Ki Seitzei -Where We Are

Chazal describe the judgment meted out to a ben sorer u’moreh, the boy who, at the tender age of 13, demonstrates indulgences and worse, as being merited because he is judged al sheim sofo, based on what his “end” will likely be: a murderous mugger (Devarim 21:18).

Several years ago, I noted how an incongruity seems to lie in the case of Yishmael. Although his descendants, as Rashi notes, will prove to be cruel tormenters of his half-brother Yitzchak’s descendants, he is judged “ba’asher hu shom”: where he is at the current moment (Beraishis 21:17).

The Mizrachi and Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin address the problem by noting that the ben sorer u’moreh has already himself acted in an ugly manner, whereas Yishmael’s cruel descendants lay generations in the future. (I suggested, based on a question, another approach, that internalizing materialism and luxuries, like the ben sorer has done, is a particularly weighty indicator of hopelessness.)

Rav Zevin, based on his approach, also reveals a different dimension of the law of ben sorer u’moreh, which is virtually impossible to happen, given Chazal’s requirements for prosecution (see Sanhedrin 71a), and, according to Rabi Yehudah, indeed never did, and exists only to edify us.

He explains that just as the boy’s harsh judgment is based (as above) on his having demonstrated the seeds of criminality already, so are all of us responsible for whatever bad we’ve done, and for its implications for our futures.

But, he continues, when Rosh Hashanah arrives, we are able to engage in doing teshuvah, which removes our past sins from the divine calculus. And, thus, even though we may indeed – like Yishmael’s descendents, lihavdil, did in their horrible way – lapse in our own ways in the coming year, at the moment of judgment, we are judged “ba’asher hu shom.” Where we stand at the moment of din.

Which, Rav Zevin, suggests, is why the parsha about Yishmael’s life being saved by Hashem is read on Rosh Hashanah.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Shoftim — It’s Too Easy Being Green

It is explicit in the text of the Torah that those who went to war in the conquest of Cna’an knew that their lives could be lost in battle: “lest he die and another….” (Devarim 20:5) And that anyone “who is fearful or fainthearted…” (20:8) would be exempt from it.

Even among the brave, though, one imagines that the possibility of dying, even if fully recognized and accepted, would cause anguish. And yet, what are described as being sources of anguish to a fighter, even one ready to give up his life, are the thoughts that someone else might assume his place in occupying his new home, in harvesting his new vineyard, in a new marriage.

That points to a fundamental, if illogical, part of human nature. Losing out on something feels bad, but losing out to someone else is worse. In fact, a low salary has been shown to be less stressful on its own than the knowledge that someone else with the same skills and job is making more money. And when the anguish of “losing out” to someone else is compounded with the idea that the other’s “win” happens even before one has had a chance to experience the fruits of his labor, as in the exempted soldiers’ cases, it is all the more intense.

The inclination to envy, born of the sense of self, comes easily to us. In fact, it is inherent to being human.

That a sense of self isn’t a sin is evident in a a Midrash brought by Rashi on the pasuk “uvicheit yechemasni imi” (Tehillim 51:7); Dovid Hamelech lamented the fact that when his parents conceived him, their intent was basically selfish (a thought reflected as well in his words ki avi vi’imi azovuni, Tehillim 27:10). And yet, Dovid’s father was Yishai, who we are told (Shabbos 55b) died sinless.

We are, of course, admonished to not feed feelings of jealousy (Devarim 5:18), to not allow them to bring us to covet what another person has. But the initial feeling of resentment is part and parcel of being a human being. It’s the dwelling on it, intensifying it, that is wrong.

Its appearance, however, should not make us feel despair, only human, and challenged to resist it.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Re’ei — The Matter of the Meat

“Eat to your heart’s content,” Hashem states at the end of the psukim that begin, “When Hashem enlarges your territory as promised and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish….” (Devarim 12:20).

Rav Saadia Gaon reads those words not as an allowance but rather as an imperative – that there is a Torah mitzvah (which he counts among the 613) to eat meat.

To be sure, we are admonished to consume meat only when we have a compelling appetite for it (Chullin 84a, codified by the Rambam in Hilchos Dei’os 5:10). But, at least according to Saadia Gaon, when such an appetite is present, satisfying it is a fulfillment of a d’Oryaisa commandment.

Similarly, in the Talmud Yerushalmi, at the end of Massechta Kiddushin, it is stated in the name of Rav that “One will be held accountable for not having not eaten something permitted that one found enticing.” Presumably, because to do otherwise would be to decline a Divine gift.

Surrendering to appetites is not something generally seen as consonant with a Torah-conscious life. And moderation even in permitted things is a high ideal. Yet, here, with regard to meat (and, according to the Yerushalmi, it would seem, any food), if one has a desire to consume it, one not only may but must do so.

Saadia Gaon is alone among those who enumerate the 613 mitzvos who sees the words “eat to your heart’s content” as a commandment.

But the next time you feel an urge to eat a steak or a hamburger, out of acknowledgment of Saadia Gaon’s opinion, it might be proper to have intent that one’s enjoyment of the fare is an observance of a mitzvah.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Photo Fiasco Update

Some interesting information about how the New York Times’ Gaza sausage is made was presented recently by Semafor, a news website founded in 2022 by Ben Smith, a former media columnist at the Times, and Justin B. Smith, the former CEO of Bloomberg Media Group.

A piece on the site written by its media editor Max Tani disclosed that the Times had originally wanted to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding that “an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying – from starvation.” While the child may, sadly, have been malnourished (ultimately, Hamas’ fault – and its intention, since Gazans’ suffering does wonders for its p.r.), his shocking physical state was mainly due to the ravages of his disease.

Responsibly, though, the report notes, the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. According to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that running the photos might call into question the paper’s reporting (smart guys!). Especially since the article claimed that many of the children suffering from hunger had been healthy kids, without preexisting diseases.

According to internal messages obtained by Semafor, the paper’s managing editor Marc Lacey expressed his concern. “Do we want to use a photo,” he asked “that will be the subject of debate when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?”

Sagely, executive editor Joe Kahn agreed, writing that “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art[icle] really should not do that, either.”

And so they wisely opted not to publish Youssef’s photos. Instead, they ran, as noted last week in this space, those of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old child in Gaza, whose tiny, emaciated body was the perfect accompaniment to the news story. At least, that’s what the editors thought.

Problem was, of course, that Mohammed was also suffering from serious diseases, cerebral palsy and a suspected genetic disorder, a fact that, when publicized and called to the Times’s attention, was shared in an “Editor’s Note” (posted to the original story, not on the paper’s main social media account) four days after the article appeared and the photo of the “born healthy” child had been widely and irresponsibly republished by other media.

So, let’s recap, just to be clear: The head honchos at the “paper of record” recognized how journalistically irresponsible it would have been to accompany an article saying that healthy Gazan children were being reduced to skeletal shadows of their former selves with a photo of a child with a serious medical condition, the main cause of his sad state. And then went ahead and did precisely that, choosing a different child with a serious medical condition.

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

If Mr. Lacey, as quoted above, is correct in his contention that “there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are,” it’s odd that no other clearly malnourished, wasting away young people have had their photographs plastered on his paper’s front page. Could it be that there may indeed be such a shortage?

I don’t know. There is certainly great need in Gaza, and Israel and the U.S. are taking serious steps to ensure that aid to residents isn’t intercepted by Hamas and criminal gangs.

What I do know is that there was a strong desire on 8th Avenue to publish some photo of an ostensibly starving child. So strong that the Old Gray Lady tripped on her skirt and fell face-first into an omelet.

As Semafor reported further, “One thing that pro-Israel critics of the Times and some staff at the paper agree on is that there is a large contingent of staff at the paper who are opposed to the war in Gaza, and blame Israel for the crisis.”

It would seem that, at least on the West Side of Manhattan, objectivity, like irony, is dead.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

Eikev – Handed-Down History

The Talmud uses the term “pischon peh,” literally, “an opening of the mouth,” to describe the ability to put forth a compelling argument or excuse.

The pesukim that relay Hashem’s message to our ancestors: “Know this day that it was not your children” who saw Hashem’s majesty and experienced all of the miracles in Mitzrayim and during the exodus thereof and those during the desert years, but, rather, it was “your [own] eyes that saw” Hashem’s great acts (Devarim 11, 2-7), offer us alive today such an argument.

Because our ancestors directly experienced Hashem’s might and direction, and were thus rightly accountable to recognize the import of the same on their behavior. But we, their mere descendants, did not witness the exodus and subsequent wonders. What, then, compels us? Do we not have a pischon peh here, an excuse?

Key here is the vital importance of mesorah, the “handed-down,” usually used colloquially to refer to the handed-down law but no less applicable to “handed-down history.”

No one in his right mind today, despite not having been alive then, denies the event we call World War I, or the one we call the Civil War, or the existence of ancient Rome or ancient Greece. That is because history is handed down to us from when it happened.

And ancient Jewish history, with all of its miracles, has been faithfully handed down to us. We were therefore, in a sense and for all practical purposes, “there.” Our eyes, too – those of every Jew who has ever sat at a Pesach seder – witnessed the exodus from Mitzrayim.

What is more, we have something our ancestors had not: Compelling evidence of Hashem’s might: the fulfillment of Hashem’s words.

The Torah predicts Klal Yisrael’s failures and its exile from its land. It predicts our scattering across the world and our persecutions. All of which we, not our ancestors, can attest to having happened. So while they may have personally experienced Hashem’s hand, we have experienced the fulfillment of His promise.

And the Torah predicts, too, the full return of Klal Yisrael to the Torah and to the land (already begun), and the ultimate redemption. May it come speedily, in our day.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vo’eschanan – Requited Love

The obvious problem posed by the commandment to love Hashem (Devarim 6:5) is that love is an emotion. How can one possibly be told to love?

One understanding of that commandment is provided by Abaye in the Talmud (Yoma 86a): “That [one should cause] the name of Heaven to be beloved [by others] through you.”

He explains that if one conducts himself properly, studying Torah, serving scholars and conducting business with honesty, people will say “Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah” – thereby engendering observers’ love for Hashem.

The Rambam (Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) echoes that statement, adding the importance of taking care to not “separate [oneself] too far [from normal life]”.

Causing others to love Hashem is arguably easier today than ever. Since society is so often crass and rude, even conducting oneself in a normal, reasonable way does not go unnoticed. A “please” or “thank you” or “good morning,” not to mention a smile, stands out. And if offered by an identifiable Jew, can create love for Hashem.

Another approach to the mitzvah of loving Hashem is recorded in the name of Rav Akiva Eger, based on the fact that emotions can be cultivated and harnessed.

A key to observing the “love Hashem” commandment, he suggests, is provided each day just before we recite the Shma, which introduces it. The final brachah before krias Shma in the morning ends with “Who chooses His nation Yisrael with love”; and the one before the evening recitation, with “the One who loves His nation Yisrael.”

In other words, recognizing Hashem’s love for us yields reciprocal love for Him.

As Shlomo Hamelech teaches in Mishlei (27: 19), Kamayim hapanim lapanim… – “As water reflects a face back to a face, so is one’s heart reflected back to him by another.”

What is true in human relationships is equally true in our relationship with our Creator.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Devarim – No Losses

It’s natural to feel disappointment when one loses – be it a court case, a job, a shidduch or an opportunity.

But it’s a pointless sentiment, and not only because it’s irreversible, like spilled milk. But because it is a denial, in a subtle but real sense, of Hashem.

A seemingly superfluous phrase, or, at least one whose intention is not clear, is appended to the Torah’s admonition “You shall not be partial in judgment. Hear out minor and major matters [or people] alike. Fear not any man.” The pasuk then adds: “For judgment is Hashem’s” (Devarim 1:17).

That phrase could be understood as meaning “For you are doing Hashem’s work, and must do so with pure objectivity.” Or, “For you are but instruments of Hashem.”  But Rashi, basing his words on Sanhedrin 8a, writes:

“Whatever you take from this man unjustly you will compel Me to restore to him; it follows, therefore, that you have thwarted judgment from Me.”

In other words, the phrase implies that an unjust judgment will be divinely rectified. And, it follows that if one judges properly, even if that means that a wealthy party is the winner of a financial case and a destitute party the loser, the judge needn’t fret. If the destitute party is meant to thrive, Hashem will see to it that he does, in some other way.

The implications of that idea – the truism that Hashem can and ultimately does run the show – go well beyond court proceedings. In life, no negative outcome is final, at least not in the larger scheme of things. And so, angst over losing, in any way, is unwarranted.

One can be deprived of a job, shidduch or opportunity. But the “loss” is illusory. And so, angst is pointless; it even borders on heretical, since one must recognize that, if Hashem’s “rectification” of a seemingly unfair verdict or happening is merited, it will happen.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran