Category Archives: Jewish Thought

Parshas Devarim: Timeless

Sefer Devarim begins with Moshe Rabbeinu’s recounting of the Jewish People’s history since the exodus from Egypt, through the years of desert-wandering.

And our communal reading of the beginning of the sefer coincides yearly with our own annual survey of millennia since, our lookback at the myriad travails our forebears endured; parshas Devarim always precedes Tisha B’Av.

Abba Shaul (Shabbos, 133b) tells us to emulate certain name-descriptions of Hashem: “Just as He is compassionate and merciful, so too should you be compassionate and merciful.”

I’ve wondered about the fact that Hashem’s most “descriptive” name, the Tetragrammaton, implies “timelessness,” its letters signaling “Was, Is and Will Be.” In what way might we even think of emulating His temporal omnipresence?

Perhaps, though, in a way, we can.

Jews have history on their hearts. We are exquisitely sensitive to the past, not only the recent, but the long-ago.

On Tisha B’Av, we will fast and mourn the tolls taken by our people’s travails over time. We will sit low for much of the day, and read about the destruction of the Batei Mikdash, reciting poetic dirges about those Jewish catastrophes and many others, down through the Middle Ages to more proximate collective Jewish tragedies.

The fact, though, that most of the events we will mourn took place hundreds, even thousands, of years ago does not make them less timely. We live in the past no less than the present.

And so, perhaps, combined with our determination to live meaningfully in the here-and-now and our relentless pining for the ultimate future – Tisha B’Av is pointedly followed by the “Seven of Consolation,” when the haftaros read in shul consist of Divine reassurances that there is an end-point to history — we imperfectly parallel Hashem’s existence outside of time.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Matos: Being There

At first read, the tribes of Gad, Reuvein and half of Menashe seem to be making an entirely unreasonable request of Moshe: Let us remain on the east side of the Jordan River, where grazing is widely available for our large flocks of sheep, while the rest of the tribes cross the river and fight the idolaters in Cna’an for possession of the Holy Land.

But two factors need to be taken into account. Firstly, from the moment that the waters of Egypt turned to blood, through the ensuing nine plagues, through the splitting of the Red Sea and the moving well of water and the maan – not to mention the revelation at Sinai – the first years of the Jewish people’s history were rife with miracles.

So Hashem would be the One delivering Cna’an’s inhabitants into the hands of Klal Yisrael. There was no need for the sheep-laden tribes to be involved in the conquest of the land. It could have been taken with only Yehoshua marching in by himself.

And secondly, it was divinely preordained that the land east of the Jordan was intended for Gad, Reuvein and part of Menashe. That is clear from what eventually happened in the end, and there are deep mystical reasons brought in sources for that fact. So why shouldn’t those tribes just stay there?

The questions seem strong but their answer is right in the text, in Moshe’s response: “Shall your brothers go out to battle while you settle here? Why do you dishearten the Jewish people?” Bamidbar 32; 6-7).

The petitioning tribes indeed belonged where they were, and the military campaign indeed needed them not a whit. But their remaining behind would dishearten their fellow Jews. Simply by the lack of their presence alongside them.

All of us readily recognize the powerfully positive value of an encouraging word or act (and, sadly, the destructive power of discouraging ones).

But there is something else that provides people encouragement and strength, and whose absence can deprive them of the same: being there with them.

One doesn’t have to say anything or do anything. But physically being at the side of someone who is facing adversity or tragedy provides them comfort, encouragement and strength. It is a gift of the most wondrous sort.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Pinchas – Perfect Timing

How despondent Pinchas could have easily felt when his grandfather, father and uncles, and all their future descendants, were chosen by Hashem to be cohanim (Shemos, 28:1). He himself, having been born before that moment, was not among that role’s grantees.

He probably did not mind, though. Because his subsequent action (at the end of parshas Balak), the killing of Zimri and Cozbi, could only be a proper act – and Hashem confirmed its propriety – if it had been committed by an utterly selfless person. One needs a sense of self to feel slighted.

How ironic, though, is the fact that, had Pinchas actually been a cohein at the time of his violent act, the act, justified though it was, would have rendered him unable to serve in that special role. Because a cohein who has killed a person, even properly or accidentally, is disqualified to serve as a cohein.

Hashem made Pinchas a cohein only after – in fact, because – of his act (Zevachim 101b). Pinchas’s ultimate status as a cohein, in the end, depended on his having been “left out” when his relatives were granted that status.

Few of us are truly selfless, and many of us are easily slighted. When we are, we do well to recall Pinchas’ experience. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 230:5) actually states as halacha that “One should be accustomed to say: All that Hashem does is for the best.”

Sometimes we are fortunate, as Pinchas was, to live to see how that is true.

But even when we don’t, it still is.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

An Antisemite’s Perceptive, Worthy Words

Most people, if they are familiar with the name at all, associate “Chateaubriand” with a meat dish.  But François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a famous French author who died in 1848.  He was not well disposed toward Jews, considering them cursed for the farcical sin of deicide, and wrote approvingly about how “Humanity has put the Jewish race in quarantine.”

And yet, some other words of his are, even coming from so poisoned a pen, more than worthy for Jewish pondering during the annual period of the “Three Weeks” just begun, during which Jews mourn the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem and the Jewish exile. I am indebted to the late British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks for, in his Haggada, bringing Chateaubriand’s words to my attention.

The French writer visited a desolated Jerusalem, where he saw Jews pining for the arrival of mashiach and the end of the Jewish exile.

And wrote as follows:

“This people has seen Jerusalem destroyed seventeen times, yet there exists nothing in the world which can discourage it or prevent it from raising its eyes to Zion. He who beholds the Jews dispersed over the face of the earth, in keeping with the Word of God, lingers and marvels. But he will be struck with amazement, as at a miracle, who finds them still in Jerusalem and perceives even, who in law and justice are the masters of Judea, to exist as slaves and strangers in their own land; how despite all abuses they await the King who is to deliver them… If there is anything among the nations of the world marked with the stamp of the miraculous, this, in our opinion, is that miracle.”

And a further miracle, may it come swiftly and in our days, will be the arrival of that king, and the end of our exile.

(c) 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Cowardice Or Wisdom?

That any sane person could castigate Israel for her response last month to Hamas missiles is astounding.  

Hamas, after all, has sent booby-trapped party balloons across the border into Israeli towns in an effort to kill Jewish children, and began the recent war by aiming its rockets at civilians, rejoicing at every Israeli casualty. The Israel Defense Forces, by powerful contrast and as usual, sent messages by texts, phone calls and leaflets warning civilians to evacuate premises housing terrorists or weapons caches before bombing the buildings.

Astounding, but not surprising, of course. We’re still in galus, after all, and where Jews are concerned, common sense often goes missing.

Israel’s reaction to the recent attack on her, moreover, was widely called “disproportionate.” But that judgment presupposes that her goal was punishment. It wasn’t. 

The Hamas rockets were merely a pretext for Israel to undertake something more important than teaching terrorists a lesson. They were an opportunity to destroy as much of the murderers’ weapons and tunnels as possible, to prevent further attacks on Israeli civilians in the near future. To speak of “proportionality” in such a mission is incoherent.

Hamas, moreover, started the recent war on a pretext of its own, invoking police actions on Har Habayis and a reclamation of Jewish property in Yerushalayim’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as the reasons for their attack. But those were just convenient excuses. The terrorists’ true aim, as always, was just to kill or maim as many Jews as possible. 

So both Hamas and Israel seized chances to do what each already wanted to do: the former, to kill innocents; the latter, to protect them.

But the fact that good and evil here are easily identifiable begs an uncomfortable question: Could Hamas have been — or might it in the future be — deterred from attacking (and, after Israel’s understandable reaction, garnering the support of Israeli Arabs, mendacious media and credulous Congresspeople) by depriving it of pretexts?

The hashkafah that is part of my chinuch has it that the Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael is a brachah, but not one that changes the harsh reality of galus.

And so, while some Jews, swelling with pride born of Israel’s accomplishments, feel that the Jewish state needn’t pay regard to other nations’ wrongheaded stances, to me, a true understanding of the meaning, challenge and mandate of galus counsels, at least to a degree, deference to the Arabs and the umos ha’olam.

Such concern for so often hostile others is seen by some as weakness or abandonment of Eretz Yisrael. But it is nothing of the sort. It is a simple recognition of reality, and a rejection of the attitude of “kochi v’otzem yadi asah li es hachayil hazeh.”

To be sure, Israel has not only the right but the responsibility to do what is necessary to protect her citizens. But it can’t be ignored that there are actions that go beyond that, and which, even when entirely justified by law and reason, may not be justified by wisdom. 

Several weeks before the first rockets were launched from Gaza last month, Israeli police reportedly entered the mosque on Har Habayis and cut the cables to loudspeakers that broadcast Muslim prayers. It was Yom Hazikaron and the move was intended to allow Israel’s president to make a speech at the Kosel. It was also, though, the first day of Ramadan. Was the pre-emptive move justified? Perhaps, yes. Wise? Perhaps not.

Likewise, Jews with claims to homes in neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah have every right, both ethically and by law, to reclaim their land. Is their claim justified? Absolutely. Wise? Arguable.

Last month, to its credit, the Israeli government, at the last minute, just before Yom Yerushalayim — when Jewish nationalists traditionally march through the Muslim Quarter and ascend Har Habayis — barred Jews from entering the compound, and rescheduled the march; and the Israeli Supreme Court postponed its hearing in the Sheikh Jarrah eviction case. But it was too late. Arab passions were in a state of frenzy by then, and Hamas took advantage of the anger and made its murderous move.

On Tuesday, the rescheduled march took place. Thousands of Israelis carrying flags assembled at Sha’ar Shechem, singing “Am Yisrael Chai,” before marching through the Old City.

“Take a good look at our flag. Live and suffer,” one marcher shouted in Hebrew through a megaphone at Arab merchants on the other side of police barriers. There was a catcall of “Death to Arabs!”

We are approaching the weeks of the Jewish year when we directly acknowledge, and bemoan, the fact that we’re still in galus.

And, in that state of yet-unfulfilled history, the Israeli government and nationalist Israelis would do well to reflect on the fact that Mashiach has not yet arrived, and that, while there is often a need to act militarily in defense of the populace, in political and social realms, restraint, respect and measured compromises might reflect not cowardice but wisdom.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Chukas – Snake Eyes

The bizarre image (Bamidbar 21:9) of our ancestors gazing at a graven image — a copper representation of a snake — to end a snake-plague born of their complaining about the mon, is contextualized by a Mishneh in Rosh Hashana (29a):

“Did the snake kill, or did the snake preserve life? Rather, when the Jewish people turned their eyes upward and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if not, they were necrotized [by the venom].”

Which raises the obvious question: Why not eliminate the middlesnake and just look heavenward?

Rabbeinu Bachya calls attention to the word used to introduce the (real) snakes in the account: hanechashim (Bamidbar 21:6). Not “snakes” but “the snakes.”  The definite article, he says, refers to the fact that these were the same reptiles that, elsewhere in the Torah (Devarim 8:15) are described as having been ever-present in the desert our ancestors wandered. 

Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch expands on that observation, explaining that gazing at the copper snake was meant to sensitize the people to the constancy and ubiquitousness of snakes around them — and to the realization that when the snakes hadn’t been plaguing them until then it was because of Hashem’s protection.

As Abba Binyamin taught (Berachos 6a), “If the eye were given permission to see, no person would be able to withstand [the sight of the multitude of] the demons [that surround  him].”

We moderns can easily — particularly as we emerge from a pandemic — appreciate the idea that danger — as potentially lethal as snakes and yet undetectable by our eyes — is all around us.  And that every day that the immune systems Hashem gave us function and we don’t succumb to the myriad ever-present infectious dangers that surround us, we should look heavenward in thanks.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Parshas Korach – Humility: The Mark of Leadership

Few contrasts are as striking as the one between Moshe, the “most humble of all men,” who had to be drafted by Hashem to lead the Jewish people, and Korach, who was consumed with a desire for a leadership role.

And, like deceitful populists over ensuing millennia, Korach insisted that he was merely standing up for the masses, advocating for their democratic rights. Who needs a mezuzah (i.e. a leader) if the house is filled with holy books (i.e. the magnificent masses)?

Many contemporary leaders, some more shamelessly than others, advanced their aspirations in Korach-fashion, lusting for power while claiming to be championing the people. (A rare exception was Dwight Eisenhower, the only American president who had to be drafted to run for that office.)

In the authentic Jewish religious world, true leaders are always drafted — that is to say, “elected” not by campaigns and misleading claims but rather by unsought public acclaim. I have been privileged to have spent time in the vicinities of several, and was deeply affected by their selflessness and modesty. My rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, was one; see https://www.rabbiavishafran.com/mr-to-us/. His yahrtzeit is Shiva Asar B’Tamuz.

And, just like Moshe was accused of sins he didn’t commit, so are Gedolim today sometimes attacked for imagined misdeeds. And not only by people lacking any relationship to Torah, but even some who are meticulously observant. 

Ohn ben Peles, the Midrash recounts, a confederate of Korach’s, was saved from the latter’s fate by Mrs. Ohn. After plying her husband with enough wine to put him to sleep, she sat outside their tent and uncovered her hair. So when Korach’s supporters came to fetch her husband and saw the immodest woman, religious folks that they were, they turned on their righteous heels and left. 

Even religious people can fall victim to would-be-dictators’ lies. 

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran