Category Archives: issues of morality or ethics

Vayishlach — Beware the Rabbi

Imagine finding yourself in a desolate place and spying a lone figure in the distance coming toward you. Your apprehension, even nervousness, would be understandable. But then, when he comes closer and you see that it’s a man with a long white beard, wearing a hat, kapoteh and tallis, you’d breathe a sigh of relief. Until he suddenly attacks you, gets you in a headlock and bends your arm painfully behind your back.

The angel that confronted Yaakov when our forefather re-crossed Nachal Yabok to retrieve some small items looked, according to one opinion, “like a talmid chacham” [Chullin 91a].

The most straightforward takeaway from that contention is that one cannot rely on the appearance of a person as being reflective of his essence. That’s an important lesson, as it happens, for all of us, and to be imparted to our young. Honoring someone who looks honorable is fine, but trusting him requires more than that.

But there’s a broader, historical message in that image of a faux talmid chacham too.

From the 19th century Wissenschaft des Judentums movement to the Reform and Conservative ones to the Jewish nationalism that sought to replace Torah with a Jewish state to “Open Orthodoxy,” there have been many efforts to distort the essence of Judaism – dedication to the Creator and His laws for us.

They have all sought to don conceptual garb proclaiming their “Jewish” bona fides. But they have all been revealed to be no less masqueraders than the sar of Esav wrapped in a tallis.

Lech Lecha – Of Banners and Bloodshed

It’s considered uncouth, or worse, these days to assign any sort of “national character” to peoples of different ethnic or geographical backgrounds. And we are well advised to not assume anything about any individual – say, to assume that a German will be punctual or a Canadian, polite. But meticulousness is a prominent aspect of German society; and civility, a notable Canadian middah. Anthropological and sociological cultural norms exist.

Yishmael is commonly perceived as the progenitor of some Arab peoples, an association that would seem to dovetail disturbingly with how Avraham’s first son is characterized in the parsha, as a “pereh adam,” an “unbridled man” given to violence (see Rashi, Beraishis 21:9), someone whose “hand is against all others” and, as a result, causes “all others’ hands to be against him”(ibid 16:12).

The striking savagery wrought by Arab terrorists, from the Hebron massacre of 1929 to October 7, 2023 (and countless attacks on innocents between those events) lend credence to the idea that Yishmael’s middah persists in our world.

Strikingly, the Muqaddimah, a famous 14th century text by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, seems to agree with the Torah’s characterization of Yishmael. Ibn Khaldun engages in blunt judgments about various populations, including his fellow Arabs, who, he writes, are the most savage of people; he compares them to wild, predatory animals.

The notion that violence is tolerated in – or even embraced by – parts of the Arab world, more than in other societies, is evoked by the flags of some modern Arab states. That of the largest one, Saudi Arabia, features a sword (and the country’s official emblem, two crossed ones). Oman’s and Hamas’ flags also prominently feature swords. Hands clenching AK-47s are on the Fatah movement’s flag, which also includes the image of a hand grenade and is graced with a blood-red Arabic text that probably (just guessing here) doesn’t read “give peace a chance”.

The Palestinian Authority’s “national anthem,” called “Fida’i,” begins, “Warrior, warrior, warrior” and ends “I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior, I will die as a warrior…”

No individual Arab should ever be assumed to be a violent person, of course. But a proclivity for violence seems to be part of Arab culture, a tragic reality noted not only by Ibn Khaldun but presaged by, lihavdil, the Torah.

The Pope Owes Jews an Apology

You can read why here.

Shoftim – The Consequentialness of a Court

In the U.S., offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting something of value in exchange for influencing a judge’s or other public official’s actions is illegal (U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 201).

The Torah’s prohibition of bribery differs in two surprising ways. Firstly, the prohibition is on a judge alone, for taking a bribe, not on a litigant offering one. (Though, in the latter case, the offerer is nevertheless responsible for “putting an obstacle before the blind” – causing the judge to sin – Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 9:1)

And, secondly, a judge is forbidden to take a bribe not only to influence his decision in a particular direction but even to execute his judgment properly. Even, according to the Derisha (ibid), if both litigants offer the same bribe for that purpose alone.

It seems that the Torah’s law against bribery isn’t aimed at preventing quid pro quo per se (forgive all the Latin). It’s not, in other words, a law about wrongdoers but, rather, about maintaining a purity of justice. Anything superfluous at all, whether or not it actually affects a verdict, that is injected into the holy mission of judging a case contaminates the enterprise.

Because a Jewish court isn’t a simple adjudication of a dispute between individuals; it is the performance of a holy act.

That might seem a slight distinction, but it really isn’t. So momentous is the undertaking to judge a case that the Talmud says it is as if the judge has partnered with Hashem in the act of Creation (Shabbos 10a). And that a judge who misjudges “causes the Divine Presence to withdraw from Klal Yisrael” (Sanhedrin 7a).

Which is why the Shulchan Aruch considers a compromise reached between litigants to be preferable to an actual court hearing and law-based ruling (Choshen Mishpat 12). Judgment, it seems, is so daunting, so charged an endeavor, it is best resorted to only when necessary. The stakes, no matter how small the financial impact may be to the litigants, are just too high.

Re’ei – Killing’s Toll on Killers

Killing takes a toll – on the killed, of course; that’s pretty obvious. But also on the killers.

That is something that the Ohr Hachaim introduces in his commentary on the pasuk “And He will give you mercy and have mercy upon you” (Devarim, 13:18).

That “give you mercy” is his focus. He writes:

“This act of killing [here of the idolaters of an ir hanidachas] creates a natural cruelty in the heart of a person.”

He continues by referring to what “we are told by the sect of Yishmaelim who murder at the command of the leader, that they experience a great euphoria when they kill a man, and the natural feeling of pity is extinguished in them…”

Therefore, he explains, “Hashem assures the Jews that [after their commanded act of killing], their innate feelings of mercy… will be returned to them anew” despite their having been weakened through the act of killing.

And, further, that they will thereby be granted Heavenly mercy themselves, since “Hashem has mercy only on the merciful.”

Modern psychiatry recognizes something called “perpetrator trauma,” a presentation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms caused by an act or acts of killing.

But what the Ohr Hachaim is expounding upon is a different upshot of perpetrating violence: the erosion of the natural human instinct of mercy.

And his report about not only the post-murder desensitization of assassins (the word “assassin,” as it happens, derived from an Arabic name for the reputedly murderous Nizari Ismaili sect) but of their being enthralled by taking lives resonates all too strongly today, when we have seen Yishmaeli murderers exulting after killing men, women and children. Even the mere imagining of murdering Jews is enough to enrapture some, as they joyfully and mindlessly chant their hope to rid the Holy Land of Jews “from the river to the sea.”

Agudath Israel Condemns Biased UN Tribute to Terror Victims

The omission of any mention of Israeli victims of terrorism from an International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism display at the visitors’ hall of United Nations headquarters is nothing short of despicable.

The U.N. informs us that “Acts of terrorism propagating a wide-range of hateful ideologies continue to injure, harm and kill thousands of innocent people each year,” and that the international body “has an important role in supporting Member States to implement the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy by standing in solidarity and providing support to victims of terrorism.”

And, indeed, the visitors’ welcome area’s display of large photographs of such victims includes tributes to victims of 9/11 and of terrorist attacks in Boston, Indonesia and Kenya, among other places.

Conspicuously missing, though, is any mention of the countless Jewish victims of Islamist terror over so many years. And this, less than a year since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israelis, the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Many have long judged the U.N. as a hypocritical, corrupt and useless institution. Ample evidence for that contention is displayed at the U.N. today.

PROGERIA AND POLITICS

The average cost of getting a new drug into the market is $1.3 billion. In the 2020 election, political spending reportedly topped $14 billion, A musing on those topics and numbers is here.

Make the Ten Commandments Holy Again

Louisiana’s new law requiring the posting of the Aseres Hadibros in all public school classrooms disturbs me. Not because American children should revere the Commandments but for a different reason. Which you can read about here.

Saying the Loud Part Out Loud

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey, is 74 years old… and… sit down if you must… is a social conservative!

Who knew?

To read why I wax somewhat cynical regarding that revelation, click here.

Behar – The Torah’s Take on a Stitch in Time

Folk maxims reflect truths, which is why the Talmud often invokes such aphorisms with the introduction“kidi’amri inshi” – “as people are wont to say.”

One valuable truth is the subject of two English sayings that don’t have a Talmudic aphorism-cognate. The truth, though, is telegraphed by the Torah itself, in one word, in parshas Behar.

“A stitch in time saves nine” and “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” both communicate the fact that a modest effort expended in a timely manner can prevent the need for a much greater effort down the line.

In the Torah, that message lies in the word “vihechezakta” – “and you should strengthen” in the pasuk “Should you brother become impoverished and his means falter near you, you should strengthen him, be he a stranger or resident…” (Vayikra 25:35).

Rashi notes that “stranger” refers to a non-Jew who has forsworn idolatry. And goes on to quote the Sifra: “Do not leave him by himself so that he comes down in the world until he finally falls altogether, when it will be hard to raise him. Rather, uphold him from the first moment of the failure of his means.”

The illustration provided is a donkey whose load is tottering. Rushing to straighten it is easy and will prevent the need to strain to lift it off the ground should it fall.

It’s an important, if straightforward, truth: Helping someone in even a small way early in a financial decline can prevent the need for a greater lift from a deeper poverty into which he may otherwise fall.

It can even save his life, as the pasuk continues, “And he will live with you.”

What I find interesting is that the English aphorisms are simple wise advice to an individual, about protecting himself from harm.

In the Torah, the truth is indicated in a word about protecting someone else.

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life