informed of this legitimate leniency."

Thus, even as there are many examples of Torah scholars performing any manner of subterfuge to circumvent a Rabbinic ordinance, the rabbis use subterfuge to conceal leniencies from am haaretz like me. But I can't help but believe that I would be a "better" Jew if I was taught the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Very early in Heavenly Torah Heschel makes a critical distinction: "Halakhah presents the letter of the law; aggadah brings us the spirit of the law." Moreover, a few pages later, he declares that "the idea that Judaism is not a religion but a legal system . . . courses through the body of modern thought like venom."

As I have mentioned before, Tractate Shabbos is very challenging to me. Earlier, I guessed that it was because, unlike many other tractates I have studied, this one is principally concerned with rules that I choose not to follow. (For example, portions of these notes were written on Shabbos.) But as I read Heschel I begin to realize that my antipathy with this text is more about what is missing from it rather than what is present: there is nothing here about the pleasures of Shabbos, it is all about the restrictions.

Bathing in a stream, one must dry off before leaving the stream "lest he come to carry the water upon his body four amos in a karmelis" (141a). Why can't I come running from the water, kicking up sand, playing tag with my buddies or tossing a vollyball back and forth? In what way do such actions resemble work? How are they not tastes of a world without care? How do they differ from rest in the best sense of what it means to let go of cares and relax? Rabbinic laxity on Shabbos is administered in small doses: "A person may take his son in his arms even when there is a stone in the son's hand" (141b).

Heschel suggests that it didn't have to turn out this way. He describes the tension between the Jerusalem and Babylonian schools: "In the eyes of the scholars of the land of Israel, the Sages of Babylonia did not appear adequately prepared to study the fineness of Aggadah" (p. 16). As it happens, Tractate Shabbos (of the Babylonian Talmud) contains rich evidence of the tension between these two schools. For example, R'Abba (of Israel) cooked a chicken that Rav Safra (of Babylonia) would "have been compelled to vomit in disgust at eating it" if R'abba had not served a three-year-old wine with it; and R'Yochanan (of Israel) "would spit upon remembering the revolting flavorof Babylonian kutach" (145b). There is no love lost between these two schools; plus the food sucks.

However, the Babylonian Talmud contains enough of R'Yochanan's aggadah to suggest the depth of it: While R'Yochanan dozes, R'Chiyah bar Abba and R'Assi contemplate the differences between Babylonia and Israel, crediting the wealth of knowledge of the Jerusalem scholars. Nevertheless, when R'Yochanan awakens, he rebukes them for teaching matters that they do not properly understand. His interpretations generally suggest that "exile undermines the existence of those who suffer it," but that the responsibility of being in Eretz Yisrael is a burden that the Babylonians do not appreciate.

What do we lose when the "wisdom" of Eretz Yisrael is filtered through the school of Babylonia? What do the Babylonians imply when they portray R'Yochanan as dozing? Or when they report (148a) that Rabbah bar bar Chanah came there from Eretz Yisrael but did not attend Rav Yehudah's lecture (Rav Yehudah was the head of the local academy) until Rav Yehudah confiscated his cloak? Or when they report that Rav Yehudah lectured incorrectly but was surely right to confiscate Rabbah bar bar Chanah's cloak, for how else would he have drawn him to the hall to correct his teaching?

Does Babylonia embody a school suffering from an inferiority complex that is so embarrassed by their ability to comprehend aggadah that they dismiss it as not worth studying? R'Chanin warns, "Do not turn to that which comes from your minds" (149a), which might be applied only to secular literature and art, but also might apply to the aggadah that attempts to contextualize any Torah whose plain meaning is impossible to turn into halakhah.

Heschel writes that "The Torah itself can be acquired in two different ways: via the road of reason or the road of vision" (p 32). Reason leads to a strict interpretation that may discourage more than it inspires. In Tractate Shabbos(153a), Rav Yehudah teaches aggadah in the name of Rav: "From a person's eulogy and the affect it has on those assembled at his funeral, it can be discerned whether or not the deceased is destined to enter the World to Come." Two other Babylonians, Abaye and Rabbah, consider this statement as if it is halakhah:

Abaye said to Rabbah: In the case of someone such as master [i.e. such as yourself], who is hated by all the citizens of Pumbedisa, who will deliver a suitably moving eulogy over you when you pass away? [Rabbah] replied to [Abaye]: It would be sufficient if you and Rabbah bar Rav Chanan delivered eulogies at my funeral."

How do we interpret this? That a teacher who has alienated all the people in his town dismisses the aggadic promise as nonsense; that as long as the scholars who he respects deliver his eulogy, it does not matter to him how it is received?

Do comparable stories exist in the Jerusalem Talmud and, if so, are they resolevd differently? Heschel writes, "Various circumstances contributed to the victory of the Babylonian Talmud over that of the Land of Israel, to a point where the latter was almost forgotten" (p 17). Now, forty years later, it seems possible that our memory of Jerusalem may be revived: ArtScroll has embarked on a project to translate the Jerusalem Talmud with the same attention that it has devoted to the Babylonian Talmud. We live in interesting times.

Shabbos: Do/Don't Extinguish All Smoking Materials

2005-09-12T18:00:00.000-04:00

"In the name of R'Yose bar Yehuda they said: One may employ a subterfuge." (117b1).

As previously noted, on 115a, Rabbah fabricated a ruling in the name of R'Yochanan to build a higher fence around the Torah. But here we see R'Yose bar Yehuda say "One may employ a subterfuge" to save one's property from fire on Shabbat, seemingly lowering the fence. The observance of Shabbat, it seems, is less critical than the awareness of Shabbat and the absence of the appearance of desecrating Shabbat. (Although ArtScroll [fn13] cautions, "Even those who permit the employment of a subterfuge do so only when the subterfuge is credible." Who do we think we're fooling?)

The fire burns but some refuse to even look upon it: R'Yose says, "I performed five marital acts . . . and never gazed at my circumcised member." [118 b]. Others depend on the kindness of strangers: "A gentile who comes to extinguish a fire . . . his resting is not their responsibility." [122a].

But enough about fire! Let's get back to R'Yose's circumcised member, or to circumcised members in general. "Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Any commandments for which the Jewish people gave themselves over to death at a time of a government edict directed at that commandment such as an edict to perform idolatry or to refrain from performing circumcision is still firmly held in their hands. And any commandment for which the Jewish people did not give themselves over to death at a time of government edict directed at the commandment such as the wearing of tefillen is still held weakly in their hands." [130a].

It's a powerful text, but is it still true? Is the Holocaust unique in simultaneously influencing many of us to fiercely affirm our Jewish identity while abandoning our belief and practice? As the Forward noted in their July 8 editorial, "In today's world, every Jew is a Jew by choice. Most Jews know this; it's only the leadership of the community's institutions that hasn't come to terms with it." Can both these text be true in the same time and place? Is there any subterfuge we might employ credible enough to allow it?

Shabbos: A Snake of the Rabbis

2005-08-26T17:29:00.000-04:00

When Rav encounters Shmuel and Karna, even though they clearly know that he is ill, they pester him with questions (because they are hungry for knowledge) and they deny him the use of the latrine (though this is clearly because they believe that it will contribute to his cure). (108a). Rav curses them both and it is fatal for them because, as ArtScroll attests in footnote 48, "The curse of a Sage, even if it was uttered in error, inevitably comes to be."

And the misplaced curse of the Sage inevitably leads to a discussion of folk remedies for various ailments, including snake bites (109b). After all, even if the curse of a rabbi is the one ailment that cannot be cured in this world, those who are powerful enough to fling such bad medicine must have some powerful good mojo, too!

Amidst the cures offered for snake bite, there is the odd story of Rav Shimi bar Ashi, who in fact is reported to have swallowed a snake! This is a literal enactment of what is referred to on 110a as "a snake of the Rabbis." And it mirrors the curse of a Sage, as well. The snake of the Rabbis is the Rabbi who can bite a snake. And Rabbis can cure snake bite, but not snake-of-the-Rabbi bites.

Oh, yes! We have entered the Freudian Talmud! Clearly, a snake is not simply a snake. And we are soon asked to ponder how a woman should deal with a snake who's mind gets "centered" on the woman: "She should cohabit with her husband in front of it." Which brings us back to the ostensible focus of Tractate Shabbos: what we are permitted to do on Shabbos. First and foremost, we are permitted to cohabit with our partners, and no snake, even if it is a Rabbi, should deter us from this mitzvah!

On 112a we consider knots, including the knot on the opening of a woman's chemise, which may be tied and untied all day long (on Shabbos). Then, on 114, we are told that "Any Torah scholar upon whose garment a grease stain is found is liable to death at the hand of Heaven" according to R'Chiya bar Abba, who taught it in the name of R'Yochanan. However, Ravina says "It . . . was stated about a stain of semen." Keep your hands on the text at all times; wandering fingers could lead to deadly transgressions! And keep your eyes off those knots . . . and don't even think of the treasures that are concealed just beyond the chemise. Except on Shabbas! Then you should take that tunic off and put the semen where it belongs!

But the snake of the Rabbi takes many forms. On 115a, Rabbah fabricates a ruling in the name of R'Yochanan to build a higher fence around the Torah. It does not surprise me that he does it, but it astonishes me that it is recorded in the text. Is the Oral Torah so "maculate" that a Rabbi can freely make it more stringent through fabricating a teaching that was never taught?

The Mishnah next takes up the question of which books may be rescued from a burning library on Shabbos. The Sages attitude toward translations would be worthy of a treatise all by itself (and I am in fact in the middle of writing an extended paper on how translation contributes and/or detracts from our relationship to the text). Here I will simply note that the Rabbis clearly were more afraid of Jews like me than idolaters. They had to ultimately concede defeat on translation, for which the mere existence of the ArtScroll translation is sufficient evidence, but which the ArtScroll also explicitly acknowledges in fn2 on 115b: "due to a general decline in the level of scholarship . . . the Rabbis subsequently permitted writing Scriptures in other languages." But despite this concession, the threat of the Am Haaretz was so great that the Rabbi says that "Even if a person was pursuing him to kill him, or a snake was running after him to bite him"-- again with the snakes!!!-- "he would enter a gentile house of idolatry to save himself, but he would not enter the house of these Jewish sectarians, because these Jewish sectarians are aware of God yet deny him."

Shabbos: Heavenly Torah

2005-08-18T17:33:00.000-04:00

A friend suggested that we study Heavenly Torah (Torah min Hashamayim) by Abraham Joshua Heschel (and recently published in a translation by Gordon Tucker). I've been glancing through this book today and can't wait to study it. Where has this work been hiding! Why hasn't it been announced with great fanfare? This is Heschel's synthesis of the theology of Rabbinic Judaism! Who better to make sense of the sea of Talmud!

I love the idea behind this book, which at first glance appears to examine major aspects of Jewish theology through the schools of Akiva and Ishmael. I know little about Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha but he sounds like the guy I'd be most likely to like in a personal Tanna. Plus I'm a great appreciator of serendipitous juxtapositions and, having just read Abaye on 106b of Tractate Shabbos ask: "Are you telling me to learn the tradition for no purpose, that it should be like a song?", I perked up reading the quote of the unnamed Mormon philosopher on p xxv of Heavenly Torah that "Heschel sings rather than argues." It brings home again the divide between those who denigrate and those who value song.

More later.

Shabbos: Acting Destructively

2005-08-16T21:40:00.000-04:00

"And all who act destructively are exempt." (106a).

On Shabbos, constructive activities that mirror the labors that went into the construction of the Temple are forbidden. One who does them deliberately has committed a capital offense; one who does them inadvertently would be obliged to offer a sacrifice in atonement for the transgression. However, destructive actions are exempt, at least in principle.

One very compelling example of a destructive act that is exempt from a penalty is the act of rending a garment as an expression of grief. Today's daf includes a dispute as to whether this exemption applies equally to those whose grief overwhelms them and to those who rend the garment to fulfill the mitzvah of mourning a close relative. (It is suggested that the latter is a destructive act with a constructive intent.)

Reading this daf on a day when many Jews are resisting the evacuation of Gaza, I am compelled to reflect on the passionate mourning of the dispossessed, both Arab and Jew, and how they each find ways to characterize their destructive acts as exempt from atonement offerings. The Talmud also recognizes this human tendency and retreats from its initial, apparantly global "all who act destructively . . ." to eventually add "except for one who wounds a person or burns something."

May I be allowed to apply the Talmud in these contemporary situations, or will I be left with the question Abaye raises on 102b: "Are you telling me to learn the tradition for no purpose, that it should be like a song?" Of course, songs have propelled people to rise up, too. If we hold to the tradition, we will find the purpose.

Shabbos: The Sticky Fig Cake

2005-08-15T20:30:00.000-04:00

Amidst all the possible Shabbos violations, the byzantine plots to transport one thing or another from private domain to private domain when a public domain separates them is the one most likely to lead to pie throwing. When the sticky fig cake adheres to the wall and doesn't bounce back (100a), I want to page Rabbi Moe, Rabbi Larry, and Rabbi Curley!

Likewise when someone inadvertently throws an object (that is, he threw it before he realized it was Shabbos) and then remembers it is Shabbos after it leaves his hand, he is exempt from the obligation of a chatas offering if a dog catches it in midair or it burns in flight (102a). This is a production worthy of Rabbis Barnum & Bailey!

Flights of imagination, like flights of pies and dog biscuits, abound. On 104a we are reminded that "a prophet is not permitted to introduce anything new," but we are told that prophets "reinstitute" ordinances that have been "forgotten." Here, as in many other places in this text, a strict boundary is balanced by a broad mandate.

Shabbos: Some Reeds

2005-08-08T17:43:00.000-04:00

Last week I was teaching the Talmud and its modern echoes in the works of Kafka, Levinas, Abbott & Costello, the Three Stooges, Jerry Seinfeld, and Lenny Bruce at the National Havurah Institute in Rindge, NH. But I did not miss my daf a day, and I have a few notes from Tractate Shabbos to share now that I'm finally back home.

One of the contributors to this blog signs himself "Reed Chopper," so I cannot ignore that last week's reading has the source of his nickname. On 95a, the rabbis seek to explain why one would be liable for milking an animal on Shabbos and Rav Nachman bar Gurya's explanation is dismissed by the others with the words, "Your teacher was a reed cutter in a swamp!" Rashi interprets this to mean that the teacher did not know how to explain a Baraisa. Thus, those of us who call ourselves Reed Chopper and Am Haaretz anticipate what the rabbis would say about us if they heard our explanations of this text.

And we are not alone! In my class we read Levinas, who precedes his Talmudic teaching with this advisory: "It is true that there are many in my audience that are excellent commentators themselves . . . I am relying on their help in a task I pursue only as an amateur. In any case, they will soon notice that in presenting myself as an amateur, I am not indulging in a display of false modesty." None of us are and all of us are.

Just so, I will call today's observations reeds.

REED ONE

While we were away, the house was painted. When we returned, we noticed that the painter had thoughtfully removed the mezuzah before painting the jamb . . . and then he re-hung it upside-down. In the very tractate we are currently studying, "R. Huna said: He who habitually practises [the lighting of] the lamp will possess scholarly sons; he who is observant of [the precept of] mezuzah will merit a beautiful dwelling" (23b), but it seems to me that this situation is more like those I taught last week, where the modern echoes of the Talmud offer a vivid extension of the text.

Lenny Bruce taught, "Christians are lucky because your God, the Christian God, is all over. He saves you. He's been in three films. The Jewish God -- where is the Jewish God? He's on a little box nailed to the doorjamb. In a mezuzah. I told my super, 'Don't paint God.' "

REED TWO

Perhaps the media is no longer concerned with the Rove leak, but it still comes up for me when I witness the ancient struggle to identify the source of critical information: "Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav, and some say, Abaye was the one who said it; and still others say it was taught in a Baraisa . . ." (92b). And yet others say that Novak got the name from Who's Who.

And 93a brings up additional reflections on this topic: "If . . . two people were holding heavier objects . . . If neither one was able to carry the thing himself, and the two took it out together, then they are both liable . . ." Because journalists need two sources to confirm a story (as Sanhedrin insists on two witnesses), the facts that Novak printed could not be carried by (for example) either Rove or Libby alone, and needed both to take it out, thus both are liable.

R'Yehudah does not hold them liable by this exclusion: he reserves this exclusion for "an individual who committed [a misdeed] as a result of his following the teaching of the High Court." By his measure, however, these sources would be held liable for seeking to be called innocent by embracing a legal technicality.

REED THREE

Technicalities abound. Poor Mar Kashisha was choking on the dust on Shabbos because he failed to remember that it is permissible to bring a basin of water and wash "his face in this corner, his hands in this corner, his feet in this corner, and it emerges that the house has its dust laid automatically" (95a). Alternatively, "the wife or daughter of a Torah scholar can lay the dust in her house on the Sabbath by rinsing out the dishes in one corner, the cups in another, etc."

REED FOUR

Did Akiva reveal something intentionally hidden or perhaps malign an innocent man? This question comes out on both 96 and 97, first when he names the man who was stoned for carrying wood on Shabbos, and then when he suggests that Aaron was afflicted with tzaraas just as Miriam was. The stakes are high here, since no less a Sage than Reish Lakish warns that one who suspects an innocent will also be stricken! Just as Miriam was stricken for wrongfully speaking against Moses, Akiva himself could be stricken for wrongfully suspecting Aaron and/or Tzelophchad (the "gatherer").

Of course, the association of the Biblical story of wrongful speech with the story of a teacher who's speech may be wrong is most certainly a premeditated attempt to force us to stand up and take note. It would hardly be the first time Akiva has been asked to take a fall for the greater glory of Torah.

On the other hand, at least in the case of Tzelophchad, Rav stands up for Akiva and says, "I found a hidden scroll in the academy of R'Chiya." And if you were in my class last week, this will surely remind you of Lenny Bruce's confession as to who killed Christ: "You and I know what a Jew is: one who killed our Lord. Yes, I will clear the air. We did it. I did it. My family. I found a note in the basement. It's now on exhibit at Smithsonian. It says, 'We killed him. Shloyen.' " Those hidden scrolls have a way of turning up just when you need one!

Shabbos: Out On a Limb

2005-07-26T17:40:00.000-04:00

I continue to read the daf, but I haven't posted in over a week. I assure you it is not because of diminished interest in the text. Rather, I have been focussing on preparing for the course I am offering next week at the National Havurah Institute. (And this may be my last post until after the Institute, so please don't think you're looking at an abandoned site if you don't see anything new here until August 8.)

Reading folio 78 last week I was rather annoyed by the argument as to whether one is liable for the large limb of a day-old infant or the small limb of an adult until I considered the text in the context of the Rove affair. What is the measurement for liability in the case of Karl Rove: (a) the large limb of a day-old infant (any member of the staff who committed a crime) or (b) the small limb of an adult (any member of the staff who was negligent with classified information)? The former is the latest benchmark advanced by the President and the latter is the standard applied to government employees by the Office of Special Counsel.

So, it is clear that the lenient and the stringent enforcers continue to argue even as they did in the days of the Sages. The difference between then and now is that it is no longer possible as it was in days of old to identify the teacher by his ruling, for here the stringent one's leniency is a shonda.

Shabbos: Deadly Lessons

2005-07-16T11:03:00.000-04:00

. . . 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

2005-07-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

. . . 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

2005-07-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-13T14:00:00.000-04:00

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.

Shabbos: The Transgressions of the Entire World

2005-07-05T16:00:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting evolution from small infractions to global catastrophes. The Mishnah on 54a begins to catalog all the situations in which an animal is not allowed in the public domain on Shabbos. On 54b, the Mishnah concludes: "The cow of R'Elazar ben Azaryah used to go out with a strap between her horns against the will of the Sages." The Gemara explains: "It was not his cow, but that of a female neighbor of his; however, because he did not protest against her, it was called his cow." This prompts the Gemara to cite the following series of escalating admonitions:

Whoever has the ability to protest against the members of his household but does not protest is punished for the transgressions of the members of his household. Similarly, one who can protest against the people of his town but does not do so is punished for the transgressions of his town. Further, one who can protest against the entire world but does not protest is punished for the transgressions of the entire world.

This last trope especially appeals to my sense of global consciousness, and I initially read it on the day that the New York Times reported that Italy was charging several CIA agents in the kidnapping of a suspected terrorist. And I cheered. Italy, I thought, has interrupted the transgressions. Bravo!

Sadly, our Gemara is more narrowly interpreted in ArtScroll, where Rashi reads the entire world as meaning no more than the entire Jewish nation and suggests that "the Gemara refers to someone like the king . . . who has the power to protest because the people fear and obey him." But let us consider that Rashi, in his wildest imaginings, could not have conjured up the United States of America, or the freedom that every citizen of a first world country posesses. Every man a king . . .

Shabbos: Apikoros and Amulets

2005-07-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

Over at ToratMoshe, Moshe Silver's blog about the weekly Torah portion, you will find the following related to last week's parsha:

A Rasha' - a Wicked Person - says: "I know G-d commanded us to keep kosher, but I don't care." An Apikoros says: "Three thousand years ago it was dangerous to eat meat in dishes that milk had been cooked in. You could get food poisoning. Nowadays, we have refrigeration and sterilization, it's OK." What most people do not expressly state, but what underlies this statement, is "And that's the way G-d wants it to be."

It is a traditional understanding of what the Torah has to offer, but is it the only traditional understanding? It seems to me that even 2000 years ago, the Torah's limitations were acknowledged by the rabbis (who may not have thought of them as limitations even as they reinterpreted them, sometimes leniently and sometimes stringently). My problem with this traditional interpretation is that I read it as building a fence around me, the Apikoros:

The Apikoros often accepts Torah as "a way of life," paying great homage to the importance of "our eternal tradition". It's just that, when it comes to what the Torah really means to say (or really should have said), the Apikoros knows better.

But it isn't the Torah that forbids treating minor medical ailments on Shabbos. It's the Rabbis, who fear that it might lead someone to grind herbs into medicine (53b). Do I dare to ask if G-d wants me to have a headache on Shabbos? It is a question only an Apikoros would ask!

My rebellion against Rabbinic stringincies simmers on a low flame. I bristle at all the time they consume constructing a straitjacket around Shabbos., but I delight when they turn their attention to grander themes. It's been many pages since that has happened, but it begins to re-occur on 53. Here, amulets and shoes creep into the discussion (and they will flutter in and out for several pages). Amulets, in particular, reveal a rabbinic tension between superstition and science, as there is an important question regarding how one can prove that magic is effective.

Is there such a thing as an amulet that is proven effective for man and not proven effective for animals? (53b).

According to the Gemara, the answer is yes, and the explanation has to do with mazal. Rashi offers two alternative definitions of mazal, though both apply exclusively to humans, providing the missing "ingredient" that makes the amulet effective for humans but not for animals. Mazel is either the angel advocate for a person in the Heavenly Court or the intelligence that allows a person to believe in the therapeutic effects of the amulet. Either definition requires faith in something for the medicine to work.

This suggests that miraculous intervention requires at least intelligence and perhaps an advocate in Heaven. So, it is natural that the Gemara will seek to determine what sort of man is ripe for the miracle of healing:

It happened with a certain person that his wife died leaving a son to nurse, and he did not have enough money to pay the fee of a wetnurse. A miracle was performed for him-- his breasts were opened like the two breasts of a woman and he nursed his son.

Rav Yosef said: "Come and see how great this man was, for such a miracle was performed on his behalf!" Abaye said to Rav Yosef: "On the contrary! How inferior this man was, for the natural order was changed on his behalf!" (53b).

According to Rashi, his inferiority is suggested by the plain fact that God did not perform the less conspicuous miracle of opening the "gates of income" for him. Maharsha (in ArtScroll):

This person certainly had some merit, for otherwise the miracle would not have been performed for him. However, he was inferior in that he was prevented from earning a living in the normal way and thus had to be sustained with a miracle.

It is perhaps a common notion to suggest that a modest person will see daily sustenance as a miracle, but no less worth preserving and keeping in the forefront of one's mind.

There is an early example of scientific methodology on 61, where the Rabbis seek to establish a protocol for evaluating the effectiveness of amulets. There is general agreement that an expert in amulets is one who has crafted three amulets for three different people, all of which have had healing powers, and that an effective amulet is one that has cured the same illness three times. Rav Pappa inquires: "If one wrote three different amulets for a single person who suffered from three different illnesses, and cured him of all three illnesses, what is the law?" In such a situation it cannot be determined whether the amulets or the patient's mazal was the deciding factor, so the healer's expert status remains uncertified. There's a glimmer of science even in the absence of empirical data, and the mind struggles to establish methodology.

NY Times: Another Daf Yomi

2005-06-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Some of us are as devoted to daily
study of the front page of the
New York Times
as we are to the daf of the day.

Today our reward came not from folio 52 of Tractate Shabbas but from A16 of Tractate NY Times. On this page, Jack Abramoff, an Am Haaretz if ever there was one, is reported to have written an e-mail to Rabbi Daniel Lapin containing the following:

I hate to ask your help with something so silly, but I have been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, which is a very distinguished club in Washington, D.C., comprised of Nobel Prize winners, etc. . . . Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none.

I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award . . . with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like scholar of Talmudic studies?

Alas, there is no record of the rabbi's reply.

Shabbos: Dead on Arrival

2005-06-22T22:00:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in the previous entry, I've been attending a professional conference and unable to blog, but I have been keeping up with the daf, and it has had an influence on my responses in the "secular" world.

I was on a panel discussing strategies for reprinting scholarly texts and I was asked, regarding out-of-print books, whether I put a new cover on a book if I brought it back into print. I replied, "When we revive the dead, we expect them to emerge from their graves in the suits they were buried in." (No doubt I was thinking of the discussion on 43b concerning permissible methods of removing a corpse from the sun on Shabbos.)

But these pages aren't engaging me. There are so many rules enacted to prevent people from initiating permissible activities on a continuum with unpermissible activities, lest people claim they crossed the boundary unawares or forgot they deliberately placed something only permissible if left inadvertently.

And every area is saturated with ambiguity: R'Chiya bar Abba permits what a decree prohibits because he is unaware of the decree, which was only enacted because too many people were "claiming" that their practice conformed to what the decree prohibited (38a). The Sages prohibit steambathing when "sinners proliferated," but permitted a man to stroll through the steambath "without concern that people will suspect him of steambathing" (40a). They permit thinking of Torah anywhere but in a bathhouse or a lavatory but equivocate on whether one can speak of secular matters in the "holy tongue" or speak of Torah in these profane places to prevent someone from committing a transgression (40b).

And then there are whiffs of the burlesque house. There is the tall-tale telling rabbi who warns "Whoever holds his male member while urinating is considered as if he is bringing a flood onto the world" (41a). And the dispute of when "work" is actually work and when it is a euphemism for cohabitation (49b). (This latter dispute may be especially critical to those who need encouragement to cohabit on Shabbos --raise your hands!) And the vaudeville turn of Elisha, whose death-defying refusal to obey a Roman edict that promises to gouge out the brain of anyone who dons Tefillin ends with his triumphant and magical transformation of his tefillin into dove's wings.

I'm struggling to find any continuity or underlying meaning in these folios. And I'm not finding it. Not in this tractate.

Shabbos: Don't Bother to Wipe Your Feet

2005-06-18T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Philadelphia. I'm in the fifth day of a professional conference that I was preparing for a good part of the two weeks before. (I don't remember the last time I saw a human being who wasn't wearing a name tag!) I haven't had time to post here and I don't have much time now, but I'll be back to full blog in a few days.

But the daf goes on, and I was just reading folio 46 and I just had to share this with you.

First, I need to say that I'm reading the daf in the context of being at a professional conference where my own status as an authority is perhaps comparable to that of Rav Avya making a visit to his colleagues. (Not that I'm a Sage, but if there were Sages in my "field," let's just say I'm not chopped liver.)

So, it is reported on 46a that "Rav Avya once visited Rava's home, and his shoes were sullied with mud. Nevertheless, he put them up on a bed in front of Rava." Of course this disturbed Rava, who "sought to unsettle Rav Avya by challenging him with questions." The answers to these questions serve to elucidate the muktzeh status of several common household objects (a matter of no concern to the Am Haaretz but of importance to anyone intent on a more rigorous Shabbas practice). The significance of this passage is that Rava did not embarrass Rav Avya and was rewarded with new learning.

But he was also left with a muddy bed, which speaks to me and the feeling I have had these past few days as I have been called on to facilitate lengthy roundtable discussions and speak on panels about this and that. I find that focussing on presenting a relaxed and open demeanor and reducing complicated issues to memorable aphorisms does, in fact, come naturally to me, as I can summon up the answers based on years of experience and study BUT that it leaves me with a feeling of exhaustion way beyond what I feel in my ordinary environment (i.e., I need to rest my muddy feet on your bed or I'm going to fall over!).

Shabbos: Hillel Incapable of Embarrassment

2005-06-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

Those who know me and how I study Talmud will not be surprised if I compare Hillel and Shammai to Lennon and McCartney. Shammai (second from the left) is more stringent, insisting on a narrow path, exhorting us to imagine that there is nothing but the energy that we generate by pursuing truth. Hillel (third from the left) has a sunnier disposition and invites the neophyte in by example rather than trial. Shammai will tell you how important he is (bigger than Jesus!) while Hillel will leave you feeling as if you are important. It's not as compelling or well developed as my argument on the oral transmission via Abbott & Costello (not yet posted to this blog, though bound to end up here sooner or later), but take the poetic leap with me and think on how each pair of antagonists created a unique linguistic/musical pallet that consolidated what preceded it and took it to the next level.

The legend of Hillel's beautiful melodies would not have endured so long without Shammai's abrasive interruptions of his elegant tempos. If Shammai did not expel the convert with impossible demands, Hillel's conversion of him by taking his demands seriously and turning them on their head would be a lesser song: the success is cherished most because of the failure that preceded it.

The fool who bets that Hillel will lose his temper (31a) loses his wager twice and wins for losing, but who will bet that Shammai will answer a truly thoughtful question temperately? And what would be the lesson if he won?

ADDENDUM
Kaspit's comments below led me to his blog, where I discovered his comments on this very daf and responded as follows:

. . . and he who isn't busy being born is busy dying, eh? Hillel's role in this folio suggests that we will find our path by avoiding what is hateful to others; Shammai's role is to offer an alternative motivation to stumble along the same road: fear of God. While Hillel ostensibly prevails, the next folio is a litany of the calamities that will befall one who descrates the Sabbath. Death hovers at every turn. The Fear Factor does not get pushed back easily. Those of us who have managerial responsibility know only too well that a sharp word uttered thoughtlessly has more clout than we realize in the moment. Murderous blows unconsciously delivered kill just the same.

Shabbos: Extinguishing A Candle

2005-06-07T20:00:00.000-04:00

R'Tanchum of Nevi is asked, "Is it permissible to extinguish a lit candle for the benefit of a seriously ill person on the Sabbath?" (30a). Rashi suggests that the question was "posed before a crowd," most likely because what follows is not the traditional give-and-take of the study hall, but a rousing (and exceedingly homiletic) sermon. Here, perhaps, is a hint of the Rabbinic public voice, preaching rather than engaging in a meticulous examination of the textual basis for an ordinance.

The Mishnah is clear: yes, it is permissible to extinguish a candle on Shabbos for the benefit of a seriously ill person. Less clear is the meaning of the sermon, which at one point suggests that God forgave the people even for eating on Yom Kippur when they were celebrating the dedication of the Temple, and that God said to David that He preferred a single day in which David studied Torah to a thousand of his olah offerings. These are two examples of instances when the very existence of the Temple led to practices that are undervalued by God when compared to the values of Rabbinic Judaism.

Ultimately, the sermon comes round to tie into the previous extended discussion of the proper care of the candle with a grand rhetorical flourish:

And as for the question that I asked of you, here is the answer: In the Hebrew language, a candle is called "a candle," and a person's soul is called "a candle." Thus, when one candle must be extinguished so that the other may survive, it is better to allow the candle fashioned by flesh and blood to be extinguished before the candle fashioned by the Holy One, Blessed is He. (30b).

Which Rashi interprets to mean, "let a candle fashioned by man be extinguished so that the life of a person-- a "candle" fashioned by God-- may be preserved."

Shabbos: If I Were A Rich Man

2005-06-05T10:50:00.000-04:00

Amidst the disputes regarding how to kindle the candles, which rags truly have no value, and whether to wear one's tzitzis out or concealed, there is this:

The Rabbis taught in a Baraisa:

Which person is truly wealthy? Anyone who takes pleasure in his wealth. These are the words of R'Meir. (25b).

Yet consider the case of the wealthy candlemaker quoted in today's New York Times:

"Money makes a lifestyle," he said. "It creates a division between the old money and the new. It is a little bit of class jealousy. We go to a cocktail party and a guy is telling my wife about his airplane. So finally the question comes up: 'How do you get over to the island?' and she says, "we come by plane.' And he says, 'What kind of plane?' and she says 'A G-IV. And so the wind comes out of the guy's sails."

The candlemaker's wife is certainly taking pleasure in her wealth, but this can't be the kind of pleasure that R'Meir is imagining. This is the pleasure that comes from making others feel diminished.

Perhaps sensing that R'Meir's definition is inadequate, the Gemara continues:

R'Tarfon says: A wealthy man is anyone who has a hundred vineyards and a hundred fields and a hundred servants who work in those fields.

And the Times reports,

The demand for labor is so great that every weekday roughly 400 workers fly in from the mainland for construction, gardening, plumbing and other services. The commute may be a nuisance, but the money makes it worthwhile.

Maybe so. But the commute and the long hours create a mental poverty, leaving no time for family or study. And the "wealthy" who employ them are isolated among their own possessions. This is not the message the Gemara wants to leave us with; rather, it continues,

R'Akiva says: He is anyone who has a wife beautiful in deeds.

This is a statement that I can support wholeheartedly. However, this is not a kind of wealth that one can earn as easily as money. The newly rich described in the Times have perhaps been slow to discover this:

Some say that too much is being made of all these distinctions. "The only people who are truly class conscious," said Roger Horchow, who realized his fortune when he sold his catalog business to Neiman Marcus in 1988 for $117 million, "are the second tootsie wives of men with big bankrolls."

The Times and the Talmud are light years apart on the question of wealth. The Times sees wealth in the grossest terms, focussing on those who have been financially rewarded way beyond the value of what they have contributed to the global community. Their point is a political one. And whether valid or not, it adopts a much narrower definition of wealth than our tradition would support.

This Gemara concludes with the words of R'Yose,

A wealthy person is anyone who has a latrine near his table.

To which Rashba adds a necessary qualification:

In terms of the time needed to reach it, not in terms of actual physical proximity.

There lives a wealthy man!

Shabbos: Better to Light a Candle?

2005-05-29T12:23:00.000-04:00

What is the reason for the Rabbinic Yom Tov of Chanukah? On account of which miracle did the Rabbis establish it? (21b4).

If there has to be a special Torah reading for Chanukah, I'd make it Deuteronomy 17:11:

You shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you.

Why? Because when the Gemara asks if the commandment to kindle the Chanukah lights is Biblical or Rabbinic, Rav Avya argues that the Hanukah commandment is Biblical because when the Torah says, “You shall not deviate from the word that they will tell you,” they are the rabbis.(23a).

It seems what Rav Avya is REALLY arguing is that there is a Biblical basis for placing Rabbinically mandated mitzvot on the same level as those that are Biblically mandated. This is the Biblical origin of the commandment to kindle the Hanukah lights: that it is Rabbinically mandated.

The purpose of this text is to put the obligation to light candles on the same level as the obligations outlined in the Torah itself; to elevate this seemingly minor holiday to a Biblically mandated status. Of course, Hanukah is in fact the only holiday with mitzvot obligations that is not Biblically mandated, so elevating it creates more questions than answers.

For example, if a person only has funds for purchasing oil for one light, should he buy for a Sabbath light or a Hanukah light? Rava would have us choose oil for Sabbath because that light brings peace to his home. If a person only has funds for oil for the Hanukah light or wine to sanctify the Sabbath, what is the law? Which should he obtain? Rava says that kindling the Hanukah light is preferable since its purpose is to publicize the miracle.

Hanukah is all about publicizing the miracle, but which miracle? The Gemara asks this very question (21b). There is no consideration of commemorating the military victory or fetishizing the martyrdom story associated with this holiday. Over and over again the Talmud talks only of the miracle of the light and the commandment to publicize it.

Rav Huna required a Hanukkah light by each doorway of a house if the doorways were on different sides of the house lest passersby see only the side that is not lit. If you live on an upper floor, place the lights in windows facing the public domain. The purpose of the lights is to publicize the miracle.

Hillel and Shammai argue over whether we increase the lights over the eight days from one to eight or decrease them from eight to one. Hillel argued that “in matters of sanctity we never decrease the degree of sanctity.” Shammai argued that we suspend this general rule to dramatize that which we are publicinzing—- that the true nature of the miracle is that the one-day portion of oil gradually diminshed over eight days.

An important exception is made. In times of danger, you should place your light on your table and that is sufficient. “But if the light is inside, you should also light another lamp so it will be discernible that the Hanukah light was kindled for the sake of the mitzvah.”

The candles are not sanctified; they’re not holy. There is no obligation to use special oils or wicks. There is no prohibition against benefitting from the light, but over and over again the rabbis caution that to appear to treat them as ordinary objects or use them for personal benefit, such as to read by, may look to others as diminishing the majesty of God’s commandments. In other words there is an elusive ambivalence to this holiday: not quite Biblical, not quite sacred, important to publicize but not to put oneself at risk for. It is meant to be joyous and umcomplicated, but can be quite complicated.

The holiday is more than anything a celebration of visibly being Jewish people. It is the holiday of being out there; making our light shine. Civil laws are bent to make sure we make this happen:

If a spark flies out from under a blacksmith's hammer and went and damaged another's property, the blacksmith is liable. If a camel laden with flax was passing through the public domain and its flax protruded into a shop and was ignited by the shopkeeper's light and the burning flax set a mansion outside ablaze, the camel's owner is liable for all damage to the building. If, however, the shopkeeper placed his light outside the shop in a public domain, the shopkeeper is liable. R'Yehudah says: in the case of a Chanukah light, the shopkeeper is not liable. . . . This ruling of R'Yehudah indicates that the requirement is to place the Chanukah light within ten tefachim of the ground, for if it enters your mind that one may place it above ten tefachim even in the first place, let the damaged party say to the shopkeeper: "You should have placed your Chanukah light above the height of the camel and its rider, for you knew that the lower placement is hazardous." Since the damaged party is denied such a winning claim, we may conclude that it is indeed a mitzvah to place the Chanukah lights within ten tefachim of the ground. (21b).

So, a word to the wise should be sufficient: if you should be passing my shop during the eight days, hold your camel’s head down.

Shabbos: The Care and Feeding of Gentiles

2005-05-24T21:12:00.000-04:00

They stuck a sword in the house of study and they said: whoever wants to enter may enter but whoever wants to leave may not leave. And on that day Hillel was submissive and he sat before Shammai like one of his disciples. And that day was as grievous to Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made. And Shammai and Hillel passed a decree on the matter but the populace did not accept it from them.

Is all the attention to the few triumphs of Shammai a warning to all future Rabbis to be mindful that stringent rulings will discourage the people from maintaining a connection to Jewish practice?

The chapter ends with some apparant leniencies. When I began reading this tractate, I despaired that one would be permitted to feed the poor on the Sabbath, but here (19a1) it is taught that "we may place food before a gentile in the courtyard on the Sabbath [and] if he takes it and goes out of the yard, we need not involve ourselves with it." So, while we may not bring the food out to him, it is incumbent upon us to invite him in! (Even the gentile!)

In like manner, some restrictions are waived (20a) when groups are presumed to be conscientious. One such group are Pesach celebrants putting meat up to roast just before Shabbos. (Perhaps this presumption should be revisited in light of the tragic fire that occurred this year!)

Chapter 2 is ostensibly about the wicks and fuels that may be used for Shabbos lamps, but launches into a lengthy digression on the makeup and use of Hanukah candles. As I mentioned in the previous post, this shift from Rabbinic enactments related to a Biblically mandated holiday to a discourse on a holiday that is purely Rabbinic is itself worth noting. The ultimate conclusion is that the goal of the observance is to publicize what is being commemorated. Was Hanukah a celebration of a victory over the assimilationists from its very birth? How unlike the Rabbis to encourage a fuss in the public squares of our exile!

Shabbos: Defying the Text

2005-05-23T15:46:00.000-04:00

Rabbi Jim Diamond recommended a text by David Halivni called Revelation Restored: Divine Writ and Critical Responses. In the Foreword by Peter Ochs, Halivni's Holocaust memoir, The Book and the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction, is quoted. Within that quote, a particular passage begins, "Once I wrote . . ." How like and unlike the Talmud this is: while Talmud teachings are most certainly embedded within embedments, here it is Halivni quoted in Halivni quoting Halivni! In the context of studying the sly Rabbinic shift from a chapter of Rabbinic enactments about something Biblically mandated (Shabbos) to a chapter with an extended digression about a holiday that has no basis but Rabbinic decree (Hanukah), Halivni's embedded quote is most welcome:

How is one to explain the blatant contradiction between counting and upholding every word, every letter of the text, and at the same time boldly pronouncing, 'Chasora machasra vehacha ketanti' -- 'There is a lacuna in the text, and it should be read differently'?

Then Halivni expands on embedded Halivni:

The Rabbis had to lend divine power to the text to lend power to their defiance of it. A lacuna in a human text is of no religious significance. A lacuna in a divine text? That already smacks of heresy. The Rabbis of the Talmud tampered with the Biblical text, frequently offered interpretations that ran counter to the integrity of it, and openly said: There is a lacuna in the Mishnah . . .

This is heady stuff.

Shabbos: Tales from the Upper Chamber

2005-05-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

It's a hard blog to hew as the tractate takes some wild turns. I'm just barely hanging in there as the Rabbis wrestle with the eighteen measures. I'm posting less frequently and trying to get a long view on what's unfolding. I have my theories, but I know I'm out on a limb.

The Mishnah on 11a reviews several ordinances that ArtScroll characterizes as "precautionary laws to prevent inadvertent violation of the Sabbath." On 11b, no less a Sage than Rava cries out (presumably) in exasperation, "Are we to arise and legislate another Rabbinic decree to protect this Rabbinic decree?" Indeed, it does seem that they are putting fences around fences.

Then the questions start flying. Does a fellow with gonnorheal secretions violate the Sabbath if he wears (carries) a protective pouch? (12a). How do various Amoraim deal with lice on the Sabbath? Can a menstruating woman sleep in the same bed with her husband if they both remain clothed? (13a).

Of all the questions asked, the only one I consider worthy of reflection is whether a sick person may pray in Aramaic (i.e. in a language that he understands). (12b). Here, finally, the Rabbis allow a tiny loosening of the straightjacket out of compassion for the suffering of the afflicted.

But the stringent philosophy appears to prevail. Hillel's victory on the question of whether one can kill a louse on Shabbos (Hillel permits it) is merely a pretext to review many matters on which Hillel and Shammai disagree, including eighteen measures where Shammai's opinion prevails. However, it is a most difficult text. Is Shammai's victory simply due to the failure of Hillel's students to show up and vote? Is the disagreement only between the students, and not at all between Hillel and Shammai themselves? Is it even clear which eighteen measures were resolved that evening?

The critical question may be whether one can touch a Torah Scroll with one's bare hand(14b). Its importance may even be underlined by the Gemara's suggestion that the point was not settled by Hillel and Shammai at all, but goes all the way back to King Solomon! Is this attribution, which is extended to the institution of the Eruv as well, a disclaimer meant to augment the Rabbinical foundation of these ordinances?

It is intriguing that even as the Rabbi's attribute rulings to Solomon, they also attribute one to weavers "from the dung gate of Jerusalem" (15a), suggesting that Kings and commoners alike can settle these matters. Is it modesty or caution that motivates the Rabbis to spread the credit for rules that may seem burdensome and offputting?

Shabbos: Destruction from Within

2005-05-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

Height Matters

Rava bar Mechasya said in the name of Rav Chama bar Gurya who said in the name of Rav: Any city whose roofs are higher than its synagogue will ultimately be destroyed. (11a1).

For those who believe that there are no coincidences, consider that I read the above Gemara on the same day that I read Ben Dreyfus’s article, Profile of An ‘Uniaffiliated’ Jew, (published in the Spring 2005 issue of CAJE's Jewish Education News), wherein he begins by writing,

When Jewish organizations talk about "unaffiliated Jews" in their 20s and 30s, who do not belong to synagogues, they often equate this lack of affiliation with being secular, Jewishly uneducated, and finding Judaism to be irrelevant.

Is this merely a simple proof that there is nothing new under the sun? Has the Jewish establishment been insisting for 2000 years that the roof of the synagogue must overshadow all other sanctuaries of Jewish consciousness?

Maybe so. But back in the day, the Sages knew how to put their earnestness in perspecctive:

Rav Ashi said: I made sure that Masa Mechasya would not be destroyed, for I prevented its citizens from building their houses taller than the synagogue.

The Gemara exclaims: But Masa Mechasya was destroyed!

The Gemara answers: It was not destroyed on account of that sin.

Meanwhile, Ben reports,

On Shabbat I don't do any work or spend money. Typically, I will go to Friday and Saturday services at one of the new independent minyanim that meet once or twice a month, or pray with a group of people in someone's apartment, then share a Shabbat meal in that apartment. . . . Oh, and I don't belong to a synagogue, nor do most of the young adults crowded into those apartments on Friday nights.

Read Ben’s article. Consider the young man who feels that the only options for a committed Reform Jew of a certain age are to go to Rabbinical school or become orthodox. It seems to me that, as the Gemara suggests, it has always been a struggle to keep this situation from becoming frozen; that keeping all other houses lower than the synagogue was never a satisfactory solution.

The Code of Mechasya

The teaching of Rava bar Mechasya regarding synagogue roofs is but the first of several to be presented on this folio. Most are aphorisms (e.g., “Any evil and not an evil woman!”). However, three stand out for their obscurity.

The first is the one already cited. Its obscurity derives from the perspective of Rav Ashi’s experience: even if the teaching is true by its own terms, Rav Ashi’s experience clearly demonstrates that it is far from being the primary danger facing any Jewish town in Talmudic times. We need strong character, not strong buildings! Rava bar Mechasya seems to be teaching one thing and is in reality teaching another.

Likewise, when he teaches “Work under an Ishmaeliete and not under a stranger; under a stranger and not under a Chabar; under a Chabar and not under a Torah scholar; under a Torah scholar and not under an orphan or widow,” what are we left with beyond the impression that all potential employers will destroy the worker in this world or the next? It is an indirect but compelling argument that each of us must strive to become our own masters.

Finally, there is this one:

If all the seas were black ink, and the marshes were quills, and the heavens were parchments, and all the people were scribes, they would not suffice to record the depth of the mind of the government.

ArtScroll’s review of the commentaries on this teaching reflect its potential to be read along the entire continuum between patriotism and treason. This is indeed a prime example of the Jewish code of irony and ambiguity. We often mean what we say without exactly saying what we mean. [Insert 'wink' here.]

Shabbos: Beginning of the New Order

2005-05-12T17:00:00.000-04:00

Master of Your Semi-Private Domain

I started the practice of reading the daf several years ago in midcycle, so I have had the experience of reading many tractates that are concerned with processes that are no longer in effect. However, I have never been as directly challenged to reconcile the doctrines described in the text with my own practice as I am with Tractate Shabbos, because here, for the first time, I must deal with practices that are not dependent on the existence of the nonexistent Temple.

It is one thing to read as an academic exercise about practices that one would not follow when no one is called to follow these practices. It is an imaginative leap to read such a text as a literary product. But when the text reflects practices that remain part of the baseline of traditional observance, such a reading will likely appear to be blasphemous to some, and the reader himself may become self-conscious or even feel threatened by the alienation of his own practice from the practice that the text mandates. As a true am haaretz, this is the dilemma I now face, and the reason why my first post on this tractate has been so many days overdue.

Discussing this with Mike, I found myself agreeing with his basic (and unorthodox) reading: Rabbinic Judaism surely begins here. Most of the Shabbos restrictions are Rabbinic constructs.

Even so, there are distinct differences to our readings and I hope that he will post a response to this entry that expands on his notion that the eruv is the Rabbinic mechanism for releasing the people from a set of restrictions in exchange for their acceptance of the Rabbi's authority to create the restrictions in the first place. It is an interesting thesis, suggesting yet another reason for Jewish families to live clustered around common courtyards (as if a reason were needed, given the frequent manifestations of hostility in the diaspora from locally dominent cultures) .

My touchstone to the Rabbinic stamp on Shabbas, however, is not the eruv, but the karmelis-- the Rabbinic invention that ArtScroll calls "a semi-public domain." This "gray area" that has no Biblical foundation is too public to be private but only in the sense that it is sufficiently visible that the acts that might be permitted there are prohibited Rabbinically lest someone in a public domain see them and mistakenly conclude that these acts are permitted in public.

The restrictions built up to make Shabbas at least appear to be a day of rest are exhausting to observe. With no Biblical prohibitions against commercial transactions in a walled city, ArtScroll concedes that "people, prohibited from many other activities, would find the Sabbath a convenient day to shop." But when you add all the Rabbinic restrictions that have accrued to this "day of rest," rest may become a straightjacket.

For example, how do I rest when I know that a poor man needs nourishment and I am "forbidden" to carry it to him?

This is a very lengthy tractate, so I don't doubt we will have ample opportunity to unpack this and many similar questions. God only knows where this will lead!

Berachos 63-64. The End of the Tractate

2005-05-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

In these last pages, the responsibilities of the scholar and his students are the central issues. It emerges from the discussion of nullification (63a), wherein Bar Kappara is quoted as teaching, "In a place where there is no man fit to issue Torah rulings, be yourself such a man, and issue the rulings for that place."

The friction between teachers and students is directly acknowledged in a teaching by the academy of R'Yannai that "any student who remains silent when the teacher becomes angry at him a first time will merit to learn to distinguish between blood that is tamei and blood that is tahor . . . [and] any student who remains silent when the teacher becomes angry at him a first and even a second time will merit to learn to distinguish between monetary laws . . . and capital laws . . ." Rewards are promised for providing sustenance for scholars. (One host is rewarded by having his wife, his mother-in-law, and her eight daughters all giving birth to sextuplets! 63b.)

But the story that holds the most interest for me is the one that illustrates R'Avin the Levi's teaching that "Whoever forces the moment, the moment forces him. But whoever yields before the moment, the moment yields before him." (64a). This story concerns the choice of a new head of the Academy in Babylonia. The leading candidates are Rav Yosef, who was reknown for his knowledge, and Rabbah, who had a reputation for being analytical and sharp. The members of the Academy preferred Rav Yosef, but he refused the position because "astrologers" had told him that he would only rule for two years and then would die. He ultimately accepted the position 22 years later upon Rabbah's death "and ruled for two-and-a-half years; he thus lost nothing by waiting!"

I could not help but be reminded of a similar story in Yoma 85b that unfolds quite differently. In that story, Rab is teaching Torah to rabbis in Israel when Bar Kappara enters (he who taught "be yourself such a man") and Rab began his lesson again. When R. Simeon then entered, he again began his lesson. But when R. Hanina b. Hama entered he scowled and did not repeat his beginning, offending R. Hanina. For the next 13 years, Rab went to R. Hanina on Erev Yom Kippur to beg for his forgiveness. The Gemara asks, "how could R. Hanina act so unforgivingly?" And the answer to that question is what ties these two stories together: R. Hanina had seen in a dream that Rab became head of the Academy (and since R. Hanina was head of the Academy, this dream essentially foretold his own demise!). Eventually, Rab departed for Babylonia where he became head of the Academy in Sura. In this version, refusing to "yield before the moment" produces a happier outcome than yielding.

The only lesson to learn from these contradictory teachings is that no teaching stands independent of its context. When a story undermines the lesson it ostensibly teaches, all one can do is study harder!

Berachos 57-63

2005-05-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

All I Have to Do Is Dream

I love the poetry of the Talmud, especially when it makes promises like "One who cohabits with his mother in a dream can anticipate attaining understanding" (57a) or when it observes that "a sigh breaks even a person's entire body" (58b); "that man was formed last in creation and first in misfortune" (61a).

One doesn't need to go to Plato to find the legend that the first man was "one male and one female, joined back to back" (61a).

There is also the sly humor of the one who teaches that "If, in his dream, one relieved himself, it is a favorable sign for him . . . but this applies only where in the dream he did not wipe himself."

This text is alive with all the dimensions of living. Its greatness is its breadth as much as its depth. There is quite a bit of etiquette for the privy in these pages, but there are also grim reminders of brutal persecution.

With All Your Soul

The themes that seem to dominate these pages are the boundaries within which we can learn and the boundaries to which we must hold fast. Regarding the former, the text seems to suggest that there are no questions that are off limits, whether one's teacher is being flayed alive, making love to his wife, or wiping himself after a bowel movement. Regarding the latter, I was too hasty in dismissing Reed Chopper's suggestion that nullification can go beyond appearance, since here (63a) Rava interprets Bar Kappara's teaching to signify that "at times God's honor demands that one perform a transgression for its sake."

This text compresses a lot of material in only a few pages. The passages that seem to be repetititions of earlier sections go deeper. And the earthy examples create unforgettable mnemonics to ensure that they will not be forgotten.

Berachos 54-56

2005-04-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

If Only You Believe Like I Believe in Miracles

Blessings should not address the future . . . prayers should not address the past. . . . to cry out over that which is past is to utter a prayer in vain. (54a).

The free association in this section is quite elegant. The distinction between what can be blessed and what can be prayed for is practical, acknowledging the natural order of things. A prayer to alter the past would, of course, be a prayer for no less than a miracle or a "nullification" of the law. And the above-cited text is a prelude for dealing with both the nullification and the miraculous.

The Mishnah speaks of nullifying the law "because it is time to act for Hashem," a suggestion that the commentators treat cautiously, permitting themselves to consider that nullifying the law (which would be the equivalent of dishonoring God's Name) is not permitted in any event, but the appearance of nullifying the law would be permitted if it spread goodwill and put God's name out there amongst the populace. Saul of Tarsus, of course, took it a step further. Nevertheless, recalling how important appearance is (see, for example, my blog entry on Berachos 14-17), this concession to the appearance of a gross impropriety is most certainly a revolutionary gesture.

The Mishnah also speaks of the obligation to recite a blessing when one sees a place where miracles were performed for the Jewish people. The Gemara asks for the source of this ruling and ultimately concludes that the blessing is only required for a miracle "performed for the masses . . . [which] implies that on a miracle performed for an individual we do not recite a blessing," making another distinction (consciously or not) between Jewish and Christian notions of the miraculous.

Protection

On 54b the Gemara confidently quantifies the number of people who need protection. The text begins, "Three types of people need protection . . ." Alas, as typically happens there are two variants of the three , followed by further variants. The bottom line is that we all need protection; we are all vulnerable.

There are also (at least) three things that "prolong the days and years of a person," including "one who spends a long time in the privy." (ArtScroll 55a fn18 explains that this "does not mean that a single session in the privy should be drawn out. Rather, it refers to [the] practice of frequently checking onself for the need to defecate . . ")

And while spending a long time in prayer will prolong life, "Anyone who prolongs his prayer and contemplates it, i.e. he expects it to be fulfilled, will eventually suffer heartache." Prayer in the absence of despair is folly.

Interpretation of Dreams

Beginning on 55a, where it says, "A dream that has not been interpreted is like a letter that has not been read," there is an extended description of rabbinic dream theory. In brief, the rabbis are in awe of the power of dream interpretation; even going so far as to ask, "if one feels his dream might bode ill, why have it interpreted and risk giving veracity to an adverse omen?" (55b2).

The dream interpreter Bar Hedya is known to interpret dreams as good omens only for those who pay him well, and we have numerous examples of his interpreting the identical dream positively or negatively depending on the fee he is given (56a). Rava is slow to catch on and is the victim of several bad interpretations, eventually leading to the prediction that "The king's treasury will be broken into and you will be arrested as a thief"-- which indeed occurs on the very next day. Even so, Rava continued to pay poorly until after the interpretation was rendered to him that he would receive two blows with clubs and, following the actual two blows which he soon thereafter received, he interrupted his assailant and told him, "Two is enough for me; I saw only two in my dream." From that point forward, he paid handsomely for his dream interpretation and the omens turned out more favorably.

Dream interpretation seems to be a source of great amusement here, and other examples in this text suggest that word play is a subconscious tool within dreams. It may not be too much to suggest that Freud's theory is not a fresh invention but a distillation of ancient rabbinic humor. Take my dream, please!

Berachos 53

2005-04-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

I'm Beginning to See the Light

It's Saturday night and more or less time to mark the end of Shabbas, and you're walking outside the city and you see a flame. If the majority of the city's inhabitants are gentiles, it is a fairly good possibility that the flame was used in connection with work (or worse, in an idolatrous service), so don't even think about saying a blessing over it. On the other hand, if it is mostly a Jewish town, go right ahead and recite the blessing. (If you are now observing Pesach's dietary restrictions and you live in a "gentile town," you have a pretty good idea why these considerations would be part of our text.)

If you're in the study hall (it's still Satuday night) and someone brings in a flame, Shammai would have you say the blessing quietly to yourself so as not to interrupt the study of others, but Hillel puts the communal experience above the need of the individual to study and encourages interruption of study for a communal blessing. This appears to be one of the rare instances where Shammai prevails, and he is supported by Rabban Gamliel (remember him?):

The members of Rabban Gamliel's household would not say "Health!" in a study hall because this would cause a disruption of Torah learning in the study hall.(53a).

ArtScroll footnotes this passage with a short history of the sneeze, beginning with the explanation that saying "Health!" is:

As is customary when someone sneezes (Rashi; see Magen Avraham 230:6). [The source for this custom is stated in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 52 (cited by Gilyon HaShas): From the time of creation until Jacob's time, no man would take ill prior to his death; indeed, illness as such did not exist at all, and there was no warning of a person's imminent demise. Rather, a man walking on the road or in the marketplace would suddenly sneeze, and his soul would exit via his nostrils. Hence, a sneeze was the precursor of death. Jacob, however, beseeched Hashem for mercy, praying that his soul not depart suddenly from this world, so that he would have time to instruct his sons before his passing. Hashem granted his request, and from then on, people would take ill prior to their death. Therefore, when one sneezes, it is customary for others to respond with "Health!" (the equivalent of our "Gesundheit" or "God bless you"), in recognition of the fact that the sneeze is no longer a sign of impending death.]

This is quite timely now, at the height of hayfever season when others pray for relief from month-long sneezing fits and are given Claritin. It also brings to mind a story from the other Jewish tradition (the Borscht Belt), where a fellow reported to his friend that he had a condition whereby with every sneeze he felt as if he was having a powerful orgasm. His friend asked him what he took for this condition. "Pepper," he replied.

Berachos 51-52

2005-04-22T18:00:00.000-04:00

This Argument Stinks! (But You Won't Be Forgetting It)

As the text continues to puzzle through an individual's obligations to recite blessings before and after a meal, the vivid examples continue to be more captivating for me than any interest in the outcome. For example, here is an early instance of the legendary propensity of our people to answer a question with a question (and a sarcastic question at that!). The question on the table is whether one who neglected to say a blessing before eating and drinking should, once he realizes his omission, recite the blessing. The answer is, "If one had eaten a garlic clove so that his breath smells, shall he go back and eat another garlic clove so that his breath will smell even more?" (51a).

These Three Things Must Be Important (Or at Least Two of Them) . . . or One, Anyway

There are ten rules regarding the cup of blessing and they are all listed, even though R'Yochanan notes that the custom is to observe only four of them. Whether he meant that the other six had fallen out of favor or simply that they were not as essential as the four he cited is a subject of dispute. In fact, when the cup overflows with wine, there are many disputes, especially if the wine is consumed on an empty stomach!

Before the ten rules there is one rule regarding the ispargus cup, which is an alcoholic beverage reputed to have therapeutic effects when the entire cup is consumed at once on an empty stomach: do not return the ispargus cup to anyone other than the one who gave it to you.

And between the ten and the one, there are the three things told to R'Yochanan by a well-connected angel and three things told to R'Yehoshua ben Levi by the Angel of Death. Of the three, two are told to both of them and one differs. (The two that are common to both are: (1) "Do not take your shirt in the morning from the hand of the butler and get dressed" and (2) "Do not have your hands washed by someone who has not washed his own hands.")

The one that the two do not have in common is either the one rule regarding the ispargus cup or a strange and morbid warning.The former, presented immediately after the rule is stated, is probably meant to stand as a proof for the rule, but since it comes in the form of testimony from an angel, and falls only one folio before R'Yehoshua declares that "We pay no heed to Heavenly voices in resolving halachic issues," it is more likely a record of a playful exchange among inebriated scholars who are inventing wild variations in an halachic template. The latter, which doesn't mention the cup at all, probably was born even deeper in the cup than the former.

R'Yochanan's report discloses that the reason one must be sure to return the cup to its owner is "because tachsefis, which is a group of demons, or as others say it, istalganis, which is a group of angels of affliction, wait for a person and say, 'When will a person come to do one of these things and be ensnared?'" (51a).

According to R'Yehoshua ben Levi, the Angel of Death focuses on ensnarement, not the cup. In fact, as I noted previously, he does not mention the cup at all: "Do not stand in front of women when they are returning from a funeral, because I [i.e., the Angel of Death] dance and come before them with my sword in my hand and I have permission to harm those whom I meet."

I hope that I am not the only student of this text to find it marvelous in the sense that I find it to be full of marvelous and playful invention. What other than delight can one possibly derive from the dispute between Hillel and Shammai on whether or not it is forbidden to employ a waiter "who is an ignoramus." (52b). The Gemara says that Shammai holds that it is permitted, which is the halachah, but some wonder how this can be when they all have been taught that the halachah in these matters follows Hillel. According to R'Oshaya, however, the opinions were erroneously ascribed, and indeed it is Hillel who held according to the Halachah.

It must have been exceedingly difficult to be in the position of knowing who was right but having no definitive record of what their position was on the issues on which they were correct. It is even more sad to have to endure waiters whose training did not prepare them to answer the classic question of what the fly was doing in my soup.

Berachos 49-50

2005-04-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

Pull Up a Chair Next to the Fire

There is one story from the previous section that I meant to mention in my previous post. Actually, it is hardly a story at all. It is inserted as a prolog to a section in which we find teachings about Bircas HaMazon on 46a. The text begins "R'Zeira once took ill." Then R'Abahu refers to R'Zeira as "the small man of the singed thighs" in the context of planning a party to celebrate Zeira's recovery (a party where someone will have to break the bread and someone will have to recite Bircas).

Frankly, the question of whether the host or the honored guest should recite Bircas is not going to keep me awake at night. But I may never forget the bizarre story of Zeira's thighs. According to ArtScroll fn1, the story is in Bava Metzia (85a):

. . . every thirty days R'Zeira would seat himself in a burning oven to check whether he was vulnerable to fire, so as to determine whether the fire of Gehinnom would ultimately have an effect on him. Never was he harmed at all by the fire of the oven, except once, when his thighs were singed due to the influence of an evil eye . . .

I related this story to two fellows the other evening and their reaction was visceral. "I would never do such a thing!" one of them said indignantly. But I think we need to ask ourselves exactly what it was that R'Zeira was doing. It seems to me that the point of this story is that we should all regularly do a "reality check" to determine whether we remain on the path we have resolved to follow. And to discover that we have strayed would be no less painful than sitting in a burning oven, but to fail to discover it for a prolonged period would be even worse.

Remember Not to Forget

In a Gemara that offers remedies for one who neglected to add the Rosh Chodesh blessing to his Bircas, R'Zeira (the small man of the singed thighs) is taught that he should say a blessing that concludes, ". . . Who gave Rosh Chodesh to His people, Israel, for a remembrance." This much he remembers. But in a teaching about remembrance, it is most curious that he forgets everything else: whether "gladness" was mentioned in the blessing, whether or not it was concluded with a blessing clause, and whether the teaching came from the man he heard it from or from that man's teacher.

Food Fight!

On 50b two teachings are presented that are seemingly in opposition: one holds that just as we may not throw bread we may not throw other foods; one holds that even though we may not throw bread, we can throw other foods. As someone who strongly holds that the Three Stooges are among those who continued to transmit the Oral Torah during our lifetime, this question is a special concern. The Stooges, after all, were famous for throwing pies.

I was pleased to see the issue resolved as it was, with the final determination being that the teachings are in fact not in opposition and can be read as follows: just as we may not throw bread, which becomes repulsive when thrown, we may not throw other foods that become repulsive when thrown; other foods that do not become repulsive when thrown may be thrown. Since it is not the pie that becomes repulsive when thrown, but the face that is hit by it, pie throwing is permitted.

Berachos 44-48

2005-04-17T21:38:00.000-04:00

You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead

King Yannai and the Queen were eating bread together in the company of members of Yannai's court, and since Yannai had massacred the Rabbis, he did not have anyone to recite Bircas HaMazon for them . . . (48a).

The ostensible question in the Gemara is who may recite Bircas HaMazon following a meal. Should it, for example, be the best scholar or the most honored guest; must it be one who shared the meal; etc. Then, suddenly, the Gemara offers this case, in the court of a king who has apparently murdered all the rabbis and has no one to say Bircas. Does any other tradition dare to offer such morbid humor to draw strength from their exile?

Pass the Salt

But before we can bless the food (if we can find a living rabbi to facilitate the blessing), we need some idea of the hierarchy of foods so our blessings may be presented in the proper order. We got a "taste" of this in the previous entry, wherein Bar Kappara gave more weight to the cabbage than to the partridge, but in the subsequent pages we get a whole rabbinic theory of nutrition!

Rav said: Any meal without salt is not a meal. . . . R'Chiya bar Abba said in the name of R'Yochanan: Any meal without a soup is not a meal. (44a).

R'Yannai said in the name of Rebbi: Any food that is the size of an egg, an egg is better than it. Rav Dimi said: . . . except for meat. . . . The rabbis said: Woe to the house, i.e. belly, through which turnips pass. (44b).

Forget the Scarsdale Diet! The hell with Atkins! These guys worked it all out two thousand years ago! What do you do with food that is good for the teeth but bad for the intestines? Chew it and spit it out! (44a). What about food that is good for the digestion but bad for the teeth? Boil it until it is soft enough to swallow without chewing! (44b).

No Gentiles, Women, Slaves, or Minors Need Apply

As Passover approaches, many of us have reason to contemplate how we went from being slaves in the land of Egypt to freedom in the desert. Readers of this Talmud must, however, also come to terms with our role as slaveholders.

In a Mishnah on zimun (the blessing that a group of three or more would recite before Bircas), it says "If women, slaves or minors ate bread, we do not join in zimun on account of them." (45a). The Gemara (45b) goes on to suggest that the women and the slaves must not join together in zimun either, since "there is the possibility that the joint meal will lead to promiscuity." Rashi (fn2) further notes "It is similarly inappropriate for slaves to eat together with minors, as this could lead to homosexual activity."

Frankly, I am puzzled. In my fifty-plus years I have shared tables with many women and many gentiles and never once did it lead to promiscuity. (It occasionally led to indigestion, but one learns to adjust one's diet-- e.g., avoiding turnips.) For me the anticipation of such meals would sometimes lead to daydreams of promiscuity, but my "better" nature always prevailed at the meals themselves. Why is there no dissent in this text from these rulings?

The closest this text comes to redemption is in its consideration of the possibility that freeing a slave to create a minyan may be a mitzvah, but their ultimate ruling is so narrow that it clearly holds the Scriptural regulation of slavery as a higher obligation than a "private" mitzvah. (47b).

Who You Calling an Am Haaretz?

So, you shouldn't join in zimun with minors or women or slaves. According to the Mishnah, you can join with a Cuthean. However, the Gemara pleads, "Let the Cuthean be considered nothing other than an am haaretz." (47b). Which leads to a cascading list of the negative attributes of an am haaretz: he doesn't recite the Shema, he doesn't don tefillin, he doesn't have tzitis or a mezuzah on his door, he doesn't raise his sons to study Torah, etc.

Others say: Even if one read Scripture and studied Mishnah, but he did not serve Torah scholars, he is an am haaretz. Rav Huna said: The halachah follows the view of the Others. (47b).

The startling turnaround is buried in the footnote: "Tosafos note, however, that nowadays it is common practice to join in zimun with am haaretz . . . We, today, cannot consider ourselves Torah scholars to whom this rule applies." (fn 17). We, today, cannot see the purity of the text as the Sages did. We, today, are too far removed from the whispering down the generations that preserved this text orally. We, today, must depend on the written record and cannot hear the inflection of the voices of those who were taught the words outloud. We, today, all of us, are am haaretz.

Berachos 37-43

2005-04-12T18:47:00.000-04:00

The Not-So-Great Dictator

Rabban Gamliel has been under attack here (on the blog) and on 37a R'Akiva takes a shot at him, too. Gamliel held that one should recite the three blessings of Bircas HaMazon after eating any food from among the seven species praised in Deuteronomy 8:8, while his colleagues ruled that it was sufficient to recite the one-blessing abridgement of the three.

Rabban Gamliel gave R'Akiva permission to recite the blessing after eating. R'Akiva hastened to recite (without consulting Rabban Gamliel) the one-blessing abridgement of three, in keeping with the Sages' view and in contrast to that of Rabban Gamliel. Rabban Gamliel said to him in rebuke: Akiva! Until when will you continue to poke your head into a matter of dispute between me and my colleagues? R'Akiva said to him: Our Master, even though you say thus and your colleagues say thus, you have taught us, our Master, that in matters of dispute between an individual and a majority, the halachah accords with the majority.

Rabban Gamliel's opinion is subservient to his teaching; his disposition must take a back seat to his philosophy. The tyrant overthrows himself.

Conduct Unbecoming a Torah Scholar

Harry Frankfurt, moral philosopher and author of the bestselling book, On Bullshit, came up to me in the supermarket one Saturday morning and said to me with great delight, "You're shopping on Shabbas! I'm going to tell!"

"But Harry," I replied. "If you tell, then they'll know that you were shopping on Shabbas, too!"

"Yes," he nodded. "But they expect more of you!"

And so they do. And because they do, Torah scholars must live their lives so that not only are they beyond reproach but their appearance should not lead anyone to suspect otherwise.

Sometimes it seems that appearance is even more important than actual observance. For example, the ban against taking medicine on Shabbat (38a) is not enforced if "the onlooker could say that the person intends to ingest it for the purposes of eating." Eating is, after all, permitted. Appearance is here apparently more important than intent. (The problem is that intent is still the decisive factor in determining which blessing to recite, so a casual observer might still overhear the scholar reciting shehakol (for its therapeutic properties.)

Six things are unbecoming for a Torah scholar: He should not go out to the street perfumed; and he should not go outside alone at night; and he should not go outside with patched shoes; and he should not converse with a woman in the street; and he should not recline (i.e. dine) with a group of unlearned people; and he should not be the last to enter the study hall. And some say: He should also not walk with large strides. And he should not walk with an erect posture. (43b).

There are very "good" reasons for each of these prohibitions. For example, "It is unbecoming for a Torah scholar to converse with a woman in the street even if she is his wife, and even if she is his daughter, and even if she is his sister, because not everyone is familiar with the identity of his relatives." A Torah scholar has not only his own reputation to protect, but the reputation of the scroll that he studies. When Harry saw me shopping on Shabbas, he might as well have seen me conversing with my wife or taking long strides in the parking lot.

Being a Torah scholar must be very stressful. Perhaps I am better off being an Am Haaretz.

Bless My Cabbage . . . Or Not

One of Bar Kappara's disciples was mocked by his colleagues "for having recited the blessing on the partridge when he should have recited a blessing on the cabbage" (39a). Bar Kappara chewed out the mockers for not appreciating that their fellow student may indeed have never had partridge before and found it especially appealing, and he chewed out the one who recited the blessing for not consulting him, his teacher, before launching into a novel blessing. The study hall is a rough place and the teacher takes no prisoners.

When put on the spot, even a teacher may prevaricate to avoid embarrassment. Rav Papa suggested that Rava had taught something "to extricate himself from an embarrassing predicament" (43b). Do we dare wonder whether this was a common practice that often went undetected?

Urinetown

The Talmud often startles me by offering practical observations that are both timeless and earthy. One teaching of Rava bar Shmuel leads to several others, including: "Urine does not empty completely from the bladder unless one urinates while sitting" (40a). I found this one especially useful on the morning my wife asked me if there was any particular reason that I did not confine my flow to the bowl itself. I was able to quote Rashi from ArtScroll fn 16:

When one urinates while standing and the stream of urine begins to weaken and land progressively closer to him, he must be concerned that the droplets not bounce from the ground onto his feet. . . . Hence, he tends to arrest the flow prematurely, while the stream is still relatively strong . . .. If he urinates while sitting, however, the urine droplets do not bounce onto his feet; thus, he allows the bladder to empty completely.

Where else do you see stuff like this!

You Say You Want A Revolution

2005-04-09T13:34:00.000-04:00

The March 31 entry provoked a dialog that is far from over. I will summarize it here, but the full posts remain available, too.

Reed Chopper wrote, “It's easy to write Gamliel II off as a tyranical jerk . . . The true picture imho is more complex. . . . He just wanted to hold it together. If he hadn't, we wouldn't be here discussing what a jerk he was. When he was deposed, and Eleazar b. Azariah was elected, Gamliel showed up at the study hall to hear R' Eleazar's lectures.”

Mike responded, “In my view, what really held it together and got us here was that they had a procedure to depose tyrannical jerks and substitute people who could evolve and grow with the times.”

To which Reed Chopper replied, “We're not talking about some guy who wants things to continue forever the way they have been and opposes changes and reforms. So ‘holding it together’ has a different meaning here, and the analogy is not apt.”

This is rich stuff. Yes, the rabbis were reinventing Judaism, so they certainly can’t be called “conservative” in that context, but these rabbis were also building a fence around the Torah at the same time that other groups (including the Jews who eventually became known as Christians) were building new gates to it. Gamliel may have showed up at the study hall to hear R’Elazar’s lectures, but he wasn’t about to go study with Saul of Tarsus! Students of Talmud should be encouraged to read the “competition” and discuss it with the same fierce energy that the rabbis debated among themselves. The problem with an insular reading is it leads to the phenomenon described by Daniel Boyarin re Zionism as an “attempt to reduce real threats to Jews and Jewishness by concretizing in the present what has been a utopian symbol for the future.” He goes on, “Diasporized identities seem threatened ones, and one of the responses to such threats is separatism, an attempt at a social structure that re-aggregates the disaggregated, re-integrates the non-integral, by closing off the borders, by indeed attempting to prevent mixing, whether biological or cultural.” His conclusion leaves one foot in the tradition and one foot poised over the abyss: “I do not, and could not, given my hermeneutic theories, argue that it is a wrong reading or that there is a right reading that can be countered to it. I do argue, however, that it is not the only reading.”

In that spirit, it is possible to value both the vision and insularity of Gamliel; to appreciate his fearless contribution to reinvent the purpose of the Torah and also to criticize his insistence that the reinvention be frozen in his moment. As Mike never tires of reminding me, many revolutionaries have been reactionary once they assumed power.

Berachos 35-36

2005-04-05T16:40:00.000-04:00

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Chapter Six (35a) begins with a new question: “In what manner does one recite the blessing on fruits?” From this question, it is a brief transition to R’Akiva teaching that “It is forbidden for a person to taste anything before he recites a blessing.” The rabbis search for a Scriptural foundation for Akiva’s teaching, but their search is (pardon the pun) fruitless. They conclude, “This requirement is based on reason.” And, personally, I am relieved, because I don’t need a proof for a teaching that is simple common sense: I want to feel the blessing of every thing and every person that I encounter.

We are told that “whoever derives benefit from this world without first reciting a blessing has committed an act of me’illah” (unauthorized use of Temple property) and (even more grave) “is regarded as if he robs the Holy One, Blessed is He . . .” Passages like this often prompt Mike to ask why God would care. I tend to think of this sort of homily as externalizing our own need to be conscious of the benefits we derive as the day unfolds. On the other hand, I don’t know what to make of the suggestion on 36a that intent to use a substance as a remedy rather than for pleasure does not need a blessing. Which leads me to . . .

Fear and Loathing

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the Sixties. Uppers are going out of style. This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him.

. . . What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create . . . a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force-- is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.

---Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, pp 178-179.

The Levim “do not utter song except over wine”(35a) and the Gemara asks, “Now, if we indeed understand that wine gladdens men, in what way does it gladden God?” Well, surely not in the way that Timothy Leary was suggesting back in the sixties, but red wine, with its resemblance to blood and the power it has, the seeming infusion of life force that it provides, is responsible for a level of awe that is not dissimilar to that afforded LSD for a brief moment until that culture realized that there was no “force . . . tending that Light at the end of the tunnel” and turned to desensitizing downers that robbed rather than infused the life force. A 2ist Century reading of the ancient text must occasionally reflect on what has unfolded since the ancient text was committed to paper and add these words, too.

Berachos 30-34

2005-04-03T13:41:00.000-04:00

I Say A Little Prayer for You

Chapter Five of Tractate Berachos is concerned with how one should approach prayer. It opens with a Mishnah (30b) that prescribes an attitude of reverence, suggesting that even a question from a king should not deter one from completing his prayer and “even if a snake is coiled about his heel, he should not interrupt.” However, this is later qualified in Gemara on 30b, where it is clearly taught that one should never place his life at risk by ignoring the attention of an idolatrous king, and on 33a, where it says that “Even if the head of a bull is buried in its feeding basket, go up to the roof and remove the ladder from under you.” The snake is unlikely to strike if you continue to pray quietly but the bull can’t be trusted for a minute!

The text on levity that I cited in a previous post is also in this section, which teaches that we must temper “gaiety with seriousness”; that “in a place where there is rejoicing, there should also be trepidation” (30b). Unbridled hilarity would be an inappropriate stance for anyone who is mindful of the shortcomings of this world and believes they have any power to improve it. Rabbah may have appeared to be excessively cheerful, but he wore his tefillin (30b4). ArtScroll fn 15 says in part, “Some commentators explain that the very act of wearing tefillin has a sobering effect upon the individual.”

I Hear the Sound of Breaking Glass

Ravina smashed a precious plate to sadden a wedding party for his own son (31a) but we follow the custom of smashing a cheaper glass as Rav Ashi did at the wedding of his son. The Gemara doesn’t say so explicitly, but by placing these stories together, with Rav Ashi’s last, it is perhaps suggesting that only the act of smashing and not the value of the object is the trigger for reminding us to remain grounded. The text does suggest that the destruction of the Temple is a cause for mourning, but so is the fact that all the nations of the world do not kneel to our God.

I Hear You Knocking

Isaiah 1:11 caps a dispute on whether prayer is more effective than good deeds or sacrifices: “Why do I need your numerous sacrifies? And when you spread your hands in prayer I will hide from you.” Prayer per se does not make a difference: in the absence of an intimate relationship with God, a petitionary prayer is a cold thing. On 32b we are encouraged to feel deeply: “R’Elazar said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, the heavenly gates of prayer were locked and our prayers are not answered as readily as before, as it is stated: Though I would cry out and plead, He shut out my prayer [Lamentations 3:8]. But even though the gates of prayer have been locked, the gates of tears have not been locked . . .”

R’Chanina ben Dosa appears on folios 33 and 34, providing a clear role model for praying. On 33a he confronts a snake that would harm people and places himself in the snake’s path. When the snake bites him, it is the snake who dies (Woe to the man who is met by a snake but woe to the snake that is met by R’Chanina Ben Dosa!). ArtScroll fn 14 explains, “there are certain people . . . who attain such a level of righteousness and closeness to God that they are no longer subject to the natural law.” This is, no doubt, not intended literally.

However, R’Chanina’s sense of awareness is both simple and extraordinary at the same time: “They said about R’Chanina ben Dosa that he would pray for the sick and would then say: ‘This one will live and this one will die.’ Whereupon they said to him: ‘How do you know?’ He answered them: ‘If my prayer is fluent in my mouth then I know that it has been well received and the sick person will recover. But if it is not then I know that my prayer has been rejected.” (34b). The legend is offered that when he completed a prayer for the health of Rabban Gamliel’s son, who was some distance away, he said with certainty that his fever had lifted and it was later “verified” that the fever had indeed lifted at the exact moment when R’Chanina completed his prayer.

These tales prove nothing, but we would be diminished if we did not keep them.

Who Actually Believes this Stuff?

One of my high school English teachers once had the class spellbound as he told us of the time he went trout fishng with Ernest Hemingway. After he had gone on for about ten minutes, he laughed and said, “And you boys believe me!” Evidentally, he had fabricated the entire tale and I was puzzled for some time as to why he would do such a thing. And while I still suspect that he was a slightly crazy old coot, he did teach (perhaps deliberately) the power of a good story to become so deeply embedded that it is never forgotten.

Many such stories are preserved in our Talmud, and the comments on earlier posts to this blog debated what is signified by an aggadic “proof.” In this section, ArtScroll addresses this question: [Quoting Rashba’s Peirushei Aggados] “There are those who err and think that the Sages of blessed memory actually believed the meanings they assigned to the verses contained in their Aggadic teachings . . . to be the verses’ true meanings . . . Their intention was merely to use the words as allusions and prompts to the concept . . .” ArtScroll concludes “. . . the interpretations are merely rhetorical devices to promote recall of important and noble ideas.” (33b fn 27).

There are, however, commentators who believe that there is more here than mere rhetoric: “Maharal . . . maintains that while the primary meaning of the verses cited in Gemara such as ours is certainly the verses’ plain meaning, the verses also contain oddities in word choice and syntax to allude, on a secondary level, to the interpretation expounded by the Sages.” This reading suggests that the verse may not “prove” but it would “inspire,” and that the stories come to meet the verse in a deep place that is perhaps even ordained, making authorship secondary to the truth of the teaching, or making authorship a conduit for a primordial or divine communication. I’m getting balled up in words here, trying to communicate a sense that is beyond my language. I need a parable of my own devising to illustrate rather than explain it. I don’t have one.

Berachos 26b-29

2005-03-31T21:12:00.000-05:00

The Origin of Prayer

Was prayer instituted by the Patriarchs or the men of the Great Assembly? On 26b R'Yose the son of R'Chanina takes the former position while R'Yehoshua ben Levi takes the latter position. Apparently, there are those among the rabbis who are comfortable acknowledging that prayers replace the sacrificial system after the destruction of the Temple and those who need to put its origin at the very dawn of the Jewish people.

Rabbinic uncertainty about this, about the limits of leadership, and about the threat of Christianity all seem to bubble up in these pages.

If It Ain't Broke That Don't Mean It's Fixed

Is there a fixed time for the evening prayer? Is the evening prayer even compulsory? R'Yehoshua says it is elective and Rabban Gamliel says it is compulsory. Without resolving the question, the Gemara moves on to provide a story about these two guys (27b):

A student asked R'Yehoshua whether the evening prayer is elective or compulsory and he replied that it is elective. The same student then asked Rabban Gamliel (the head of the academy) the same question and he replied that it is compulsory. (One has to wonder why the student couldn't simply accept the first answer rather than asking them both. Was he seeking to stir up trouble?)

Then the student said to Rabban Gamliel, "But R'Yehoshua told me it is elective!" Gamliel told the student to ask him (that is, Gamliel) again when everyone was in the study hall, which he did. And Gamliel repeated his answer and then raised the question, "Is there anyone who disputes this ruling?" (This guy is cruising for a bruisng!) R'Yehoshua says no (according to ArtScroll fn 24 "out of respect for Rabban Gamliel . . . and to preserve the public concord") and Rabban Gamliel orders him to stand and forces him to confess that he did indeed rule the prayer elective rather than compulsory.

Rabban Gamliel resumed teaching. He was sitting and teaching and he never told R'Yehoshua that he could sit, so he had to remain standing. The other students became indignant and interrupted the lesson. They recalled other incidents when Rabban Gamliel had distressed R'Yehoshua and they resolved to depose him (though ArtScroll fn 30 suggests "the initial outburst at Rabban Gamliel's actions appears to have come from the people who had come to hear the lecture, not from the Sages themselves"). Apparently, Rabban Gamliel had often dealt harshly with others, too.

The Sages consider replacements for Rabban Gamliel: (1) R'Yehoshua, but he was personally involved; (2) R'Akiva, but he was a descendant of proselytes; (3) R'Elazar ben Azaryah, who "is wise, and he is wealthy, and he is the tenth generation from Ezra." Of course, they pick (3). The appointment is a huge success: the study hall must be enlarged to accomodate all the students who want to study with R'Elazar ben Azaryah!

Like R'Yehoshua, R'Elazar ben Azaryah's rulings are more temperate and lenient than Rabban Gamliel. And Rabban Gamliel comes to realize that he was too harsh and he comes to repent before R'Yehoshua, and the Sages see this and they are moved to restore him to his previous position. And they have a dilemma: "How shall we do this? Shall we remove R'Elazar ben Azaryah completely from office? We cannot do that, for we have a tradition that in matters of sanctity we elevate but we do not lower." (28a). They resolve that Rabban Gamliel will lecture three weeks and R'Elazar ben Azaryah one week.

This inside look at the politics of the Academy adds food for thought to our discussion in the previous section on who gets to chose which halachah to observe. It suggests that, in the long run, a harsh teacher will not be followed.

The Perils of Blessing Heretics

On the one hand, R'Eliezer teaches "One who makes his prayer fixed, his prayer is not a genuine supplication" (28b). On the other hand, R'Zeira confesses, "I am able to innovate in my prayer, but I am afraid to do so lest I become confused" (29b). Betwixt the two we have Shmuel Hakatan, who establishes a "blessing" against the heretics and then forgets it! (28b). And even though it is taught (29a) that "If the prayer leader erred in any of the prayer blessings, we do not remove him; however, if he erred in the blessing of the heretics, we remove him because we suspect that perhaps he is a heretic," because Shmuel HaKatan himself established the blessing, "there was no reason to suspect that he himself was a sectarian."

Are these heretics who may seduce our rabbis perhaps the followers of Jesus, who were still considered a Jewish sect as these teachings developed? Is it Christianity that makes R'Zeira wary of innovating his prayer even as he is aware that a "fixed" prayer is dead?

Baruch Dayan Ha-emet

Whenever Mel Schulman (pictured here) heard me speak of Talmud, he would come up to me afterwards and gently suggest that I should seek out a teacher. While I have been blessed to have many fine teachers, I think that Mel was suggesting in the kindest possible tone, that the lessons that I derived from these teachers were simply too unorthodox. May his memory be for a blessing and may I continue to hear him whisper in my ear to always have companions on this journey.

Berachos 21-26a

2005-03-27T12:04:00.000-05:00

How Do You Spell 'Relief'?

The Rabbis taught in a Baraisa: One who needs to relieve himself should not pray until he does so . . . Rav Zavid and some say it was Rav Yehudah, said: They did not teach that the prayer of one who needs to relieve himself is invalid except in regard to one who is unable to restrain himself. (23a)

Several folios explore the various ways that the body undermines the soul. Sneezing, drooling, pissing, farting, shitting-- a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. But it can distract one from more "elevated" concerns.

On 21b we meet the baal keri, one who has had a seminal emission, and we learn that Ezra forbids him to recite Torah. But let's face it: who among us can be confident that he is not a baal keri? I take a nap, I have a dream that I don't even remember, out pops my little am haaretz and makes a puddle that dries even before I awaken. It happens.

R'Yehudah permits a baal keri to study the laws of derech eretz (proper conduct), but no other parts of the Torah, Prophets, and writings, nor the Mishnah, Talmud, Halachach, or Aggadic teachings: "for the particular tumah he contracted was brought about through levity, inconsistent with the feeling of awe that Torah study demands."

Awe = good. Levity = bad. R'Zeira would not laugh on account of the prohibition cited in Berachos 31a that "it is forbidden to fill one's mouth with laughter in this world." ArtScroll cites Rashi's explanation that "R'Zeira was extra stringent in regard to this matter and would not smile at all."

With characteristic humorlessness, the ArtScroll footnote continues by assuring us (citing Ritva) that there is nothing wrong with smiling and that there are many recorded instances of Rabbis making humorous remarks, but "as a personal precaution . . . R'Zeira was careful not to laugh at all, so as not to come to forbidden laughter."

So, forewarned is forearmed: try not to laugh. Eschew smiling as needed. If you're a baal keri (and who isn't?), ponder the divide between the one who rules that "this and that are forbidden" and the one who rules that "this and that are permitted" (22a).

It was taught in a Baraisa: It once happened that someone propositioned a woman to commit an immoral act with her. She replied to him: "Boor! Do you have forty se'ah available to you in which you can immerse after your proposed tryst?" Upon hearing her words, he immediately discontinued his attempt to seduce her, and refrained from committing the sin.

Can you resist smiling in the presence of such tales? Do you wonder if this woman was a Torah scholar? Do you buy the idea that the man would find the reminder that he did not have the water needed to ritually purify himself a sufficient impediment to discontinue his attempt to seduce her? And last but not least, wherever would he put his tefillin while he was ravishing her?

Respect My Tefillin!

An incident occurred with one student who placed his tefillin in the holes that were towards the public domain, and a certain harlot came by and took them, and she came to the study hall and said: Look what so-and-so gave me as my payment. When this student heard this, he went up to the roof and fell off it and died. At that time they instituted the rule that one should hold the tefillin in his garment and in his hand and enter the latrine with them. (23a)

Ultimately, "whatever is done to protect them from loss is more worthwhile than preserving them from disrespect" (24a).

Sneezing and Farting

One who sneezes during his prayer, it is an evil omen for him. (24b)

Of course, we sneeze all the time! I dare say we sneeze a hundred times for every seminal emission. Well, actually, the Gemara explains, this "refers to a 'sneeze' from below, i.e. to gas passed noisily from the rectum." Humorlessly, ArtScroll fn 14 on 24b explains,

The reason passing wind during Shemoneh Esri is an evil omen is because the sound that accompanies the wind alerts others to his act, and he is thereby humiliated. This humiliation before others is an evil omen, for it indicates that this individual is not well regarded in Heaven.

Hey Reed Chopper! Is ArtScroll pulling my leg (or my finger)?

The Bottom Line

These folios lay down rules for parts of the body that will not be governed. I was curious to see what the most famous physician/rabbi had to say about this, so I consulted Maimonides.

Maimonides wrote,

The Jewish people accepted the custom of reading the Torah and reciting the Shema even after a seminal emission because the words of Torah cannot contract ritual impurity. . . . They stand in their state of purity forever, as Jeremiah 23:29 states: Just as fire is incapable of becoming ritually impure, so, too, the words of Torah are never defiled.

So, the decree to forbid a man who has had a seminal emission from reading Torah is rejected because the people are unable to maintain it. Such a decree is never really accepted as law.

I specifically want to encourage comments on what decrees we can and cannot accept, and what we make of the notion that a decree that cannot be maintained cannot be the law and how that would play out.

One Last Thing

This section is clearly an early source for Jewish notions of body image that survive to this day, most obviously in traditionally observant communities. It is here (24a) that we find that one may not gaze on a woman "with intent to enjoy her" and that her hair and her voice are both equivalent to "her nakedness." And since men cannot be trusted to restrain their impulses, women are denied the right to be themselves.

Berachos 18-20

2005-03-20T18:58:00.000-05:00

When the Body Lies Before You

The Mishnah continues to specify circumstances when one is exempt from reciting the Shema. Beginning on 17b, we have the obligations (and exemptions) of participants in a funeral procession, which naturally leads to a discussion of other mitzvos that may be set aside for the sake of burying a corpse. Since contact with a corpse may result in a state of ritual contamination that would preclude participating in some prayers and other mitzvot, this leads to a discussion of other states of contamination and how they would affect one's obligation to recite the Shema.

As a nonobservant Jew, I am much more interested in the collateral issues that emerge from this discussion, especially rabbinic notions of the dignity of a corpse and its awareness of events in this world . . . and the next. And, by extension our awareness of events in this world and the next.

Wordplay abounds in this section. It is noteworthy, for example, that the exemption from reciting the Shema when there is a body before you applies both to one who is literally in the presence of a corpse and also to the close relative of the unburied corpse ("as long as he is responsible to bury the body it is as if it lies before him"). For the former, the exemption comes from the prohibition against mocking a pauper ("one who mocks a pauper blasphemes his Maker"): reciting the Shema in the presence of a corpse, which is incapable of reciting the Shema, "mocks" the corpse. For the latter, the obligation to bury supercedes all other obligations, creating an exemption because of the urgency that marks this task as having primacy over all other competing obligations.

The ideal code of conduct described herein does, however, have its own exceptions. On the practical level, if one is being pursued by gentiles or bandits, one is permitted to flee, riding a donkey "while sitting astride the bones." And as for not mocking a pauper, R'Yitzchak (19a) said,

If anyone disparages a dead person it is as if he disparaged a stone.
. . . Some say that this is because the dead do not know what is said about them while others say that they do know but they do not care.

The gemara also suggests that the terms "living" and "dead" may have a spiritual connotation, with the righteous "who even after their death are yet called living" (18a) and the wicked "who even in their lifetime are called dead" (18b). Thus, our text takes multiple and contradictory positions on what it means to be alive and dead and what it means to attend to a corpse. Its purpose is apparently to catalog related teachings, not to declare any one approach to be the authoritative rabbinic position.

I Hear Dead People

R'Yitzchak (the same R'Titzchak who compared the dead to stones?) says that "The worm is as painful to the dead as a needle to living flesh." Rather than dwelling on this incredibly disturbing notion, the gemara accepts it but wonders if the dead are aware of the pain of others or of the affairs of the world.

This leads to a story about "a certain pious man" who got such grief from his wife when he gave a coin to a poor man on the eve of Rosh Hashanah that he went to spend the night in the cemetery. There he overheard the spirits of two children, one of whom suggests that they roam the world "and hear from behind the curtain what misfortune is to come to the world this year." The other is reluctant to go because she is ashamed of the condition of her shroud and encourages her friend to go alone and come back with the news from the other side. When she returns she reports that crops planted at the first rain will be destroyed by hail. The pious man overhears this and waits until the second rain to plant his crops, and his crops prosper when everyone else's are destroyed. The next year he goes again to the cemetery and again hears these two spirits. Again, one is reluctant to go so the other goes without her and this time reports that those who plant at the second rain "will be blasted by a dry wind." The pious man overhears this and plants at the first rain and his crops are not blasted. After these two years of agricultural success, his wife becomes curious as to how her husband has suddenly become such a good farmer and he tells her about the spirits. A few days later the wife gets into an argument with the mother of the spirit whose shroud was tattered and alludes to her daughter to humble the mother. The next year when the man returns to the cemetery and the spirits again talk of seeking word from the other side, the one who had the tattered shroud replies to her friend, "Leave me be! The words that we spoke between ourselves in years past have already been heard among the living."

The gemara suggests that this story proves that the dead know what is spoken by the living, but it rejects this as a proof since it is also possible that someone died in the course of the year and told them about the quarrel. However, the gemara does not question the underlying premise of the story (dead people are aware of something), even though it has also presented R'Yitzchak's teaching that the dead are like stones. As my reed chopper suggested, aggadic material is not seriously meant to prove anything, but it does seem to me that in a system where scripture is forced to justify practice, and the tone offers no clue as to whether or not the intention is serious, this distinction is a technicality at most.

A Deeper Sense of Loss

The question that follows is especially poignant:

Rav Pappa said to Abaye: What was different about earlier generations, for whom miracles occurred, and what is different about us, for whom miracles do not occur?

It seems like there is a terribly modern question buried here: the question being something like, how is it that earlier generations could believe in miracles when we cannot? Perhaps the "enlightenment" was not a one-time-only historical occurrence, but a recurrence that made a breach between this and that every few generations.

Berachos 14-17

2005-03-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

Not That There's Anything Wrong With It

I am occasionally tickled to discover turns of phrase in the Talmud that I first encountered in modern contexts, especially if their modern use struck me as novel when I first encountered it. Of course, to suggest that a turn of phrase from an ancient language, translated into english, can be directly related to its modern english usage is a bit of a stretch, but the translation is often conceptual and reflecting of a unique construction, so it may be blatently unscholarly, but it isn't beyond the beyond, especially when it can be used to amplify the meaning of the ancient text for a modern reader.

One such turn of phrase is used twice on 14a in pretty much the same way that Seinfeld employed it in an unforgettable treatment of homosexuality. As you surely recall if you ever saw the Seinfeld episode, all allusions to homosexuality are hastily followed by the phrase "not that there's anything wrong with it." On 14a two acts that have the appearance of impropriety are declared permitted followed by the phrase (as translated in the ArtScroll edition) "and there is nothing wrong with that." The two acts are (1) interrupting recitation of the Shema to greet one's teacher and (2) tasting food that one is preparing while fasting (provided one then spits it out). It strikes me that in both the modern and the ancient text the intent is the same: to acknowledge that an act may appear to be inappropriate but to declare that it is not improper after all. In the ancient context, where appearances are often the driving force behind regulation of behavior, it stands out as a stark contradiction to most of the text that surrounds it.

Three Things That Are Never Satisfied

Proverbs 30:15-16 states, "There are three things that are never satisfied . . . the grave, the narrow part of the womb, and the earth that is not sated with water."

On 15b R'Tavi takes this piece of Scripture to be a prooftext as follows:

If the womb, which takes in the sperm in silence, subsequently sends forth the baby in great clamor, then is it not evident that the grave, which takes the corpse amidst great clamor, will eventually bring it forth amidst great clamor? From here is a refutation to those who say that there is no allusion to the resurrection of the dead in the written Torah.

It seems to me to be a grave error (excuse the pun) to attempt, as R'Tavi does, to construct a logical argument from an aphorism. It is one thing to derive a law from a similarly constructed law, but to attempt to prove the resurrection of the dead from a metaphor is far from satisfying. Also, if I remember correctly, this is not among the proofs considered in Tractate Sanhedrin, where proving resurrection and the place of Israel in the world to come are central issues.

Marrying Virgins

On 16a the Mishnah returns to the groom who marries a virgin, declaring he "is exempt from the Shema recital from the first night of his marriage until the departure of the Sabbath if he did not yet perform the act of intercourse." Even so, Rabban Gamliel is reported to have recited the Shema on his wedding night. And later, to have washed his hands in warm water on the evening his wife died. Both these departures from the recommended marrying and mourning processes suggest a scholar who is not especially attached to his wife. We are cautioned not to emulate this man, lest we seem to be haughty. (On 17b the groom who recites the Shema and the person who abstains from labor on Tisha B'Av are each examined against the local custom to determine if they appear to be haughty.)

Is it significant that the first teachings offered in the gemara following this mishnah are Rav Mari's, when Rav Mari was conceived through an act of rape committed by a gentile who surely did not recite the Shema before performing the act of intercourse?

The text on 16b asks, "why . . . single out one who is marrying a virgin? . . . Even one who is marrying a widow . . ." but goes on to suggest that only with a virgin is a man "preoccupied with preparing for cohabitation." Well, as Mike pointed out, this is all the text you need to suspect that these guys didn't understand human nature at all! And what if the man is a virgin? Would it matter whether his bride was a widow or not? And if it did matter, might he be more intimidated knowing that she had the experience of another man to compare with him? Who is not preoccupied with preparing for cohabitation the first time with every partner?

The Wages of Workers

The text asks whether the intent of a worker reciting the Shema is important, and it makes a distinction between workers who work only for their meals and workers who work for a wage (16a). A wage earner may remain engaged in their work while reciting the Shema, while one who works for his meals should pause. Does this imply that a wage earner who pauses in his work is stealing from his employer and that this is a more serious infraction than to recite the Shema with less than full attention?

Slaves and Donkeys

The loss of a slave should not be mourned as the loss of a family member, but as if it was his donkey that had died (16b). There is a zero-sum game going on here just like the competition for Isaac's blessing: R'Yose is asked, if you praise a slave, "what have you left to be said about worthy Jews?" Is it not possible that there are some slaves whose merit outshines my own?

Special Prayers

The particular prayers offered by different rabbis following the Shemoneh Esrei are quoted on 17. They are prayers for protection or wisdom or any number of other things and provide a rich tapestry of the aspects of life that were esteemed by scholars of different temperaments. I could imagine spending several weeks comparing and contrasting these prayers. I can't imagine doing that now without falling very far behind in the reading schedule.

Berachos 12-14

2005-03-14T18:33:00.000-05:00

Before moving ahead I have some unfinished business with Berachos 11a, where it is related that R'Tarfon was on the road when it came time to recite the evening Shema and he lay down (per Beis Shammai), acknowledging later that "I thereby endangered myself because of the bandits who might have attacked me as I lay there!"

The Sages said to him: It would indeed have been fitting for you to have come to harm. For by deliberately lying down for the Shema, you transgressed upon the words of Beis Hillel! We thus see that one who follows Beis Shammai in this matter is deserving of death.

This passage has been gnawing at me since I read it last Friday. What happened to the notion that both these and those are the words of the one true God? This dismissal of Shammai's followers as "deserving of death" must surely be restricted to the specific case of those who put themselves in danger to observe a stringent interpretation of the law when a lenient one is available. Am I forcing this text to be more wise than it actually is?

It is not a problem restricted to the one passage. A similar caution is echoed on 14b where Rav recites the Shema before donning tefillin. The gemara explains that he does this because his servant is late delivering the tefillin, but goes on to cite Ulla, who said, "Regarding anyone who performs the recital of the Shema without wearing tefillin, it is as if he utters false testimony upon himself."

In talking with Mike about these last few folios, I had to listen to him ask over and over, why would God care how we stand and the order with which we say the words? Why would God care what we wear? Why would God be interested in our prayers at all? These are impossible questions and they force me to acknowledge the strangeness of the text. The prayers are for the peace of mind of the petitioner, and the discipline to frame them in a manner that would please the rabbis is part of a pre-modern therapy for alleviating distress.

Such postmodern drashes will surely not satisfy most modern readers. Even for me, they serve only as a possible explanation for the role the text may have played at one time in the communities that studied it, but it is not a justification for following it in the present.

These folios contain much of the explanation for the order of the prayers that follow the Shema in the sense that they explain the order of a traditional service, but they provide no more than an exegetical attempt to justify a construction that is clearly a rabbinic invention to fill the void created by the destruction of the Second Temple.

Is there also ambivalence behind such questions as those on 13 and 14 as to whether one must be focussing on the recitation or one may permit one's mind to wander; whether the recitation must be in Hebrew or it may be recited in any language; whether there are moments during the recitation when one may pause to greet one's friend or teacher and/or inquire about their health?

Consider this teaching from 13b:

Rav Nachman said to his servant Daru: If you see me dozing off while reciting the first verse of the Shema, discomfort me so that I become totally conscious and alert. For more than that (i.e. for the rest of the Shema) do not discomfort me.

These sorts of things conjure up an image of a synagogue very much like the one down the street-- full of grumpy, distracted, and rumpled souls who may at any moment doze off or interrupt their prayers to gossip with their neighbor. Not everything that stands the test of time is noble; even the mundane has a crack at immortality!

Berachos 10-11

2005-03-12T11:30:00.000-05:00

There were certain boors in R'Meir's neighborhood and they caused R'Meir considerable distress. Once R'Meir was praying for mercy regarding them, so that they would die. (Berachos 10a).

These so-called boors (am haaretz) are the first common people to be mentioned in the Talmud. And R'Meir's outrageous prayer that they should stop aggravating him and just die is the cue for the entrance of something that is more scarce in these pages than boors: a female teacher.

R'Meir, who is often the antagonist whose arguments are overruled by the majority, is married to Beruria, the only woman that the Talmud credits as equal in learning to the rabbis. And she persuades R'Meir to amend his prayer to pray instead for the end of the Evil Inclination ("for mercy regarding these boors"). This prayer is successful and "they indeed repented of their wickedness."

Prayer is the subject throughout these two folios-- how to frame one; which prayers to associate with the Shema; when the answer depends on one's own merit; the posture to take when praying; (and on 12) one's state of mind. And the teachings are often similar to the one above in providing models for both ineffective and effective forms of petitioning. The former are most likely to demonstrate what we would be inclined to do if we didn't stop to reflect, while the latter encourage self-awareness and humility (or at least a capacity for embarrassment).

The path through these pages is somewhat convoluted and includes a few interesting threads that deserve more sustained analysis than this blogger can offer, but I will mention them in passing and hope that some reader will take up my invitation to comment and thereby widen the discussion.

The Women of Berachos 10

Starting with Beruria, the text makes several allusions to the feminine aspects of phenomena. For example, regarding Isaiah 54:1 (Sing out, O barren one who has not given birth), a "heretical" female asks Beruria how one can sing because she has not given birth:

But surely barrenness is cause only for sadness, not for rejoicing!

Beruria teaches that Jerusalem is barren only of "ill-fated progeny," thus explaining the cause for rejoicing in a dialogue between two women about the fertility of a "female" city.

In a subsequent passage on the same folio, the gemara seeks the ruach hakodesh (a feminine form signifying inspiration) of King David. The text suggests that David had dwelt in five worlds, two of which were explicitly feminine-- his mother's womb and at his mother's breast.

Free associating from David's five worlds, we are given five verses that David used to describe Godly attributes, which leads the gemara to inquire whose honor is greater: a king's (since David's teachings are preserved here) or a prophet's (since Isaiah's teachings preceded David's on this folio).

The story that responds to this question concerns a king (Chizkiyahu) and a prophet (Isaiah again). In this story, neither will visit the other because each thought his honor was higher than the other's and it was thus inappropriate that he should make the first move. Here the gemara introduces yet another question,

Who knows how to make a compromise (pesharah) between two righteous people?

The answer (of course) is that God alone could craft such a compromise-- and does:

What did the Holy One do? He brought afflictions upon Chizkiyahu, and He said to Isaiah: "Go and visit the sick one." Thus did God bring these two together.

Once at his sick bed, Isaiah teaches Chizkiyahu that his illness is an admonishment for failing to marry and procreate, yet again returning the focus of the text to the interdependence of men and women.

On 10b, women again are credited with a special power. It is the Shunamite woman who recognizes Elisha's holiness and leads the gemara to conclude,

From her we see that a woman recognizes the qualities inherent in her guests more readily than a man does.

The Book of Remedies

The story of Chizkiyahu (see above) includes his recovery from critical illness, which it attributes to the acceptance of his prayer. In his prayer, he is said to have included Isaiah 38:3

Remember now the manner in which I have walked before You truthfully and wholeheartedly: I have done that which is good in your eyes.

The rabbis offer several possible reasons that his prayer was accepted in response to the question, what did Chizkiyahu do that was good in the eyes of God? R'Levi suggested said "He means that he hid the Book of Remedies."

Footnote 13 in ArtScroll explains,

The Book of Remedies contained instructions regarding the natural healing properties of all the various herbs and grasses in existence . . . Those who were ill relied upon these natural remedies, and refrained from appealing to God for healing. Chizkiyahu therefore hid the book, so that the ill would be compelled to throw themselves on God's mercy . . .

The footnote goes on to cite an alternate theory that the book was actually not science but astrology.

When I read this footnote, I regarded it merely as an interesting sidebar re the tension between science and religion, and recognized that such thinking could very well be the basis of such "modern" phenomena as Christian Science, but did not give it a lot of thought. My study partner, however, had a much more vehement reaction, seeing it as at the root of all fanaticism and fundamentalism. He demanded to know why God would provide healing herbs at all if he didn't want us to use them?

Hillel and Shammai

Together again for the first time, the schools of Hillel and Shammai enter the discussion late on 10b and stick around for quite a bit of 11. Their dispute revolves around the verse commanding us to recite the Shema "when you lie down and when you arise." Shammai, who is usually the stricter of the two, interprets the verse to mean that one must say the evening Shema lying down and the morning Shema standing. Hillel, on the other hand, understands the verse to simply establish when to say the Shema, not the position to assume in the recitation.

The Mishnah favors Hillel, as it usually does. R'Tarfon is even quoted to undermine Shammai's position as being not simply wrong but dangerous:

I was once coming on the road, and when the time for the evening Shema arrived, I deliberately lay down to recite it, in accordance with the words of Beis Shammai, and I thereby endangered myself on account of the bandits, who might have attacked me while I lay there.

The gemara eventually (11a) goes even further to suggest that one who follows Shammai in this matter is "deserving of death." (Would Beruria suggest we amend this extreme position and encourage us to pray that such people come to repent?)

And even though Hillel would not restrict us from saying the Shema lying or standing, the gemara does offer a case where our posture would matter:

There was once an incident with R'Yishmael and R'Elazar ben Azaryah, in which they were resting at a certain place at night, and R'Yishmael was lying down, while R'Elazar ben Azaryah was erect. When the time to recite the evening Shema arrived, R'Elazar lay down in accordance with Beis Shammai's ruling, but R'Yishmael immediately straightened up. R'Elazar ben Azaryah thereupon said to R'Yishmael: Yishmael, my brother, I will give you an example to which your action may be compared. The comparison is to one to whom people say in praise: "Your beard is beautifully full," but who replies to them in spite: "Let it then be given to the destroyers!" So too you. All the while that I was erect, you were lying down. But now, when I have lain down, you have straightened up! When I paid you the compliment of emulating you, you immediately changed your position! R'Yishmael said to him: I by being erect performed the mitzvah in accordance with the words of Beis Hillel, whose view is followed in halachah, but you by lying down performed it in accordance with the words of Beis Shammai! And not only that, but I feared that the students might see us both lying down, and might on that basis establish Beis Shammai's ruling as the halachah for generations. I therefore straightened up, so as to counteract the erroneous impression.

This passage strikes me as an especially rich example of the potential our text has to embody a comedy of manners. Even more low brow humor may be derived from the cases cited to support the teaching that one occupied with a mitzvah is exempt from recitation of the Shema. Apparently, the groom of a virgin is exempt, but the groom of a widow is not. I asked a certain reed chopper (you know who you are!) why the widow's groom was not exempt and he replied "Patience! The Talmud will ask the same question, and the answer is on 16B (discussion begins bottom of 16A)." It is indeed difficult to get a good overview perched this close to the ground!

Berachos 7-9

2005-03-10T01:49:00.000-05:00

A self-described member of "the peanut gallery" wrote,

One peep from the peanut gallery (which was probably covered in the ArtScroll commentary and/or which you likely long ago figured out yourself) is that themes of the night and the dawn in the Talmud always also allude to the exile and the redemption.

Sadly, no. In the earlier folios I did not pick up on this theme and I did not see it explicitly expressed in ArtScroll's commentary, but before the gemara on the first mishnah ends, I have since seen the boundaries and overlaps of day and night explicitly linked to escape from Egypt (redemption from Egypt happened at night and departure from Egypt happened by day) and Egypt explicitly described as the first exile:

The Holy One Blessed is He, said to Moses, "Go and say to Israel, 'I was with them in this subjugation in Egypt, and I shall be with them at the time of their subjugation at the hands of other kingdoms." Moses, assuming that God wanted him to repeat this entire message to the Children of Israel, said before God, "Master of the universe! It is enough for an affliction to be dealt with at the time it actually arrives. Why should I cause them worry now by mentioning a later trouble?"

With hindsight, Moses forestalls foreshadowing!

I'm listening to music as I write this, and I just realized the irony that the music I am listening to is the funeral of Akhnaten from Philip Glass's opera about the Egyptian Pharoah who was the first to conceive of an abstract god. The irony is even more attenuated by the realization that the first glimpses of God in Berachos are anything but abstract: from the Tefillin that God dons on 6a, this is far from a mystical conception of deity. On 7a, God prays and ArtScroll's footnote 2 quotes Ben Yehoyada:

What need is there for this prayer? He is uttering the prayer to Himself!

Perhaps, as R'Saadia Gaon suggests,

The Gemara doesn't mean that God prays, but rather that God demonstrates how we should pray.

Folio 8a tells us where to pray, and ArtScroll fn 17 that "Truancy from the synagogue is punished with exile"-- a double exile, if you will, since the synagogue itself is a place of refuge during our exile from the Temple.

Alas, exile can also be a psychological condition. Consider R'Yehoshua ben Levi's instructions to his sons on 8b:

Be careful with the honor of an elderly scholar who has involuntarily forgotten his Torah learning, for we say that the second set of Tablets and the broken pieces of the first Tablet both rest in the Ark.

To involuntarily lose one's learning is the most acute of all exiles. I cannot read this teaching without reflecting on my stepmother Sarah, who cared for her husband Sam long after he involuntarily forgot his Torah. When I walked into their apartment wearing a t-shirt with Hebrew text on it, Sam came alive and said, "I used to know Hebrew!" This was at a time when Sarah was changing Sam's diapers several times a day-- taking care to honor the elderly scholar who had involuntarily forgotten his Torah learning. She did not need to study this text to know what it had to teach; she derived it from logic. "After all," she would say, "didn't he change enough diapers in his life? I can do this for him."

The First Five Days: Berachos, 2-6

2005-03-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

From when may we fulfill the obligation to recite the Shema in the evenings?

When Rabban Gamliel's sons come home from a banquet after midnight (2a), they are most likely drunk. Yet Rabban Gamliel affirms that they are obligated to recite the Shema. Does he assume that it has a sobering effect?

Skipping ahead two folios, we see that Rabban Gamliel understands that the Shema could be recited any time during the night but that the rabbis generally put the time for reciting the evening Shema only until midnight "for the purpose of distancing a person from sin." Isn't it precisely because of sons like Rabban Gamliel's that the rabbis erected such a "fence"?

How does this sugya define the boundaries between day and night? On 2b we have competing definitions: does the evening begin when the Kohanim can begin eating Terumah or when the poor person sits down for his evening meal? In either case, in practical terms, doesn't the definition appear to be dependent on when the workday ends? Is the critical question whether we measure the workday according to the most privileged or the most common?

The absence of clocks makes the task of differentiating day from night a real challenge. On 3a the Gemara suggests common signs that may provide clues that night has ended:

Once a woman begins speaking with her husband and a child begins nursing from its mother's breasts, let him arise and recite the Shema, for the night has ended.

On 3b and 4a the Gemara questions whether Biblical figures were able to determine the time by extraordinary means. For example, David would be awakened at midnight when a harp suspended over his bed would vibrate from a Divine breeze. Moses, who knew the exact moment when it was midnight, nevertheless spoke to Pharoah of events that would occur "about midnight."

Moses thought that Pharaoh's astrologers might err in their calculation of the precise midpoint of the night and say: "Moses is a liar."

The Gemara follows this example with a teaching that Mike Rappeport singled out as particularly troubling:

Teach your tongue to say "I do not know," lest you be caught in a falsehood.

When should we hesitate to say something when we are certain of its accuracy?

If it comes to the time to recite the Shema and one is far from home, one must not put oneself in danger in order to pray (3a). Rather, one should say an abridged prayer by the side of the road. The danger of being out and about in a world that is predominantly not Jewish is a strong subtext in this image of the vulnerable traveller. It arises again on 5a and 5b in the discussion of "afflictions of love"-- the suffering that is visited upon each of us to ensure that we will remain mindful to vigilantly observe the mitzvot. Can a modern reader see beauty in this image of human frailty or get stuck on the fearful superstition that is clearly present? Can the concept of "afflictions of love" have any standing in a post-Holocaust world?

There is in fact a poignant metaphor in the cases on 5b where rabbis's sufferings are relieved when they accept help from other rabbis, teaching:

A captive cannot release himself from prison. He needs help from someone outside.

Even so, in this Gemara that insists that all suffering is earned, the text (5b) has the courage to inquire whether there are afflictions that cannot be "afflictions of love," and to suggest that there are two: (1) tzaraas and (2) "deprivation of children." The latter must mean something more narrow than one might glean from a surface reading, since 5a has already stated:

Whoever engages in studying Torah and in bestowing kindness, and buries his sons, is forgiven for all his sins.

That which serves no purpose, that which does not fall within the definition of an "affliction of love," is on 5b "one who did not have children at all." But I must say again that the spectre of the holocaust suggests that such pilpul can no longer stand.

The use of Scriptural passages to establish the law or to settle a dispute will take many forms. We get our first strong hint of this on 4b, where R'Yochanan and R'Yehoshua disagree, but the text cannot establish whether they disagree over the interpretation of a verse or their disagreement is based on a rational argument. Such distinctions in such an ancient text are exhilerating to discover!

A major topic introduced in these first folios is how to "refrain from sinning." On 5a we learn that reminding oneself of the day of his or her death is an effective strategy but should only be used when all else fails (from ArtScroll fn 8):

By reminding himself that upon death he must face the Heavenly court and give an account for all his actions, he will surely refrain from sinning (Iyun Yaakov; cf Maharsha). This last strategy (of reflecting on death) has a detrimental side effect-- it can lead to sadness and depression. The Gemara therefore suggests this course only as a last resort. (Iyun Yaakov).

Torah study should usually be sufficient defense against sin.

On 6a and 6b the text seeks to delineate how to ensure that one's prayers will be heard. This includes an extended consideration of where the individual stands in the universe. Is it necessary to be in a synagogue for one's prayers to be heard? Must one stand in a particular place? Must one stay on until one's companion has completed his prayer? This leads to larger questions (6b): Was the entire world created for the sake of one person (R'Elazar)? Is the entire world equal in importance to the individual (Abba bar Kahana)? Or was the world created solely as an accompaniment for this person (R'Shimon ben Azai or-- some say-- R'Shimon ben Zoma)?

Origin of Daf Yomi

2005-03-06T12:37:00.000-05:00

The daf yomi was begun by Rabbi Meir Shapiro in 1923 (Rosh Hashana 5684). The cycle that began this week is the twelfth daf yomi cycle of daily study of one folio of the Babylonian Talmud.

I learned the abovementioned facts from a monthly newsletter called The Wein Press, published by Rabbi Berel Wein, which was passed on to me by Ron Schnur. Rabbi Wein's tribute to Rabbi Shapiro is notable for its narrative effects. This modern secular reader finds similarities in Rabbi Wein's prose to the ancient text we are studying: a propensity to drive home points by pronounced idealization:

Because of his unusual gifts of memory and understanding, the child Meir was already known for his genius. He was also a student of tremendous diligence. He had great intellectual curiosity, teaching himself astronomy and mathematics and soon developed into a great Torah scholar of note at a very young age.

This passage takes me back to my childhood, when all the parents that surrounded me praised the scholarship and career prospects of the little lumps of clay they were raising. We, however, continue to aspire, while Rabbi Shapiro went on to achieve:

In Tarnopol, Rabbi Meir wrote a Torah commentary in a pilpulistic style, called Imrei Daas. Even though the book was a work of innovation and genius, it never gained distribution due to the fact that almost all of the printed copies, together with Rabbi Meir's great private library, were destroyed in the First World War by Russian shellfire. The only remaining two copies were buried with Rabbi Meir Shapiro in his grave.

I asked Rabbi David Silverman what could possibly have led to the burial of the only copies of such a legendary work of genius and he replied that it was not unusual for rabbinic scholars to insert provisions in their wills to dispose of their papers. It was traditionally viewed as a profound act of humility, but it strikes me more as riven with shame and self-doubt. Of course, we will never know the motives that apply in any one case. But doesn't it bring to mind the situation of Kafka, who also ordered his works to be burned? What if Rabbi Shapiro had had a friend like Kafka's Max Brod!

Rabbi Wein wrote that

It is no exaggeration to say that . . . the daf hayomi is [Rabbi Shapiro's] lasting legacy to the Jewish people.

But it is also no exaggeration that writers who employ Rabbi Wein's mode of hagiography must be taken with a grain of salt. And his effusive praise of Rabbi Shapiro's accomplishments goes unintentionally over the top when he describes the Yeshiva that Rabbi Shapiro built in Lublin:

He called his yeshiva "Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin" and after protracted delays and financial difficulties, the great and imposing building, containing among other treaures a full-scale model of the Second Temple . . .

Size does matter, and a full-scale model would be difficult to install in any building!

Also, it is a remarkably tidy life:

. . . in September 1933 he had a premonition of impending sickness and arranged for a life insurance policy on himself for $30,000 with the yeshiva as its beneficiary. In October 1933 he fell ill with a viral type of pneumonia and on 7 Cheshvan, 5694 he died at the age of only forty-six. *

Thus, even in death, he provided for his community. The details are both concrete and incredible, as is so much in the text that this blog will be describing. We are and have apparently always been a people who can conjure up vivid examples to support our hopes and idealizations. May we remain so for many more thousands of years!

________________________________________
*Rabbi Wein's account is perhaps contradicted by Carolyn Slutsky in the Jewish Exponent (March 10, 2005), where 'Shapiro' is 'Shapira' and there is no mention of an insurance policy, but there is mention of financial challenges:

Shapira died in 1933. His death led to financial problems and infighting at the yeshiva. As World War II started in 1939, the yeshiva closed. Many of the students and teachers were killed by the Nazis, and much of the library went up in flames.
FN ADDED 3/14/05.

The Talmud Begins

2005-03-05T18:40:00.000-05:00

The Talmud cannot really be said to have a beginning or an end. As Michael Katz & Gershon Schwartz note in the prologue to their book, "Swimming in the Sea of Talmud,"

The Talmud is compared to a sea (yam ha-Talmud in Hebrew, 'the sea of Talmud') for many reasons: The Talmud is as massive and as deep as a sea. Like the sea, much of the Talmud is hidden from the eye, beneath the surface. Ironically, the sea is both a source of life and of nourishment and a dangerous, forbidding place.

And, of course, it is impossible to find the beginning or the end of it. And an inexperienced swimmer will soon be over his or her head-- unless he or she has some sort of flotation device.

I am reading the Talmud according to the plan of the daf yomi calendar, but I did not begin at the beginning, so that now, as the daf yomi cycle is beginning anew, I have already completed my first reading of the last 43 volumes of the 72-volume ArtScroll translation of the Babylonian Talmud. Of course, this hardly makes me a master of Talmud.

I call this blog Daf Am Haaretz as a disclaimer, lest anyone enter this site thinking they will find traditional wisdom. (Daf is the term for the two-sided folio of Talmud that is the daily portion of those who systematically read the Talmud in a seven-year cycle. Am Haaretz is the term the Gemara uses to describe common people whose ignorance makes them poor models for anyone who wishes to observe the tradition meticulously.) I do not read the Talmud as an authoritative text, but as an extraordinary literary creation. My notes will reflect this perspective and may at times be irreverent, but they will never be gratuitously blasphemous and they will be rendered honestly, with no intention to offend.

It is my hope that this blog will attract comments and become as multivocal as the Talmud itself. Your reflections on the text and on my comments on the text are most welcome here.