Metzora – Miserly Mindset

We instinctively think of nega’im as born of lashon hora, “evil speech,” and we’re not wrong. But there is another birther of the condition, one that is evident in the very word metzora: tzarus ayin, “miserly eye” – selfish narrowmindedness, begrudging others one’s possessions.

That is particularly evident in the fact that, in the case of nig’ei batim, the tzara’as that afflicts walls of a house, the owner, before the house is declared tamei by a kohein, is told to take the home’s vulnerable vessels outside, exposing them to public view. What’s more, the Torah’s concern for the owner’s possessions stands as a lesson to him about caring for others’ needs.

Jews, as a people, are famously generous. We may be frugal, but that bespeaks something positive, our recognition of the worth of even small things. When it comes to charity, though, U.S. Jews per capita are more philanthropic than any other ethnic or religious community.

But tzarus ayin can manifest itself in a realm apart from charity. The Kli Yakar sees in the phrase “asher lo habayis” – “that is to him the house” (Vayikra 14:35) – an indication of a miser’s mindset: he thinks the house is truly his, when, in reality, it, like all we may think we “own,” is only temporarily in his control, on loan, so to speak, from Hashem.

Chazal created an entire class of imperatives based on that reality: birchos hanehenin, “blessings to be made before indulging.” When we recite a brachah before enjoying food or even fragrance, we are acknowledging that what is about to benefit us is from Hashem.

It’s ironic that a society like ours today, so blessed with such plenty, is not more careful when it comes to acknowledging our blessings. “Bruchanoi” may be somewhat reminiscent of the first three words of a brachah, but only somewhat. And quickly mumbling a brachah as some sort of irksome incantation without thinking about what its words mean is no replacement for summoning the gratitude the brachah is meant to express.

Even generous eyes can be miserly. Ours shouldn’t be.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Tazria – Speech Pathology

Tum’ah, or “ritual defilement,” is invisible but consequential in many contexts, especially, though not exclusively, with regard to kodoshim, material holding holy status.

And, in most cases of tum’ah impartation, the defilement happens as a matter of course, through contact of one sort or another with a source of tum’ah.

Tzara’as, the skin condition that occupies the bulk of parshas Tazria, is different. It is wholly dependent on the judgment, based on the detailed laws in the parsha, of a kohein. 

And not just his judgment but his pronouncement of “tamei.”

Hence, we have the law that a groom with a sign of tzara’as is to be given seven days of wedding celebration before presenting his condition to a kohein; and anyone with such a sign does not bring it to a kohein during a holiday (Rashi Vayikra 13:14, based on Moed Katan 7b). No pronouncement of tum’ah, no tum’ah.

At least in the case of skin tzara’as, which, it is taught, results from lashon hara, speaking ill of others, the oddity of the tuma’ah being dependent on a pronouncement might telegraph a subtle message to the afflicted person: Speech is powerful. It can be destructive, as in lashon hara, the source of tzara’as. And withholding it can be consequential in a positive way, preventing  tum’ah from manifesting. It is what sets humanity apart from the animal world. 

It’s fitting, in other words, that the status of a condition brought about by speech is dependent on speech.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Beware Phony Frumkeit

When describing the camel and pig, animals that lack either of the two signs required for their species to be considered consumable by Jews, the Torah’s wording is odd. 

Kosher species require cud-chewing and split hooves, yet the camel, the text states, is forbidden “because it chews its cud, but does not have a [completely] split hoof”; and the pig, “because it has a cloven hoof that is completely split, but will not regurgitate its cud.” The “becauses” are seemingly misplaced, since the reason for the species’ forbiddance is for the lack of one kosher sign, not the presence of one.

Similar wording is used regarding the two other “one sign only” species mentioned, the hyrax and the hare.

The Kli Yakar perceives something poignant in the placement of the kosher signs after the “becauses.” He writes that “their pure sign adds extra impurity to their impurity, as we find that Chazal compared Esov to a pig that sticks out its hoofs when it lies down to make it appear as if it is kosher, but its inside is full of deceit. This represents anyone whose inside is not like his outside, in the manner of the hypocrites … Therefore, the pig’s split hoof is a sign of impurity because the split hoof can deceive people and make it appear as if it is kosher.”

The Chashmonai king Yannai, before he died, told his wife “Don’t be afraid of the Perushim [Torah-faithful Jews] or of those who are not Perushim, only of the hypocrites who present themselves as Perushim, for their actions are those of Zimri while they ask for reward like Pinchas received” (Sotah 22b).

Presenting oneself as a better version than that of one’s reality, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, once told me, isn’t wrong – if one aspires to that better version. As the Chinuch put it, “what is on the outside can awaken the inside.” 

But pretension for the sake of pretension is being, well, piggish. 

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Joe Lieberman, Baruch Dayan ha’emes

A New York Times article from August 18, 2000, by Laurie Goodstein addressed Senator Lieberman’s religious convictions. It ended with something I said and that Mr. Lieberman repeated on several occasions on the campaign trail. The article is below:

Lieberman Balances Private Faith With Life in the Public Eye

By watching Senator Joseph I. Lieberman carefully, Americans may receive a lesson in the rituals and the realities of living as an Orthodox Jew in America.

Mr. Lieberman attends an Orthodox synagogue, but outside of temple he rarely wears a yarmulke. He eats kosher food and keeps the Sabbath, but unlike many strictly Orthodox men he shakes hands with women. If he could not shake hands, how could he campaign?

Mr. Lieberman refers to himself as an ”observant Jew,” not Orthodox. It is an intentional distinction that his staff laments has been overlooked in all the coverage devoted to the first Jewish politician to run for vice president.

”He refers to himself as observant as opposed to Orthodox because he doesn’t follow the strict Orthodox code and doesn’t want to offend the Orthodox, and his wife feels the same way,” said a Lieberman press officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Lieberman’s aides said they could not make him available for an interview during the Democratic National Convention.

Despite his hesitation to embrace the label, Mr. Lieberman is by practice, heritage and synagogue membership best described as a modern Orthodox Jew. Orthodox Jews try to live according to Halakha, the vast body of Jewish law, and so practice a stricter form of observance than those who belong to the other Jewish denominations — Conservative, the next most traditional, followed by Reform and Reconstructionist. For every prohibition in the Halakha, however, there are exceptions argued over by generations of rabbis.

Mr. Lieberman’s form of observance makes clear that Orthodox Judaism is a continuum that ranges from lenient to stringent interpretation of Jewish law.

”It’s not a denominational difference,” said Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University. ”It’s individuals who are different. Some individuals within Orthodoxy are more strict than others. But there is a certain amount of wriggle room in Jewish law. There is a degree of flexibility, but the basic commitment must be to the integrity of the law itself.”

Take, for instance, the prohibition on shaking women’s hands, one of many ways in which the Orthodox separate the sexes. The original reasoning was that contact between the sexes should not arouse erotic impulses, rabbis say. Today, in an era when men and women are far less segregated, some Orthodox Jewish men will shake a woman’s hand only if she extends hers first. Some men will extend their hands first, and some will not shake a woman’s hand under any circumstances.

While the Orthodox world is complex, there are two basic distinctions. The ultra-Orthodox, or haredim (meaning ”those who tremble” before God), have traditionally kept an arm’s length from secular society. They include the Hasidic Jews who replanted their Eastern European communities in America, retaining visible signs of their separateness like black hats and side curls.

Modern Orthodoxy, by contrast, tries to integrate the observance of Jewish law with participation in contemporary life.

”Modern means we see it as a religious imperative to engage the modern world, the secular world,” said Rabbi Barry Freundel of Kesher Israel, the temple where Mr. Lieberman worships in Washington, ”and to take that which is of value in that world and make it part of our world.”

Mr. Lieberman was raised in a religiously integrated neighborhood in Stamford, Conn. At home, his family kept kosher and observed the Sabbath. As a high school student, he stayed home from the prom, which fell on the Sabbath, even though he had been voted prom king.

Unlike many Orthodox Jews, he attended public school, not a Jewish day school. He studied the tenets of his faith at Sunday school, at afternoon Hebrew school, and on his own, Mr. Lieberman said in an interview in 1993. He said he left Jewish observance for a time and returned when he became a parent, sending his children to Jewish day schools.

Many of Mr. Lieberman’s most basic religious rituals are intimate acts. He prays three times a day. At morning prayer, Rabbi Freundel said, the senator lays on tefillin, the small leather boxes that contain four biblical passages written on parchment, binding the boxes to one arm and his forehead with leather straps.

He and his wife, Hadassah, keep kosher, adhering to the Jewish dietary laws. They do not mix milk products and meat, and keep separate sets of dishes for each. When he is traveling, aides say, he eats tuna sandwiches, or fruit and vegetables.

Most important, Mr. Lieberman keeps the Fourth Commandment to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest and delight in God’s creation, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Observant Jews are supposed to refrain from writing, using electricity, driving and talking on the telephone.

Mr. Lieberman, with the help of his two rabbis, Rabbi Al Feldman in New Haven as well as Rabbi Freundel, has derived a way to reconcile the requirements of Jewish law with his responsibilities as an elected official. Jewish law teaches that one may break the Sabbath if the matter involves ”concern for human life.” Mr. Lieberman and his rabbis have interpreted that by drawing a line between governing and campaigning. That means he will not break the Sabbath to campaign, but he is required to break the Sabbath to cast a Senate vote or take crucial action on public policy.

In the critical weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Mr. Lieberman has said, he will not campaign on the six days that coincide with the Jewish holiday season. He will instead be in synagogue for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which falls on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, and Yom Kippur, on Oct. 9. The first two days of the Jewish harvest festival, Sukkot, are on Oct. 14 and 15, and Simchat Torah falls on Oct. 22.

Mixed with the pride that many Orthodox Jews have voiced in Mr. Lieberman, there has been some whispering about a few of his and his wife’s omissions. For instance, Hadassah Lieberman does not routinely cover her head with a hat, scarf or wig, standard practice for the married, traditional Orthodox woman who is supposed to dress modestly.

Mr. Lieberman, by going bare-headed outside temple, is not violating Jewish law. But in the last few decades, some Orthodox Jews have come to regard wearing a yarmulke, or kippah, in public as a sign of ethnic pride and identity. Mr. Lieberman has decided not to, Rabbi Freundel said.

”He has never wanted to be the Jewish senator,” the rabbi said. ”He has wanted to be the senator who happened to be Jewish, and wearing the kippah would change the perspective. If you met someone wearing a kippah, the Jewishness is immediately on the table. That is not how he wanted to be known.”

”Safety issues” are another factor, Rabbi Freundel said. Last weekend, just before Mr. Lieberman stepped out of Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown after services, a Secret Service agent asked him to remove his yarmulke before walking home, the rabbi said. The yamulke made the senator a ”visible target.”

”There is no question that taking off your yarmulke in the face of danger is permissible,” Rabbi Freundel said.

In interviews, Orthodox leaders said they regard Mr. Lieberman as a worthy representative of Orthodox Judaism, and understand the compromises he has made.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, said: ”He’s running for vice president, not chief rabbi. Therefore, there might be some things we would consider not thought out from a religious perspective, but we’re not here to critique his religious life.”

Tzav – The Constancy of His Kindnesses 

Among the various karbanos called shelamim, two are very limited regarding when their meat and accompaniments must be consumed – the day they are offered. Regular shelamim are permitted double that window of time.

The two are the korban Pesach and, in our parsha, the korban todah, the “thanksgiving” offering. The latter, like the former, is offered in response to having been saved from a dire situation. The Gemara (Brachos 54b), citing Tehillim 107, gives the examples of 1) going to sea, 2) traveling in a desert, 3) enduring a serious illness and 4) being confined to prison. 

Interestingly, the Jewish national thanksgiving which is Pesach involves all of those categories. A sea had to be crossed, a desert, subsequently, had to be traveled, Egypt is described as having been a virtual prison, and the Jewish people are described as having sunk to the lowest spiritual level in Egypt – a sickness of the national soul.

Why the one-day limit? Rav Yitzchak Meir Alter, the Gerer Rebbe known as the Chidushei HaRim, explains that it is to impress upon the offeror – and all of us – that heavenly salvations are daily occurrences. Whether we perceive them or not.

All of us can recall close calls we’ve had in our pasts. Each was a salvation.  

But getting up in the morning rather than expiring in our sleep is also a salvation. Making our way through our day without tripping and hurting ourselves or being mugged or worse is a salvation. Driving from point A to point B without an interaction with a drunk driver is a salvation…

As we recite in Modim, the Amidah’s bracha of “acknowledgment” or “thanksgiving”: “[We thank You] for Your miracles that are with us every day…”

So needing to eat the korban todah within one day – according to the chachamim, in order to avoid problems, by midnight – impresses us with the constancy of Hashem’s kindnesses.

Something to think about on the seder nights as we rush to consume the afikoman – the stand-in for the korban Pesach – before midnight.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran