Rabbi David Walk

Walk Article

2012-01-31T07:45:00.001-05:00

LESS THAN PERFECT FAITH

Beshalach-5772

Rabbi David Walk

One of the more famous formulations in Judaism is 'I believe with perfect faith.' What does that mean? What about my faith is supposed to be perfect, and how do I achieve it? This phrase is identified with the thirteen principles of faith listed by Maimonides in his commentary on the Mishneh, in the introduction to the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin. However, he never used those words. That expression became popular a couple of centuries ago, and appears in many prayer books right after morning services. But the popularity of the Ani Ma'amin recitation does sort of require that we try to understand what is being demanded of us. This week is the perfect (there's that word again) time to investigate this concept because in the week's Torah reading we have the famous verse: And Israel saw the great hand, which the Lord had used upon the Egyptians, and the people revered the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in Moses, His servant (Exodus 14:31). This seems to be the instant of the greatest level of faith ever exhibited.

But was the faith demonstrated by the generation of the exodus and the splitting of the Sea perfect? I'm not so sure, because this faith didn't seem to be very resilient. Just a few days after the crossing of the Sea the Jews of the desert were whining about the conditions, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. The entire community of the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron in the desert (16:1-2). That was not seemly behavior for those of perfect faith. Of course, the situation deteriorated even further when a few short weeks after the revelation at Mt. Sinai the Jews worshipped the Golden Calf, apparently because Moshe was one day late returning from hobnobbing with God. So, how perfect was their faith? Maybe it was, indeed, perfect at that moment of seeing the Sea split, but didn't remain perfect. Like in the expiration dates for our favorite foods, perfection may not have a long shelf life.

Before we go on, I want to ask one question. What exactly did the Jews believe at the shores of the Sea? The Midrashic translation attributed to Rebbe Yonatan ben Uziel suggests that they believed in the veracity of every Divine statement and the prophecy of Moshe. Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893) explains that up until this point many Jews harbored doubts that Moshe was acting in concert with God. Some suspected that Moshe was a magician like the Egyptian sorcerers. However, finally at the Sea they firmly believed that Moshe and God were working together to bring about these wonders and the redemption.

So, where does that leave us? We're millennia separated from the miracles of the Torah, how are we supposed to have perfect faith about those events and our traditions which stem from them? Is this a hopeless task? Shall I rip those offending pages out of my prayer book? Most of us (me, too) would like to shorten our prayer books anyway. Recently I was learning about Mashiach with some wonderful teenaged students. We came to the quote from Maimonides that we don't believe in this anticipated redeemer because of any sign or wonder that he may perform (Laws of Kings, 11:3, One should not entertain the notion that the King Mashiach must work miracles and wonders.). These young people wondered how we'd know that this person was the Mashiach. Well, he answers that question in the next law. Maimonides writes: If a king will arise from the House of David who delves deeply into the study of the Torah and, like David his ancestor, observes its mitzvoth as prescribed by the Written Law and the Oral Law; if he will compel all of Israel to walk in the way of the Torah and repair the breaches in its observance; and if he will fight the wars of G-d; - we may, with assurance, consider him Mashiach.

This appears to be Maimonides position on all issues of faith. In his Laws of Basic Concepts he writes: The Children of Israel did not believe in Moses solely because of the signs he presented, for someone who believes in a prophet solely because of the signs he presents their hearts are not true, for it could be that his signs are performed by means of spells and witchcraft (8:1). We're even told in the Torah to ignore signs and wonders: If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, 'Let us follow other gods' (gods you have not known) 'and let us worship them,' you must not listen to the words of that prophet (Deuteronomy 13:1). Okay, so forget about miracles. Where does faith come from?

We come to faith the old fashioned way: We work hard at it. The path to faith is a long and difficult road. It requires daily devotion to prayer and Torah study. It demands that we are sincere in our mitzvah observance and diligent in our contemplation of moral behavior. It necessitates a community of positive role models that we can respect and emulate. If we labor hard at this task and begin to feel within us the conviction that we are fulfilling the right and the just, then faith is born. Rabbi Soloveitchik said that faith means an act that is only explainable through the revelation of Divine presence to man. One must prepare for this revelation by living a pure and holy life, perfecting one's halachic ethical personality. There are no shortcuts to faith, not even super highways paved in the Sea. And, perhaps, most importantly true faith emerges from within, and is not imposed from without.

If we work hard at this endeavor, and sincerely develop an ethical life then maybe, just maybe, we can approach perfection in our faith. But remember, perfection is not the norm in this world.

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Walk Article

2012-01-25T08:05:00.001-05:00

EN GARDE

Bo-5772

Rabbi David Walk

With chapter twelve of the book of Exodus a major change takes place in our familiar Torah text. We've been avidly following story after story, and now we are confronted with our first major legal material. We have a relatively detailed description of how to offer the Paschal Lamb. These verses could be boring explaining how we slaughter, sacrifice, roast and even eat the lamb, but if we read them with the proper sensitivity we see an unfolding drama which parallels the story's events. I think that I can explain how to view the rising tension developing in this passage by comparing it to the climatic moment in the ground breaking musical Les Miserables. In the multi-part anthem One Day More, many disparate forces await the morrow when moral, romantic and historic clarity will be achieved (If you're not familiar with it, go ahead, Google it.). Private individuals, star crossed lovers, government agents, criminal elements, and, of course, the idealistic rebels are portrayed in a frantic state of anticipation. In our tale, we have the protagonists Moshe and Pharaoh, but we also have the regular Egyptian trying to decide how to treat this former slave population, and, of course, the Children of Israel. These Jews who have been slaves for generations must finally make an independent choice: remain passive slaves or bravely follow God's instructions to publicly sacrifice the god of their masters. The evening of the fifteenth of Nissan finds the Jews cowering in their hovels behind the doorposts smeared bright red with the blood of the lambs. They wait, just like Victor Hugo's characters for one more dawn, one more day, one day more. Will the promise that 'everyman will be a king' be fulfilled? They have no choice but to wait because 'Tomorrow is the judgment day. Tomorrow we'll discover what our God in heaven has in store!' The tension is beyond endurance. Where do the Jews find the strength to hold on?

I believe that the power to keep going comes from one word. That word is the Hebrew root shamar or guard. This word appears seven times in these critical verses of chapter twelve. It first is seen in verse six: Take special care (mishmeret) of this chosen animal until the evening of the fourteenth day of this first month. It then shows up twice in verse seventeen: And you shall watch over the unleavened cakes, for on this very day I have taken your legions out of the land of Egypt, and you shall observe this day throughout your generations, as an everlasting statute. It next appears in verses twenty-four and twenty-five: And you shall keep this matter (of the door posts) as a statute for you and for your children forever. And it shall come to pass when you enter the land that the Lord will give you, as He spoke, that you shall observe this service. Finally, we see a form of this verb twice in verse forty-two: It is a night of watching for the Lord, to take them out of the land of Egypt; this night is the Lord's, guarding all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

In the first instance of this term the Jews of Egypt are instructed to show extreme care in the taking of the animal for this first national offering. Most rabbis see this as a command to choose an animal without blemish, but we can see it as the moral strength to defy their masters. Next our word explains the concern to keep all chametz from our homes and grounds for the duration of Pesach. In the third case we are guarding the doorways to our premises, giving us a sense of security in home and hearth. At last, we are informed that this night holds a unique power to provide safety of psyche and body. Our shamar root is doubled in three of these four cases because watching for chametz, guarding our doors and the special nature of the night are relevant forever. However, the requirement to take the lamb four days early and display it publicly was only true in the Passover of Egypt, hence there's only one mention of guarding the lamb.

So, our modern annual observance of Pesach contains three guardings. We must carefully watch the matzah in its preparation and its consumption, and we must diligently watch over our homes. The third item which is protected is the night itself. We believe that the first two are safeguarded by us, while the evening is secured by God. We must provide diligence in our behavior and mitzvah performance, represented by the matzah. We must also provide for our families a warm and secure environment in which Torah ideas and ideals can incubate and grow. That endeavor is symbolized by the mezuzah on our doors. When we do our part in those two areas of actions and spirit, we believe that God reciprocates by ensuring a safe haven in time.

The nature of this guarded time zone is itself an argument. The more popular midrashic approach to explain this phenomenon is that this night had been set aside since the creation of the world to be the uniquely designated time for redemption. This follows the opinion of Rebbe Yehoshua in the Talmud that this will also be the time for the future, complete redemption. However, there are others who maintain that the safeguarding of the night of the Seder refers to the physical safety which the Jews enjoy this night. Some say that this is the source of our custom to open the door in the middle of our Seder.

Now we can understand how the Jews survived the tension of that night and that experience. Guard and hold on tight to the mitzvah performance and the spiritual integrity of your family. Then God will provide you with the necessary window of security to survive. We must see our observance of Jewish practice and our embrace of our family values as key ingredients to surviving the drama of Jewish history. So, that when we hold on tight, we can live to see the world beyond the barricades.

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Walk Article

2012-01-17T14:04:00.001-05:00

WHO ME? COULDN'T BE!

Va'era-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Before I get to my Torah thought of the week, I must make an embarrassing confession. I LOVE movies. I watch more movies that I should, and I remember movie plots and trivia forever. As a rabbi and teacher, there are times when I'm teaching a class or I'm studying a text, and in my mind I'm comparing the material to a movie scene, and I've got to resist letting on that my mind has gone off to the silver screen rather than the parchment folio. There are already a lot of people who think that I'm crazy, I'd rather not convince them of the point. So, please, forgive me that I want to make two points this week, which are movie based. When I ponder the stories here at the beginning of the book of Exodus, I not only think of Rashi's comments and Maimonides' philosophy, but I can't ignore the p'shat of Cecil B. DeMille (The Ten Commandments, 1956) and the drash of that Jewish triumvirate of Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen (Prince of Egypt, 1998). But this year while comparing a clip from the two films for my classes at Bi-Cultural Day School here in Stamford, I noticed something I had always missed before, and that will introduce my thought for the week.

In 1956, Cecil B. DeMille refused to reveal who did the voice of God, out of respect for the sanctity of the scene. He took this movie very seriously. However, the voice is really deep and impressive. I guess appropriate to a Deity. In 1998 when making its famous animated version, the SKG team decided to use Val Kilmer who also voiced over for Moshe to do God. I think that that is really a cool idea. The voice of God is heard by everyone as their own voice. We all experience God in our own way. So, that at Mt. Sinai there were 600,000 different voices of God. I like that idea. But this year I observed a change in the Biblical script of the 1956 version, which had slipped my notice before. After the 'Moses, Moses' and 'Here I am' repartee, Moshe has the chutzpah to ask if God is aware of the fact that the Jews are suffering in Egypt. This is the only digression from the original Torah text for this scene. Why would Moshe bring this up before God has said anything? I think that a cute issue is being raised. Moshe remains painfully aware of the plight of his Jewish brethren in Egypt, but when God informs him that he will be their redeemer, Moshe claims to be incapable of the charge. Moshe begins his prophetic career just like the rest of us. His concern is theoretical. Isn't it enough to recognize the problem and complain? Do I actually have to get involved personally? Well, yes.

That was all in last week's Torah reading, and the parsha ended with Moshe saying: O Lord! Why have You harmed this people? Why have You sent me? Since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has harmed this people, and You have not saved Your people (Exodus 5:22-23). Moshe is still trying to vacate this task. But by the midpoint of this week's Torah reading Moshe is totally committed to the mission, even though it has barely begun. What happens at the beginning of this parsha to convince Moshe of his connection to this job? I believe that there are two issues which convince Moshe that he must play this part.

Our parsha begins with God explaining to Moshe that the relationship with the Patriarchs was different than the new situation being forged with the generation of the bondage. Our earlier forebears discovered God through the powers of nature, and preferred to call God the Being of unlimited power (Eil Shadai). While the Children of Israel in Egypt would be introduced to the real character of God, Who is eternal, compassionate and the author of miracles which guide the course of history and human destiny. I believe that the critical statement is: I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord (6:8). The heirs of the Patriarchs don't inherit, they receive the covenant as a heritage (morasha), which they are committed to pass along intact to their progeny. This profound concept of generational responsibility begins to weigh upon Moshe, but is not alone sufficient to bring him to accept the role of redeemer.

After this theological presentation, the Torah records Moshe's genealogy. We recapitulate the births of the tribes until we get to Levi, and then continue with the family tree leading to Moshe. Why this digression? Why this repetition? I think that it's for Moshe's sake. Moshe is going through a sixty year long identity crisis. When Moshe had to run away from Egypt to Midian, because of the slaying of the taskmaster, he was probably around twenty years old. When he returns to stand again before Pharaoh he is eighty. He left Egypt an Egyptian, and he is identified in Midian as an Egyptian (2:19). It's only at this point that he finally is clearly a Hebrew or Jew in his own mind. Now he can accept the responsibility of the heritage, because at last he is unequivocally part of this nation. He commits to a role in this covenantal relationship forged between God and Avraham when he views himself as part of that community. The unvoiced (except in the burning bush scene in the 1998 cartoon) objection to the assignment is that he's not a Hebrew; he's an Egyptian. Until this moment. He becomes committed to this undertaking at the moment that he recognizes his place in the heritage.

All Jews must go through this process, especially in the Diaspora. How much am I going to commit to the mission of the Jewish people? Well, that depends on the level of my connectedness to this historical entity. The more I feel ownership of this ageless tradition, the more I will fight to make sure that it gets passed on to the next generation. My identification with this past defines my commitment to the future.

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Walk Article

2012-01-10T14:04:00.001-05:00

HEROINES

Shmot-5772

Rabbi David Walk

As the presidential primary season heats up here in the US, there is more and more debate concerning Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice. This remains one of the defining issues of the American political landscape. It is remarkable how many American voters wouldn't vote for a candidate who is on the other side of the abortion controversy. It has become a deal breaker. However, this week's parsha presents the most radical program of population control ever devised (besides Jonathan Swift's satiric A Modest Proposal). Pharaoh instructs the obstetric professionals of Egypt to just kill all the unwanted babies (namely, male Jews) at the moment of birth. Apparently Pharaoh didn't consider this too hard, because the babies are pretty frail at this moment, and people wouldn't notice. This extreme measure was actually his second demographic control effort. Initially, he believed enslaving the Jews would cut their numbers. That initiative was doomed from the outset, because slave populations for some reason grow faster than free populations. Eventually, Pharaoh enlists the man on the street to snatch and drown all Jewish male live births. Ultimately all three efforts fail. Even though some babies are murdered, the Jewish demographic problem continues to haunt Egypt. Our normal view of Pharaoh is that he was an absolute ruler with assumed divine powers, so, how did he fail so miserably in this project?

It would appear that he failed because of a coalition of female forces. I would like to think that the midwives refused to participate in this heinous deed, because of their dedication to this life giving profession. However, I have a strong suspicion that it was their spiritual, feminine side which induced this brave act. The verse relates that they saved the babies because they feared God (Exodus 1:17), rather than had professional scruples. Also, we have more examples of women saving communities in our Bible (Judges 9:53 and II Samuel 20:15-22). But the greatest reason that I think their behavior was gender based is the continuation of the story.

Before I make my case, allow me, dear reader, a short digression. Who were these midwives? The Midrash, quoted by Rashi, claims that these women named Shifra and Puah were really Yocheved and Miriam, Moshe's mother and sister respectively. The Midrash often tries to combine Biblical characters. I think this was to cut down on production costs for any plays, movies or television series based upon these events. Most of the literalist interpreters of the text (like the Abarbanel and Rabbi Shmuel David Luzatto) disagree and claim that these were Egyptian health care professionals. This makes sense for a number of reasons. First how reasonable would it be for Pharaoh to expect the Jewish midwives to kill Jewish children? Secondly, Miriam would be about four years old, and, therefore, still in medical school kindergarten. Finally, it fits in with the point I want to make.

Now we can go back to the story. When Pharaoh's secret plot to kill the Jewish boys fails because of the moral strength of the midwives, he inaugurates a public initiative for his entire people (1:22) to throw every Jewish male baby into the Nile. This program also fails, because Moshe survives and the Jewish nation continues to grow. What's fascinating is that this program also fails because of a coalition of women. When the baby to become Moshe is born, Yocheved, his mother, hides him, but this is only a temporary measure. Eventually, the baby is ironically saved in the Nile, that vehicle of execution for the other babies. Now comes the most remarkable development. In a well known episode, the baby is found by Pharaoh's daughter and she together with her ladies in waiting saves and adopts the clearly Hebrew and male baby. What I find fascinating is that no one is identified by name in this entire narrative. All of these brave women are identified generically by their position in society. We have a mother, sister, daughter and maids. Yocheved isn't identified by name until four chapters later, Miriam isn't named until thirteen chapters later, and the daughter of Pharaoh is never named. Why is this true? I think the point is that these wonderful people acted in this brave manner because of the fact that they were mothers, sisters and daughters. I believe further that this behavior was probably not unique to this incident, because the maids jump to help, not one seems interested in reporting the incident to Pharaoh's forces.

Long before the Nuremburg trials established that certain orders are too immoral to be carried out, the women of Egypt, both Jewish and gentile, intuitively understood that principle. When Pharaoh gives his horrible order to the entire nation, the women apparently decided that they wouldn't participate. I don't know how widespread the non-compliance was, but ultimately this initiative just goes away, another failed political program. But it fails because of the moral fiber of the women of Egypt.

I have always felt that it's extremely important that there are so many female role models in our Bible. They provide the paradigms for our daughters to emulate. However, it's also critical to identify more general behavior consistent with tendencies within the genders. Then we can make value judgments praising or criticizing, and, more importantly, encourage or discourage those acts. Here, I firmly believe, we must push everyone to copy this pattern of compassion and benevolence first exhibited by the women in Egypt.

Laws in any society are often written based upon policy goals, without regard to the ethics or morality of the legislation. Governments don't have consciences. People do. We are required to follow the laws of the land to the extent that these laws are moral. The important concept of civil disobedience wasn't invented by Henry David Thoreau, but by the women of Egypt, and even Pharaoh had to heed their moral outrage.

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Walk Article

2012-01-04T15:11:00.001-05:00

A BLESSING ON YOUR HEAD

Va'yechi-5772

Rabbi David Walk

For some visceral reason, not entirely clear to me, I really enjoy giving my children blessings every Friday night. Perhaps it's symbolic of bequeathing my values to my progeny. Maybe it gives me a feeling of immortality, because these wonderful young people will carry on my DNA and, please God, my customs. Or it could be that I'm just a sappy sentimentalist. It's a warm and sweet moment. I even like doing it on the phone or Skype for my offspring in Israel. The best part is that we can add a personal prayer to the generic material. The question arises, what makes these blessings work? What power do I have to bless another human being? This is indeed the week to investigate this issue, because this week's Torah reading is mostly dedicated to the blessings which Ya'akov bestows upon his children before our beloved Patriarch passes from this earth.

There is a straightforward answer to my question right in the parsha: So he blessed them on that day, saying, "Through you, Israel will bless, saying, 'May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh,' " and he placed Ephraim before Manasseh (Genesis 48:20). We're informed that the nation of Israel can bless future generations with the formula of being like Ephraim and Manasseh. So, permission to bless children is derived from the Torah. However the power of those blessings finds its source in two areas. First of all the power to bless comes from love. Even the Cohanim, who are commanded to bless the Jewish nation do it with the following formula: Who has sanctified us with the sanctity of Aharon, and commanded us to bless His nation Israel with love. One's blessing seems pointless without this element.

The other power source behind the efficacy of blessings is much more complicated, and is embedded in the very nature of the book of Genesis. The idea was expressed beautifully by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom in a speech he delivered in 2001. He said: The Hebrew bible tells a story. It's a very well-known story, but what is interesting about it and what we should have noticed but we never did is that it is exactly the opposite story! It is the counter-narrative of western civilization. It is the anti-Platonic story…It is the universal themes. Adam and Eve: the story of human freedom, hence the freedom to disobey. Cain and Abel: the story of sibling rivalry, of human responsibility. Are we our brother's keepers or aren't we? The story of the flood, which is about what Hobbes calls the state of nature, the war of all against all when there is no system of law. The covenant after the flood, the brit bnei Noach, the first universal moral code. All of those things are universal. They have got nothing to do with the Jewish people whatsoever…Therefore, the bible begins with the universal and then it moves to the particular. It actually is telling us that in a certain sense the particular is more fundamental, more real, than the universal.

The rest of the world's philosophy moves from the particular to the universal, our Jewish thinking moves from the universal to the particular. That's the flow of Genesis. We take the big picture and apply it to the individual. Our story is about individuals like you and me. We don't necessarily say that we're interested in the greatest good for the greatest number. We tend to say if you've saved one individual, you've saved an entire universe. This reality can be seen in the realm of blessings as well. The blessings given to Adam are: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the sky and over all the beasts that tread upon the earth (Genesis 1:28). The blessings given to Noach were similar. This is a generic blessing, equally good for any human being. When we get to Yitzchak and Ya'akov, the blessings which they receive were to continue the revolution of Avraham. Here's how Yitzchak expressed it: And may the Almighty God bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and you shall become an assembly of peoples. And may He give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your seed with you, that you may inherit the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham (28:3-4). This is again a general blessing applicable to any Jew, but that's not what's happening in our parsha. Ya'akov is giving blessings which are specific to the character and skill set of each individual son, who's a warrior, scholar or merchant. Like the book itself the blessings have gone from the universal to the particular.

Now I believe that we can understand an enigmatic statement made by Ya'akov: The blessings of your father surpassed the blessings of my parents (49:26). What a chutzpah! Ya'akov is saying that his blessings are superior to those of his father and grandfather. How can he say that? Because his blessings are more specific. The more individual a blessing is the better it is. Finally, I can explain the second element which makes a blessing work. Namely it is precisely calibrated to the person receiving it. When I bless the athleticism of an athlete or the artistry of an artist, I have connected to the individual in a way which enhances that other person's talent, because they sense the appreciation of who they are. This is very special, and, I suspect, works even without Divine intervention.

So, when I bless my children Friday night I hope and pray that I am connecting with them in two profound ways. First they sense my love, care and concern for them. And then they are moved by my notice and recognition of what makes them tick. Then, and only then, does the blessing work, because they want it to work so very much.

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Walk Article

2011-12-27T07:39:00.001-05:00

TORAH TO GO

Vayigash-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Many years ago I taught at Rabbi Shlomo Riskin's high school in Riverdale. I was also director of the dormitory. Since I lived so close to the school (and was poor) I didn't own a car. Periodically, I needed a ride into the city and one of the other staff members who was truly a zadik, was always obliging. The wonderful thing about these excursions was that as soon as the car was in motion, my driver and colleague would ask for some u'valecticha baderech Torah. For those not familiar with that phrase from Shma, it means 'and when you are going on the road.' The reference is to our Torah which is to be studied at all times and in every situation. These wide ranging discussions down the Henry Hudson Parkway were fabulous. After a quick thought from me to get us started, the conversations, but thankfully not the car, roamed to totally unexpected destinations. And at the earthly trip's objective we often kept the dialogue going in the car for a while. Even though this often negated the time advantage over taking public transportation, it was always worth it. I always felt that this involvement in the Torah study somehow made the trip not only more enjoyable but also in some way safer. Historically, travel was very dangerous. That's why we have a prayer before setting out on a trip and a blessing of thanksgiving for successful conclusion of a trip. I'm not sure that these prayers are still as relevant today, but it shows an attitude about, especially, non-voluntary travel, which demonstrates great concern for travel safety. And that idea is referenced in our Parsha in an unexpected way.

As the brothers are getting ready to return to Israel for the purpose of bringing Ya'akov down to Egypt, the verse records: And (Yosef) sent off his brothers, and they went, and he said to them, "Do not quarrel (get angry) on the way (Genesis 45:24)." This instruction to not fight on the way home seems to be advice to not get involved in a blame game over the selling of Yosef (Avraham Ibn Ezra). The Rashbam suggests that it means that they shouldn't be afraid of the journey, perhaps because they are on mitzvah mission. However, Rashi quotes a famous Midrash on the verse: Do not engage in a halachic (Torah) discussion lest the way cause you to stray (Ta'anit 10b). Wow, Rashi claims that Yosef was instructing them to not study Torah on the road! That's against our normal approach. Not surprisingly, I'm not the first to notice this problem.

The Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, 1550 -1619) points out that Rebbe Ila'i taught that traveling scholars who don't discuss Torah are worthy of being burned at the stake. That's a bit extreme. I'll just consider that hyperbole. At that point the Kli Yakar explains that there are different kinds of Torah study. Reviewing Torah decisions would be fine, but debating still as yet undecided legal issues could bring them to trouble and strife. A reasonable suggestion. Getting involved with controversial issues while traveling is a bad idea, because of the rigors of the road. But for me the best comment of the Kli Yakar combines this Midrashic approach with the literal meaning that they shouldn't get angry and accusatory with each other. He explains that while traveling we should stay involved with Torah study and not desist from this mitzvah. The problem is that if you get angry, you can't really study Torah. The Kli Yakar adds that all anger leads to mistakes. If you're in a mistake prone mode, you'd better stop studying Torah. So, Yosef's advice is to stay distant from anger so that you can learn while traveling the road.

We in Judaism view anger as a very negative trait. In the seventh chapter of the Laws of Repentance, Maimonides actually counts anger as a sin. Every one gets angry on occasion. The goal is to minimize the damage we do while we are angry, and find strategies for ending the episode of rage.

In my life, I've had the sublime privilege to encounter, on a number of occasions, two amazing poskim, decisors of Jewish law. Both Reb Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986) in New York and Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910-1995) in Jerusalem were remarkable scholars, with both marvelous breadth and depth of Torah knowledge. But beyond the encyclopedic nature of their brains, the most outstanding feature of both of these gentlemen was the calm which they exuded. They exhibited the kind of unflappability that Hillel was famous for in the first century of the Common Era. Except when deep in thought, they were almost always smiling. I guess this explains two awe-inspiring phenomena. First, that people wanted to go to them with their questions of Jewish law, and secondly that they were never (or at least rarely) wrong.

Now we can begin to understand the advice of Yosef. Anger has little or no up side. Please, do your best to avoid it. Yosef understood that there could be many recriminations amongst his brothers, but there was nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by airing them. Add to that the tensions and dangers of the road, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Later the Rabbis, superimposed another layer of meaning, to advise us that decisions made while angry are not to be trusted, including Torah study.

I don't think that the Midrashic approach describes the original intent of Yosef in the verse, but it ends up giving us valuable, practical advice. For most of us, travel provides enough anxiety that we should refrain from heavy duty decision making while concerned about the voyage. And even more important, don't come to important conclusions in the heat of anger. Important judgments are like a delicate soufflé; no movement, no noise, no agitation are requirements for a satisfactory result.

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Walk Article

2011-12-20T07:57:00.001-05:00

THE MEASURE OF MAN

Chanukah-Miketz-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Ah, Chanukah is upon us again. While everyone else is running around trying to figure out what to give everyone on their gift lists, I'm trying to figure out what to figure out in my Chanukah article. Go ahead read that sentence again and let me know if it makes sense. The annual search for meaning in this joyous celebration is beckoning again. It's never easy. Chanukah presents the observer with certain problems not found in other holidays and historical clashes. Usually, the bad guys in our tales were both really evil and stood for principles the world no longer considers legitimate. The villains were easy to hate. Not so, the Greeks. There were Greeks whom our ancestors really liked, for example Alexander the Great, Ptolemy II, and Aristotle. Plus, many Greek innovations and ideals still find adherents today. We still admire many aspects of Greek culture, from the Parthenon to geometry. So, when we scrutinize our Greek adversaries what do we find worth fighting against?

At the outset, let me point out that Greek culture and philosophy are not monolithic. They are very diverse, with many competing positions. However, there are a couple of ideas which were held in common. Two points of which I believe are central to our dispute with them. First of all, the Greeks generally believed that they had all the answers. The idea that mankind could solve every problem and understand every issue was fundamental to Greek philosophy. Judaism never believed that We Jews have believed from the outset that there would always be mysteries beyond our ken. When Moshe asked God to see the Divine Glory, we understand the sentiment. However, the response is that humans can't see the reality of God's greatness and still be denizens of this earthly abode. We reject the Greek position, because we firmly believe that humans are limited, finite. There will always be a new set of problems to solve as long as humans inhabit this world. Science has come around to the Jewish position. Very few modern physicists or biologists expect to get all the answers to all their questions. Right now physicists are hot on the trail of a sub atomic particle called the Higgs boson, also called the God particle. Scientists believe that this particle will help them understand that critical moment of the Big Bang when energy transformed into matter. However, none of them think that we won't have new questions after this, like where did the energy come from?

Secondly, Greeks lived in an anthropocentric universe, where mankind was the center of all. The world was understood only as it related to mankind. Humans were understood as above nature in ways that they ultimately believed that they could control the forces of the world. The Greeks, therefore, claimed that the world was one of harmony and beauty. The word cosmos actually means order. That order derived from the machinations of mankind. The real conflict with Greek culture wasn't over polytheism as with so many other ancient civilizations. The real issue was the deification of man. We Jews on the other hand saw the world as theocentric. God stands in the center of all things. We stand in awe of the unlimited power of God and nature, which we neither control nor fully understand. Even though we see man as the apex of Creation, astride all other creatures, nevertheless this is in the context of worship of God as the Cosmic Director.

This is why it's so appropriate that Chanukah usually coincides with parshat Miketz. Few sections of our Tanach are as clear on the fact that God controls the forces of nature and we are mere witnesses to its humbling power. Yosef is considered the wisest and most capable man in Egypt not because he displayed any mastery over nature, but because he was able to observe and strategize tactics for surviving the ravages of the overwhelming drought and famine. He continually tells Pharaoh and anyone else who will listen that what little skills he has for dream interpretation or long term planning all come from God. Then we see our Patriarch Ya'akov, who has been renamed Yisrael or the one who strives with Divine power, totally devastated by the famine. Greek heroes, like Ulysses, Perseus or Prometheus defy and even defeat the gods and the forces of nature. No such characters exist in Jewish tradition. Resistance to God is futile and folly, remember the story of Jonah. He tries to flee from God, but that's impossible because God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstien of Yeshivat Har Etziyon pointed out that: The Greek stance was immoral not in and of itself, but rather in the priorities it set. Greek values were not completely wicked; rather, they were flawed, incomplete, and imbalanced, to such a degree that they became totally corrupt. The dominion of Man and his mastery over nature can be part of worship of the Creator, but Man's greatness can become so central that it becomes a religion in itself.

We learn from this week's Torah reading the same message that we learned from Katrina or the Indian Ocean tsunami, namely that we can't control the forces of nature. Religion teaches us the humility of worshipping forces that are greater than us. Yosef was the great leader, because he understood this reality and used that wisdom to serve mankind, not elevate himself to demigod status.

For the Jewish nation, the Chanukah War was the first modern conflict. It wasn't modern because of the weaponry used. It was modern because it was a war of clashing ideologies. It was a modern struggle, because the dispute was nuanced, not a tension between black and white, but a divergence of shades of gray. On Chanukah we really need the light of our candles to help differentiate between the beneficial and dangerous in the culture around us. It's the hardest war we ever fought, and it's the war we continue to encounter in our world. Happy Chanukah!

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Walk Article

2011-12-13T10:38:00.001-05:00

A NEW DAY

Vayeishev-5772

Rabbi David Walk

People often ask me if I find it difficult coming up with new ideas every week. The truth is that I rarely have any trouble at all. However, it's really nail biting, hair pulling time on those occasions when I do. I find the material in every Torah reading new and fresh every year. Now, it could be that I'm like the dementia patient who meets everybody all over again everyday. But I'd like to think that something more profound is going on. It appeals to me to think that it's like Rashi, who lived in the 11th century, said to his grandson, the Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, 1085-1158). At the beginning of this week's parsha, he records that he discussed matters of Torah commentary with his grandfather and this is what Rashi said to his daughter's son, in his old age. He explained that if he had the time, he felt the need to write new commentaries to the Torah. And this is his phrase, according to the new literal insights that he had every single day. This is Rashi, towards the end of his life, having written the greatest of all commentaries to the Torah, never gave up trying to say something new. There was no thought of sitting on his laurels. Now the point of the Rashbam was the superiority of literal explanations over allegorical ones, but I'd like to explore the idea that new approaches to the Torah text are not only happening every day, but are necessary. However, first allow me a little digression.

The issue which prompted this unusual personal aside in the commentary of the Rashbam was the meaning of the word Toldot in the second verse of this week's Torah reading. The Rashbam is attacking the many authorities who understand that term which means offspring to be referring to the activities and accomplishments of Ya'akov. Well, the Rashbam says fuhgedaboutit. It means children, and the new story line is about the adventures of Ya'akov's sons surrounding the emergence of Yosef as the new protagonist in our text. According to the Rashbam, Rashi's regret about not having time to write a whole new commentary was not just that he had new thoughts, but that he would emphasize literal meanings over homiletics (you know, Rabbi stuff). Too many rabbinic sermons and fables had crept into the national consciousness, so that the literal meaning was often getting lost.

Here's my real question: This is at least the fifth time that the word Toldot appears in this manner in the Torah, why did the Rashbam wait until now to make this strong argument about how to interpret this term? My speculation is that this occasion reinforces the most amazing part of what his grandfather said. The story line in our text is not just the changing of the guard from Ya'akov to the sons, especially Yosef. He understood the meaning of the second dream in which even he was bowing down to Yosef. It's also about how quickly circumstances change. Reality is an ever changing kaleidoscope of totally unpredictable stuff. Ya'akov realizes that he no longer is the straw that stirs the drink. He also has trouble just following the flow of events. The verse tells us that he gave up trying to control the animosity between the brothers; he was just trying to monitor the situation (Genesis 37:11). Very soon even that fails. His attempt to keep an eye on things is thwarted by his beloved son's decades long disappearance.

Ya'akov describes his life to Pharaoh in this manner, 'the days of the years of my life have been few and miserable (47:9).' He was one hundred and thirty years old at the time. Why were his days so few? Ya'akov apparently was only counting the good days of which he felt there very few. I guess he subtracted all the days he was on the run and all the days during which Yosef was missing. Perhaps we can add to that the days that he was worried about his feuding sons and his ravaged daughter. It records in last week's parsha that he emerged from his encounter with his brother Esav 'whole,' and this week our Sages tell us that he wanted to live in peace and tranquility. But his completeness was short lived and his tranquility nonexistent. This is all true because there is no telling what the new day brings. We assume that tomorrow is the extension of today, and that our children are a continuation of us. Wow is that wrong! We say in our morning prayers that God renews the Creation each and every day. That is not only a reference to some mystical regeneration of the act of Genesis or the Big Bang, it also means that we must meet each new day on its terms. We can't take it for granted that yesterday equipped me for today. It's been famously said that generals are always preparing for the last war. Well, the same principle is true of businessmen, teachers, and parents, in other words, us. The only thing that I can expect is the unexpected.

This dichotomy is present in the first two verses of our parsha. In verse one Ya'akov is desperately trying to settle down peacefully in this land where his ancestors sojourned, but never found permanence. The second verse presents us with the reality that his toldot, offspring, are taking over, and there is no way of knowing in what direction the winds of change will blow us.

Since the world is ever changing, last year's situation has been over taken by this year's reality. Therefore, when I look at each week's Torah reading, it's from a new perspective. That's what makes it so easy to formulate new insights to the material. The rabbinic stories may remain the same from year to year but the message of the text is always fresh. Rashi is, like always, right; there are new literal insights every day, as long as we pay attention.

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Walk Article

2011-12-06T07:48:00.001-05:00

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Vayishlach-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Is that really true? Would that flower smell as sweet if it were called stinkypoo? Well, William Shakespeare (putting the words into Juliet's mouth) believes that what matters is what something is, not what it is called. In other words, Romeo's a good guy even though his last name is Montague (or that he's a Jet). But is that true? Our parsha seems to question that premise. Before we get to the parsha, one more question for Mr. Shakespeare. Did you really write all those plays and sonnets? No, not that question. Is your premise about names true for people as well as objects? The objective reality of a flower is not changed by our nomenclature. However, if I may refer to Mr. Johnny Cash, calling a boy Sue will change that young man's life forever. Also, our Sages consider referring to a person by a nasty nickname as a horrible sin. So, the Shakespearean premise may not be a universal verity.

We Jews make a big thing out of naming things. The first cognitive act of the first human being was to give names to the other life forms around him. Our first Jewish couple actually had their names changed as adults to better describe them and their evolving role as paradigms for humanity. Last week eleven of Ya'akov's sons are named and each has a little description of the process and meaning of each name. The mothers used the naming process to express their aspirations and hopes. By the way this is in contrast with the sons of Avraham and Yitzchak who were named based upon the circumstances of their birth. There is a tradition, concerning which I'm highly skeptical, that parents have prophecy at the moment of naming children. If that's true then different prophetic muses were on the job in those different generations. And in our times those prophets aren't very original as we tend to name after deceased relatives. In any case, this week's parsha has, perhaps, the most famous naming ceremony of our Bible. Ya'akov is dubbed Yisrael by his wrestling opponent.

This is one of four occasions in the Torah when a person is renamed. However, our instance is very different from the other three. Abram and Sarai become Avraham and Sarah at the behest of God. Hoshea becomes Yehoshua at the hands of Moshe, his mentor. In those three circumstances the new name is a variation on the old name, and the old name is never used again. There's actually a tradition that using Avraham's old name is a transgression (Berachot 13a). Also, those three name changes involved an assurance or prayer for the future success and status of the recipient. Avraham and Sarah are to become the leaders of many progeny and Yehoshua is to be saved from the machinations of the other spies. None of those statements are true of our case. The names Yisrael and Ya'akov are used seemingly interchangeably for now on. Much effort has been invested by Bible scholars to explain the reasons why a particular name is used in a certain situation. The most famous attempt at an explanation is that the name Ya'akov denotes his physical acts and the name Yisrael is used for spiritual behavior. By and large these efforts fail or, at least, are less than convincing. The choice often seems random. Nu, so what's going on here?

I really like Ya'akov. He's perhaps my favorite character in all of the world's literature. What makes Ya'akov so compelling? Ya'akov struggles on a stage whose scope I can comprehend. He doesn't negotiate with kings or win world wars, single handedly. Ya'akov has to cope with a difficult father in law, marital tension, contentious children and personal tragedy. Sound familiar? Remind you of your Thanksgiving dinner or last Seder? If it doesn't sound familiar to you, can I borrow your life, at least for a couple of days? The name Ya'akov really is perfect for the mine field which he must negotiate. It's a verb from the Hebrew word for heel. So, apparently it means to carefully place your foot in the necessary location. It's the ideal name for someone always working out what his next step should be. There's tremendous trepidation that the next step might blow up the whole enterprise. It's very hard to live that way on a regular basis. Everyone has days like that; Ya'akov had decades like that.

But what about the name Yisrael? It is explained by the mysterious stranger who gives it to him in the following way: Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome (Genesis 32:29)." So it means to struggle, to strive or to wrestle with a problem or with life's complications, but with the assurance that he will succeed or overcome, win or prevail. Yisrael is confident and self assured; Ya'akov is careful but timid.

Now we can understand why we must only use the new names of the other characters, because it describes their new status in the world. We can see that Avraham, Sarah and Yehoshua have attained a position in society which must be acknowledged by all. Ya'akov, on the other hand, was shown by the wrestling experience that he can persevere, but the names describe his attitude toward his inner struggles. As outside observers we are never sure which aspect of this patriarch is at work. The Torah has to inform us whether he's acting out of confidence or extreme caution.

That's why I love Ya'akov so much. I'm also struggling to overcome my inner demons to face life's issues head on and sense success. I can identify with Ya'akov and try to emulate his great courage in the face of my tribulations.

This provides us with a new reading of a famous verse from both Isaiah and Jeremiah, which has become a Saturday night hymn, 'Don't be afraid, My servant Ya'akov.' Don't be afraid, Ya'akov, because you can also be Yisrael. You're not like the unchanging rose, sometimes you're a lamb, but when necessary you can be a lion.

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Walk Article

2011-11-29T07:45:00.001-05:00

THE RIGHT MODEL

Va'yetze-5772

Rabbi David Walk

There's a fascinating web site called Edge.org. They claim that to reach the edge of knowledge put the world's most complex and sophisticated minds in the same room and let them ask each other the same questions that they are asking themselves. Quite often the discussions are way over my head, but sometimes the most interesting ideas emerge from these discussions. In the most recent mailing from Edge, I received this talk by Raphael Bousso (professor of physics at UC Berkeley), in which he explains that there are basic problems within physics in trying to explain why the universe is how it is. For example, how come most of the universe is empty with only periodic clumps of stuff (galaxies, stars and planets)? Shouldn't the cosmos be more homogenous? And, if the movement of the galaxies away from each other is based on the Big Bang, how come the expansion is accelerating instead of slowing down? Now, I basically understand these questions, but Professor Boussa suggests three visions of how our universe works and each may provide a different approach to answering these fundamental problems. I haven't got a clue how these theories work. They are string theory, inflation and cosmic strings (This has nothing to do with string theory). These theories provide models of our cosmos to help us understand and even visualize the workings of Creation. It's like the Standard Model of atoms. We visualize atoms as small solar systems with electrons spinning around a solid nucleus. Now this is not an accurate depiction of reality, but it helps us understand the workings of both physics and chemistry, so we keep using it.

How about we do the same thing in the spiritual realm? Why don't we try to come up with an idea which will help us approximate the reality of how our physical world interacts with God's spiritual abode. The image doesn't have to be totally accurate. It can be a metaphor. As long as it helps us to better understand how we are supposed to behave so that we can remain in contact with spirituality. Would you believe that our parsha provides us with just such a theoretical model? Here it is: And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground and it reached all the way to the sky; angels of God were going up and going down on it (Genesis 28:11). It makes no difference whether we translate the Hebrew word sulam as stairway or ladder or escalator. The image is clear. There is a vertical passageway which connects us down here with God up there, and it's possible to send information back and forth by means of messengers which we call angels or agents. I think that God sends down inspiration and revelation; we send up our mitzvoth.

We view most of our business in this world as horizontal movement, east, west, north, south, but we view our relationship with God as vertical passage, up and down. Like the cosmological models, this ladder model can explain many different phenomena. For example, this can be thought of as a schematic model helping us to visualize the relationship between the spiritual realms. In Kabballah we talk about the worlds of action down here, above that is the world of formation, higher again is the region of creation and highest of all is the realm where God resides called Atzilut or emanations. Alternatively, this model can be used to describe historical developments. First there was the Egyptian bondage, then there was the Babylonian destruction, later we experienced the Greek philosophic challenge to our way of life and, finally we are still coping with the great Roman persecution. History is viewed as a progression in which the nation finds itself challenged on ever higher planes as we approach an eschatological end of days.

All that's cool, but I prefer a more personal approach. The ladder represents my personal connection to God. God stands over us all and we are constantly trying to adjust and improve that connection. The Sfat Emet points out that the verb used to describe the upright stature of the ladder is mutzav when nitzav was expected. Mutzav is a passive term which implies that the ladder is being continually set up. Each of us is arranging the ladder over us, because we are inextricably bound to the ladder. Our physical bodies are at the foot of the ladder and our souls, which are a small piece of Divinity, are with God at the top. We spend our lives keeping the flow between the two extremes open at all times. Therefore there are parts of me, actions or thoughts, on all of the rungs between earth and heaven. If I leave any steps unoccupied are uninvolved then I run the risk of losing the link between my body and soul. This requires me to be contemplating spirituality or performing mitzvoth all the time. It's this total involvement which keeps sending the messages (or messengers or angels) which occupy the rungs.

Now we can understand an enigmatic passage towards the end of our parsha: The angel of God spoke to me in that dream and said,…, 'Look! The goats are going up. I have seen all the wrong things Laban has been doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you poured olive oil on the monument and where you made a promise to me. Now I want you to leave here and go back to the land where you were born (31:11-13). Ya'akov has to leave Laban's house because he's no longer dreaming of his spiritual connection to God; he's dreaming about goats and his assets. He's in danger of losing the connection to his own soul residing with God. We must keep all of our behavior in the context of reaching heavenward. When we lose that orientation, we start moving horizontally and we lose the vertical thrust towards our souls.

As Professor Boussa explained, problem solving requires models that can help us visualize the issues we deal with. As spiritual beings we need the ladder model to help us keep focused on the job, which is: Excelsior, ever upward!

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Walk Article

2011-11-22T08:03:00.001-05:00

YA'AKOV: THE FINAL FATHER

Toldot-5772

Rabbi David Walk

The second Gerer Rebbe in his great commentary the Sfat Emet asks why the patriarchs are called Avot. I mean we could call them founders or initiators. He answers that the term implies that they were living for the future. They were constantly birthing a new reality. Their fatherhood was their true persona. I'm not sure that we feel this with Ya'akov. Ya'akov seems very much in the moment, whether trying to figure out how to survive the machinations of brother and father in law or how to navigate the dangerous shoals of the relationships with wives and children. In his life, it was hard to put something away for a rainy day when it was always raining. Avraham is forever being told that his dealings with God are for his children after him, and Yitzchak doesn't seem involved with this world at all, but Ya'akov is always dealing with immediate issues and problems. He's eternally in sink or swim mode. So, how is Ya'akov a Patriarch at all, and even referred to as the best as well?

In many ways Ya'akov is the most problematic of the Avot. Since I find it so easy to identify with him, that implies that he doesn't portray that bigger than life aspect I see in his father and grandfather. He seems to be struggling with the same mundane problems which plague us, just more so. We all have to deal with sibling rivalry, but it doesn't usually reach mortal proportions. In laws can also be an issue, but we don't usually have to flee their home in the middle of the night or feel cheated in all our negotiations with them. For most of us they're just sort of a dull pain that we only notice when we poke it. Also, it seems a bit ironic that someone whose epithet is father, endures so many parenting problems. Without going into the issue of blame; rapes, attempted murders and kidnappings within the family are rather rare, but he suffered them all. So, it's confusing that he is called the greatest of the Patriarchs. It calls into question what the Sages are looking for in Patriarchs. The normative approach to explain his greatness is that his bed was complete. By that the Sages mean that all of his children were members of the club. Avraham had Yishmael and Yitzchak had Esav, who forged paths outside our tradition, but all of Ya'akov's twelve sons become the founders of their own tribes within the nation. That's one of the reasons that we're called the children of Israel or Ya'akov rather than of Avraham or Yitzchak.

I believe though that there is a more fundamental or philosophic issue at work. I think that to understand this issue we must understand the term used to describe the major feature of Ya'akov's character, and that term is Tiferet. (Many authorities count Ya'akov's main trait as emet, truth based on Micha 7:20. However, in mystical circles he corresponds to the third stage of the sefirot or Tiferet.) It's very hard to translate this word. Yet we say every morning that God crowned Israel with this aspect (Otar Yisrael b'Tifara). It's constructed from the word pe'er, which itself can mean glory or beauty. Tiferet is probably an intensification of that word, and is usually rendered as splendor. But what do we mean when we say that Ya'akov is Tiferet? In what way was he splendid? Usually we understand the Tiferet nature of Ya'akov as his synthesis of his father's and grandfather's traits. I don't think that Yitzchak was even aware that his fulfillment of the covenant was different from his father's. When our parsha begins by emphasizing 'these are the generations of Isaac the son of Abraham; Abraham begot Isaac (Genesis 25:19),' and later states 'Isaac again dug the wells of water which they had dug in the days of his father, Abraham (26:18),' it means that Yitchak was working hard to be his father.

Ya'akov was fifteen when Avraham died and had ample opportunity to study his father and grandfather. He clearly observed the differences of style and approach. The greatness of Ya'akov was that he saw the greatness of each and endeavored to blend them into a new paradigm incorporating the strengths of each. This integration produced a beautiful tapestry of differing hues woven together so masterfully that it produced a product so splendid that we call it Tiferet, the prototype of beauty. That's the normal approach, and it has great merit. However, I think that there's more to the picture.

I think that the artistry of Ya'akov was even greater. He understood from his scrutiny of his forebears that greatness can be achieved in a variety of ways, and that everyone has to contribute to the eternal enterprise based upon their unique skill set. This explains why the blessings given by Yitzchak this week seemed generic. He bestowed the blessings of wealth and power then he consecrated Ya'akov with the spiritual blessing of Avraham. However, at the end of his own life Ya'akov gives each of the twelve tribes very specific blessings calibrated to the special characteristics of each son.

Now we can begin to appreciate the true Tiferet of Ya'akov's artistry. He didn't just weave the gorgeous strands which he inherited into an amazing work of art; he spun new threads based upon the rainbow of possibilities he discerned among his offspring. He became a prism which refracted all the world's light into its constituent parts. That's why the nation is called B'nei Yisroel, his children. He empowered us to make our unique contribution to the destiny of our people. He is our parent continuing to encourage us to be Jewish and be true to ourselves.

I want my children and grandchildren to be loyal members of the Jewish people and still feel confident enough in themselves to express their own inner selves. Ya'akov taught us how to do that, and that's a many splendid thing.

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Walk Article

2011-11-15T07:51:00.001-05:00

FOUR ARE THE MOTHERS

Chaye Sarah-5772

Rabbi David Walk

These past couple of weeks I've been writing about the Patriarchs. I can't in full conscience do Ya'akov until next week, because he's not born until then. So, it's appropriate this week to say something about the Matriarchs, because in this week's parsha we have the changing of the guard from Sarah to Rivka and the traditional yahrzeit of Rachel (11 Marcheshvan) was just a few days ago. Before I try to analyze their role, I must say how important it is to have these marvelous women in our tradition, because our daughters need role models as much as our sons do. Our Tanach thankfully has strong female characters for us to recognize the contributions of women to our nation's destiny. When preparing for Sukkot I always suggest having Ushpizot (Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah, Miriam, Ruth and Esther), along with the traditional Ushpizim. So, it's crucially important for our people to understand these great personalities, and endeavor to emulate them in our own families and lives.

These women are initially seen as wives, and even though that's very important it's not enough to fully understand either the totality of their roles or of themselves. Marriage in Judaism is, of course, extremely important. We have many proverbs about marriage, but I'd like to quote two: "He who has found a wife has found happiness" (Proverbs 18:22). Closer to home, we recently read, "It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him" (Genesis 2:18). We believe that it's only in the marriage setting that individuals become whole humans. Not that there aren't marvelous people functioning well as singles, but the ideal and the norm is as couples. Even as couples, we have two visions of the phenomenon. There is the biological model in which the main purpose of the union is to propagate the family and the race. As humanity passes the seven billion mark we may want to back off a little from that one. But Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1994) discusses at length another aspect of marriage. He refers to it as covenantal marriage. This describes a much more profound relationship in which the two partners join together for a purpose greater than just reproduction. Perhaps this is why three of the Matriarchs were infertile, to demonstrate that there was more to their relationships than biology.

So, these women were more than just a source for DNA for the nascent nation. They were partners in the enterprise. It's interesting that in our times we've seen such marvelous women. Two of the giants of the previous generation were the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 1902-1994) and Rabbi Soloveitchik. They both had wives who famously contributed immensely to their missions in life. Mrs. Tonya Lewitt Soloveitchik (1904-1967) had a doctorate in Education from Jena University. Amazingly for a famous rabbinic family of that era, this was not an arranged marriage. The Rav referred to her as his best (maybe only) friend. She took a leading role in the Maimonides School in Brookline, MA, and was influential in that school's revolutionary positions on Jewish education for women. Mrs. Chaya Mushka Schneerson (1901-1988) was the daughter of the previous Rebbe. Their marriage was almost a merger, but she was a major force in the movement, especially for women's issues. Also, it's rumored in the movement that she prevailed upon her husband to accept the mantle when he was reluctant to replace his beloved father in law. It's interesting that she had no children, again, that hearkens back to the matriarchs.

The Rav in a number of essays wrote about the differing roles of men and women in marriage, but he always stressed that these are typological categories. It would be fine in any specific case for the roles to be fulfilled by either spouse. Having said that, the Rav explained the particular roles traditionally assigned to parents. The Rav's view was that "the teaching and training of the child involves a double task, intellectual and experiential," and went on to state that "the typological father bears responsibility for the former, the mother for the latter." In short, generally the father is in charge of IQ and the mother is in charge of EQ.

Our Matriarchs taught us, perhaps, the most important lesson of being a help mate (ezer k'negdo). That idea is that the best partner furthers the enterprise through honesty, not through sycophancy or flattery. These women were not afraid to speak their minds and push the agenda which they saw was best for the future of the Jewish people. It can't have been easy for Sarah to demand that Yishmael be banished, and Avraham didn't initially take it so well. It actually took Divine intervention for him to accept this harsh decision. We take God's instruction to heed Sarah very seriously. She has a voice. Rivka took a stronger stance by convincing Ya'akov to defy Yitzchak. Most commentaries understand Yitzchak's statement 'indeed he shall remain blessed (Genesis 27:33)' as an acceptance of the initiative of Rivka and Ya'akov. Difficult challenges from the wives end up being accepted by the husbands, because there is an understanding of the nature of the partnership. These women pull their weight in ways which were unusual for that era, and must be continued in our own.

No one would have the chutzpah to deny the place of a strong mother in the Jewish family and community. I'm sadly disappointed when that honor is not extended to women in general. Yitzchak understood this reality. He clearly saw Rivka as a replacement for the strong role of his mother in his life (Genesis 24:67). This week's celebration of the life of Sarah should remind us of the crucial role of women in our nation's past. Let's work to make sure that we utilize their talents for our people's present and future.

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Walk Article

2011-11-08T08:13:00.001-05:00

YITZCHAK: THE NEXT GENERATION

Vayeira-5772

Rabbi David Walk

This week we are introduced to Yitzchak. But not really. I don't think that we ever get to know this enigmatic character. I believe that we read Bible stories to be able to learn positive human behavior. Emulate the conduct of the good guys; reject the manner of the bad guys. Often this leads me to trouble. I have trouble trying to be like Avraham, his majestic goodness is just too perfect; his awesome altruism is just too absolute. I fall short. I have trouble trying to imitate Yitzchak, because I don't get it. I get lost. So, this week I'll try to fathom the nature and contribution of Yitzchak, which makes him one of the three Patriarchs and founders of our religion and way of life. This is not an easy task. He just doesn't exhibit the heroic magnificence of his illustrious father.

First of all, allow me to introduce the topic by explaining that our Sages established many of our customs and liturgy based upon the reality that there are and must be, three Patriarchs. The expression 'God of Avraham, God of Yitzchak and God of Ya'akov' is almost a mantra in our prayer book. In mystical terms these three gentlemen represent the fundamental character traits of chesed (kindness), gevura (c-c-c-courage) and tiferet (splendor). Many explain this triumvirate as representing the three pillars of our universe, Torah, avodah (Divine service) and gemillat chesed. Our three dimensional world has three basic attributes and three avatars. The Netivot Shalom (Reb Shalom Noach Barzovsky of Slonim, 1911-2000) suggested that we need these three founding fathers to counteract the deleterious behavior of the original generations. They each are the tikun (repair) for the sin of the fruit, the sin of the generation of the flood and the sin of the Tower of Babel. So, to establish the nation there must be three founders. But what is the special contribution of Yitzchak?

We don't see Yitzchak doing all that much. For a man who lived to be one hundred and eighty, we don't have much material to go on. He doesn't seem all that comfortable with people. Also, he seems very passive. Most events surrounding his life seem to happen to him, rather than he taking charge of events. His father attempts to sacrifice him, his marriage is arranged seemingly without his knowledge, his wells are destroyed, and his wife and son trick him into blessing the wrong child. He appears to be the opposite of his father, who is the ultimate take charge guy. Avraham lives in the largest available communities of Hebron and Be'er Sheva. Yitzchak prefers the isolation of Be'er Lechai Ro'i, an oasis in the deep desert. How is this fellow the heir to Avraham's revolution in human spirituality?

Perhaps the greatest message in this mystery is that there are many potential models of Jewish success. We are not tied to one paradigm. The zadik or religious leader comes in many guises. Avraham is the social version, and Yitzchak is the recluse type. Matters of style aren't important to the mission. But what is the mission? A study of Avraham would lead us to believe that the mission is to spread the message of ethical monotheism as far as possible. However, with Yitzchak we have no souls gathered for the cause. If anything the followers brought into the tent by Avraham are lost and dispersed. So, what does Yitzchak do for the furtherance of the operation?

To answer this difficult question, I believe that we must rely on the mystics. The power or character of Yitzchak is described as gevurah. We usually translate this term as either courage or bravery. But how do we view bravery? The answer to this can found in a famous Mishneh in Pirkei Avot: Who is the brave warrior (Hebrew: gibor)? One who overpowers his own inclinations. As is stated (Proverbs 16:32), "Better one who is slow to anger than one with might, one who rules his spirit than the captor of a city." (Chapter 4, Mishneh 1). The greatest bravery is displayed within the individual rather than against the outside world. Ultimately our greatest foe is ourselves. Yitzchak conquered the greatest natural inclination, namely self preservation, in the Akeida, that attempted sacrifice of him. That inner strength to forfeit everything before the will of God is a rare commodity indeed.

This gevurah is viewed as the tikun for the sin of the generation of the flood. Apparently the three part sinful behavior of that time period included violence, theft and promiscuity. The society became so corrupt that no one attempted to control any urges, no matter how selfish, no matter how debased. In Pirkei Avot we also informed that there are three destructive character traits, which mirror the three positives represented by the Avot. They are jealousy (kinah), lust (ta'avah) and the pursuit of honor (kavod). Yitzchak's gevurah is the antidote for lust or desire. His gevurah enables him to rein in even normal levels of desire. I think that his greatest level of gevurah was to continue the spiritual path of his father. If Yitzchak were given carte blanche to develop a religion, I believe that he would have concocted a system based on asceticism and solitude. But that's not what he did. He worked hard to continue his father's ways. That's the profound symbolism in the wells that he dug to replace those of his father which were being destroyed (Genesis 26:15-22). He didn't dig anew; he refreshed his father's wells.

The greatest display of gevurah or self control isn't the one time deal of the Akeidah. It's the life long struggle to continue his father's work, rather than replace it with his own. It's relatively easy to be brave for a moment, but it's infinitely harder to display self control for a lifetime. Yitzchak had that strength. In the story of the Akeidah twice it states that father and son walked together. That's true. They trod the same path, but in very different styles; same path, different steps.

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Walk Article

2011-11-01T07:33:00.001-04:00

AVRAHAM: THE FIRST WHAT?

Lech Licha-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Last week I wrote about the choseness of the Jewish people. This week I'd like to address the problem of why we were chosen, through our ancestor Avraham. The issue seems to be crystal clear to many observers. If we conducted a survey amongst Jews (many Christians would say that it was grace, or arbitrary.), I think that the answer we'd get most often would be that he was the first to accept monotheism. However, this answer isn't tenable based of the text of our Bible. Adam, Chanoch, Noach and Shem all seemed to be monotheists who preceded him. So, the answer must be found elsewhere, but the verses don't seem very helpful. Midrashic literature thrives on these lacunae (Look it up!). I'll present just one of many options, but I'd like to suggest as well that a careful reading of the text gives us a very beautiful response to this critical question.

As I said there are many Midrashim describing courageous acts by Avraham which explain God's granting of the eternal covenant to his progeny. Some of these are so famous, like smashing the idols in his father's idol shop, that many people think that they appear in the Biblical text. However, the one Midrash I want to present is very different. When Avraham was commanded to: 'Go from your land, your birthplace, and your father's house to the land which I will show you' (Genesis12:2), the Midrash asks To what may this be compared? To a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace in flames. He wondered: "Is it possible that the palace has no owner?" The owner of the palace looked out and said, "I am the owner of the palace." So Abraham our father said, "Is it possible that the world lacks a ruler?" God looked out and said to him, "I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe (Breishit Raba 39:1)." This is the teleological or reason from design support for the existence of God. That part is fine, but why is this symbolic palace on fire?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, wrote the following answer to that question: I have never heard a more profound and unsettling account of the nature of the universe. We believe that it is like a palace. Someone designed it. Someone built it. Someone therefore owns it…The universe is a contradiction. On the one hand, order, on the other, chaos; on the one hand, the palace, on the other, the flames. Abraham lived, and we live, with that contradiction. And as the Midrash indicates, there is only one way out. God is calling us, as He called Abraham: "Help Me put out the flames." And we have to help God put them out. This is what Judaism means when it says that God asks us to be His partners in the work of creation. No other religion and no secular philosophy has thought in these terms…Jews don't accept the world. We try to mend it, knowing how deeply it is fractured. That is why I am proud to be a Jew (Letters to the Next Generation 2, chapter 12). Thank you Rabbi Sacks, Lord Aldgate, I think that's a great explanation for what was unique about Avraham and what continues to make our religion special in the world.

But what happens when we look at the verses, unvarnished by these rabbinic glosses and fables? I believe that we can get the same perspective. God tells Avraham to leave his home and homeland, without clear instructions about where he is to go or what he is to expect upon arrival. This is so very different from the instructions given to Noach. Noach is told to build an ark, a very arduous task, but he is given very specific instructions and he understands that by building this boat he and his family will be saved from imminent inundation. Avraham is given no such assurances. The upside of following God's command is very nebulous. He is told that he will be a blessing for all mankind, but what does it mean that he will be a blessing? What does he get that he will bestow upon others? Therefore it must mean that the reward for listening to God, is listening to God. The reward for being good is being good. Avraham is being told to buy into a new rubric for life without tangible payment. Of course, if I have faith in God, I believe that working hard to have a better world will give me the greatest compensation, namely a better world for me and my progeny, and that's cool.

Avraham is being let into life's greatest secret. The greatest rewards aren't bestowed from an outside force, they are generated internally by my own efforts and exertions. This is, of course, the basis for the many rabbinic teachings about performing God's instructions for their own sake (lishma), and the famous statement: Do not be as servants, who serve their master for the sake of reward. Rather, be as servants who serve their master not for the sake of reward. And the reverence of Heaven should be upon you (Pirkei Avot 1:3). There may be a great lollipop at the end of the road, but that's not why we travel that road. We travel it because it's the right road, and I couldn't live with myself if I eschewed it.

We call this attitude Gemillat Chesed, a life filled with acts of loving kindness. Avraham in the mystical spheres represents Chesed. These acts are the greatest kindness, because they are only performed out of love. Love for humanity, love for God, love for doing what's right.

Avraham taught us that the awe of God isn't because of what the Deity may do to me or for me. It's just because God allows me to be a partner in the enterprise. We like the company.

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Walk Article

2011-10-25T07:39:00.001-04:00

THE CHOSEN

Noach-5772

Rabbi David Walk

This week's Torah reading presents those of us trying to compose a cogent piece, perhaps, the greatest difficulty in finding a central theme to develop. Discussing Noach himself is always a possibility, but not a very attractive one. We always get stuck on our ambivalence toward this enigmatic and reluctant hero. Was he really worthy or just the best of a bad lot? No one knows for sure, and the circular debates go on unabated. However, the greatest question nagging the reader of this week's parsha is probably, why do we bother with this material? Who really cares what happened to the generation of the flood or the builders of the Tower? They are gone and forgotten, because both their DNA and their ideology are no longer relevant. So, in retrospect what can we really garner from this week's eclectic collection of tales? I think that the upshot of the messy material presented in parshat Noach is that there's a necessity to have a chosen nation. The world at large tends towards either chaos (the generation of the Flood) or totalitarianism (the generation of the Tower of Babel). For humankind to continue to develop and evolve there must be at least one group staying focused on the prize, universal ethical monotheism.

I'd like to ignore one of the most fascinating problems in this issue, namely why us. This quandary will be dealt with in separate articles discussing the merits of the Patriarchs. Instead I'm going to try to figure out whether or not this appointment has been good or bad for the Jews. It's indisputable that this choseness has been cited by anti-Semites for a long time. I find it intriguing that before two centuries ago most of the diatribes against the Jews were based on the theory within Christian dogma that Christianity replaced Judaism as the New Israel. Augustine (354-430) cited the continued existence of the Jews as bearing witness through their suffering of their rejection by God. Somehow that proves the veracity of Christian claims of becoming God's elect. This so called Replacement Theology hated the Jews more for their continued rejection of the Church than for the charge of Deicide.

In the past two centuries, the thrust of anti-Semitism has shifted to a hatred of Jews because we claim to be chosen within a context of universalism, where there can be no claim of preference or special status for any one people. President Charles de Gaulle of France articulated this position when he observed in a news conference shortly after 1967's Six Day War that the Jews have long been an 'elite people, self confident and domineering' who are 'provoking ill will.' Why not blame the victims? More recently the famous Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis told an interviewer that 'today it is possible to say that this small nation is the root of all evil; it is full of self-importance and evil stubbornness.' The Jewish interviewer then asked what holds the Jews together, and Theodorakis explained that it's our choseness. It's interesting that the theme of stubbornness persists. In the Middle Ages we were stubborn to reject the choseness of the Church and today we're stubborn, because we continue to believe in our own choseness. God called the Jews of the desert stiff necked or stubborn. This trait has remained throughout the ages. I guess it's one of the reasons that we're still here.

But what is the essence of this choseness? We get our first inkling next week, when Avraham is told: I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:2-3). Later in Genesis we are given a concrete example of this phenomenon in the Joseph story. Joseph saves Egypt and, indeed, the entire Middle East, during the seven years of famine. Just as was promised to Avraham, the chosen are meant to benefit the unchosen as well. This may explain the title given to Joseph by the Egyptians. He is called Avrech (41:43), and although there are a number of interpretations for this name, it does seem to be related to the word baruch or blessing. The Jew is expected to bring tangible benefits to the gentile population, and they are expected to acknowledge this bounty.

This amazing story contrasts with the traditional point of view that the benefits bestowed by the Jews are spiritual and intangible. This is, of course, based on the expression in the book of Isaiah, ohr lagoyim. This phrase appears three times: I am the Lord; I called you with righteousness and I will strengthen your hand; and I formed you, and I made you for a people's covenant, for a light to nations (42:6); It is too small a thing for you to be My servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the besieged of Israel, but I will make you a light of nations, so that My salvation shall be until the end of the earth (49:6); And nations shall go by your light and kings by the brilliance of your shine (60:3). These verses become the basis for the mission theory of Jewish destiny. I believe that a careful reading of these three verses seems to lead to a double conclusion. The Jews have a duty to maintain and continually renew our own ethnicity, but we also have a responsibility to provide guidance to the world at large.

I have a strong suspicion that these two goals can never be uncoupled. Even though there have been long periods of Jewish history when one position overshadowed the other, I think that the two must coexist. Sometimes our influence has been indirect and other times we've intimately worked with other nationalities, but the two march in lock stepped unity. The best expression of this duality is the Aleinu prayer which concludes all of our synagogue services. In the first paragraph, we discuss our national obligation to worship and revere God, and recognition that we are unique in this commitment. The second paragraph, on the other hand, emphasizes our duty to spread this message and make this world a better place. For me the critical phrase is 'to repair the world under the Kingdom of God.' The text goes to anticipate the time when 'all living flesh will call Your name, and for all the wicked of the Earth to turn to You.'

We Jews have an eternal balancing act. We must maintain our separateness while simultaneously feeling a strong requirement to influence others. If we veer too far to one extreme we lose our identity, if we move to the other pole we lose our mission and purpose. It's not easy, but it's our role.

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Walk Article

2011-10-17T11:27:00.001-04:00

TO BE HUMAN

B'reishit-5772

Rabbi David Walk

The way our Jewish calendar works out most years it's a problem trying to fit in an article for parshat B'reishit, the first Torah reading of our annual cycle. With all the holidays, it's just difficult finding the time to send a piece out for this majestic section of our Torah. But this year I was determined, at the risk of offending and ignoring the last days of Sukkot, to write something about this interesting, but challenging parsha. Now I just have to figure out which point to discuss. There's just so much in this powerhouse parsha. We could look at the Creation of the Cosmos, the first sin, the first homicide, the first Shabbat, the Garden of Eden. But ultimately, I believe that the most important issue in the Torah reading is the emergence of Homo sapiens, of us.

The creation of humanity actually appears twice (This dichotomy is the basis for Rabbi Soloveitchik's famous article, The Lonely Man of Faith.). In the first chapter of our Bible, it reports: And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth." And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26-27). That's pretty cool. Our human uniqueness is based upon our sharing something in common with God called image. But I have no idea what that is. In the second chapter it records: And the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul (2:7). That's a little better. What makes us special is that we are a combination of base, earthly stuff, but also a little whiff of something ethereal and supernal called a soul, which descended directly from God. We bridge that gap between heaven and earth; we stride between the two. How does that special nature get expressed in our lives and our behavior?

There are some famous answers to this age old query of how does the uniqueness of humanity get expressed. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) said that man is a social animal (alternate version: political). The great philosopher believed that we're defined by our interactions with other naked apes. Modern scientific observation reinforces this idea. We've taught a number of chimpanzees to recognize some words by pointing to them on signs. When two of these uber monkeys get together, they throw the placards at each other. When two human babies know how to talk they begin to communicate. Many start communicating before they can really talk. The communication between other animals is only utilitarian; we just like to communicate, usually when we shouldn't. The French rationalist and mathematician, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) gave the quintessential answer: Cogito, ergo sum. I think or contemplate and, therefore, I am. Humans are the animals who think about things. In biology, we're designated Homo Sapiens, which means animals who know. In the Wikipedia article, humans are the animals capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. And WordNet defines us as characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage.

All of that is interesting, but not so helpful or uplifting. What do Jewish sources say about this? The Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) defines us as the beings who walk and move forward, as opposed to angels who stand and are static. Our humanity allows us to evolve and improve. We make mistakes but are capable of learning from them. Not so different from Aristotle, many rabbinic sources refer to humans as the animals which talk. Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1993) used a famous statement in the Mishneh to define our humanity. It says in Baba Kama: Humans are always responsible for their actions, whether by mistake or on purpose, whether awake or asleep (chapter 2, mishneh 6). According to the Rav, our humanity is embedded in our responsibility for our actions. This responsibility for our behavior is at the root of our system of mitzvoth, and is the basis for potential punishments for crimes, and underpins our concept of Teshuva, repentance. This was the rationale of Maimonides to place the concept of free will in the middle two chapters of his Laws of Repentance.

I think that the best answer is actually given by God in our Torah reading. When God addresses the depressed Cain after his sacrifice has not been accepted, this is the message: Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won't you be accepted? And if you don't do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it's out to get you, you've got to master it (Genesis 4:6-7). In the Hebrew, sin is waiting at the opening (petach), which can mean many things, the womb, any opportunity or the grave. This is the greatest expression humanity's duality. We are composed of the earthly stuff (best stuff on earth?) which is drawn to temptation and sin, but we can and must over come these baser instincts. We accomplish that by sublimating our physical urges and turn them to spiritual goals.

The first chapters of Genesis haven't taught me cosmology; they've informed me of psychology. We haven't been instructed about the development of DNA and the rise of life; we've been tutored in how to be human. We're so very close to our animal relatives, but with a touch of something Divine.

We are made of the same ingredients as the animal kingdom, therefore we have all the same urges and needs for nourishment and procreation, but possess the soul, spirit and conscious to control and direct them, when we try. That defines us and makes all the difference between beast and human being, and vive le difference.

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Walk Article

2011-10-10T10:08:00.001-04:00

THE BRONZE MEDAL

Sukkot-5772

Rabbi David Walk

How does it feel to come in third? I guess that depends on many conditions. In a world wide competition, it must feel pretty special. In a three man race, not so much. With the Three Stooges, being third never gave Curly much solace. However, in many lists of three, in both the Bible and world culture, the third in a list is often the honored position. As in 'that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.' It's called a tri-colon, and the third item is the most powerful or memorable. I mention this idea this week, because Sukkot occupies just such a third place position. In the month of Tishre it follows Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and, let's be honest, it doesn't get the same crowds as those first two heavy hitters. But also in the Jewish annual cycle of pilgrimage feasts, it occupies third place after Pesach and Shavuot. How should it feel about this third place finish? Well, since we're getting ready to celebrate it, I think that we'll try to make it feel good.

In all the Torah's lists of the holidays, Exodus (chapters 23 and 34), Leviticus (chapter 23), Numbers (chapter 28 and 19) and Deuteronomy (chapter 16), Sukkot is always last. The most obvious reason for this is chronology. It both comes third in the Torah's count of months and historically commemorates the years in the desert which followed the events of Pesach, departing Egypt, and Shavuot, the revelation at Sinai. Also, it is third in the agricultural significance of the holidays, since Pesach is a planting holiday, Shavuot is a first fruits commemoration, while Shavuot is a harvest feast. However, we're less interested in these technical points, and more concerned to discover what spiritual significance this third place finish imparts to our Sukkot experience.

Although many authorities deal with this issue, it is the Sfat Emet (Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur, 1847-1905) who really got involved in this question, and gave numerous answers over a number of years to this query. At one point he suggested that the three holidays of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot correspond to the three patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov, who is third but called the choicest of the Patriarchs. Another time he said that the three pilgrimage festivals repair (tikun) the three most grievous sins, idolatry, adultery and murder. Yet a third suggestion was that the three feasts represent the three spiritual realms of action, speech and thought. However, there are two more suggestions made by the Sfat Emet, which I want to take a look at in greater detail.

In 1874, the second Gerrer Rebbe wrote that the three holidays line up with the famous threesome from the second verse of Shema, in which we proclaim that you should love your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5). On Pesach as we left Egypt we also left behind our evil inclination so that our hearts could be totally devoted to God, with no other suitors for our affections. That's all you heart. On Shavuot while listening to God's awesome voice we felt our souls departing from our physical forms, and knew that there would be times when we would have to lay down our lives for God and the Torah. The third member of this trio is translated as 'with all your might.' Our Sages understood this to mean with all of our financial resources. Indeed, on Sukkot we depart from our fine homes to dwell in flimsy huts. This demonstrates our willingness to sacrifice financial well being for God, if need be. This third commitment is the hardest, not because we love money so much (well, maybe there are some such Jews, like Jack Benny), but because it requires us to sacrifice on an ongoing basis, which can affect our lives constantly. Poverty doesn't go away easily or quickly.

In that same d'var Torah the Rebbe mentions another approach to this issue, namely that the three holidays also represent the three corrosive character traits, jealousy, lust and the pursuit of honor. In 1876 he expanded on this theme in the name of his grandfather, the first Gerrer Rebbe, who raised him. He doesn't really explain how Pesach and Shavuot counteract jealousy and lust, and I'm not going to speculate, because this is not an article about those holidays. However, he does expand on the relationship of Sukkot to the pursuit of honor. The symbolism of our dwelling in these huts commemorates the clouds of glory or honor which enveloped our ancestors during their forty year trek through the wilderness. This glorious manifestation of God's presence and love for us gave the Jews an overwhelming sense of national pride, worth and honor. At that moment no earthly honors could possibly entice us. We were totally beyond the clutches of mundane lust for power and position. The sukkah and its cloudlike flimsy roof is an antidote for what drives much of humanity's worst characteristics of greed and egocentrism.

Why does the Sfat Emet mention these two answers together? Why does he believe that these two answers can coexist? Well, I think that the Rebbe is teaching us that these two answers work together, because they function as explanations for a famous argument in the Talmud. Rebbe Elazar says that our sukkot remind of those glorious clouds which accompanied our ancestors, while Rebbe Akiva claims that they represent the actual huts in which the Jews dwelled in the desert (tractate Sukah 11b). So, the Gerrer Rebbe is teaching us that the actual hut answer is connected to devoting all of our resources to God and spirituality. On the other hand, the comparison of our sukah's roof to the clouds of glory emphasizes how Sukkot helps us repair the human desire to pursue honor and power.

So, this Sukkot when we sit in our humble huts we should strive to eliminate our negative tendencies and strengthen our positive inclinations. Sitting in the sukkah should be a lot of fun for every Jewish family, but also a motivation to become better human beings, and that's a first place idea. Chag Sameach!

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Walk Article

2011-10-04T07:48:00.001-04:00

MEANINGFUL CEREMONIES

Yom Kippur-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Every year Yom Kippur looms as a major presence on the Jewish calendar. Sadly, I think, most people approach this occasion with a certain dread. As a rabbi the day intimidates because of the high profile speaking spots which must be prepared. Many are concerned about the fasting, others are freaked by the long services, and still others have spiritual concerns that they will be found wanting and religiously inadequate. None of these reactions to the approaching date are really appropriate according to Jewish tradition. Our Sages go out of their way to encourage us about the great gift of this awesome day. We should have faith in the redemptive power of this holiday rather than stress the trepidation before the task of fasting and repenting. Whence does this holy day derive its curative capacity? According to the Torah, the powers derive from the worship in the Holy Temple. The vast majority of what the Torah records about this holiday describes the impressive ceremonies performed in Jerusalem's Holy Temple. On Yom Kippur it's harder than at any other occasion to ignore the former centrality of sacrifices to our religion, and our present consternation over the inability to fulfill these Torah demands.

So, what should we do? Some people like to ignore the problem, and just assume we're not going back there. Others devoutly pray for the resumption of these ceremonies. Still others (following a conjecture from Rav Kook) believe in a middle path of, perhaps limited offerings, like grain, wine and oil, excluding all the mess of animal entrails. I, personally, have no idea, and will accept the eventual outcome as God's plan. I think God's knows best. However, I don't think it makes any difference how we view the now in abeyance practice. Our job is to give the material chosen by our Sages meaning. We have to come to grips with the prayers we chant. These sacrificial rites occupy the central place in the Musaf service for Yom Kippur. Much of the cantor's repetition of the prayer is a detailed step by step description of the actions required of the High Priest to attain the atonement for the nation. What am I supposed to think and feel while the slaughtering, splashing and burning are described?

One could take a detached position, and, just believe that we're learning some history of ancient Jewish practices. We could react by thinking, how quaint of our ancestors to perform such rites. I'd like to think that our service require a greater emotional involvement than that. I think that a good prayer must be passionate. We could believe that by reciting this material we have mystically accessed the power of these acts so that I have magically fulfilled them. Job done or mischief managed.

I'm not enamored of either approach. I think that we have to think more deeply about the power of these ceremonies. What did the penitent have to think when offering the animal? I believe that in many societies and, sadly, amongst some Jews the feeling was popular that the sacrifice acted as a bribe. I did something which angered the Deity and I must appease through a valuable gift. It's sort of a quid pro quo to placate God. I understand that idea, but I don't like it. Since I have nothing of value to God, how can I bribe the Omnipotent?

According to many Jewish authorities and also many anthropologists studying this issue, the penitent must identify with the animal. In our Torah and in many sacrificial societies the donor must establish a metonymy or transference of identity with the sacrifice. This relationship is established by touching the victim on the head. The Rav, Rabbi Joseph D. Soloveitchik (1903-1993) commented on this concept: Repentance takes the place of the sacrifice of myself which I had a duty to offer upon the altar. It stands in my place and it is as if I myself were stretched out upon the altar (On Repentance, p. 246)

I think that we are saved from this view by the prophets. On many occasions our Prophets decry the abundance of offerings. Isaiah said: Of what use are your many sacrifices to Me? Says the Lord. I am sated with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle; and the blood of bulls and sheep and he-goats I do not want (1:11). He later explains that they are empty or vain offerings which vex God's spirit. Hosea, perhaps said it best: For I desire loving-kindness, and not sacrifices, and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings (6:6). Again, Rabbi Soloveitchik comments: When a Jew brings a sacrifice, how are his sins expiated? Is it by virtue of a two shekel lamb? Certainly not! Atonement comes through the recognition and confession of sin embodied in the act of sacrifice. This confession means abnegation and annihilation of the self, as though one were oneself laid upon the altar (On Repentance, p 242).

The Rav continues to explain that the animal is a surrogate, but nowadays it's an emotional state, not a technical transfer. We are raising our awareness of guilt, remorse and responsibility. Hopefully, the sacrifice is an impetus to spiritual renewal. So, once we have disposed of a mechanistic approach to the sacrifices, we can understand that atonement is achieved through sincere remorse. This we can achieve without the animal, if we only understand the principle. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who witnessed the destruction of our holy Temple, taught us this two thousand ago when he comforted Rabbi Joshua who mourned our loss of the Holy Temple: My son, do not grieve. We have a greater atonement, and what is it? It is sincerity and deeds of loving kindness.

May our recitation of these rites inspire us to the proper emotional and spiritual state so that we can reconcile with our Maker, our fellow humans and, most significantly, ourselves. May your fast be easy; may your experience be meaningful.

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Walk Article

2011-09-26T09:55:00.001-04:00

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF

Rosh Hashanah-5772

Rabbi David Walk

Like so many character traits, shame has both positive and negative aspects to it. When feeling ashamed prevents me from doing something nasty, that's good. However, when shame prevents me from performing my responsibilities within society, that is very bad. As we approach the New Year and prepare for Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment, a certain shame must be felt as we review our behavior of the past year. If you feel no shame for any action of the past year, you're either a saint or not totally honest with yourself. I don't know many saints, but self delusion seems pretty common. So, let's take a little peek at healthy shame.

Recently there was a fascinating article on the Edge.org website, by Dr. Jennifer Jacquet of the University of British Columbia, about the biological necessity of shame. She said, in part: Balancing group and self-interest has never been easy, yet human societies display a high level of cooperation. To attain that level, specialized traits had to evolve, including such emotions as shame. Shame is what is supposed to occur after an individual fails to cooperate with the group. Shame regulates social behavior and serves as a forewarning of punishment: conform or suffer the consequences. So, Dr. Jacquet presumes that shame is a necessary evolutionary tool to help society function more smoothly. She also pointed out that the feeling of being watched enhances cooperation, and so does the ability to watch others. This has been demonstrated experimentally by researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UNUT?). They examined the effect of a picture of a pair of eyes on payments for tea and coffee to an honor system box. Alternating images of flowers and human faces were posted above the box in the university coffee room each week for ten weeks; researchers found that people paid nearly three times as much for their drinks in weeks during which they were exposed to the human gaze. Shame works. Ask Hester Prynne.

Before I go on with Jewish sources about shame, allow me one short digression. Dr. Jacquet points out the difference between shame and guilt. She elucidates that guilt is evoked by an individual's standards, shame is the result of group standards. Therefore, shame, unlike guilt, is felt only in the context of other people. These two traits are called busha and klima in our traditional texts. And Isaiah talks about people weighing themselves with two different systems (40:12). One is called peles which weighs something based upon the distance from the base. This is like guilt; I weigh myself with reference only to myself. The other scale is called maznayim or balance scale, where I measure myself against an objective measure or weight. This is akin to shame. We utilize both metrics in our teshuva process. There must be personal expectations and societal norms.

The Talmud discusses how to determine if someone is Jewish, and concludes that this nation is distinguished by three characteristics: They are compassion (rachmonim, perhaps empathy), easily ashamed (bayshonim) and performers of acts of kindness (gomlei chasadim, Yevamot 79a). So, we see that the ability to be shamed is inherent to our tribe. This must have positive ramifications for our spiritual growth. Normally, we would prefer not to be embarrassed and shamed. We actually pray for this in the blessing for the New Moon recited on the Shabbat before Rosh Chodesh every month. This may be a reason that we don't recite that prayer on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, because during the period of repentance we view these attributes as beneficial to the process.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook (1860-1935) wrote: Shame which is felt deeply within one's heart because of a sin, even though it's a natural reaction, nevertheless it is an atoning experience. And when the individual intends to expand this feeling of embarrassment over this specific sin, it also expands the entire atonement granting apparatus to include other sins as well. This shame mentioned by Rav Kook over a specific sin he feels is natural. However, this mentioning of embarrassment is also part of the general confession text, even without specifying a particular transgression. Here's the text, which we declare right after the lists of general sins: Here I stand before You like a vessel filled with shame and embarrassment. This idea is reinforced in Maimonides Laws of Repentance, when he says that the wording of a confession should begin with the following words: O Lord, I have sinned, transgressed and rebelled before You, and have done such- and-such, and I am ashamed by my actions and will never do it again (Chapter 1, Halacha 1). I believe that this declaration is based upon the public confession performed by Ezra the Scribe: O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have increased over our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. Since the days of our forefathers, we are in great guilt until this day, and because of our iniquities, we were delivered-we, our kings, our priests-into the hands of the kings of the lands by the sword, in captivity, and with plunder and with shame-facedness as of this day (Ezra 9:6-7).

Here's what I believe that Rav Kook is teaching us. When I confront someone whom I have wronged it's natural to feel shame and embarrassment. That feeling permeates my psyche and helps to inoculate me from that behavior (at least for a few minutes). Our job during the Ten Days of Repentance which begin on Rosh Hashanah is to generate that moral discomfort about our general behavior patterns of the last year. It doesn't come naturally or easily. But here's the point: You should be ashamed of yourself, because it helps you overcome those obstacles to the ethical life we all want. Have a happy, sweet and meaningful New Year!

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Walk Article

2011-09-20T09:41:00.001-04:00

ON THE WAY

Nitzsavim-Va'yelach-5771

Rabbi David Walk

This week's double Torah reading always shows up right around Rosh Hashanah. So, we rabbi types are annually searching for the connections between the parsha and the imminent Day of Judgment. For the first reading, Nitzavim, it's a no-brainer. Appearing prominently in the midst of the text is chapter thirty which is called the portion of repentance: And it will be, when all these things come upon you the blessing and the curse which I have set before you that you will consider in your heart, among all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you, and you will return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will listen to His voice according to all that I am commanding you this day you and your children, then, the Lord, your God, will bring back your exiles, and He will have mercy upon you. He will once again gather you from all the nations, where the Lord, your God, had dispersed you (Deuteronomy: 30:1-3). As you can see these inspiring verses describe both spiritual return and a physical homecoming, both of which we pray for. But what is the inspiring message for the upcoming Days of Awe in parshat Va'yeilach? I think it's in the name.

Every week the great Spanish commentary Rabbeinu Bechaye (d. 1340) chooses a verse from the book of Proverbs which in some way summarizes the major issue in that week's Torah reading. This week he chose: Go, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have poured (Proverbs 9:5). According to Rabbeinu Bechaye the bread represents Torah and the wine symbolizes wisdom. We need both revelation and intellectual acumen to nourish a meaningful life. But the main point of the good rabbi is the use of the term go (Hebrew: Lechu). Generally, one would expect the invitation to be worded 'come' to taste of my intellectual treats, not go. As a matter of fact, most of the translations I checked used the expected word 'come.' Shame on them. The whole point is that to check out God's goodies you have to go out into the world. They're not hidden in a study hall or library. And the word 'go' has more baggage as well.

In many mystical texts humans are referred to as the beings who walk or go, as opposed to angels who stand, and are static. This means that we change, and can improve. With angels, what is you see is what you get. With humans, hopefully, you ain't seen nothin' yet. We are expected to develop and improve throughout our lives. This is very different than come (Hebrew: bo), which describes arrival and conclusion. Last week we read about bringing first fruits in that stable situation of when having arrived (Hebrew: Ki tavo) with a sense of permanence in your homeland. So, going is about continuing to improve and fulfill potential. Therefore the first verse in our parsha is amazing. Moshe is still going strong and evolving even at 120 years old. That's cool. I had a congregant who died at the age of 96, and was sharp and with it until the very end. When I asked him his secret he told me that he learned something new everyday. Sound advice.

We need both aspects, coming and going, in our lives. There's a famous verse which we read in the Haftorah of Re'eh, three weeks ago: All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace (Isaiah 54:13). In our prayer book this verse is interpreted to mean that Torah scholars bring peace to the world, because we should read the word for children (banayich) as builders (bonayich). It's very punny. Except Rabbi Baruch Halevi Epstein (1860-1941) explains that it's not really a pun at all. It's the real meaning of the words. We call a male child a ben, because he builds (boneh). That's what the word really means. Daughters are called bat, because they establish the home (bayit). These are the etymologies. The concept of building is moving forward into a new situation. Building is about the future. The importance of a home is to provide a foundation for the individual based upon traditions and values which can then provide stability and morality when the person ventures forth into the surrounding world. The home is about the past; it provides background. We need both to have a successful life. We need education from our heritage to give us direction for our destiny. I don't think that it's important which parent provides which blessing, but historically there were traditional roles, Dad at work and Mom at home.

We often make a mistake about Rosh Hashanah. People think that the holiday is primarily about where we've been and what we've done. Although that aspect of reviewing of our deeds is present, the essence of the festival is our commitment and resolve for the future. The Netivot Shalom (Reb Shalom Noach Barzovsky, 1911-2000) makes a marvelous observation about the famous metaphor of the three books lying open on Rosh Hashanah. The allegory is that God opens the books of the righteous, the evil and the people who are mixture of the two (namely us). We traditionally have assumed that God is reviewing our actions to assign us a place in those three imaginary tomes. However, the Rebbe explains that that's not the case at all. God's opening them up before us for us to choose which book will describe our life and behavior in the coming year. We're being challenged on Rosh Hashanah to fulfill this prophecy: This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses that I have warned you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live (30:19).

The word Va'yeilach instructs us that Rosh Hashanah and our heavenly judgment is less about where we've been, than it is about where we've decided to go. Please, choose well.

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Walk Article

2011-09-13T08:05:00.000-04:00

NEGLECT

Ki Tavo-5771

Rabbi David Walk

This week's parsha is very dramatic, maybe even melodramatic. The Torah reading begins with the ceremony of bringing the first fruits to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. This requires not only the solemn presenting of the produce to the Cohen before the altar, but also the stirring declaration of our historical connection to the Land of Israel. This material is so moving that it has become the central text for the Passover Hagadah. If that staged service isn't theatrical enough for you, later in the reading there is an even more impressive rite described. After the Jews will have entered the Holy Land they are commanded to assemble on the two hilltops overlooking Shechem. Six tribes are to stand on each hillside and the Cohanim will stand in the valley below. One hill, Mount Gerizim, is verdant and lovely, while the other, Mount Ebal, is bleak and barren. In this powerful setting the Jews will receive a daunting list of blessings and curses. It's this forbidding ceremony which I'd like to discuss this week.

The section begins this way: When you cross the Jordan, the following shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And the following shall stand upon Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naftali (Deuteronomy 27:12-13). The famous commentary the Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, 1550-1619) points out that the language is very different for the blessing and the curse. The blessing derives from a positive action to bless the nation. However, the curse just seems to happen they stand there and the curse just sort of occurs, no verb. Rabbi Luntschitz informs us that God does no negative actions towards us, as the verse in Lamentations states: from on High there comes no evil (3:38). So, from where does the bad stuff derive? It appears through hester panim, the concealing of the Divine Face. When God is absent the result is very bad, and we call it curse.

This concept is reinforced in the actual list of specific curses. There are eleven sins listed which the assembled community must verbally acknowledge as spiritually debilitating. There is much discussion over the choice of sins, moving landmarks, sexual impropriety, making idols, taking bribes, hitting in secret. I don't want to focus on the list but the point they seem to share in common is that they are all performed in private. In this article, I'm more interested in a point noticed by the Kli Yakar. There are eleven of these sins listed. What is the significance of the number eleven? This is not a common number in Jewish tradition. According to the Kli Yakar, this number is based upon the numerical value of the last two letters of God's four letter name, which we never pronounce. Those letters are vav, equal to six, and hey, equal to five. I'd like to suggest that, perhaps, by this he means that those letters make a deficient name of God. The first two letters of that name (yod and hey) make up a name by themselves, but these don't. Also, perhaps, the very number eleven stands for deficiency. Many of our lists in Judaism are based upon the number twelve, like the tribes, months and blessings in Shmoneh Esreh. A list containing eleven elements is lacking.

It is well known (well, maybe not that well known) that thirteen is a special number because it adds to the normal twelve member lists to make up for some shortcoming. This happens with months during a leap year, to tribes when we count the sons of Yosef, and to the blessings of the Shmoneh Esreh prayer, when a thirteenth blessing was added about 100 CE. That's why we chant the Thirteen Attributes of God to beg that our inadequacies be made full again. So, if one more than the norm of twelve means make up and repair, then one less means a deficit, a paucity, a lacking (Thank God for the thesaurus). The symbolism, I think is powerful. Curses mean that something is missing, whether it's in our performance or refers to God's Divine presence.

This idea is very important, especially at this time of year. As we prepare for the High Holidays, our annual Days of Awe, we must be cognizant of the greatest spiritual threat. It's neglect. Most of us are not bad people. We don't go around doing bad things on purpose. Those kinds of villains are rare, except in movies. Most of our sins result from lack of care and concern to do the right thing. More sins are committed through somnolence than through vehemence. I know people say that the Devil is in the details, but I think that the Devil is in apathy. So, what is our job during these days leading up to the Days of Judgment? To become more aware of those around us and how we treat them, and to think carefully about our actions. The two most famous customs of this Hebrew month of Elul reinforce this idea. Getting up early to recite the penitential prayers of Slichot represents a more aggressive awareness of our actions. And, of course, the blowing of the Shofar is described as a wake-up call, according to Maimonides, it is a call to stop sleepwalking through life.

But ultimately the most important message is to Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near (Isaiah 55:6). We must use this opportunity provided by this season to establish a closeness to God, which may have lapsed during the rest of our busy year. Remember, the greatest spiritual negative is distance from God. How does God become distant? God's proximity is in direct relationship to our seeking the Divine. The greatest curse is the absence of God in our lives, and that comes from our neglecting to get in touch. Remember what Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859) said, "God is only where you let God in."

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Walk Article

2011-09-06T15:54:00.001-04:00

WARFARE

Ki Tetze-5771

Rabbi David Walk

It's a war out there. We use expressions like that all the times. We say it in business; we compare it to crime; we express it in sports, especially football, which is full of bombs and blitzes. Sun Tzu, the brilliant military strategist of ancient China, was perhaps the most quoted authority in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Humans are fascinated by war. Robert E. Lee said it best, "It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it." There's always a war happening on the History and Military channels. And saddest of all, there has not been a year of my life without a war going on somewhere. So, what does Judaism say about war? From the end of last week's parsha through this week's Torah reading, we have many rules of warfare.

What's interesting about these many laws of warfare, is that we really don't have an explanation for legitimate causes of war. Instead we have instructions about how to wage war. Except for the initial conquest of Israel and the eternal war against our arch nemesis, Amalek, we aren't instructed about when we should march to war. Indeed, the majority of the wars described in the post-conquest Bible stories are cases of Israel being invaded, in other words defensive wars. The list of invaders is long, Midian, Moav, Amorites, Egypt, Philistines, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome. The Talmud discusses various causae belli, the Torah itself is quite silent on the subject. Wars don't seem to need reasons; they happen. Even though from 135 until 1948 the Jewish nation fought no wars, our military history is a very long one.

So, since most of our most popular commentaries on the Torah lived during that long period when Jewish armies didn't exist, they tended to interpret these long instructions about warfare allegorically. When the Torah says that you will have a war against your enemy, it doesn't mean another nation state, because we Jews didn't have armies to send out against other countries. Therefore, the enemy is the yetzer hara, the spiritual enemy within. The Torah is instructing us on how to win the battle of the soul. And every detail can reinterpreted to aid us in this eternal battle.

We no longer have that need. We have a Jewish state and a Jewish army, and these rules come back to life in their original intent. This brings us to the first mitzvah in this week's Torah reading: If you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord, your God, will deliver him into your hands, and you take his captives, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her, you may take her for yourself as a wife (Deuteronomy 21:10-11). Forget about any fancy interpretations, what's the simple meaning of this mitzvah? Don't commit rape. If your lust takes control of you in the turbulent passions of battle, control them long enough to convert and marry this woman rather than rape her.

I don't know how many of you, my dear readers, have experienced battle, but it's horrible. I've only experienced the tensions leading up to battle. Thank God, real battle was averted, and it was still scarier than other experience of my life, including traffic accidents and ferocious storms (and a couple of amusement park rides, which I still question why people would make such rides). The imminent threat that I might be killed or I might kill another human being was dreadful, and I will never forget it.

Humanity has progressed tremendously in the destructive power of war, but we're still cave men on the battle field. In World War II rape became an organized policy. Japan turned a quarter of a million Koreans and Chinese into Comfort Women, which was well thought-out rape. Following the Red Army's capture of Berlin in May 1945, one of the largest incidents of mass rape in history took place. According to one report Soviet troops raped every German woman between the ages of eight to eighty. Estimates of the total number of victims range up to two million. Even amongst American troops there were thousands of reported cases of rape. Rape was also widespread in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980's. Not so the IDF, where cases of rape are almost unknown.

We are blessed to live in a generation where we don't have to play mental games to make many passages in the Torah applicable to our lives. We can return many of these laws to their original intent of making a humane society. One of the proudest moments of my life was when I was sworn in to the IDF. The memory of standing at attention, after receiving my rifle and my Bible and singing Hatikva at my swearing in ceremony, still brings chills to my spine and tears to my eyes. We can live the dream of our ancestors.

Just two weeks ago I was bringing my youngest son, Yishai, to Israel to join his hesder Yeshiva of Otniel where he will rotate time between the study hall and the IDF. We had a stopover at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, and we were trying to organize a minyan for the mincha service. So, we encountered a very pleasant young Israeli who was returning to his yeshiva from a visit in the States. The young man asked Yishai why he would want to serve in the army. Yishai then told him what an honor and privilege it is to defend our homeland. In the past, our Sages tell us, only the righteous were allowed to serve in the Jewish army. Now, the technically observant shirk that service. Joshua, King David and Rabbi Akiva didn't send the observant men home.

The Torah was always a living, vibrant document, but has become even more so in our era. Let us pray that the still dormant passages, like those about the Holy Temple, will soon be back in action, speedily in our days.

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Walk Article

2011-08-31T01:47:00.001-04:00

NOW YOU SEE IT…

Shoftim-5771

Rabbi David Walk

Humanity has been in love with magic forever. Magicians and shamans have held major roles in society for thousands of years. People are amazed by what they can't explain. And it doesn't change. Nowadays we have a new phenomenon. Now that magicians are entertainers rather than advisors to kings, there is a movement towards explaining the tricks of the trade. The Amazing Randi (Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, b. 1928) has made a career our of debunking charlatans who claim paranormal powers, and has a standing $1,000,000 challenge to anyone who can demonstrate occult powers. Even those crop circles, which people have claimed for years are the work of extraterrestrials, have been recently explained. But people continue to be gullible. In a famous incident from 1922, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame visited perhaps the greatest magician of the modern era, Harry Houdini. Houdini then performed an amazing act of receiving a message from the dead. Doyle believed it, but Houdini wrote him: Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion ... I won't tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily "supernatural," or the work of "spirits," just because you cannot explain them.... Lamentably, Sir Arthur continued to believe that Houdini had psychic powers and spiritual connections.

It doesn't help. Even when the magician themselves claim that it's just a trick, people just want to believe this stuff. That former mayor of Bridgeport, CT, P. T. Barnum, got it right, when he said: There's a sucker born every minute. People are gullible and seem to want to be that way. So, imagine the problem in pre-modern times when the magicians had government backing and a credulous, primitive society. This is why the Torah has to warn us many times about the dangers of sorcerers, soothsayers, fortune tellers, etc. I know that there have been, throughout the ages, great Jewish authorities who believed that these necromancers actually performed feats of magic, but I will ignore them for the time being, because I side with their antagonists and that other position won't fit into the point I want to make.

In this week's Torah reading we have another prohibition connected to those about rejecting wizards (Sorry, Potter!): But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die (Deuteronomy 18:20). In other words, false prophets are as dangerous as these magical charlatans. But how can we recognize a false prophet? Maimonides is very clear that the simple definition of a false prophet is one who prophesies against the teachings of Moshe (Laws of Torah Fundamentals, 8:3). The base line information for the world of prophecy is the Torah. Just like basic science and math are the criteria for rejecting a sorcerer, Torah is the only criterion for rejecting a prophet.

Now we can give a new and fascinating definition for a word which appears in verse 8. We are told in rejecting these conmen to be tamim. There are many ways to translate this term: whole-hearted, complete, blameless, or perfect. However, I think that perhaps the best definition of this kind of person is one with intellectual integrity. This tamim individual doesn't compromise clear thinking for a cheap trick. It's okay to be entertained by prestidigitation, but not to become convinced by it. Magic can become a slippery slope of escapist thinking. Judaism doesn't believe in quick fixes for problems, whether spiritual or physical. I love that quote from H. L. Menken: For every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong!

In our business, politics and religion we must do our best to achieve clear thinking and information based decisions. Michael Shermer from Scientific American wrote an interesting article about The Believing Brain. Mr. Shermer explains: We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, emotional and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture and society at large. After forming our beliefs, we then defend, justify and rationalize them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments and rational explanations. Beliefs come first; explanations for beliefs follow.

We have to fight this tendency to be lazy and complacent in our thinking process. It's important to listen to reasonable voices even if we perceived them as from an opposing camp. We can't automatically think that someone is right or wrong based upon their tribe or group or party. We often make ourselves blind to reality because of predetermined biases. This is dangerous. There is a tendency to notice and select information which agrees with preconceived notions. We often ignore data which we assume disagrees with our prior beliefs. Just because we disagreed with one source on one topic, doesn't mean that we will always be at odds on every issue.

This demand of intellectual integrity is difficult and uncomfortable, but is ultimately worthwhile. I believe strongly that good science and good Torah emanate from healthy skepticism. We must have the ability to say that just because I don't know the answer doesn't mean that the solution is supernatural or will never be rationally explained.

Houdini became famous with his ability to fool the audience, but he wanted us to know that it was a trick, only entertainment. I hope that we don't get fooled in the more important areas of our lives, by shoddy and lazy thinking. Anyone claiming to have a secret unknown to all others or a magical solution to serious problems, require an immediate rejection. We believe that the best route to inspiration is perspiration.

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Walk Article

2011-08-23T07:50:00.001-04:00

GOOD & UPRIGHT

Re'eh-5771

Rabbi David Walk

With the advent of this week's Torah reading the nature of the book of Deuteronomy changes dramatically. Well, maybe not exactly dramatically, unless you're into nuance. But anyway, at this point the style changes. Until now Moshe has mostly been giving the Jews musar or chastisement for past indiscretions. At this point, he begins clarifying the mitzvoth which the Jewish nation will require upon arrival in the Promised Land. This week Moshe emphasizes three areas of Halacha. They are the destruction of idolatrous influences, the rules of keeping kosher, and the pilgrimage festivals. Moshe introduces this legal material with a philosophy of Jewish Law. We have to see our adherence to the laws as a free choice, based upon a clarity that observing the laws is superior to the alternative. Here's how Moshe lays it out: Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today; and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 11:26-28). That's pretty clear. However, in real life not everything is so clear cut, so Moshe espoused another piece of advice back in parshat V'etchanan: And you shall do what is upright (yashar) and good in the eyes of the Lord, in order that it may be well with you (6:18).

In this week's statement, it sounds pretty much black and white, either you do the mitzvoth and you will be blessed or you don't and will be cursed, but the earlier dictum is less obvious. Our behavior must be perceived as good and upright. Is that, perhaps, a call for a relativistic approach to our legal system? I believe such a case could be made, but I want to present a different point of view I saw in a fascinating comment made by the Netivot Shalom (Reb Shalom Noach Barzovsky, the Slonimer Rebbe, 1911-2000), which, I hope, will give us a fresh way of looking at mitzvah performance. The Rebbe made this observation based upon a comparison of two statements in Pirkei Avot. At the beginning of the second chapter of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi (135-220 CE) says: Which is the upright (yashar) path for man to choose for himself? Whatever is harmonious for the one who does it, and harmonious for mankind. This beautiful dictum contains two difficulties in translation. The first is how to translate the key word yashar. I opted for upright, but 'straight' works just as well. Rebbe Hakadosh is describing the difficult navigation of life's route. We must continually adjust the course to stay on the high road. The two major factors in this steering are how does it makes me feel, and how does it makes others feel. The word for feeling good in this context is teferet, which Chabad.org translated as harmonious. That's fine, but I would prefer splendid. The word seems to connote a feeling of spiritual beauty achieved through carefully weighing many ethical factors.

However, there's another Mishneh which I assumed was a conflicting approach, but the Netivot Shalom has taught is complementary. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai (30-90 CE) said to his five major disciples: Go out and see which is the good route to which a person should adhere (2:10). This statement is usually understood to be asking about character traits as opposed to specific actions. And the answers back up that contention. Said Rabbi Eliezer: A good eye. Said Rabbi Joshua: A good friend. Said Rabbi Yossei: A good neighbor. Said Rabbi Shimon: To be aware of consequences. Said Rabbi Elazar: A good heart. According to the Netivot Shalom these two statements explain our original verse, and describe the goodness and the uprightness which mitzvah performance should engender in person.

The Slonimer Rebbe teaches us that Rebbe Yehudah Hanasi taught us how to actually behave according to the Halacha. One must sift carefully among a number of options, choosing the action which will bring the most credit upon himself, and the most benefit to others. Hopefully there is a cerebral selection process before every act. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, on the other hand is searching for the method to achieve the sovereignty of goodness within the human soul. I'm not concerned with which student's answer is best. I'm interested in the objective of the question.

Now we can look back to the verse. Mitzva performance demands that we are good within ourselves and straight in our actions. Mitzvoth don't just inform our actions; they are an educational process for making me a good person. The Netivot Shalom points out that humans are born with a tendency for negative behavior (for the inclination, yetzer, of man's heart is evil from his youth, Genesis 8:21). Rabban Yochanan pointed out that through the mitzvah regimen we can attach ourselves to a positive path through life. Rebbe Yehudah Hanasi taught that our mitzvah deeds must be chosen in such a way that we always make ourselves and others better through these acts.

It's critical that we try to accomplish both. It's so sad when mitzvoth become rote actions separate from our minds and with little impact upon our souls. It's tragic when we observe ritually observant Jews who aren't ethical and kind. That's not the intention of this system. And that's what the verse meant when it said to be good and upright. And we have to believe that we can achieve these goals. It's all about the impact.

So, this week when the attention of the Torah turns to a long section teaching us many mitzvoth that we again consider the purpose of these demands on our bodies, minds and souls. Please, never assume for a moment that the Torah's goal is to turn us into robots. We must always carefully consider our actions. The aim is to make us think about our actions, for the purpose of becoming both good and upright.

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Walk Article

2011-08-16T10:03:00.001-04:00

HONEST ARROGANCE V. HYPOCRITICAL HUMILITY

Eikev-5771

Rabbi David Walk

My title up there is based on a quote from the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who preferred honest arrogance to hypocritical humility. Now arrogance is a very dangerous thing, but a small measure of it may be necessary for the arts or scholarship to flourish. It sometimes takes a little arrogance or chutzpah to present your talents to the world. I guess there may be a little arrogance on my part to write these articles. Who says that I have anything more significant to say that you, my dear reader? But the traditional position in Judaism is that arrogance is very bad, and although there are numerous rabbinic quotations affirming that premise, the basic source for this idea is found, believe it or not, in this week's Torah reading.

In our parsha we read the following: Beware that you do not forget the Lord, your God, by not keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day, lest you eat and be sated, and build good houses and dwell therein, and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases, and your heart grows haughty, and you forget the Lord, your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and you will say to yourself, "My strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me (Deuteronomy 8:11-14 & 17)." These verses are the basis for a famous statement by Rashi that the test of wealth is harder to overcome than the challenge of poverty. Rabbeinu Bechaye (d. 1340) comments that the haughtiness one feels through economic success can feed the Yetzer Hara, negative inclination. In turn this can pull a person towards the conclusion that the essence of one's life is fulfilling one's own desires. Obeying God's dicta for such a person becomes secondary and tangential.

Now the central phrase describing the negative spirit is ram l'vavecha, which literally means your heart will be lifted, can be translated as your heart will become haughty (Art Scroll), your heart will become proud (New International), or your heart will become arrogant (God's Word Translation). This dangerous attitude is denigrated in the Talmud, where it says that the arrogant will be cut down like idolatrous trees, and that they have no future life, and this behavior is a form of idolatry (Sotah 5a). There is also a discussion over the language in our verse about guarding yourself from this attitude. One team believes that this is actually a Biblical prohibition, while others maintain that it is an ethical idea of positive advice.

There are two statements in that Gemara which I believe help us get an idea of the philosophic problems of being arrogant. The first one is that the haughty don't cause the earth to stir. This refers to the idea that someday the righteous will be resurrected from the grave, and they won't be allowed to open the grave above them. The Maharal M'Prague comments on that statement and says that all life generates from the earth and the haughty have no influence on the ground because they have claimed to be greater or better than the other products of the soil. So, the first characteristic of the haughty is that they think they're better than others.

The other statement is even stronger. The Divine Presence which often permeates our realm can't reside among the haughty. God is somehow driven out by the arrogance of these individuals. God only dwells within those who invite the Deity in. The arrogant believe that they control their own destiny and have no need for beckoning God. The second horror of this attitude is that they believe that the Image of God implanted within them makes them the equal of God. They're not just God's gift to mankind; they're God manifest among mankind.

In psychology the advanced form of haughtiness is pathological narcissism. There are many variations on this but it's commonly understood that there are seven manifestations of this phenomenon: shamelessness, distortion of reality, arrogance (lack of empathy), envy, entitlement, exploitation, and lack of boundaries. In this approach we're not discussing a sin. We're discussing a psychological condition. My guru on things psychological is Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski he writes that narcissism is a pernicious character trait with its roots in low self esteem. It can ruin relationships and destroy families. He points out that any relationship will suffer when one participant is more motivate by his or her needs rather than the needs of the other. The narcissist is domineering, opinionated and always right. In its most virulent forms it's very hard to uproot.

But is it always terrible to have a certain amount of haughtiness? Like all character traits, there is a need for the tendency, when under control. That same page of the Talmud we discussed before has the most amazing statement. Raba said: A disciple of the Sages who possesses haughtiness of spirit deserves excommunication, and if he does not possess it he deserves excommunication. The successful student requires a bit of chutzpa to offer his opinion in the presence of his mentors, but this trait is necessary for him to eventually claim his place amongst them.

We see that a certain amount of chutzpa which allows us to assert ourselves is necessary for success in life. However, this attitude must be constantly monitored, because unchecked it can lead to the most destructive of personality defects. What are the metrics to determine if I've crossed this line? I believe that there are two such measures. One is do I feel superior to others because of my idea or accomplishment? The other is, am I still grateful to God (or any higher source) for my talents and gifts? I believe that these two checks can be derived from the verse 'my strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me,' My strength refers to my thinking I'm better than the rest, and the might of my right hand means that I don't need God or anyone else.

We must go through life with confidence, but continually check that we don't become arrogant.

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Walk Article

2011-08-10T09:02:00.001-04:00

GIVE COMFORT

Va'etchanan-5771

Rabbi David Walk

Okay, so last week, I discussed how to chastise. That job is so difficult because we might do it without thinking through our methods and do more harm than good. This week I'd like to discuss giving comfort and that's even harder, because we really don't know how to do it. In rebuke, I must discard the majority of the things my anger wanted me to say; in consoling, I don't know what to say at all. In the face of tragedy, who knows what to say? In the book of Job the only significant response the hero felt was silence. I must be honest whenever I hear people try to explain tragedies, especially the Holocaust, I find myself offended and horrified by their chutzpa. So, this week we have the famous Haftora of Comfort ye, Comfort ye, and this begins a seven week series of Haftorot of comfort, therefore, let's try to analyze this difficult precept.

Let's begin with the mitzvah of comforting mourners, which most of us sadly perform with some regularity. According to the Code of Jewish Law (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah, 376), when visiting a mourner, one shouldn't speak until the mourner speaks. We learn this from the story of Job. After his many tragedies his friends came to visit and no one spoke until Job did. The comfort that we give is based upon the needs of the mourner, not the desires of the visitor. People mourn differently and we should do our best to follow their lead. Of course, this is a technical point, not a philosophic one, nevertheless it is an important guideline.

So, again we ask, what is the real essence of comfort? I'd like to present two different points of view. Interestingly even though the two ideas are very different, they both have the same source. I got them both from one of my spiritual heroes, Rabbi Dr. Avraham J Twerski. The first opinion is on an audio recording available on the Yeshiva University web site and is called Mourning and Consolation. In this address, Rabbi Twerski offers the idea that the nature of the comfort is determined by the nature of the mourning. We can only address our consolation requirements after we've analyzed the need or loss we expressed during our mourning period. Let me give two examples, one personal and one national. If during shiva, the mourner expressed the idea that he/she misses the departed because he/she was the only one that the mourner could really talk to. So, the comfort will only come when a new confidant is discovered. On the national level, during Tisha B'av we read many Kinot (elegiac poems, laments) describing the national mourning of the Jewish nation. We discuss the loss of the Land of Israel, of the holy Temple, and of protection from oppression. After Tisha B'av one might conclude I have the consolation I need in the modern State of Israel, wile another may conclude I can have no comfort until the Temple is rebuilt. The nature of the mourning outlines the needs of the comfort.

In a totally different vein, Rabbi Twerski wrote an article available online called A Tiny Bit of Light Can Banish a Great Deal of Darkness. In this piece, Rabbi Twerski offers another approach to consolation, based upon his work as a psychiatrist treating patients suffering from substance abuse. I believe that his insight in that area can be applied to our question about mourning. His observation is based upon the following story: I attended a meeting of recovering alcoholics. The speaker was a woman of thirty-five. She had started drinking at twelve and drugging at fifteen. In spite of suffering the consequences of living on the street, she was a slave to her drug addiction. At twenty-six she found her way into Alcoholics Anonymous and, and at the present was nine years clean and sober. I had heard similar stories countless times, and this one did little for me. But I have never been to a meeting that I didn't take away something of help. What I took away from this meeting has served me well, because toward the end of her talk, the woman said, "I must tell you something else before I finish. 'I am a football fan, a rabid Jets fan. I'll never miss watching a Jets game. One weekend I had to be away, so I asked a friend to record the game on her VCR. When I returned, she handed me the tape and said, 'By the way, the Jets won.' "I started watching the tape, and it was just horrible! The Jets were being mauled. At half-time they were behind by twenty points. Under other circumstances, I would have been a nervous wreck. I would have been pacing the floor and hitting the refrigerator. But I was perfectly calm, because I knew they were going to win."

Our consolation should come in the exact same way. We should have faith that our destiny will turn out well, because it says in this week's Haftorah: Climb a high mountain, Zion. You're the preacher of good news. Raise your voice. Make it good and loud, Jerusalem. Tell the cities of Judah, "Look! Your God!" Look at Him! God, the Master, comes in power, ready to go into action. He is going to pay back His enemies and reward those who have loved Him. Like a shepherd, He will care for His flock, gathering the lambs in His arms, hugging them as He carries them, leading the nursing ewes to good pasture (Isaiah 40:9-11). We're like the woman who knew the outcome of the game, and, therefore, could sit through the suffering and bear the pain, because we know with perfect faith that Jewish history ends with 'and they lived happily ever after.'

Reb Baruch of Medziboz, a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, was reciting the prayer before Kiddush Friday night, and as he said, "I gratefully thank You, God, for all the kindness You have done with me, and which You will do with me," he realized that we can thank God and depend upon kindnesses which haven't yet happened, because we believe that they will. This is our consolation for the tragedies; this is the comfort. We know for a certainty that there's a happy ending.

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Walk Article

2011-08-03T08:30:00.001-04:00

DON'T DO THAT!

Devarim-5771

Rabbi David Walk

Rabbeinu Bechaye (d. 1340) was one of the great medieval Biblical commentaries. His commentary had two significant stylist touches. On important issues he would present the material from four points of view: literal, Midrashic, philosophic and mystical. This methodology opens our eyes to the intricate fabric of the holy texts. His other characteristic touch was a preface to each Torah reading. These introductions utilize a verse from the book of Proverbs to clarify the central theme of each reading. He believed that our Sages divided up the weekly portions in such a way so as to emphasize a particular educational goal. His introduction for this week's Torah reading, I believe, could be construed as a preface for the entire book of Deuteronomy.

Rabbeinu Bechaye begins with the following verse: He who admonishes man after Me, will find more favor than he who speaks with flattery (Proverbs 28:23). That's his theme. Chastisement or tochacha is the main motivation for Moshe's valedictory address to the Jewish nation. The good rabbi then goes on to explain the first verses of the book as oblique references to the many sins of the Jews in the desert (this is also pointed out by Rashi). That's as far as he goes, but a quick overview of the entire book reveals many instances of the tochacha phenomenon. Most famous, of course, is the tochacha in parshat Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 28:15-68), but there are so many more. There is a review of the sin of the spies (1:22-36), the sin of the Golden Calf (9:11-14), and the sin of the desert complaints (6:16-19). There are also many warnings about being seduced by the culture and idolatry which will be found in Canaan, with dire predictions that it will indeed happen. Moshe's final words in both the great poem (32:1-33) and the blessings (33:1-29) also contain many passages which are of the tochacha genre.

Okay, hopefully I've made the point that tochcha is the major component of this final testament of Moshe. However, Rabbeinu Bechaye makes a much more important observation, namely that we are being taught not only the importance of tochcha but, hopefully, how to administer it. Giving chastisement to another who has sinned or erred has already been given as a mitzvah, Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt (Leviticus 19:17). But in Deuteronomy we are being taught how to do it through the example of Moshe's words of rebuke. Moshe had two things going for him, which generally we don't. First of all, he was the spiritual leader of the generation. His credentials were impeccable. And secondly, death bed chastisement carries a lot of weight. According to the Midrash both Moshe and Ya'akov waited until near death to let their charges know what had disappointed them, and how they could improve. Most of us are not quite that patient.

In the introduction by Rabbeinu Bechaye he discusses some advice for rebuke. He points out that most individuals requiring chastisement are regular people. They don't want to hear that they're in the wrong and they get defensive about it. The initial response is often to attack the chastiser, As the Talmud says: Everyone says to the chastiser, my cloak is cleaner than yours (Eruvin 16b). Therefore, rebuke must be done very carefully. However, when done correctly, even the person being rebuked recognizes the advantage of self improvement, which is why the verse from Proverbs tells us that positive rebuke is ultimately preferable to flattery, which benefits no one.

Rabbeinu Bechaye also quotes Rabbi Tarfon who says: I wonder if there is anyone in our generation capable of giving chastisement. So, who can give chastisement, now that Moshe isn't with us? To answer that, allow me to quote from another Midrash. Just as there is a mitzvah to offer rebuke when it will be accepted, so, too, is it a mitzvah to withhold rebuke when it will not be accepted (Yevamot 65b). The rabbis cite a verse in

Mishlei 9:8, "Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you." How do I make sure that I'm only rebuking intelligent people? The Shelah Hakadosh (R. Yeshayahu Horowitz, 1565-1630) explains this means don't rebuke someone by calling them a fool or sinner, instead call him wise so that he will feel close to you and love you. Praise him and subtly inject some of the criticism in between words of praise. Talk to him with respect; elevate him and encourage him to continue along a path of positive service, reparation and return. By denigrating him, we only put him off. Who can give rebuke? A lover.

Shakespeare (William, 1564-1616) got it wrong when he had Demetrius tell Robin in A Midsummer's Night Dream, 'Oh, why rebuke you him that loves you so? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.' We believe chastisement can only be given by a lover. The Midrash tells us that the man giving admonishment in the verse in Proverbs is Moshe; the one giving flattery is Bilaam. Moshe who loves us, rebukes us; Bilaam who hates us, blesses us.

People like to give chastisement. Studies show that bosses get an endorphin rush when they dress down employees. I had a football coach at the junior varsity level, who clearly loved administering humiliation to linemen (me), who missed an assignment. I'm almost recovered. King Solomon explains that we should learn to appreciate receiving rebuke; he never mentions enjoying the application of it. We should give chastisement with great trepidation. If I'm more careful in the way I admonish than in my receiving rebuke, I've gotten the message.

When King Solomon tells us that wise people love rebuke (Proverbs 9:8), he's teaching us how important it is to improve ourselves. That's an important lesson. However, an even greater lesson is to chastise with care. Moshe and Ya'akov waited for the propitious moment to reprove their flock. How much more careful must we be? Please, remember to make it clear to the recipient that we admonish out of love. Easier said than done.

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Walk Article

2011-07-26T19:33:00.001-04:00

COMING HOME

Masei-5771

Rabbi David Walk

The central topic of this week's Torah reading is the apportioning of the Land of Israel to the tribes. It's not very exciting. Unless you're a geography freak, this is not riveting material, but it's important. And we do learn important lessons about fairness. The portions are distributed based on two major factors: the economic needs of the tribe (coast for seafarers, mountains for shepherds, etc.) and the size of the tribe. All of this is, of course, significant, and helps to cement our connection to the Holy Land. This last statement was meant for spiritual and not political reasons and was approved by this author. However, this week I'd like to look at the issue of the portions of the twelve tribes from a different angle, based on an article I saw recently on the Chabad website.

The article is called Life in Three Dimensions based on the writings of the Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 1902-1994). I'm thankful to the website, first of all, because it's a wonderful resource and for providing me with a topic for an article. The essay is an analysis of a famous line from our morning services, which has also become the lyrics for many tunes. Ashreinu mah tov chelkeinu, u'mah na'im goraleinu, u'mah yafa yerushateinu. How fortunate are we that our portion is good, our lot is pleasant, and our inheritance is beautiful. The Rebbe's main point was that these three phrases describe a three dimensional relationship with the Land of Israel. First, there is a rational relationship based on the specific needs of each tribe. Second, there is something supra-rational about this connection, based upon the lots which are cast in this week's parsha. This hints at an arbitrary nature to each tribe's section. Finally, the term inheritance hints at an intrinsic bond between the land and the Jew which spans generations. There is a lot more to the article, and those interested in pursuing the other points made by the Rebbe can search for the article on Chabad.org.

This famous triple declaration is an introduction to a recitation of the Shema, which, of course, has the triple proclamation of God's name. There are two traditions about the writing of this section of the morning service. The first is very prosaic. We placed an early stating of the Shema; in case it's passed the technical time for reading Shema when we get to it in the regular service. There is also a dramatic version. During one of the many persecutions of the Jews, the evil authorities banned the declaration of God's unity. So, the wily Rabbis placed an early reading of the offending passage. Presumably this was said too early for the government spies to arrive in the synagogue. The context of the passage supports this second contention, because we are stating that we feel fortunate to be Jews in spite of any adversity.

In the context of the morning prayers, these expressions aren't talking about the Land of Israel at all. The portion, lot and inheritance probably are referring to Torah and our spiritual gifts from God. This section of the introductory prayers is explaining that we have little or no right to approach God with our petty petitions, because we are so insignificant. However, as the offspring of the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs, for that matter, even though they are not mentioned specifically), who accrued great merit for their righteousness, we are obligated to thank and praise God. So, here we are reciting these prayers. Now we proclaim that we are special and fortunate to have inherited this legacy of merit from and relationship with God. It may be hard to be a Jew, but it's worth it. I think the Rebbe advocated for this geographic approach to this material because the words employed so readily can refer to our relationship with the Holy Land. They sound like real estate language. And I'm thankful for that insight, and a topic for an article.

So, what are the three aspects of our long term connection to Israel? I believe that the term chelek or portion means that I own a piece of Israel. As a Jew there's a rock or a tree or a spring with my name on it. I think that this concept is expressed in our age in two ways. One is by the Israeli government. Every Jew is an automatic citizen of Israel, not because of Knesset legislation, but because of eternal bond between Jew and land. The next expression, goraleinu or our lot, to me is the most important. Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1993) explained the term goral as fate, as opposed to ya'ad or destiny. Fate is thrust upon me without my permission or acquiescence; destiny requires my involvement and agreement. Even though I didn't ask for a deed to the Land of Israel, it's mine nevertheless. It was thrust upon me to be a caretaker of the most precious, strategic and dangerous plot of land on earth, and I'm proud and satisfied that this is my lot. When I proclaim 'Next Year in Jerusalem,' it's without disappointment or rancor. It's with honor.

Finally, we state that this is our inheritance. Please, forgive my arrogance, but I wouldn't have chosen that word. I would have called it a morasha or nachala, meaning a legacy or heritage which I must pass along to future generations. But our wise Sages were emphasizing our privilege over our responsibility in this statement. We would be ungrateful wretches not to accept this inheritance left to us by loving ancestors. Who are we to reject and, thereby denigrate, this possession so affectionately embraced for millennia? Israel is ours because our parents and grandparents wanted us to have it. Let's not insult them.

Traveling in Israel for Jews is unlike visiting any other land. It might be amazing to view the Grand Canyon. It may wow us to see the fjords of Norway (Thank you, Slartibartfast, and may Norway be comforted in its anguish.). But it's only Israel which gives us the feeling of coming home, and that emotion is based on this week's parsha when each of us was allocated our piece of the land.

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Walk Article

2011-07-19T07:53:00.001-04:00

NORTH WINDS

Matot-5771

Rabbi David Walk

Growing up in the American Northeast, I always rooted for the North, whether it was an athletic event or the Civil War. The North always represented the good guys to me. Also, during the fight for Civil Rights during the late fifties and into the sixties, the south just appeared to me as the bad guys. Plus, they talk too slow. So, it was with great chagrin that I discovered that Jewish tradition seems to feel the exact opposite. The North represents evil and trouble, while the South tends to appear more benign. This idea appears many times in our Tanach, but is most forcefully and clearly expressed in this week's Haftorah.

According to Jewish tradition, we recite a Haftorah based upon that week's Torah reading until the three Shabbatot before Tisha B'av. From then until after the High Holidays, there are ten Haftorot which are connected to the season, rather than to the week's Torah topic. The first three are warnings of dire events, and the last seven are poetic expressions of comfort and consolation. That yearly cycle begins this week. The first up is the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, and describes his initiation as a prophet. It wasn't easy. He is told that he must inform the Jews of impending doom, namely the destruction of the southern Kingdom of Judea and the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The central idea which he must communicate goes like this: And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: What do you see? And I said, "I see a bubbling pot, whose foam is toward the north." And the Lord said to me; from the north the misfortune will break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, behold I am summoning all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord, and they will come and place, each one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem and against all its walls around and against all the cities of Judah (Jeremiah 1:13-15). There you have it. Misfortune comes from the north, and that's where the bad guys come from. This concept is repeated elsewhere in Jeremiah, and also appears in Ezekiel (The storm breaks from the north, 1:4) and Isaiah (for the smoke comes from the north, 14:31).

So, what's so bad about the North? Historically, disasters came from enemies who actually did attack from the North. In Isaiah's time the Assyrian Empire swarmed down from the north to destroy the Northern Kingdom (722 BCE). Jeremiah and Ezekiel experienced the Babylonian hordes which also descended from the North to capture Jerusalem and destroy the Temple (586 BCE). The Jewish Kingdoms were never conquered from the South. Also, on a topographical note, Jerusalem is most vulnerable from its Northern side, where the ground is level. The other three sides have deep slopes for protection.

But our sages didn't discuss this issue from a geographic or historical perspective. They discussed a symbolic negativity of the North. The four Hebrew words for the compass directions are very descriptive. East is where the sun first shines and is called Mizrach, shines. West is where night falls and is called Ma'arav, evening. South is desert, and is called Negev, dry. But the North is called Tzafon, which means hidden. That's why at the Pesach Seder we call the eating of the Afikomen, Tzafun, because the tradition developed to hide it (And it still costs us parents plenty.). The North is mysterious and is hidden from the sun which never crosses the Northern horizon. This is only true above the Equator, but our Torah was written for the Northern Hemisphere. Sorry, Australia, South Africa and Argentina.

There's another reason given for why the North is negative. In the ancient world maps weren't arranged with North at the top. East was at the top. People woke up in the morning and figured their day's travel direction by looking east, or orienting themselves by the rising sun. You get your orientation by facing the orient or east. Okay, so, when I look East, the North is on my left. We don't like the left side, because it represents judgment and trouble. The right side represents compassion; the left harsh justice. Our punishments, therefore, come out of the North. Isn't it ironic that in baseball and boxing, southpaws are lefties. In Judaism, they'd be northpaws. Apparently this is because baseball diamonds faced east so that the afternoon sun wouldn't be in the batter's eyes, therefore the pitcher is facing west, with his left hand on his south side. Now that's a cool piece of trivia.

There's one other approach which I saw for the first time recently, based on a statement in the book of Job. The verse states: Gold sparkles from the north (Job 37:22). The Northern climes tend to be the home of the wealthy countries. In our present time all members of the G8, or wealthiest eight countries on earth, are situated further North than Israel. Perhaps we're being informed that our misfortunes stem from attention to material goals over spiritual attainment. For our Jewish culture to succeed and prosper, we must view wealth as a means to a greater good, rather than an end in itself.

One last idea from the Magid of Mezeritch (Rav Dov Ber, 1700-1772). The North isn't evil; it's a challenge. The North, like its Hebrew name tzafon, represents important, hidden things. The hidden item is reverence for God, and it's buried in the heart of every human. The threats from the North are to remind us to mine this most precious commodity. The menace of the cold and mysterious can't harm us if we put our faith in God's protection. It's when we are enticed to succumb to the allure or power of these threats that we are imperiled.

So, I believe that the message of Jeremiah is to resist the dangers represented by northern attackers, and remember that our salvation comes though God, Torah and morality. When we learn that lesson, we have uncovered the golden truth.

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Walk Article

2011-07-13T07:38:00.001-04:00

THE RIGHT STUFF

Pinchas-5771

Rabbi David Walk

The book of Numbers has two major themes, and they both are prominent in this week's Torah reading. They are numbers (Duh!), and leadership. As for the numbers we have a repeat of the census in our parsha, and we have the number intensive list of sacrifices brought on an annual basis in the Holy Temple. Since, as a former history major, I'm a little intimidated by numbers, I'll discuss a couple of aspects of leadership. I'll make believe that I know what I'm talking about.

Two week's ago, in parshat Chukat, we encountered two aspects of leadership. The first was in the song chanted by the Jews in thanksgiving to God for the miraculous well of the desert. The Jewish leadership was referred to as nedivei ha'am or the generous of the nation. Great leadership requires a giving spirit. If one goes looking for positions based upon what that individual can get out of it, please, don't go into leadership. The correct question is, 'What can I contribute?' not, 'What's in it for me?' The second aspect was found in the lyrics of another song. It begins, 'Thus proclaimed the rulers.' The Hebrew word that I translated as rulers is moshlim, and presents us with a pun. This word can also mean a presenter of parables or teller of tales. This informs us that a great Jewish leader must have the sensibilities of a poet or least the soul of a spinner of yarns. Strict literalists need not apply; the prosaic amongst us can become lawyers.

Okay, now comes the cool part. In the Torah reading of Chukat two great Jewish leaders die. First, there is Miriam, and then Aharon passes on. I think that the first term, nadiv or generous of spirit, refers to Miriam, who gave freely of herself for others, most famously when Moshe was a baby floating down the Nile. Next there was Aharon. He was reputed to have played a little loose with the literal truth when peace was better served by a convenient untruth. We study the lives of these marvelous forebears, not because they were superhuman, but because we can learn from them for the purpose of emulation. So, the parsha was describing the strengths of these departing leaders.

This week's Torah reading continues this theme of leadership. However, before I move on to that, I want to mention that I've just been reading two different sources on leadership. The first was very short and secular and I saw it in the August 2011 edition of Psychology Today. It was a review of a new book about leadership. The premise is that to be a great leader it helps to be at least a little crazy. It catalogues the psychological conditions of many of history's outstanding leaders. It confirms something I've always believed, that to go into Jewish leadership you must be crazy, or, at the very least, it helps.

The second source is an entire book on the Jewish angle of this phenomenon by Dr. Erica Brown entitled Inspired Jewish Leadership. It's a wonderful book, and deserves more comment that I'm giving it here. In her introduction, Erica brings up an oft asked question which is germane to my topic. Are leaders born or made? And, of course, the answer is both, nature and nurture are required. The combination of inherent special character and skills, together with the ability to adapt and grow in office are the hallmarks of truly amazing leaders. Erica makes an important observation. She points out that leadership skills can't be taught, but they can be learned. We see this most clearly in Moshe. He began his career as reticent and tongue tied, and ended it forceful and eloquent. The special individuals who become true giants are able to assimilate the requisite skills, and add them to their innate talents. This point is powerfully expressed in our parsha.

When God reminds Moshe that he will not be leading the Jews into Israel, Moshe asks if it's the time to make sure that the Jewish nation isn't like a flock without a shepherd. He wants to make sure that the transition of leadership takes place before he dies, like happened in the succession of the High Priest from his brother Aharon to his nephew Elazar. But Moshe addresses God in a unique way. He calls to God as he Lord of Spirits. Now, before some foolish readers think that I'm advocating for Divine approval of those hard drinking Kiddush clubs, let me explain. These spirits are embedded in the human soul, not distilled in Scotland. Rashi explains that Moshe meant that God understood the unique spirit of every individual. Others opined that God knows the specific spirit mandated by the needs of each generation. In the spirit of our discussion, I'd like to posit that Moshe refers to God as controlling spirits in the plural, because we are supposed to possess more than one spirit in our lives. He felt that this happened in his own life and career, and he observed this in his beloved disciple and successor, Joshua. Joshua began his leadership career as a military man leading the Jews into battle against the Amalekites, forty years earlier. Now he must add to that resume, spiritual and political prowess needed for the nation building job ahead, not unlike George Washington's transition from general to statesman.

Every successful life, I believe, must go through these transitions. We must constantly be remaking ourselves as we progress through the stages of life. Skills sufficient for childhood aren't good enough for adolescent challenges, and these talents must be augmented to perform well as professional, spouse and parent. To be a good leader you must as well be a good human being, and the fascinating vignettes about these inspiring people provide the lessons we must learn. We must develop the generosity of Miriam, the soul of Aharon and the flexibility of Moshe. Then, maybe, we can lead others, because we've learned to lead ourselves.

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Walk Article

2011-07-05T15:53:00.001-04:00

I VANT TO BE ALONE

Balak-5771

Rabbi David Walk

In the 1960's Israel began it own version of America's Peace Corps. Although this project, mostly aimed at emerging African nations, was worthwhile on its own merits, it had an agenda. The godmother of the enterprise was Golda Meir (1898-1978), during her long tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1956-1966). She expressed the altruism of this project in her autobiography, where she wrote: "Like them, we had shaken off foreign rule; like them, we had to learn for ourselves how to reclaim the land, how to increase the yields of our crops, how to irrigate, how to raise poultry, how to live together, and how to defend ourselves." Israel could be a role model because it "had been forced to find solutions to the kinds of problems that large, wealthy, powerful states had never encountered." However, she often defended the project to colleagues for its potential to win friends for Israel abroad. She was sadly disappointed and often ruminated about it in the 70's, when Israel became isolated in many world forums, and many of the countries Israel had helped, condemned Israel as a colonial power and a racist state.

The loneliness of Israel was actually predicted or at least observed by the gentile prophet Balaam in this week's Torah reading. In his first prophecy about the Jewish nation, he proclaimed, "For from their beginning, I see them as mountain peaks, and I behold them as hills; it is a nation that will dwell alone, and will not be reckoned among the nations (Numbers 23:9)." This prediction seems to have been fully realized. For most of our history we have been a pariah people, dwelling on the political fringes. Even though our philosophical, religious, and scientific contributions are enormous, our political impact has been negligible. Amazingly, in the United Nations, where Israel is a member in good standing, it is the only one of the 192 members which is ineligible to serve on the most important organs of the institution, including the Security Council. We always seem to be left out.

This phenomenon bothered Golda OB"M and many others, but should it? On the mystical side many rabbinic authorities claimed that this aloofness from the world helped our spiritual development, and was necessary for us to achieve the status of a kingdom of priests and a holy people (Exodus 19:6). We had to remain apart to have the proper influence on the others. The great American historian Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989) commented on this in a manner somewhere between academic and clergy: The history of the Jews is . . . intensely peculiar in the fact of having given the Western world its concept of origins and monotheism, its ethical traditions, and the founder of its prevailing religion, yet suffering dispersion, statelessness and ceaseless persecution, and finally in our times nearly successful genocide, dramatically followed by fulfillment of the never-relinquished dream of return to their homeland. Viewing this strange and singular history one cannot escape the impression that it must contain some special significance for the history of mankind, that in some way, whether one believes in divine purpose or inscrutable circumstance, the Jews have been singled out to carry the tale of human fate.

Yehuda Avner, who advised four Israeli Prime Ministers, has recently written a great book chronicling those days called The Prime Ministers. One of the stories he tells about Menachem Begin was about a weekly gathering of significant scholars at the prime minister's residence to study Torah. The Saturday night before Begin's first trip to America as prime minister to meet then President Carter was our passage about the Jewish nation dwelling alone. Many views were shared. Some said it was positive and was a blessing; others said it was negative and was a curse. The last speaker was Begin himself. The PM quoted from a new book by Dr. Ya'akov Herzog, son of the first Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, called, appropriately, A Nation that Dwells Alone: The theory of classic Zionism was national normalization. What was wrong with the theory? It was the belief that the idea of a 'people that dwells alone' is an abnormal concept, when actually a 'people that dwells alone' is the natural concept of the Jewish people. That is why this one phrase still describes the totality of the extraordinary phenomenon of Israel's revival. If one asks how the ingathering of the exiles, which no one could have imagined in his wildest dreams, came about, or how the State of Israel could endure such severe security challenges, or how it has built up such a flourishing economy, or how the unity of the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora has been preserved, one must come back to the primary idea that this is 'a people that dwells alone.' More than that, one must invoke this phrase not only to understand how the Jews have existed for so long; one must invoke it as a testimony to the Jewish right to exist at all in the land of their rebirth.

Menachem Begin was moved by this long quote and added, "So there you have it. Cease dwelling alone and we cease to exist. What a conundrum!" It is a conundrum, but also a challenge.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, added to this discussion: During two thousand years of dispersion, Jews were the only people who refused to assimilate to the dominant culture or convert to the dominant faith. They showed that a nation does not need to be powerful or large to win God's favor. They showed that a nation can lose everything else - land, power, rights, a home - and yet still not lose hope. They showed that a nation can be hated, persecuted, reviled, and yet still be loved by G-d. They showed that to every law of history there is an exception. Judaism is God's question-mark against the conventional wisdom of the age.

It is neither an easy nor a comfortable fate to be 'a people that dwells alone', but it is a challenging and inspirational one.

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Walk Article

2011-06-28T10:50:00.001-04:00

SING A SONG OF WATER

Chukat-5771

Rabbi David Walk

A fascinating phenomenon occurs in our parsha this week. We have a thirty-eight year leap in the chronology. The first half of the book of Numbers takes place in that second year after the exodus, as the Jews were theoretically preparing to enter the Land of Israel. Well, that plan went down the tubes with the sin of the Spies. However, we continue the story a few more chapters. Until we reach chapter twenty, when two things happen. First Miriam dies. Then the miraculous well which had accompanied the Jews since the beginning of their sojourn in the desert disappears. These two events take place at the beginning of the fortieth and last year in the desert. The well disappears for two reasons, one miraculous and one prosaic. The Midrash says that the well dried up because it existed on the merit of Miriam. Her demise removed the well, and the nation was moving for the first time in a generation and they were leaving the oasis of Kadesh Barnea (probably Ain el-Qudeirat in the Wadi el-Ain, in the Northern Sinai on the Israeli-Egyptian border) to set out for Israel. Interestingly, the last material from the first two years of the desert sojourn is the esoteric command to use the red heifer for the purposes of attaining ritual purity. This strongly hints to the idea that the generation spent in the desert was to achieve a higher spiritual plane.

The earlier march was highlighted by a famous poem, the Song of the Sea (Exodus chapter 15). This latter advance also has its triumphant poem, albeit less famous. I'd like to analyze two aspects of this song's lyrics. Here is its entirety: Then Israel sang this song: "Rise up, O well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank— the nobles with scepters and staffs (Numbers 21:17-18)." Both songs begin with same two Hebrew words, namely az yashir, and are therefore compared by many commentaries. There are many questions that we can ask about this short poem, but I'm going to limit myself to two.

The Slonimer Rebbe (Reb Shalom Noach Barzovsky, 1911-2000) in his Netivot Shalom asks why there is a poem extolling the miracle of the well, but no similar song for the miracle of the manna. His answer is simple. This poem is not really talking about water; it's extolling Torah. Torah is the well from which all life springs, and the reference to rising or ascent means that this water is from the celestial fount, not the aquifer. According to this rendition of the lyrics, the princes were the Patriarchs and founders of the nation who discovered God by exploring the hidden recesses of creation. They found the true elixir of life (forget about Ponce de Leon and Johnny Depp) from which their progeny would drink deeply. In reality the book of Genesis is filled references to wells and springs during the Patriarchal period. Rivkah is discovered at a pool, Yitzchak redigs the wells of Avraham, and Ya'akov shows superhuman strength removing a boulder from the mouth of the well for his beloved Rachel. The nobles in the poem are the heirs to this great tradition who must continue to provide spiritual sustenance to the nation. These great successors to Moshe are not just passive bearers of the tradition they continue to dig deeply into this massive material for new insights, relevant to each new generation. Their scepters and staffs are the new and old tools which every era of Torah scholars utilize to uncover the needed decisions for that age.

The Sfat Emet (Reb Aryeh Leib Yehuda Alter of Gur, 1847-1905), on the other hand, asks a different but equally famous question. Why isn't Moshe mentioned in this poem? The other great poem, The Song of the Sea, begins with the fact that Moshe led the singing. Why is our great shepherd absent from our song? The Gerrer Rebbe explains that the former poem was a preparation for the receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, in that episode Moshe was featured in the starring role. However, this poem is the prelude to entering the Land of Israel. Moshe will be missing from that installment. So, many lessons are to be learned here. First, we pave the way for our critical historical milestones by acknowledging our debt and connection to God. No song, no rendezvous. Second, every generation has to step up to take the place of those who came before. Moshe's not mentioned because he's busy handing over the reins to the new leadership. He's too busy tuning them, to sing himself.

But the most important message comes from the Sfat Emet's grandfather, the Chidushei Harim (Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, 1799-1866). Remember the water is a metaphor for Torah. The term I translated as nobles is nedivei am, perhaps better rendered the generous of the nation. The word nediv is often used for philanthropists. So, the Chidushi Harim observes that if leadership has the proper attitude of working hard to benefit the community, of profound altruism and loyalty to God's laws, then they can find new Torah insights every where they turn. He claims that Torah enlightenment is hidden throughout the Creation. To increase and spread healthful, precious and pure Torah, we must see ourselves as heirs to Moshe. After forty years in the desert the Jews were preparing to live a Torah destiny without Moshe. We imbibe deeply from our mentors with the aim of furthering their goals, even without them. This poem can't have Moshe in it.

Every generation must find their song and sing it with gusto. With the guidance of our worthy predecessors, we are required to humbly carry that effort forward recognizing the evolving essentials critical to new situations. We must notice God's supervision and sing of God's glory within our contemporary context. I just hope that we're not tone deaf to the lessons of the past and the needs of the future.

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Walk Article

2011-06-22T09:35:00.001-04:00

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Korach-5771

Rabbi David Walk

When I was nine or ten I used to watch a television show which ended with a toast to the president with a glass of milk from H. P. Hood and Company. The president at the time was Dwight Eisenhower. Shame on anyone who thought that I'd say Howard Taft, because there wasn't any TV then. I remember balking at the action because I knew very well that my parents were Democrats (Frankly, every adult I knew was a Democrat. Growing up I knew neither Republicans nor Yankee fans.), and had voted for Adlai Stevenson, whom I admired. My mother OB"M sagely admonished me saying that we toast the office, and that I should drink up. We need more of that attitude these days. Nowadays, it seems perfectly fine to delegitimize the president of the United States. The Democrats claimed that George Bush stole the election in Florida, and until recently many Republicans claimed that Obama wasn't born in the US. I know that this phenomenon isn't new. There were Republicans who refused to say the name Roosevelt and just said 'that man.' Democrats ridiculed Lincoln mercilessly. But it seems that the rhetoric just gets hotter all the time. This situation worries me greatly, and this week is the right time to discuss it, because it is the central topic of this week's Torah reading.

The major issue in this week's parsha is the rebellion of Korach against the leadership of Moshe. It's fine and appropriate to disagree and criticize leadership, but destroying the system is not an acceptable approach. Historically, we should admire those with a legitimize grievance who displayed patriotic restraint for the good of the country. Included in that category are James Tilden in 1876, when the Republicans stole the election for Rutherford B. Hayes, and Richard Nixon in 1960, when mayor James Daly of Chicago may have stolen the election for John F. Kennedy. What good is winning if the whole enterprise is undermined?

In case reading the parsha didn't make the point of respecting duly constituted leadership strongly enough, the Haftorah weighs in very strongly. The story is from the book of Samuel I, chapter twelve. The people have demanded a king, and the prophet Shmuel takes it personally. He sadly must remind the people of his loyal and honest service to he nation. He says, in part: Here I am; bear witness against me before the Lord and before His anointed; whose ox did I take, or whose donkey did I take, or whom did I rob; or whom did I oppress, or from whose hand did I take a ransom, that I hide my eyes therewith, and I shall restore to you (verse 3). It's tragic to see a devoted servant of the people have to remind them of his integrity. Shmuel then reviews the accomplishments of the leaders during the period of the Judges, Gidon, Yiftach, and Shimshon, who held the nation together in spite of the sins of the people. Even the people recognize their error by announcing, "For we have added to all our sins evil, to ask for ourselves a king. (verse 19)." But why was it a sin to ask for a king? Isn't it a mitzvah to appoint a king over Israel (Deuteronomy 17:15)?

A great answer to this famous question is given by the Shem Mishmuel (Rabbi Shmuel Bornshtein of Sokachov, 1856-1926), in his explanation to verse twelve. The prophet Shmuel explains to the nation that there are two stages in the growth of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. The first period is the Torah mandated mitzvah to conquer the area specified by God through Moshe for all of the tribes. This conquest and consolidation of the designated Holy Land (from Dan to Be'er Sheva) is to be carried out by the charismatic leaders we call Shoftim or Judges. After the portions of the twelve tribes have been conquered and settled, then we enter the second phase of Jewish nation building, namely the monarchy. The kings will take over the management of the nation for the purpose of fighting wars designed to provide wealth and expand the boundaries (from the Euphrates River to the River of Egypt). It was wrong to demand a king at that time, because the role of the Judges hadn't yet been completed.

There is support for this explanation in the warning given by Shmuel: Is it not wheat harvest today? I shall call to the Lord, and He will send thunder and rain, and you shall know and see, that your evil is great, which you have done in the eyes of the Lord, to ask for yourselves a king (verse 17). Get the analogy? Rain is a great thing, especially in a parched country like Israel, but not at the wrong time. When rains come during the harvest causing the newly gathered produce to mildew, it is a curse, not a blessing. Shmuel is teaching us that everything is in the timing. It wasn't yet time for the monarchy, so, please, support the Judges.

I want to expand that idea. We must have respect for the process. In this week's parsha, we view Korach as a great villain not because he criticizes Moshe, but because he wants to destroy the fragile system that Moshe was establishing. Our Sages fear anarchy more than any other evil. We are told in Pikei Avot: Pray for the well being of the government; for were it not for the fear of its authority, a man would swallow his neighbor alive (3:1). Undermining legitimate authority is an unmitigated vice. What ever happened to the concept of the loyal opposition?

I just came back from Washington, D. C. with my Bi-Cultural seventh graders, who were great. The trip renewed my faith in a system of government based upon compromise and reasoned debate, after all America's Constitution was based upon the Great Compromise. Ultimately politics and government must be about issues, not personalities. Let's lose the shrill denunciations filling the airwaves, and move toward respectful debate, please.

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Walk Article

2011-06-16T08:05:00.001-04:00

OOPS!

Shelach-5771

Rabbi David Walk

In Jewish law there are basically three categories of crimes or, if you prefer, sins. They are meizid or purposeful, shogeg or inadvertent, and on'es or beyond one's control. Obviously, this is an over simplification. Especially in shogeg there are many variations. There can be shogeg which is close to meizid, because you should have known what you were doing was wrong. And there is shogeg which is close to on'es, because the circumstances made it very hard to realize that your act was against the law. For our purposes we'll make believe (I love doing that) that a shogeg is a shogeg is a shogeg, with apologies to Gertrude Stein. This week is a perfect time to discuss this issue because shogeg features prominently in this week's Torah reading.

In chapter 15 of the book of Numbers we have a relatively long explanation of the process to be followed if one mistakenly transgressed against the Torah's legal system. There are two scenarios described. The first possibility is if the entire community made the mistake, and the second is if the error was committed by an individual. I'm fascinated by one verse in this section, namely: The entire congregation of the children of Israel and the stranger who resides with them shall be forgiven, for all the people were in error (verse 26). But I'm not the only one who is captivated by this verse, because our Sages have ordained that we recite this statement three times right after Kol Nidrei every Yom Kippur. It's not exactly a mantra like Dorothy reciting 'There's no place like home,' but it is close. For we find great solace in both parts of this momentous declaration. First, it's not so bad, because we didn't realize what we were doing. And secondly, we shall be forgiven. However, like always, I have a problem with this custom.

To understand my problem you'd have to hear about many years of my youth, but in this case, it will suffice to hear the rabbinic explanation for this verse. When you read the verse it seems to mean that whenever everybody does something, that act moves from meizid (purposeful) into the category of shogeg. Psychologically, this makes some sense because, for many years I've been listening to students and offspring telling me 'but everybody's doing it.' This explanation seems perfectly good enough for them, and they can't fathom why it's insufficient for me. I grudgingly concede that there is some logic to that position, because it's hard to buck the tide of public opinion. However our Sages in the Mishneh (Horiot 5:2) explain that this verse only refers to a case where the community erred only because Sanhedrin or the high Jewish court issued an incorrect decision. The shogeg factor comes from the court's conclusion, not from social pressure.

I would like to point out to all my young students and children (none of whom read these articles) that a recent article in Psychology Today (March 23, 2011) listed caving in to social pressure as a negative factor for longevity. Live longer (and maybe prosper), by rejecting peer pressure to engage in unhealthful activities.

Now back to the shogeg issue. It makes sense to reject social factors in shogeg from the context of our Torah reading. At the beginning of this week's reading the Jews are punished severely for following the mob concerning the report of the ten pessimistic spies. If social pressure were enough to create a shogeg phenomenon, then the culpability of the Jews in the desert should have diminished, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Remember the anniversary of this mass transgression is Tisha B'av, which remains our national day of tragedy to this day.

So, how come we begin Yom Kippur with a fervent triple pronouncement of this verse? We don't have a Sanhedrin or universally accepted legal authority which could generate these national mistakes described in the verse. Kol Nidre itself was probably written in the eighth century many years after the last Sanhedrin closed its doors about 325 CE, and our verse was added even later. Therefore the technical sense of this verse is no longer applicable. What do we mean by the statement that we're all in the category of shogeg or mistake?

Perhaps, we're saying something radically different than the normative approach. Maybe we're saying to God and ourselves that at this moment we regret those actions which at the time we committed them we did on purpose. This regret changes the meizid into a shogeg, because of retroactive remorse. We're stating that if we knew then what we know now, we wouldn't have planned to perpetrate such a deed. This repentance doesn't eradicate the act, but transforms it into a lower category transgression. And how do I know that this is true of all the people assembled in the sanctuary every Yom Kippur? Because that's why we came. Our presence and our demeanor demonstrate our penitence.

This is a critical juncture in our spiritual growth. When we sincerely regret an action, two things must happen. First we must think like Reb Chayim of Volozhin (1749-1821), who said that everyone stumbles, our job is to minimize the falls. And, secondly, please, follow the advice of Mel Schwartz in A Shift of Mind, don't identify mistakes with failure. Generally, a mistake is a decision or an action that we fear we'll come to regret. Mistakes usually cause some degree of pain, loss, or struggle. Certainly we might agree that we don't care for the consequences and hence we call it a mistake. The irony is that these events that we try so hard to avoid are sometimes precisely what we need to experience. Ordinarily, growth doesn't occur without some of those challenging feelings we try so hard to avoid. In other words our dual job is to minimize the occurrence of mistakes and maximize the lessons gleaned from our mistakes.

It's okay to make a mistake; it's not alright to ignore its ramifications.

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Walk Article

2011-05-31T11:23:00.000-04:00

IT'S A DATE

Shavuot-5771

Rabbi David Walk

This may come as a news flash to most traditional women, but, according to the Torah, the holiday which requires the most preparation is Shavuot. I wouldn't have the nerve to make such an announcement to a female audience during the month between Purim and Pesach. Even men (whose preparation for Jewish holidays is tepid at best) seem to work harder getting ready for Sukkot than for Shavuot. Rabbis (gender TBD) find that the High Holidays need the greatest effort to get ready for them. However, the Torah instituted a 49 day run up to Shavuot, and the original event had an intensive three day sacred purification process, called the Three Days of Limitations. What makes this Biblical reality even more ironic is that we don't even know either the date of Shavuot or exactly what happened that day. The Torah never gives this holiday our famous designation of the Time of our Receiving the Torah. The verses just refer to this holiday as the Holiday of Weeks or of the First Fruits. Why this double message? Work hard to get to ready, but it's not clear exactly what you're getting ready for.

First let's deal with that First Fruits moniker. The Netivot Shalom (Reb Shalom Noach Barzovsky of Slonim, 1911-2000) says that we emphasize the first fruits because that was the individual Jew's service on that day. The Torah doesn't identify the festival with the revelation at Mount Sinai, because all the initiative for that phenomenon came from on high. We were passive, maybe even reluctant. So, according to the Rebbe, we are stressing our activities, rather than God's. Now, this could lead to frustration on our part, because we don't bring the first fruits any more since we've lost the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Rebbe solves that problem by suggesting that the symbolism of the First Fruit offering should remind us about annual renewal. There are the First Fruits offered every year, and we can be new and fresh every year as well. We should make this the endeavor of the seven weeks of preparation for Shavuot. We should almost feel like potential converts to Judaism, like Ruth, preparing for the immanent conversion on Shavuot. Remember conversion isn't about knowing specific things. It's about commitment. That's what we renew each year.

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etziyon, when noting the agricultural aspect of Shavuot, discussed the fact that the Torah also refers to Shavuot as the Holiday of Katzir (reaping, Exodus 23:16). He wanted to know if the katzir feature of Shavuot can teach us something about the Torah giving character of the feast, which is not specified in the Torah. Obviously the answer is yes; otherwise I wouldn't allow this question to have appeared in my article. But what is the connection? We compare katzir (reaping) with asif (in-gathering, which occurs at Sukkot). What's the difference? Rav Lichtenstein explains that katzir is the very beginning of the grain's humanly controlled processes. It still must go through many stages, like threshing, winnowing, milling, kneading and baking, until it can be actually consumed by us. Similarly, the transmission of Torah at Mount Sinai was the beginning of a long process through which we can make these laws applicable to our lives. According to Rav Aharon, the experience at Mount Sinai was more of a challenge than a gift. Would we study this material with an eye towards making it the basis for our behavior patterns, or not? It was an unfinished gift, not just quotable sound bytes. Therefore we don't emphasize that it was given. The Torah by using the name katzir stresses the fact that it's an eternal work in progress.

Rav Lichtenstein's long time colleague, Rav Yehuda Amital OB"M, has a different take on this problem. He is concerned by the fact that the Torah never explicitly states that the Torah was given on Shavuot. He quotes the Maharal M'Prague (Rabbi Yehuda Lowe, 1520-1609), who explains that Jewish holidays require us to be happy. However, receiving the Torah may not be cause for the casual observer to be happy, because it may appear to be a new form of slavery. Just look at all those rules. It was the Rabbis many generations later who declared that our happiness on this festival derives from our appreciation of this great treasure. Without coercion and prompting we independently realized our joy for the Torah.

Now we can look at a famous Talmudic story in a new way. In Tractate Shabbat (88a) it says that God held Mount Sinai over the Jews heads as a threat to accept the Torah or else. The story continues to explain that the Jews finally accepted the Torah voluntarily over seven centuries later, at the time of Purim. In the Megillah (9:23) it says that they fulfilled and accepted the Torah; the Talmud adds that which they had already accepted. Although there are many ways of interpreting that passage, in light of our discussion, perhaps we can discern a novel approach. Maybe, the Jews didn't accept the Torah at Mount Sinai; maybe they accepted God. Until Purim mitzva performance only reflected our allegiance to God, but from Purim on we had a new commitment to every precept of the Torah as well. Again, we have a reason for not mentioning the acceptance at Mount Sinai in the Torah. It took a long time for the Jews to really see the Torah as their own.

So, making Shavuot into a day when we celebrate our acceptance of the Torah required enormous preparation, more than seven centuries worth. This explains why it was the Sages who finally understood that this was the proper day for celebrating our acceptance of the Torah, because only in retrospect did we understand this process which began on that morning at the foot of Mt. Sinai.

Oh, and why didn't the Torah ever specify the date of that event? Because we can accept the Torah as our heritage, guide and mentor every day. It just takes our annual commemoration of Shavuot to remind us of that significant fact. Chag Sameach!

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Walk Article

2011-05-25T07:38:00.001-04:00

WILDERNESS

Bamidbar-5771

Rabbi David Walk

The five books of Moses each have two names. The generally used names of the books are based upon the first significant word in the volume, Breishit, Shmot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Devarim. The other less well known names in Hebrew basically give us the well known English names, Sefer Yetzira-Genesis, Sefer Geula-Exodus, Torat Cohanim-Leviticus, Sefer Pekidim-Numbers, and Mishneh Torah-Deuteronomy. What's fascinating to me is the fact that the convenient name for the book we begin this week better describes the material than the so-called descriptive name. The Hebrew word Bamidbar means 'in the wilderness,' and that pretty much tells it all. The Jews spent forty years in the wilderness. The name Numbers does refer to the two censuses of the Jews at the beginning and end of the book, but doesn't cover nearly as much ground as the name Wilderness.

Allow me one word about translation. The term Bamidbar is often rendered 'In the Desert,' and in this instance is correct. They were in a desert. However, I prefer wilderness, because that's how the Sages generally used it. The ancient Rabbis described our world as having three parts: yam or sea, yishuv or habitable areas, and midbar or land areas, which are difficult to settle. This could include deserts, but also describes mountains, dense jungles and the frozen poles.

Our book pretty neatly falls into three sections, as well. From chapter one until ten verses into chapter ten, the Jews are in the Sinai Desert and most of the material is about the census and the arrangement of the camp. This is not exactly edge of your seat material. From the middle of chapter ten until chapter twenty-two we have the aborted movement towards Israel. This material is mostly narrative, and contains the mostly negative stories about complaints and rebellion, the quail, the spies and Korach. This section leaves the Jews in the oasis of Kadesh Barnea on the modern Egyptian-Israel border. Then the Torah is silent about the 38 years spent there. From chapter twenty-two until the end of the book, we have the description of the Jews moving again towards the frontier of Israel, and we conclude with the Jews on the banks of the Jordan River, poised to enter the Holy Land.

So, finally, here's my question: What's the major theme of this book? I mean, in a few words what is the major lesson that we can garner from this seemingly eclectic collection of tales, laws and statistics.

There are a few candidates. First of all one could posit that censuses and camp structure are the major point. According to Don Yitzchak Abrabanel (1427-1508), we are supposed learn about counting Jews and arranging Jewish communities for all times based upon the arrangement of the camp. Okay, but not compelling. I've heard scholars explain that the major issue in this volume is leadership. We have the example of Moshe as the selfless leader, there are cases of grave threats to his leadership, we even have the need for him to share the leadership, and, finally, Bamidbar ends with the transition of leadership to a new generation. Rabbi Pinchas Heyman of Bar Ilan University wrote that from the various stories related here we can learn that 'Leading the chosen people towards their destiny requires several talents: patience, the ability to be self-abnegating, and the ability to accept another's views.' So, a strong claim could be made that leadership and its concerns are the central, unifying topic of the fourth book of our Torah. But I don't like that one either.

My nominee for the overarching goal of this book is based on two verses later in the text: So it was, whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, Arise, O Lord, may Your enemies be scattered and may those who hate You flee from You. And when it came to rest he would say, Repose O Lord, among the myriads of thousands of Israel (Numbers 10:35-36). These verses are so significant that there's an opinion in the Talmud that they represent an entire volume of our Torah (Shabbat 115b). But what do they teach us? Theses verses inform us that there are only two productive modes for the human condition. We can either be on the move or we can be building a society. The nature of moving is dangerous, as Rashi informed us back in Genesis (12:1) concerning Avraham. But it can be necessary and eventually very beneficial, like Avraham's journey to Israel, or history's famous voyages of discovery. Pilgrimage or migration can enhance the participant and the world.

On the other hand, most of our culture, science and legal systems are a result of the settled construction of societies. It's hard to be creative on the move; usually that requires a settled situation. Repose results in civilizations.

Our two famous verses are recorded at a critical juncture in our story. The Jews have been moving from Mount Sinai towards the settlement of the Promised Land. All that promise begins to unravel in chapters eleven through fourteen, with the whining and self doubt of the nation which culminates in the refusal to believe that we should or could enter Israel. Instead we have thirty eight years of nothing, because the Jews are neither moving towards a goal nor building a society. Hence we have the silent thirty eight year hole between chapter twenty-two verse one and verse two.

This is a huge dilemma for either the nation or an individual, is there movement towards a desired goal with the ultimate development of a just society or is there stagnation in a limbo between the cracks of History? The book of Bamidbar teaches us how empty life can be without either movement or construction, hiding in the shadow lands of the wilderness, as our ancestors did for thirty-eight years. I believe that much of Jewish history has been spent in this twilight zone, and I thank God that we are living in an age when we can again fulfill the ancient promises. But only if we emerge from the wilderness.

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Walk Article

2011-05-17T11:30:00.001-04:00

FEAR ITSELF

B'chukotei-5771

Rabbi David Walk

With the elimination of Osama bin Laden, we should all sleep more soundly. All believers in western society and its blessings should feel confident that we can go about our business of making this world safe for democracy. Oh, really? It seems that a majority of the articles in the aftermath of the killing of Osama are concerned with the new or continued threats from al-Qaeda and its minions (bad guys always have minions, have you noticed? Shuls should have so many minions.). Headlines like: 'Taliban vows not to be deterred by the death of Osama' or 'New al-Qaida threats' and 'Terror Threat Worries Amtrak Riders' abound. There was even an interesting article entitled 'Mental health experts caution against feelings of closure,' which basically told us not to even feel good about the event. This is a good week to analyze our feelings about fear and threats, because our Torah reading is really spooky about the potential for danger lurking in every corner.

We definitely have an interesting parsha this week. The beginning of the reading presents a list of blessings which are a description of the Garden of Eden on earth. There are colorful and uplifting descriptions of this Paradise, like 'the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit,' 'Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing,' or 'no army will pass through your land (Leviticus 26:4-6).' However, the greatest aspect of this heaven on earth will be 'I will walk among you and be your God (verse 12).' This is reminiscent of 'the sound of God went through the Garden (Genesis 3:8).' This is amazing and marvelous, to live with the clear sense of God's eternal presence.

Okay, that was easy. But what constitutes the low point in the hellish description of the curses which follows? There are a number of candidates. There is a lot of bad stuff listed. Remember we're Jewish, so the curses outnumber the blessings like four to one Here are a few choice examples: 'I will visit upon you shock, consumption, fever, and diseases,' 'Your enemies will rule over you; you will flee, but no one will be pursuing you,' 'I will incite the wild beasts of the field against you, and they will bereave you, utterly destroy your livestock and diminish you, and your roads will become desolate', and ' I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you. Your land will be desolate, and your cities will be laid waste.' Those are all bad, and I left out the most gruesome examples. But I think the worst of the lot is: I will bring fear in their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a rustling leaf will pursue them; they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but there will be no pursuer (Leviticus 26:36). The hardest punishment to endure is the unrelenting sense of dread. The things which go bump in the night and the bogeyman under the bed are the signs of a truly horrible existence. Paranoia, which comes from the Greek word for madness and means irrational fears, was probably the first identified type of mental illness. It results in a delusional state.

Most of us know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself in his first inaugural address (March 4, 1933, he actually said, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'). Less well known is that Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook said something very similar thirty years earlier. He wrote in a letter from 1905: Exaggerated fear removes the radiance of life from people. There is nothing in the world, no matter how evil and cruel, that is quite like it. It magnifies all evils beyond comparison to what they really are, and it darkens the brightness of all good things, for it burrows beneath their foundations and excessively claims that evil is hidden beneath the obvious good. It is the source of all weakness and all feebleness, whether physical, ethical, or intellectual, solely a fear that crosses beyond its proper boundary. Such a fear terrifies a person so much that he will do nothing to save himself. He will not even lift a finger to help himself, because he is afraid that he might be hurt, he is afraid that action may bring an evil that he cannot escape. And finally, this fear weakens and enfeebles him so much that out of his inertia and inaction, he falls prey to every evil.

Rav Kook, unlike President Roosevelt, emphasized that he was only discussing excessive fear, because normal, rational fears are healthy. I remember being told by my officers in the IDF that it's good to be scared on the battlefield. It keeps us from doing stupid things which might get us and our comrades killed.

But how can we break this pervasive fear? The verses in our parsha seem to suggest that the antidote for this condition is God returning to us through fulfillment of the covenant made with our Patriarchs and with the land itself (verse 42). This will break the cycle of dread. Rav Kook suggests that the rectification (tikun) can come in almost the opposite way. He claims that if we endeavor to find God then we can uncover the strength to break the stranglehold of fear. But it requires hard work. There are many times when God isn't easy to find. However we have been assured in the Talmud that "If a person says, 'I toiled and I did not find'…do not believe him" (Megillah 6b).

So, in the aftermath of the killing of Osama, in the many threats to our beloved State of Israel, and in our own private lives, reasonable fear and caution are always appropriate. But, without excessive glee, there is room for satisfaction that one more threat has been eliminated. If, on the other hand, we are too afraid to counter the threats t our way of life, then the bogeymen will have won.

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Walk Article

2011-05-10T08:04:00.001-04:00

REAL ESTATE

Behar-5771

Rabbi David Walk

This week we celebrated Yom Ha'Atzmaut, the 63^rd birthday of the State which represents the latest chapter in our love affair with the Land of Israel. And it's very appropriate that this celebration falls out during the parsha of Behar, because this reading is filled with material about how we're supposed to relate to this national legacy. Parshat Behar is probably the most Zionist reading in the Torah. We have the laws of Shmittah and Jubilee, as well as many instructions about how sale of land is transacted in Israel. The Haftorah, as well, discusses real estate transactions in the time of Jeremiah (655-586 BCE). Even though the Babylonians are bearing down on the Judean kingdom, Jeremiah is going out of his way to acquire land in our beloved country. This wasn't land speculation; this was affection.

I really want to discuss one aspect of these Zionist laws, and that is the law that land can't be sold permanently in Israel. The verse says: The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and temporary residents with Me (Leviticus 25:23). As an aside, this is still true. The modern State of Israel has a Land Authority which owns most of the land and when you buy land it is as a ninety-nine year lease. Now most historians claim that these laws were an advanced form of land reform. It accomplished two social objectives. First of all it prevented farmers, in this agrarian society from becoming destitute, because once a generation the land returned to the original owners. Secondly, it achieved a political balance between the tribes. Tribes which had lost land, and, therefore wealth and prestige could reclaim their place when the land returned to the original family owners. These were very advanced social ideas.

However, even though Judaism can't divorce social issues from its religious agenda, I'd like to focus on the spiritual concepts in these mitzvoth. When you read the verse which commands this principle, we Jews almost feel like chaperones on a date. It's like the land and God have something going on, and we're just passing through. The inability to own the land permanently seems to reflect and emphasize the ephemeral nature of our stay here on planet earth, while God and the land will be there forever. Since we love God and the land, we should view ourselves as responsible caretakers for the short period that we have control of the land. To a certain extent we should view the land as we view our own DNA. We carefully and affectionately pass it along to the next possessors. These parcels of land are like our children, to foster and nurture.

The next verse intensifies the spiritual nature of this commandment. It says: Therefore, throughout the land of your possession, you shall give redemption for the land (verse 24). Even though there is a social aspect of the precept. We should redeem land in the sense of buying it back for the family even before the fiftieth year has been reached. Nevertheless we can't ignore the spiritual overtones of the language, especially in this season between Pesach and Shavuot. Redemption is primarily a spiritual category and only secondarily has a financial connotation. In other words, we must feel the need to redeem the land much as we feel the urgency to redeem captives or hostages. I believe that there are three ideas in redeeming the land: first, to buy it back from sources other than the original family; next, for society, to help the poor reestablish themselves, and, finally, for some spiritual or mystical connection of the land to God.

What does that last idea mean? We could answer that there is some special relationship with the land and God because of all the historical events which transpired upon that hallowed ground. Perhaps, we could say it's because this land was the land bridge connecting the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, the cradles of humankind and civilization. In the beginning, the first humans passed this way out of Africa, then ideas crossed by, later it was armies, and now its oil. But in Deuteronomy it says that this land which God gave us is 'not like the land of Egypt, out of which you came, where you sowed your seed and which you watered by foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land, to which you pass to possess, is a land of mountains and valleys and absorbs water from the rains of heaven, a land the Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year (Deuteronomy 11:10-12).' Somehow this land is closer to God in some agricultural, meteorological and magical way.

The reality that Israel relies on barely sufficient annual rainfall (there are no major rivers, the Jordan is a trickle), requires close monitoring and constant petition to the God whom we believe controls the rain (Deuteronomy 11:14 and Talmud Ta'anit 2a). And a history which chronicles more battles than any other plot of dirt on earth, causes our people to live a life on the precipice, always appealing for Divine intervention. Apparently that's the way God wants us, permanently on the line demanding help.

But what can we do to redeem a land already blessed and cared for by God?

Rav Amital OB"M wrote of a letter from Rav Eliyahu Guttmacher, one of the leading disciples of R. Akiva Eiger, written in 1874, in which he asserts that if there would be 130 families working the land in Eretz Yisrael, this would be considered the "beginning of the redemption." We redeem the land by working it and loving it, and it responds by blossoming and flowering. And, we should never view ourselves as the outside third party in the love affair between God and the land, because our Talmud (Ketubot 111b) proclaims that any Jew dwelling outside of Israel lives as if he has no God. We rendezvous with God in Israel.

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Walk Article

2011-05-03T11:16:00.001-04:00

PROCESS

Emor-5771

Rabbi David Walk

As the memory of the Pesach Seders fade, it's easy to lose focus on the continuing exodus story. The story doesn't end with the conclusion of Pesach. The source of the emphasis on the number four at our Seders is the four terms of redemption found in chapter six of Exodus. According to tradition those four words represent the steps in this redemption saga, namely the ending of the work with the beginning of the plagues, the actual departure from
Egypt on the fifteenth of Nissan, the crossing of the Sea on the seventh day of Pesach, and, finally, the receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai fifty days after exiting Egypt. To help us concentrate on this progression from slavery to freedom, we have the mitzvah of counting the Omer from the second day of Pesach until the eve of Shavuot. So, it behooves us to try and figure out the purpose of this mitzvah to connect these two holidays, which are two stages in the redemption narrative.

Before I get back to the main idea of this article I have a short detour. It's really a shame that the Omer period has lost much of its charm and joy, because of the sad events which occurred during this time period during the second century of the Common Era. Most Jewish kids in school learn about the semi-mourning we exhibit because of the twenty-four thousand students of Rabbi Akiva who died during these days. Many people think it's more important to refrain from haircuts and parties than to fulfill the mitzvah from the Torah of counting these days and remembering the ideas of this count. It's sad, but so much of Jewish history imposes a veil of tears over the eternal verities of Torah that we often lose the main thread of the story. But not us, we're going to keep aim at the original purpose of these days.

So, to truly understand the meaning of this forty-nine day count, we must understand the level of redemption gained at the foot of Mount Sinai. The first two steps in the exodus process removed the physical vestiges of the oppression, namely the slave labor and the incarceration in Egypt. At the shores of the Sea a psychological redemption was achieved when the Jews witnessed the demise of Egypt's military power. We were no longer intimidated by them. What was left to be accomplished? To better understand the level attained at Mount Sinai, I want to present a concept of freedom described by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). He explained that there are two kinds or flavors of freedom. The first is the freedom from the coercion of others, the other is the freedom to follow one's own rational and moral conscience. In the 50's and 60's the great British philosopher (and Jew) Isaiah Berlin (1909-1998) described negative liberty as freedom from something, and positive liberty as freedom to do something. He was concerned that the great authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, had proven that freedom might be abused in the name of a greater cause. So, he leaned toward negative freedom as the superior form. He feared that whenever a government or ideology could decide what is best for the society, totalitarianism is inevitable.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, tremendously respects that the presentation of Berlin, from 1958, when he wrote "Two Concepts of Liberty," was an important philosophic attack on Communist ideology. But, he declares, Berlin was wrong. Not surprisingly, Judaism demands a middle position. Torah recognizes that, as Berlin posits, positive freedom, which demands adherence to ideologically pure behavior, can lead to absolute dictatorship. However, Torah also notes that negative freedom, which demands that there be no coercive actions, leads to chaos and the jungle. Under those circumstances a new tyranny of right by might prevails. So, a new model is demanded, and Judaism provides it.

The difficult balancing act of freedom with restraints is hinted at in the Ten Commandments. God declares: I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Exodus 20:2). God is describing two kinds of freedom, one from Egypt and one from slavery. The Torah describes a new paradigm. This phenomenon was unique until the American experiment. The revolution in human thinking was based on an informed choice to give one's loyalty to God. Leaving slavery resulted in a kind of liberty which is called in Hebrew chofesh or freedom from all restraints and encumbrances. In modern Israel that's the word for a vacation. The departure from Egypt, on the other hand, resulted in a shift of our allegiance from Pharonic authority to Divine influence. This transference was the result of our voluntary acceptance of God's power. Even though there have been short periods of Jewish history when Torah law was enforced by courts and police, by and large our observance of Halacha is based on our relationship with God. This second form of freedom which contains elements of positive freedom to display certain behavior is called cherut. This term comes from the Hebrew word to engrave. This system works because the principles are engraved on our hearts.

Now we can understand this time period between Pesach and Shavuot. During these few weeks, we almost had a trial marriage with God. Certain mitzvoth were introduced, like Shabbat, and we were trying this new life style on to see how it fit. This courtship ended at Mount Sinai with the ceremony which bound us to God. We accepted a format of rules and God made us a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'

We won our freedom at Pesach but to maintain that liberty for over three millennia has required us to pledge ourselves to a system of virtue and ethics undiluted by time. That happened at Mount Sinai. Every year we must use these seven weeks to reaffirm our commitment to this marriage or covenant, and reconfirm it every Shavuot by a new and joyous ratification of the Torah. We owe this eternal endeavor and our progeny nothing less. Let the exodus process continue.

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Walk Article

2011-04-27T11:52:00.001-04:00

BACK FROM THE FUTURE

Kedoshim-5771

Rabbi David Walk

This is an amazing Torah reading. The great commentary Rashi (1040-1105) tells us that this parsha was presented to the Jews in public convocation because it contains all the major components of our Torah. In other words, if a concept is important to our Torah way of life it must appear in this reading, and, conversely, if something is in this section it must be essential. And, indeed, we have a repetition of the Ten Commandments, the basis for our mode of sexual morality, and, of course, the injunction to 'love your fellow like you love yourself.' It seems that if you could only study one portion of the Torah, this is your candidate. So, I have a problem. Don't I always? One of the precepts highlighted in this material is to avoid fortune tellers. As a matter of fact this idea is stated twice: You shall not act on the basis of omens or lucky hours (Leviticus 19:26) and do not turn to mediums and spiritualists (verse 31). Why is it so bad to have my fortune told?

First of all some technical material. There are four specific practices which have been forbidden. Although there are many interpretations for these four phenomena, I'll again just give you Rashi, who in turn bases his comments on the Talmud (Sanhedrin 65 a & b). The omens (tinachasu) in verse 26 refer to observing animal behavior, like if a deer or black cat crosses your path, one might change their actions. The lucky hour (t'oninu) comes from the word for clouds and means that people say certain days or times of day are good or bad to start projects. In verse 31, the mediums are people who claim to present voices from the dead, usually through ventriloquism. Finally, the term I translated as spiritualists (yidonim) used an ancient practice of speaking with bones in their mouth, as if the magic bone were transmitting the information. My gut reaction to all these practices is to say that it's stupid, but I know that there are intelligent people who are affected by variations of these practices, and among our Sages there are debates whether or not these practices have foundation in fact. My problem is why is the Torah so vehemently against them?

Maimonides gives the most famous and simplest approach. These activities are banned because they represent the behavior of pagan society. We must do everything in our power to differentiate ourselves from the idolaters, and therefore we must eschew these acts. This works, but isn't all that satisfying because idolatry is not a major element in our world. So, I need a better answer for 2011. There is actually a comment made by Rabbi Baruch Halevy Epstein (1860-1941) in his great work the Torah Temima, in which he seems very lenient on the topic. He says that it appears that there is room to allow the average person to seek magical advice in matters of theft and health, because everyone knows that this is meaningless (Hebrew: hevel). However, it might provide some solace to the average individual. Well, that's a problem. These ideas can't be essential verities of our faith if we can so easily ignore them when it's convenient. I believe that Rabbi Epstein was just being considerate to a common phenomenon. People in distress turn to avenues we normally would avoid, and he was expressing sympathy for their plight. Especially in medical areas we often look for miracles and magic when conventional medicine provides no answers. I think that we can all sympathize with that position. As a matter of fact, the Austro-Hungarian Empire listed many Chassidic leaders as medical personnel in their shtetlach.

I believe that Rabbi Epstein's sympathetic interpretation was avoidance of the real issues involved. Even that great rationalist Maimonides allowed people to use amulets and do incantations for disease. But the core idea is that we Jews aren't permitted to use magical means to decide how to act. Our behavior should be determined by Torah and mitzvoth. There are a few (very few) instances when a prophet or God will tell someone what to do, but those rare circumstances are exceptions to the rule. As a human I'm supposed to look at situations and use my mind and conscience to choose the actions I think that God and the Torah would want me to opt for. The goal, perhaps the purpose, of life is make these choices based upon ethics and morality, not based upon knowing the outcome. That's why very few of our prophets make predictions about the future. Usually they relate that we've acted badly or immorally. They tell us to choose better in the future, not tell us what the future holds.

It's fascinating that whenever science fiction or fantasy has stories about people who know the future, it turns out badly. Usually the stories are about heroes who undo the predicted outcome. These writers seem to know this Torah truth. There was an interesting film from 2003 called Paycheck. In the movie Ben Affleck is an engineer who builds a machine which predicts the future. He spends a lot time trying to destroy this super computer. At one point he tells his girl friend that if you know the future, you have no future. I think that statement agrees with the Torah point of view.

The trick or the challenge of life is to make the right choices. If you already know the outcome of the choice, then there was no choice. These mitzvoth aren't telling us to refrain from getting our palms read, horoscopes interpreted or fortune cookies deciphered. They are describing important principles of life. We make the choices that we choose because they are the moral and ethical thing to do, not because we know that it will succeed. Winning is less important than being good.

If getting your fortune told is a game at a fair, go ahead, enjoy. If it's a serious attempt to determine your life's direction, avoid it at all costs. Life is in the uncertainty.

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