Category Archives: issues of morality or ethics

Vayakhel – Not All Donations Welcome

Sometimes money amassed through questionable means is donated to good causes like charities or educational institutions. Perhaps the donors’ subconscious, or even conscious, intent is to somehow render their ill-gotten gains “kosher” in some way.

The Zohar informs us of the folly of such thinking.

On Moshe’s exhortation near the beginning of parshas Vayakhel that the people donate materials for the construction of the Mishkan – “Take from yourselves a portion for Hashem…” (Shemos 35:5), the mystical text states:

“From yourselves” —  from what is [truly] yours, not from [what you have obtained from] usury and not from [what you have obtained from] theft.  Because if it is [obtained through unethical means, the giver] has no merit, but, on the contrary, woe to him, as he has come to recall his sin.”  

Not only would the Mishkan’s holiness have been compromised if any of the precious metals or fabrics used for its construction were besmirched by its donor’s bad behavior in obtaining it, but also, any donation of wrongly obtained material would be a reminder of the donor’s sin.

The same point is said to have been made, particularly pointedly and wittily, by the Kotzker Rebbe, on Chazal’s statement that, at Sinai, the people saw with their eyes what normally could only be heard with ears.  That way, allegedly said the Kotzker, there would be no way for anyone to hear the lo (“Thou shall not”) in lo signov – “Thou shall not steal” – as being spelled lamed-vav, meaning, “For Him, steal.”

It would seem that the notion of justifying economic crimes with virtuous use of ill-gotten gains is nothing new. It existed in the 19th century — and even in Biblical times.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Terumah – Inside, Outside and In-Between

The aron habris, the holy ark described in the parshah, was essentially a wooden box set into a golden one, with another golden one set inside it (Yoma 72b).

The Gemara (ibid) sees in the aron, which contains the luchos, shivrei luchos and a Torah scroll, a metaphor for the coherence of conscience and behavior that defines a true scholar. “A talmid chacham,” Rava teaches there, “who isn’t tocho kiboro,” – whose inside [essence] isn’t like his outside [the image yielded by his behavior] – “isn’t a talmid chacham.”

My revered rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, noted that the Gemara’s wording is pointed. We are not exhorted to bring our “outsides” into line with our “insides” – to first achieve purity of heart and then display its signifiers – but rather the other way around. We do right to first emulate the comportment and behavior of those more spiritually accomplished than we are – to present an image of observance and propriety – even if our souls may not be as pure as our clothing and actions seem to declare. 

That is because, in the Sefer Hachinuch’s words, “A person is affected by his actions” and demeanor. How we dress, speak and act can change who we are.

Achieving coherence of appearance and heart must be the ultimate goal for us all. But we shouldn’t feel hypocritical or despondent if, in the process of reaching that goal, we show the world a better image of ourselves than we deserve. What matters is only that we are working to bring our inner selves into line with our outer ones.

What’s more, according to a Midrash brought by Rashi on the posuk 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, the Gemara  (Shabbos 55b) says was one of the humans who never sinned! 

The inescapable conclusion is that self-interest isn’t sin. The essential sense of self is inherent in being human, and no contradiction to righteousness. 

That, too, is reflected in the aron. It was gold within and without, yes, but there was wood (perhaps hinting to the eitz hadaas) between the golden layers. One’s toch and bar can be pure and consistent, but there is always a self in the middle. And that’s inherent in being human.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

The Far-Reaching Import of a Vav

Your Uber driver might be pleasant to you because he values another human being, but his desire for a four-star rating likely plays a larger role in his affability. 

A sure way to anger an atheist is to challenge him to explain why anyone should be pleasant, or ethical or moral – beyond the mere utilitarian gain of a social contract. He will jump up and down and insist that goodness and badness exist. But, in the end, without a Higher Power’s guidance, those words are utterly fungible.  Good and bad behavior, sans a Divine Guide, carry no more ultimate meaning than good or bad weather. And flowers appreciate thunderstorms.

Parshas Mishpatim begins with the connection-letter vav, indicating that the laws that follow, many of them dealing with financial dealings, torts and other interpersonal matters, were, no less than the “Ten Commandments” and mizbei’ach laws of the previous parshah, “from Sinai,” as Rashi, quoting Midrash Tanchuma, notes.

Inherent in that vav-connector, says Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, is the fact that, for Jews, seemingly mundane business and interpersonal dealings are to be conducted ethically not as mere parts of a social contract but rather as the fulfilment of Divine command.

And, he continues, it is a distinction with a momentous difference. “Rivers of blood” have been spilled, he points out as an example, “up to and including the present,” as a result of human reinterpretation of “Thou shall not murder.”  

When killing, or stealing, or harming others are only man-made social constructs, ways will be found to sidestep them or “clarify” their application when deemed necessary. By contrast, one who accepts the Torah’s ethical laws as a divine charge will perforce treat them as truly binding and absolute, no matter what.

Those with the custom of saying a “lishem yichud” declaration of holy intent before putting on tefillin or taking an esrog and lulav in hand generally don’t do so before signing a contract or treating another person pleasantly.  

But there’s really no reason not to.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vayeira – When Innocence Really Isn’t

Remarkably, in response to Avimelech’s protest over being punished for taking Sarah, Hashem confirms the king’s insistence that he had acted innocently, believing that Avraham and Sarah were, as they had claimed, brother and sister.

“I, too, knew,” Hashem tells Avimelech in a dream, “that it was in the innocence of your heart that you did this” (Beraishis, 20:6).

So, if Avimelech was innocent in taking Sarah, why didn’t Hashem merely prevent the king  from approaching  her?  Why were he and his family and entourage physically punished?

Perhaps the answer lies in what Avraham told Avimelech, when the king demanded an explanation for having misled him:

“Because,” Avraham explained, “I said ‘There is no fear of G-d in this place’” (ibid, 11).

A leader, that tells us, has the ability, and responsibility, to influence the mores of his society. And if a society evidences lack of “fear of G-d,” its leadership is implicated in the evil.

Corrupt Chorus

The most comical reactions to Israel’s airstrike earlier this month on a building in Qatar’s capital Doha came from the group whose leaders were the strike’s targets.

That would be Hamas, which called the attack “a heinous crime, a blatant aggression, and a flagrant violation of all international norms and laws.” Words that nicely describe the goals and daily diet of the lynch mob itself.

Second place in risibility went to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which condemned the strike as a “blatant criminal act.” This, from a group whose dozens of terrorist attacks include detonating a bomb in a Hadera market in 2005, killing seven people and injuring 55; another one the following year in a Tel Aviv eatery that killed eleven and injured 70; and a suicide bombing at an Eilat bakery that killed three.

Then, of course, were the expected words of condemnation from the usual pack of wolves, like Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Syria, Sudan, Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Turkey, the UAE and Libya. And let’s not slight Kazakhstan, Mauritania and the Maldives.

Joining the clamoring canines were Jordan, Spain, Italy, Germany, the European Union, the United Kingdom and France.

And, at least perfunctorily, the U.S. too. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” (We’ll leave the highly debatable description of the country unaddressed for now, due to space limitations.)

Ms. Leavitt did add, though, that “However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. did join the other members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the strike.

Ah, such short memories some have. Does no one recall how, on May 2, 2011, the Obama administration violated the territorial integrity of Pakistan, in Operation Neptune Spear, when SEAL Team Six members shot and killed a man named Osama bin Laden? You know, the founder of al-Qaeda and orchestrator of the recently commemorated September 11, 2001 attacks? Three other men and a woman in the attacked compound were also killed in that operation.

Or the first Trump administration’s violation of Iran’s space on January 3, 2020, when an American drone strike took out Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani, the second most powerful person in Iran at the time?

The world tut-tutting Israel for actions it has taken is, of course, nothing new. In fact, it’s become something of a new normal. But it goes back quite a long way, at least to 1960, when Mossad agents captured Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. (He was spirited to Israel, tried and found guilty of war crimes and executed in 1962.)

At the time, The Washington Post huffed that “anything connected with the indictment of Eichmann is tainted with lawlessness.” And The New York Times wrote that “No immoral or illegal act justifies another.”

And when, in 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, cries of woe were heard around the world (though Iran was gratified, having tried, and failed, to destroy the same facility a year earlier).

The New York Times called the attack “an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression.” The Los Angeles Times referred to it as “state sponsored terrorism.” The United Nations passed two resolutions rebuking Israel for its chutzpah.

The Reagan administration, too, voted in support of a U.N. Security Council resolution that strongly condemned the raid, and the president suspended the delivery of six F-16 fighter jets to Israel.

There are those who maintain that, justification aside, Israel’s attack on a perceived ally of the U.S. was a strategic mistake. Others claim that, in the end, the net result will be positive. I don’t claim the geopolitical savvy to make any judgment in the matter.

What I do claim, in light of history, is the right to point out that Western powers’ condemnations of the Israeli strike against Hamas members in Doha are somewhat (to employ a less charged word than the one that first occurs)… inconsistent.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

Nitzavim – Putting a Hold on Gold

There is idol worship and there is idol worship.

As Rav Elchonon Wasserman wrote, even today, when the urge to worship literal idols is absent, there are a number of “isms” that represent still–beckoning idolatries of the modern era.

In warning against assimilating other nations’ idolatries, Moshe Rabbeinu tells our ancestors that

“You saw their abominations and their detestable idols, of wood and stone; of silver and gold that were with them” (Devarim, 29:16).

Rashi explains the separation (reflected in the cantillation notes) of the phrases “of wood and stone” and “of silver and gold” by noting the latter’s proximity to “that were with them.” He explains that the idolators of old had no compunctions about exposing their wood and stone statues to public view but took pains to protect their valuable metal ones by keeping them “with them,” under lock and key.

I wonder if there may be another way of reading the pasuk’s separation of the phrases.

The “silver and gold” phrase doesn’t explicitly mention idols, although it’s certainly reasonable to assume that the early reference to “abominations and… detestable idols” refers as well to the final phrase of the pasuk.

But maybe that last phrase can also be read as a discrete reference, not to idols per se but, rather, to literal “silver and gold” – in other words, to other nations’ infatuation with precious metals, with amassing wealth.

With, in other words, one of the modern idolatries, one of the “isms” that would tempt Jews in the future: materialism.

The Midrash in Koheles Rabbah (1:13) observes that: “One who has one hundred [units of currency]wants two hundred”; and implies that the progression only continues on from there.

Aspiring to being able to provide for one’s family’s needs is obviously proper, as is aiming for wealth to support good causes. So, in the modern economic system, is saving for the future.

But aspiring, when one has “100,” to attain “200” simply for the sake of having more – and billionaires have no need to double their wealth – is something else. It may reflect the aspiration of societies around us, but it should have no place among Jews. We are not to imitate others in either their literal idolatries or in their addiction to “silver and gold.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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