Monthly Archives: June 2019

by Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo

In your writings, you quote both rabbis and philosophers. On the one hand, you draw your insights from great rabbis such as the Rambam, the Kotzker Rebbe, Rav Kook, Rav Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Rav Eliezer Berkovits. On the other hand, you seem to equally find inspiration from great philosophers such as Baruch Spinoza, Emmanuel Levinas, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber. Rabbis tend to focus on loyalty to tradition, while philosophers seem to feel freer to question and seek truth, regardless of tradition. Rav Cardozo, do you see yourself more as a rabbi, or as a philosopher? And part two of this question: Do you think that having the official title of “Rabbi Cardozo” suppresses your true thoughts, or does it rather help to express them?

Nathan Lopes Cardozo:

In my younger days, I never contemplated becoming a rabbi or a philosopher, but a businessman. My father z”l ran a very successful business, “Roco & Cardozo,” selling sewing machines wholesale in Amsterdam. (Mr. Immanuel Roco, my father’s partner, was also of Jewish Portuguese background and also married out.) They jointly owned one of the large “Herenhuizen” mansions, at the Keizersgracht (Emperor’s Canal)—one of the most famous canals in Amsterdam—where they employed about 60 people.

Later, the building caught fire and partially burned down. It was sold for pennies, which was a huge mistake. Today, it would be worth millions and all of our family would have been somewhat rich! Because of this and my father’s heart condition we lost nearly all our money.

But before all that, we were well-to-do—though certainly not very rich—and my brother and I were raised in a small villa outside Amsterdam, in a village called Aerdenhout, with two large gardens. You can see it in the documentary about my life “Lonely but Not Alone” (https://www.cardozoacademy.org/documentary-lonely-but-not-alone/).

The idea was that my brother and I would enter this business and take it over one day. I even went to a “handelsschool” (trade-school), where I learned about the business world, and still remember much of what was taught. But I despised the school, found it utterly boring, and decided that it was not for me.

Interestingly, my family believes that I am not at all business-orientated and therefore completely unsuitable for this; especially after I entered the realm of Jewish learning and became very soft in my dealings with others when it relates to interacting with people and the business world. But they are utterly mistaken. The truth is that I probably would have been a very good businessman. But they never saw me in that capacity.

Let me explain:

Business largely depends on the power of persuasion and on making an object or deal attractive to a potential buyer. That’s the way to make good money. But to do so, you yourself have to believe in the object or deal. If you don’t, you will either be unable to sell it, or you’ll be a charlatan. This is also true about making Judaism and its profundity appealing, to oneself as well as to others (only without the money)! It’s all about persuasion!

During much of my life, I have tried to convince people of what I believe is the beauty of Judaism. In other words, I use my talents to influence people to “fall in love” with Judaism. (A terrible expression: Since when can one fall in love? One can fall in a pit, but not in love!) So in principle, it’s not so different from business.

The difference is that I found convincing people to buy an object to be of little meaning, although it is surely a mitzva to help people live a more prosperous and comfortable life. This is no doubt a great thing to do, as long as it is done honestly. Let us not forget that in the old days many of our greatest sages were also businessmen, because they felt they should not receive any money for learning or teaching Torah (something we should make possible again). But for me, that wasn’t enough. I had to find something more spiritual. So I left the business option.

But in both cases there is an element of selling or promoting something. And to do so successfully, for the most part people must have the talent to express themselves well and articulate their ideas. In other words, the method is the same. The difference is in what you are selling. I chose to sell Judaism, although the word “sell” is not very appropriate when speaking about religion. The other difference is that promoting (authentic) religion requires intellectual profundity. This doesn’t mean that business people don’t possess intellectual (philosophical) profundity, but it’s not a requirement for business per se. Something I did learn in trade-school, as well as from my dear father, is that big business people are also extremely creative thinkers—sometimes more than certain philosophers—and some are clearly geniuses, far beyond the average.

As an aside, this goes hand in hand with something else as well. My family and others believe that I can be easily fooled and lied to, and that I’m a little naive. The truth is very different. I know exactly when people are fooling me and lying to me. I have a special ability for this, which I don’t think is so good to have! The reason why I let people get away with it is because I’m a rabbi (perhaps against my will!), and a rabbi must have compassion and be “ma’avir al midotav” (See Rosh Hashana 17a), go beyond retribution and instead be tolerant, so as to make sure not to cause any strife, which will give the rabbinate and Judaism a bad name. Too many rabbis are already involved in cases of corruption, dishonesty, or just unnecessary discord. I do not wish to add to this.

But it certainly comes with a heavy price, which I paid many times when I became the victim of dishonest people. And I am fully aware that I still do. They think they manage to fool me, but I see straight through them and keep silent. That way, I can at least rest my head on my pillow at night and know that I have not been the cause of a chilul Hashem (desecration of God’s name).

Sure, there are cases where people hurt themselves or others without being aware of it, and then you must step in. But it means that at times you have to be unkind—sometimes even unforgiving—and then you get blamed for having hurt them because they don’t realize why you did what you did. This happens to me repeatedly because of my special circumstances. It is extremely painful, particularly with one’s loved ones. But there is no choice, and one has to carry this with a heavy heart. This is exactly what happened to Joseph and his brothers. (See TTP 621–Parshat Mikeitz: The Pain of Being a Tzaddik) For me this is hell, but better hell than letting people get hurt or hurt others, which is so much worse.

But to come back to business: As I said, I have a talent for “selling” Judaism to many of my “clients,” and I’m sure that I could have sold anything and could have easily become rich. But I decided against it.

To be honest, I find all this frightening. The power of persuasion can easily be used for the most evil ideologies or dishonest practices. Hitler is a typical example of that, in the extreme. He was an excellent speaker who turned into a demagogue. He could sell—to millions of people including academics and philosophers—the idea that the Jews had to be exterminated for the sake of a better future. So many other dictators throughout history were also very gifted speakers, and were thus able to bring great evil upon humankind.

The reason is obvious: Once you have convinced yourself of something you want to believe, you’re able to sell anything if you’re a good communicator.

So, while I feel blessed to have this talent, I am also most afraid of it. The truth is that I could have been not only a good businessman, but also a good priest, bishop or atheist. It all depends on what I could have convinced myself of as being the truth or worthwhile for me to pursue.

Although I don’t have any affiliation with Catholicism or other Christian denominations, I have read many of their theologies and fully understand their religious beliefs. I’m sure I could sell them, because even ideas that are repulsive to me—such as the trinity and incarnation doctrines—would make perfect sense to me once I would accept certain basic Christian beliefs. These beliefs can never be proven or disproven. They belong to a different category and are not open to intellectual scrutiny. As with music and art, one cannot prove or disprove such matters. They just “are,” and they depend on deep emotional needs or preferences. The same is true about secular or religious philosophy. So these Christian beliefs are true from within their own system and can therefore be “sold” as the truth. I could even bring some Jewish sources, if I just “bend” them a little. Christians are not dishonest, but truthful in what they believe. As long as one realizes that this is only true when seen from within the Christian perspective.

Still, to me as a Jew it is totally untrue. But I can never claim that it’s a sham. Even nonsense is serious stuff and requires our attention, because it’s the other side of the same coin that we can make sense of, especially because (common) sense is so limited. This is what most religious Jews don’t understand when rejecting Christianity and other religions, as I do. The difference between them and me is that I take Christianity very seriously, even if I disagree.

This is also the case with Reform Judaism. Once you buy into its ideology, it makes perfect sense. Still, I cannot and will not opt for it because my intuition tells me there’s something wrong about it. My neshama, my intellectual background, and reading about Judaism tell me that for me it is not authentic—although there are aspects of Reform Judaism that I believe are true and that Orthodox Judaism can learn a lot from. My reading of Conservative Judaism is a topic on its own, which we’ll need to discus another time.

It is because of my awareness that any religious belief can be sold that I have become so critical of mainstream Orthodox Judaism and skeptical about the way I promulgate my own Judaism, in the way I see it. Who says it’s correct? I am fully aware that the kind of Judaism I believe in and seriously practice makes perfect sense from within its own system. As such, I am honestly promoting it. But I keep asking myself whether its claims of truth are any more valid than the claims of other religions, other Jewish denominations, or secular philosophies. Am I “in it” because it’s something I have grown into and feel at home and comfortable with, or is there something more that makes my Judaism’s claim to truth stand out from all the others?

To be clear: I believe it stands out for many reasons, and one day we need to discuss them carefully. But I am aware that this conviction is at least partially bolstered by the fact that I was born into a secular, partly Jewish family and over the years became an Orthodox although rebellious Jew. Something inside tells me that Judaism has gotten it right. I also believe that my (Orthodox) Judaism is closer to the truth than other forms of Orthodox Judaism, with which I partially or sometimes completely disagree, although I have much in common with them in practice. But it may quite well be because I have a certain kind of Jewish neshome, a type of spiritual DNA that is perhaps different because of my unusual background, my vast knowledge, and my unique reading of this tradition. Still, I believe that for nearly all Jews Judaism is unparalleled because of some kind of language, feeling, and a certain way of thinking that is bound with the Jewish neshama. It’s what Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim would call “root experiences”—historical experiences throughout nearly 4,000 years that made us different from others; the result of various archetypal experiences.

That is true for me and my fellow Jews, but not for the Christian who doesn’t have the same “DNA” and is made up of different spiritual elements that I will never understand, identify with, or live by.

Therefore, I claim that Christianity is not inauthentic. It is authentic for the Christian, but I have no part in it. Perhaps it’s another way to God, which is absolutely authentic but only meant for Christians. For me, claims that the Mashiach has already come, that Jesus is the son of God, and that he is the incarnation of God are completely unacceptable and blasphemous. But that’s because all these claims make no sense from within traditional Judaism. It is clear to me, however, that Christianity reads them in a totally different way, and within that system they make perfect sense. But my neshama and Jewish way of thinking cannot make peace with that. What this means is: If Christianity had not spouted anti-Semitism for hundreds if not thousands of years, it could have worked together with Judaism on many matters that they have in common, such as promulgating monotheism, religiosity, moral responsibility, and the importance of Tanach.

I will end here, and we will continue our discussion next week!

As taken from, https://www.cardozoacademy.org/thoughts-to-ponder/my-struggle-with-persuasion-and-the-truth-concerning-other-religions-question-10-part-1/?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=171206abfb-Weekly_Thoughts_to_Ponder_campaign_TTP_548_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dd05790c6d-171206abfb-242341409

by Ralph Genende

Why subject would-be converts to a long, arduous vetting process? We should stop shlepping the process out and stop treating them with suspicion

Why the aversion to conversion? I’m referring to the trend to make conversions more difficult and intractable that has gripped the Jewish world for the past 25 years or so. Conversion to Judaism was never meant to be easy and instant but then it was also never meant to be tortuous and protracted.

Let’s be clear – conversion isn’t like choosing a new restaurant or change of clothing. It’s a challenge, a delicate heart-operation, a process that demands thought, commitment, a change of lifestyle, a new perspective. It’s not just about choosing a religion or changing a religion. It’s about joining a people, becoming part of a family, adopting a new history and changing your name. For men it’s often about changing your actual body, your actual image of yourself.

The paradigm for conversion is Ruth who famously says: “For wherever you will go, I will go; where you live I will live; your people are my people; your God is my God; where you die I will die and there I will be buried” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth recognises that to be Jewish is to live with other Jews, to be part of a Jewish neighbourhood connected to a Jewish community. She appreciates that it’s tying your destiny to a nation that has suffered as much as it has triumphed. She knows that it’s about engaging with the compassionate and demanding God of Israel; accepting the laws and customs that are in the Torah and the teachings of its rabbis. She knows that it’s a lifetime of commitment, ‘till death do us part’.

And so any conversion to Orthodox Judaism is about adopting the Jewish way of life, living an observant lifestyle. In one sense that’s the easy part, for the would-be-convert has to also relinquish their former way of living, let go of things they’ve always done, change primary relationships, challenge their own priorities and sometimes even principles. They’ve got to negotiate with their own families of origin, respect their own parents and traditions and simultaneously accept a whole new family and bewildering raft of new practises. They’ve also got to dig deep within and change their very self-perception.

Now this is no simple or quick strategy. It’s a long, considered and subtle process with its own inevitable ups and downs; times of despair, angst, stress and questioning; times of elation, joy, wonder and hope. You can’t put a time frame on the journey of a heart, the odyssey of a soul. It’s a life journey, quirky and individual. But it’s also a very practical and quotidian process. In the majority of situations today, conversion is about a relationship with a Jewish partner and the anticipation of a marriage. This is known and accepted by the overwhelming majority of Batei-Din worldwide. Invariably when approaching a rabbi or the registrar of the Beth-Din, the candidate has been through an exploratory phase, meeting the Jewish family of the partner, talking to a range of people, reading about Judaism and often attending Shabbat and festive meals. Some are ill-informed but many, if not most, aren’t just walking off the street with no idea about the challenges of conversion. Most, if not all, have already decided to undertake this step because they’re committed to their Jewish partner. The majority of potential Jews who walk through my door are pretty well-informed, more often than not, smart, educated, articulate and principled. They know that being Jewish isn’t simple and easy. And that’s not surprising when you consider that like our Jewish kids they are well educated and a huge proportion are professional, confident, intelligent and eloquent.

Which leads me to the thrust of my argument: Just why are we making it so hard for these young people to embark on a course of conversion? Why are we stuck in a time-warp taking the rabbinic protocols of turning them away (three times) so literally? Why can’t we recognise that the times have changed and are a changing while we stand obdurate like the frozen chosen?

As Rav Shlomo Riskin has asserted, we are a religion of compassion and it’s caring and sharing that should dictate our approach to the would-be-convert. Being friendly, warm and tolerant in our attitude is not the same as being a ‘soft touch’ or having no standards or demands. “Love the convert” is surely a mitzvah that can begin the moment you meet that stranger who wants to become a Jew. Hillel knew that when he famously met the chutzpadik non-Jew who asked to know all about Judaism while he stood on one foot (Shammai didn’t get it and aggressively rebuffed him). To put it plainly, if a person who already has a Jewish partner comes to convert why subject them to a long, arduous vetting and waiting process? And once they’re already accepted and have begun to learn, practise and be part of our community, why shlep the process out with tests, inscrutable questions and an open-ended time of termination as is done in too many places? Why treat them with suspicion and sometimes even try trick them to test their sincerity? To be sure, some will be more truthful and others more passionate in their commitment. Conversion is not about the end of a process but the beginning of a journey. We shouldn’t expect converts to be fully frum, but we should expect them to have lived an observant Jewish life for at least a year, to be knowledgeable, to be dedicated, to be part of the Jewish community and hopefully in love with Jewish destiny. We can and should expect them to be deeply connected, willing to stay the distance, raise their kids as Jew.

Let’s challenge those who have an aversion to conversion! Let’s recognise the wealth of fresh talent and energy that converts bring to our community. Solomon asserted ‘There’s a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing’. There have been eras in our history when it was dangerous to seek out or encourage potential converts. There have been times when the motives of would-be-Jews were dubious. Occasions to refrain from embracing. But there have also been times when we welcomed converts, and recognised the sacrifice, courage and determination they show by seeking to be Jewish. A time to embrace. Now is the time!

Shabbat Shalom,

As taken from, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/aversion-to-conversion/

por Eduardo Caccia

Los mitos son un catalizador de la conducta social, han servido para regular civilizaciones, explicar lo desconocido y controlar las acciones humanas. Algunos, incluso son precursores de descubrimientos en las ciencias cognitivas, como la psicología. Un antiguo relato griego nos habla de Pigmalión, rey de Chipre, que se enamora de una estatua femenina de su autoría, a tal grado que en su enajenación mental, aquella pieza de marfil es humanizada por obra divina para encarnar a Galatea. Antes de esa transformación, fue el artista quien la imaginó de carne y hueso; su proyección mental ha sido tan aguda que finalmente se convirtió en realidad. Hoy, la psicología llama efecto Pigmalión a la influencia que una persona tiene sobre otra para (al proyectarle ciertas capacidades) lograr que la segunda las adquiera.

El efecto Pigmalión sigue teniendo una poderosa influencia en diversos ámbitos. En el proceso de creación de marcas se dice “trata a tu marca, no como lo que es sino como lo que quieres que llegue a ser”. Sustitúyase ahora la palabra “marca” por la palabra “hijo”. Estamos ante una programación mental que encauza la conducta, es también uno de los principios de la psicología para entender mejor el comportamiento humano. Usualmente a grandes expectativas, mejor desempeño. Mucho de la complejidad en la forma en que tomamos decisiones tiene que ver con este y otros principios.

¿Alguna vez le has aplaudido a alguien que se equivocó en el escenario? Es muy probable que sí, y que el aplauso haya sido colectivo. ¿Qué misteriosa instrucción grupal existe detrás de esa empatía? Se llama efecto Pratfall y básicamente consiste en que tu aceptación social se incrementa cuando demuestras y aceptas que eres falible. Por alguna razón, quienes son percibidos como personas que nunca cometen errores, que son perfectas o invencibles, tienden a generar distancia afectiva entre los demás. Fallar es humano. Por supuesto, hay de pifias a pifias, me refiero a las que no tienen realmente una consecuencia crítica en el devenir de los acontecimientos, un tropezón, un repentino olvido, algún dislate fonético.

¿Te has arrepentido de haber comprado cierto modelo o versión de un producto en vez de otro? Seguramente no fue algo que experimentaron tus abuelos, ellos tenían menos opciones para decidir. La llamada “Paradoja de la elección” es un fenómeno que explica porqué tomar una decisión se vuelve más difícil cuantas más alternativas hay para decidir. Explica también porqué tendemos a ser menos felices con nuestra decisión, aunque haya sido correcta.

De otro de los fenómenos que regulan nuestra conducta me ocupé en forma más amplia en un artículo anterior, “¿Le has visto?”, donde expongo el llamado “Efecto del espectador”: mientras más personas haya alrededor de un accidente, será menos probable que tú ayudes, pues creerás que alguien más lo hará. O, qué me dicen de cuando se equivocaron en algo, cuando hay público a su alrededor, pero resulta que el error no fue tan evidente como ustedes pensaron. Esta tendencia a sobrevalorar las equivocaciones propias se conoce como “Efecto del reflector”. En realidad no todos nos están viendo como creemos que lo hacen.

¿Por qué los magos son buenos para hacer trucos? En esencia porque nuestra mente coopera. La magia es un territorio genial para tratar de entender la forma en como percibimos la realidad. La suerte llamada “caída francesa” es un truco que aprendí de mi papá. Consiste en “pasar” una moneda de una mano a otra frente a los ojos del espectador. Tiempo después conocí su nombre y otros elementos de apoyo para hacerlo mejor. Aquí intervienen varios factores, uno es el “Efecto del enfoque”, al concentrarnos tanto en cierto punto, dejamos de ver otros, básicamente una distracción programada. Por otro lado, el “Efecto de edición”: nuestra mente ve lo que quiere ver, es la gran editora de la realidad, como en el caso del sable que aparentemente atraviesa a la bella chica que está dentro de una caja.

Estos principios funcionan, para bien o para mal, desde territorios como la mercadotecnia, la política (¡las elecciones!) y la vida personal. Conocerlos, explorarlos, sentirnos parte de ellos es una forma de comprender nuestra naturaleza, compleja, falible, fascinante.

Segun tomado de, https://diariojudio.com/opinion/tratos-de-la-mente/299451/

by Haddasah Levy

A famous midrash in Menachot 29b recounts a fantastical story about an interaction in heaven between Moses and God:

R. Yehuda said in the name of Rav:

When Moses ascended to the heavens, he saw God sitting and tying crowns to the letters [of the Torah].

Moses asked, “What’s the hold up [i.e., why can’t you give the Torah as is]?

God replied, “there’s a man who will be in the future, after many generations, named Akiva b. Yosef, who will find in every jot and tittle mounds of laws.

Moses said, “Master of the Universe, show him to me!”

God said, “Turn around”

Moses went and sat in the eighth row of students in R. Akiva’s class, and had no idea what they were saying. His strength deflated.

The class asked R. Akiba about a certain matter, “From whence to you know this?” He replied, “It is a Law transmitted to Moses at Sinai. Moses’ mind was put at ease.

The purpose of this midrash is to authenticate the Oral Law, but there are many questions relating to it. If the Oral Law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, how can it be that Moses does not understand what is being said in the study hall of Rabbi Akiva? And if the Oral Law is a continuation of the divine tradition, why is it necessary for Rabbi Akiva to derive them from the crowns of the letters? And how does he do this?

The idea that the Oral Law is integral to the Torah is stated even more strongly in a midrash about Abraham. According to this midrash (Yoma 28b), Abraham kept the entire Torah and that included the rules of the Oral Law, such as eruv tavshilin (pre-sabbath preparation for holiday cooking). Of course, that premise only strengthens our previous questions: if the two Torahs are really one corpus, how can it be that Rabbi Akiva had to learn these laws for himself? Until the time of Rabbi Akiva, did these laws not exist? When did laws like eruv tavshilin come into existence?

According to Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein, author of the Torah Temimah (Exodus 24, note 28), the passage in Menachot teaches us that there are two types of laws. There are traditions that were handed down to Moses — which Rabbi Akiva did not derive from the Torah since they are impossible to derive by human means. And there are laws that can be figured out, for which type of Oral Law, Rabbi Akiva’s interpretative method was put to use.

There are three basic methods to derive oral laws:

• Sevara — something which is basic common sense. For instance, the fact that murder is forbidden even under the pain of death, is sevara. According to Rabba, no one can claim that his or her own life is more important than someone else’s life.
• Kal vachomer (lenient and strict) — also a logical principle. For example, since it is forbidden to bake on a holiday for Shabbat, an important day that merits preparation in advance, then it is obviously forbidden to bake on a holiday for an ordinary weekday.
• Rulings that are based on ethical principles. For instance, the identification of the lulav (palm branch) and hadas (myrtle) — for the taking of the four species that is a mitzvah on Sukkot — was done by eliminating all similar plants which are thorny or poisonous. That process of elimination of other possibilities applies to the famous monetary compensation in the eye for an eye equation. The asessment was understood to apply to money because there is no fair way to accomplish a literal trade of an eye for an eye.

Then there are laws which are called “Laws Transmitted to Moses at Sinai.” These can’t be learned in any other way. They include laws such as the 39 melachot of Shabbat, the tying of the tefillin strap to form the letter shin and the pouring of water on the altar for all of seven days of Sukkot. These are not the laws that Rabbi Akiva derived from the crowns of the Torah; rather, they were handed down from Moses to each subsequent generation.

Historically, it would seem that there was a point in history in which only the Written Torah was kept (except for a small number of laws) and the Oral Law was added bit by bit in stages. The talmudic passage in Menachot purposely created a dichotomy — Oral Law is both divinely inspired and created by rabbinic interpretation.

The essence of the Oral Law is that at whichever point in time the rabbis interpret the Torah, the interpretation becomes a part of the corpus of the Torah. So the Mishnah Berurah can be part of the Oral Law without the need to pretend that its author was quoting the traditions of Moses. And there is no need to say Rabbi Akiva was doing that either. If he had traditions for everything, there would be no need to use such difficult methods to derive the laws. Rather, some ancient traditions probably existed but most of the Oral Law is a process created by man within the license granted to us by God — “it is not in heaven.”

As taken from, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-did-the-oral-law-become-part-of-the-torah/

by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Parshat Naso contains the law of the Nazirite – the individual who undertook to observe special rules of holiness and abstinence: not to drink wine or other intoxicants (including anything made from grapes), not to have his hair cut, and not to defile himself by contact with the dead (Num. 6:1–21). Such a state was usually undertaken for a limited period; the standard length was thirty days. There were exceptions, most famously Samson and Samuel who, because of the miraculous nature of their birth, were consecrated before their birth as Nazirites for life.[1]

What the Torah does not make clear, though, is firstly why a person might wish to undertake this form of abstinence, and secondly whether it considers this choice to be commendable, or merely permissible. On the one hand the Torah calls the Nazirite “holy to God” (Num. 6:8). On the other, it requires him, at the end of the period of his vow, to bring a sin offering (Num. 6:13–14).

This led to an ongoing disagreement between the Rabbis in Mishnaic, Talmudic, and medieval times. According to R. Elazar, and later to Nahmanides, the Nazirite is praiseworthy. He has voluntarily undertaken a higher level of holiness. The prophet Amos (2:11) said, “I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and your young men for Nazirites,” suggesting that the Nazirite, like the prophet, is a person especially close to God. The reason he had to bring a sin offering was that he was now returning to ordinary life. His sin lay in ceasing to be a Nazirite.

Eliezer HaKappar and Shmuel held the opposite opinion. For them the sin lay in becoming a Nazirite in the first place and thereby denying himself some of the pleasures of the world God created and declared good. R. Eliezer added: “From this we may infer that if one who denies himself the enjoyment of wine is called a sinner, all the more so one who denies himself the enjoyment of other pleasures of life.”[2]

Clearly the argument is not merely textual. It is substantive. It is about asceticism, the life of self-denial. Almost every religion knows the phenomenon of people who, in pursuit of spiritual purity, withdraw from the pleasures and temptations of the world. They live in caves, retreats, hermitages, monasteries. The Qumran sect known to us through the Dead Sea Scrolls may have been such a movement.

In the Middle Ages there were Jews who adopted similar kinds of self-denial – among them the Chasidei Ashkenaz, the Pietists of Northern Europe, as well as many Jews in Islamic lands. In retrospect it is hard not to see in these patterns of behaviour at least some influence from the non-Jewish environment. The Chasidei Ashkenaz who flourished during the time of the Crusades lived among self-mortifying Christians. Their southern counterparts may have been familiar with Sufism, the mystical movement in Islam.

The ambivalence of Jews towards the life of self-denial may therefore lie in the suspicion that it entered Judaism from the outside. There were ascetic movements in the first centuries of the Common Era in both the West (Greece) and the East (Iran) that saw the physical world as a place of corruption and strife. They were, in fact, dualists, holding that the true God was not the creator of the universe. The physical world was the work of a lesser, and evil, deity. Therefore God – the true God – is not to be found in the physical world and its enjoyments but rather in disengagement from them.

The two best-known movements to hold this view were Gnosticism in the West and Manichaeism in the East. So at least some of the negative evaluation of the Nazirite may have been driven by a desire to discourage Jews from imitating non-Jewish practices. Judaism strongly believes that God is to be found in the midst of the physical world that He created that is, in the first chapter of Genesis, seven times pronounced “good.” It believes not in renouncing pleasure but in sanctifying it.

What is much more puzzling is the position of Maimonides, who holds both views, positive and negative, in the same book, his law code the Mishneh Torah. In Hilchot Deot, he adopts the negative position of R. Eliezer HaKappar:

A person may say: “Desire, honour, and the like are bad paths to follow and remove a person from the world; therefore I will completely separate myself from them and go to the other extreme.” As a result, he does not eat meat or drink wine or take a wife or live in a decent house or wear decent clothing…. This too is bad, and it is forbidden to choose this way.[3]

Yet in Hilchot Nezirut he rules in accordance with the positive evaluation of R. Elazar: “Whoever vows to God [to become a Nazirite] by way of holiness, does well and is praiseworthy…. Indeed Scripture considers him the equal of a prophet.”[4] How does any writer come to adopt contradictory positions in a single book, let alone one as resolutely logical as Maimonides?

The answer lies in a remarkable insight of Maimonides into the nature of the moral life as understood by Judaism. What Maimonides saw is that there is not a single model of the virtuous life. He identifies two, calling them respectively the way of the saint (chassid) and the way of the sage (chacham).

The saint is a person of extremes. Maimonides defines chessed as extreme behaviour – good behaviour, to be sure, but conduct in excess of what strict justice requires.[5] So, for example, “If one avoids haughtiness to the utmost extent and becomes exceedingly humble, he is termed a saint [chassid].”[6]

The sage is a different kind of person altogether. He or she follows the “golden mean,” the “middle way,” the way of moderation and balance. He or she avoids the extremes of cowardice on the one hand, recklessness on the other, and thus acquires the virtue of courage. He or she avoids miserliness in one direction, prodigality in the other, and instead chooses the middle way of generosity. The sage knows the twin dangers of too much and too little, excess and deficiency. He or she weighs the conflicting pressures and avoids the extremes.

These are not just two types of person but two ways of understanding the moral life itself. Is the aim of the moral life to achieve personal perfection? Or is it to create gracious relationships and a decent, just, compassionate society? The intuitive answer of most people would be to say: both. What makes Maimonides so acute a thinker is that he realises that you cannot have both – that they are in fact different enterprises.

A saint may give all his money away to the poor. But what about the members of the saint’s own family? They may suffer because of his extreme self-denial. A saint may refuse to fight in battle. But what about the saint’s country and its defence? A saint may forgive all crimes committed against him. But what then about the rule of law, and justice? Saints are supremely virtuous people, considered as individuals. Yet you cannot build a society out of saints alone. Indeed, saints are not really interested in society. They have chosen a different, lonely, self-segregating path. I know no moral philosopher who makes this point as clearly as Maimonides – not Plato or Aristotle, not Descartes or Kant.[7]

It was this deep insight that led Maimonides to his seemingly contradictory evaluations of the Nazirite. The Nazirite has chosen, at least for a period, to adopt a life of extreme self-denial. He is a saint, a chassid. He has adopted the path of personal perfection. That is noble, commendable, and exemplary. That is why Maimonides calls him “praiseworthy” and “the equal of a prophet.”

But it is not the way of the sage – and you need sages if you seek to perfect society. The sage is not an extremist – because he or she realises that there are other people at stake. There are the members of one’s own family as well as the others within one’s community. There are colleagues at work. There is a country to defend and a society to help build. The sage knows he or she cannot leave all these commitments behind to pursue a life of solitary virtue.[8] In a strange way, saintliness is a form of self-indulgence. We are called on by God to live in the world, not escape from it; in society not seclusion; to strive to create a balance among the conflicting pressures on us, not to focus on some while neglecting the others.

Hence, while from a personal perspective the Nazirite is a saint, from a societal perspective he is, at least figuratively, a “sinner” who has to bring an atonement offering.

Maimonides lived the life he preached. We know from his writings that he longed for seclusion. There were years when he worked day and night to write his Commentary to the Mishnah, and later the Mishneh Torah. Yet he also recognised his responsibilities to his family and to the community. In his famous letter to his would-be translator Ibn Tibbon,[9] he gives an account of his typical day and week – in which he had to carry a double burden as a world-renowned physician and an internationally sought halachist and sage. He worked to exhaustion.

Maimonides was a sage who longed to be a saint, but knew he could not be, if he was to honour his responsibilities to his people. That is a profound and moving judgement, and one that still has the power to inspire today.

Shabbat Shalom

NOTES

[1] Judges 13:1–7; I Sam. 1:11. The Talmud distinguishes these kinds of cases from the standard vow for a fixed period. The most famous Nazirite of modern times was Rabbi David Cohen (1887–1972), a disciple of Rav Kook and father of the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Rabbi She’ar-Yashuv Cohen (1927–2016).

[2] Taanit 11a; Nedarim 10a.

[3] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot 3:1.

[4] Ibid., Hilchot Nezirut 10:14.

[5] Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, III:52.

[6] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot 1:5.

[7] However, see J. O. Urmson’s famous article, “Saints and Heroes,” in Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. A. Melden (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958). See also P. F. Strawson, “Social Morality and Individual Ideal,” Philosophy 36, no. 136 (Jan. 1961): 1–17.

[8] There were Sages who believed that in an ideal world, tasks such as earning a living or having children could be “done by others” (see Berachot 35a for the view of R. Shimon b. Yochai; Yevamot 63b for that of Ben Azzai). These are elitist attitudes that have surfaced in Judaism from time to time but which are criticised by the Talmud.

[9] See Rabbi Yitzhak Sheilat, Letters of Maimonides [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Miskal, 1987–88), 2:530–554.

As taken from, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/sages-and-saints-naso-5779/

Just because there may be a human dimension to the multi-layered text of the Torah doesn’t make it any less impressively divine — to the contrary!

by Yael Shahar

What do we mean when we say that the Torah was given to us by God? Likely enough, most modern Jews mean something very different by it than Jews living in Rashi’s time. And Rashi may well have given it a different meaning than did Rabbi Akiva.

We live in an age where the claims of biblical criticism have to be considered, even by observant Jews — an age in which historical claims are likely to be called into question and weighed against the biblical text. I know of at least one young man who left his Haredi community and threw his Judaism out the window when the naïve faith in which he was educated clashed headlong with modern claims about the origin of the Torah. “I felt that my parents and my teachers had lied to me,” he later told me. “They taught me only one version of the truth, and when it turned out not to be true, I felt betrayed.”

The lost talmudic art of uncertainty

But is this rift inevitable? Have we lost the ability to live with complexity? If so, this would be a greater departure from our Jewish textual tradition than any mere “heresy” could be.

Think about it: the Babylonian Talmud, from which Jewish life and practice have drawn their structure for over a thousand years, is itself structured to highlight the limits of human knowledge. In considering alternative approaches to the truth, the Talmud methodically seeks to avoid privileging one over the other. The Bavli challenges authority because it argues that we have no access to ultimate authority.

This is a statement about the world and our relation to it. It is meant to reflect the unknowability of the world, coupled with the paradoxical power of the human intellect. It demonstrates the belief that, in modern terms, we are stuck on one side of Godel’s proof. And yet, the issues that it wrestles with are mostly on the other side. The Bavli is God-wrestling par excellence.

Note that the Talmud isn’t claiming that no truth exists; rather, it admits to a divine truth which has been brought down to earth; it is not in heaven. But having been brought down to earth, this truth loses its absolute character. The original divine light will need to be filtered through the lens of each new generation.

What has this to do with the contrasting claims about the origin of the Torah? Plenty! For one thing, if we truly internalize the ability to tolerate “indeterminacy of belief,” to keep a concept in a state of unresolved tension as taught by the talmudic sages, we need not “collapse the waveform” of statements like “God gave the Torah on Mount Sinai.” Instead, we can turn the statement over and over again, perhaps shake it a time or two and see what falls out.

And what falls out is indeed profound. The statement that “the Torah was given on Sinai” is part of the meta-structure of Judaism, a framing statement. As such, it is in the realm of agaddah — a statement whose truth is vastly deeper than the mere literal sense, a hint of something much deeper than any mere fact can convey.

The emphasis on “factuality” is a very modern trend, and is foreign to the traditional way of interpreting biblical texts. Aggadic truth lies in the dream state of Am Yisrael. Do we believe our dreams depict factual events? And yet, dreams are still integral to learning. The same is true of midrash aggadah, an artform that uses allusive imagery to call forth truths that are far more significant than mere factual truths.

“Torah was given on Sinai” doesn’t tell us as much about the Torah as it does about Sinai — about what our sages meant when they used the phrase “from Sinai.” The levels of meaning implied by the phrase are far more profound than mere specificity of time or place. Rather, it whispers to us that the historical process is itself part of a divine play — one in which we have been privileged to be granted front-row seats, and even bit parts!

“But what if the Bible Critics are right?” I hear you say. “What then?”

To which I answer, in the time-honored Jewish manner, with another question: Does seeing an ultrasound of a growing fetus make you value the baby less after her birth? Does it not increase the wonder to see the incredible process of becoming human take place before your eyes?

The same may be said of the Torah. The Bible Critics may have merely given us a glimpse (and only a glimpse) of how this miraculous document came to be.  Like an ultrasound, the picture is blurry, but it still gives us an idea that something is happening over which we have no control. The fact that humans designed the ultrasound device, and even conceived the baby, doesn’t make them the baby’s creators.

We can try to peer back into history to see the stages of the Torah’s development without in any way detracting from its divine origin. The idea that the incredibly meaningful work that we have today may have been the end result of centuries of development only heightens the wonder. Certainly it doesn’t lessen it. If anything, it makes it seem even more miraculous, that out of all the possible things that might have gone in, just the right bits did make it into the mix, in just the right proportions to create the multi-layered text that we have today.

Think of tossing a huge number of index cards into the air, each bearing one letter, and finding that they had fallen to the floor to spell out a Shakespeare Sonnet. No, the analogy isn’t perfect, since human talent also goes into the mix. But human talent existing at all, never mind being exactly in the right place at the right time to have a hand in bringing it all together — that to me looks a lot like God’s signature.

Does a man-made Torah undermine faith?

Biblical criticism may well be correct in most of its claims regarding the historical editing of the text. But so what!? The relevance of the text has nothing to do with how it came to be written, but what we’ve built on it and how it has molded us as a people.

We can get tied up in wrestling with the straw-man of historicity, as if understanding how the text was created is going to overturn our entire worldview. Does the knowledge that solid matter is mostly empty space alter how we hold a fork? Most of our daily lives are built on deeper foundations than mere intellectual knowledge. Our Judaism is a matter that goes far deeper than the cerebellum, and is unlikely to be overturned by bible criticism — even if the critics are proved right!

In fact, the input of the bible critics is already being assimilated into the observant Jewish world — and enriching our scholarship along the way. The notion that revelation may never have been completed, and that we are still receiving the Torah, is gradually percolating up from national unconscious to consciousness.

It’s important to note that while we can question just about everything about our mesorah, what we never question is its sanctity. And that sanctity doesn’t depend on it’s being born in a particular way or its being forever unchanging. Do we love a person less because he or she changes over time? Do we love our children less because we had some part in making them who they are? If we can accept hashgachah pratit in the life of an individual, why not in the life of a people?

What about halakhic consequences?

So biblical criticism need not undermine Jewish belief. But we like to say that Judaism is not about creeds, but about deeds. If the Torah did come about through a historical process, what are the consequences for halakhah?

None whatsoever! The Written Torah, however it came to be, is only the tip of the halalkhic iceberg. The vast majority of halakhah was created by our sages over the course of centuries, and it is this extended Oral Torah by which we live our lives today. We are Talmud Jews, rather than “Torah Jews.” The message that “it is not in heaven” permeates all of our oral law.

The vast majority of halakhot are rooted in the Talmud, including almost every single facet of Shabbat observance, something acknowledged by the sages at the time, who called it “a mountain” of halakhah “suspended by a hair” of tenuous connection to a handful of p’sukim.

But while we derive so much of our current practice from the Talmud, we seem to have missed the meta-text that is really its most crucial teaching. The very fact of recording all possible opinions on a given issue teaches the same lesson: that Truth belongs to God, and we meanwhile do the best we can in a world of uncertainty.  Somewhere along the line, we’ve lost the humility that says: “We don’t have all the answers.” We obsess over tzniut in dress, but completely miss out on tzniut in thought.

To say that Matan Torah has to have been as we envision it, otherwise we won’t follow halakhah, is akin to an attempt to limit God’s abilities, to fit the whole unimaginable wonder of God’s will into our own imagination. It seems to me that God’s answer to Moshe is the perfect rebuttal to all such attempts: “I will be what I will be,” not what you imagine Me to be.

As taken from, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/it-is-not-in-heaven-whos-afraid-of-biblical-criticism/

The ‘geneticization’ of Judaism is not just distasteful, it’s a profound deterioration in how we define peoplehood

On the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, we will read the Book of Ruth, reminding us once again of the significant difference between conversion then and today. Speedy conversion seems to have been the norm in the days of Ruth, the woman who would become the grandmother of the ultimate king of Israel — King David. Contrast that with the official state conversion process and the associated procedures for establishing Jewish lineage that we have in Israel today. In recent years, the high bar set by halacha, Jewish law, for gaining recognition as a Jew has been raised even higher by a disturbing trend of using genetic testing to establish candidates’ Jewishness — essentially, a “geneticization” of the Jewish people.

Currently, such tests are private initiatives, which the state’s rabbinical courts are prepared to accept as evidence of Jewishness. The willingness by an official body to adopt genetic testing as proof of Jewishness marks the first step in the creation of a genetically-based Judaism and the widespread use of genetic databases. Beyond the fact that the use of genetics to prove Jewishness is distasteful, it constitutes a dramatic deterioration in the way we define the Jewish people. This is a revolution that must be nipped in the bud.

In Israel and around the world, there are hundreds of thousands of people who see themselves as belonging to the Jewish people but who would have a hard time in gaining official recognition as Jews from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. After thousands of years in which membership in the Jewish people was largely a matter of claiming such membership, along with some halakhic evidence, the last three decades have seen the Chief Rabbinate adopting increasingly harsh procedures to establish the Jewishness of those who have immigrated to Israel. Many of these immigrants have been forced to endure a bureaucratic nightmare, for lack of the detailed documentation required by the rabbinate — and, in certain cases, have had to undergo a full conversion process.

In recent years, with advances in genetic science and the fact that genetic testing has become affordable and widely accessible, genetic tests have become a tool for rabbis and rabbinical courts to establish petitioners’ Jewishness. The rabbis’ underlying premise is that it is possible to identify certain genetic markers in the genetic profiles of some Jews, and thus anyone whose cells hold these same genetic markers is undoubtedly Jewish. Currently, the existing genetic markers make it theoretically possible to establish the Jewishness of some Jews, and presumably, if sufficient resources are invested in this project for a sufficient length of time, genetic markers can be found for most of the world’s Jews. Accordingly, against the backdrop of rabbinical willingness to accept genetics as proof of Jewishness, a genetic laboratory has now been set up with this very purpose, and is encouraging Jews to be tested and to add themselves to the database.

The trend towards making membership of the Jewish people contingent on genetics, and changing the means by which one proves membership, from a system based on trust and on flexible halakhic rulings to a system based on genetic identification, runs the risk of changing the very character of the Jewish people. As the database of genetic markers of Jews expands, and the number of Jews registered in this database grows, we will be dangerously close to a situation in which there will be two Jewish peoples: the “genetic” Jewish people, and the people who see themselves as Jewish, but are unable to “prove” it. In other words, we will have first-class and second-class Jews.

Currently, these genetic tests are carried out privately, but there are clear signs that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the rabbinical courts — the officially sanctioned bodies responsible for this issue — are willing to adopt this concept. Thus, for example, in the course of procedures to establish the Jewishness of petitioners to the court, judges are willing to accept the test results, and sometimes even hint that such testing should be carried out. This trend echoes another initiative being driven by the Chief Rabbinate — to create a database containing as much information as possible, so that it can be used to prove the Jewishness of Jews around the world.

In today’s world of big data, it is easy to imagine what the impact would be of a single database containing the genetic footprints — and other information about their Jewishness — of Israeli citizens, as well as other individuals around the world. Instead of being a Jewish people, we would become a Jewish database. Instead of a living, breathing organism, whose boundaries are defined by a combination of tradition, a desire to belong, and the willingness of halakhic authorities to expand the borders of the Jewish people, we would become a digital repository, managed by rabbis and controlled by background checks and blood tests, and providing the exclusive channel for achieving recognition as a member of the chosen people.

About the Author Dr. Shuki Friedman is director of the Center for Religion, Nation and State at the Israel Democracy Institute and a lecturer in law at the Peres Academic Center.

As taken from, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-rabbinates-dangerous-embrace-of-dna-tests-for-jewishness/

por Yanki Tauber

Observa a tu alrededor y haz una lista mental de las cosas que son “tuyas”: tu marido o esposa; tus hijos; tu casa; tu trabajo; tu conocimiento; tu automóvil; tus medias; tus amigos; tu reputación… ¿Qué tienes? ¿Qué hace que sea “tuyo”?

Estas cosas difieren considerablemente de una persona a otra. También difiere el significado de la palabra “tuyo” de acuerdo a como es aplicado. De todos modos, toda ellas son “tus” pertenencias… ¿Cómo llegaste a poseerlas?

Ciertas cosas las has ganado. Otras las has pagado con dinero en efectivo, y otras con mucho esfuerzo. Quizás éstas sean las adquisiciones más valiosas para ti, pues en ellas has invertido toda tu energía.

Otras cosas las has recibido de regalo. Un nuevo automóvil, regalo de tus padres. Un hombre sabio con el que te has encontrado alguna vez y te enseñó algo que nunca hubieses podido deducir solo. Alguien te ama generosamente, más de lo que crees merecer ser amado. Quizás éstas sean las cosas más valiosas para ti, pues nunca podrías alcanzarlas solo. Todo esto está más allá de ti mismo; pertenecen a una realidad mayor. Con estas posesiones has transcendido tus propias limitaciones.

Finalmente, ciertas cosas son tuyas porque son inherentemente, intrínsecamente, tuyas. Por ejemplo: tu primogenitura, tu herencia. No has hecho nada para ganarlas y nadie te las dio. Solo las posees en virtud de quién eres y qué eres. Tu alma. Tu mente. Tus talentos innatos. Tu patria. Tus tradiciones.

Quizás a estas cosas no las valores tanto como valoras aquellas que has ganado con tu trabajo, esfuerzo, o que simplemente has recibido como regalo. Quizás no percibes una intensidad de deseo y esfuerzo por estos ” simples regalos” de la vida. Pero éstos son más “tuyos” que cualquier otra posesión que tengas.

Tus capacidades fluctuarán de acuerdo a los altibajos de la vida, como aumenta o disminuye tu fuerza, tu habilidad mental y sensibilidad espiritual. Los regalos que recibes siempre dependerán de fuerzas más allá de tu control. Pero las cosas que son inherentemente tuyas serán tuyas en todas las circunstancias y bajo todas las condiciones. Aun cuando los rechaces y los repudies, ellos permanecerán en tu vida, irrevocablemente tuyos.

En el sexto día del mes hebreo de Sivan, en el año 2448 de la Creación (1313 a.e.c), la recién nacida nación de Israel se congregó al pie del Monte Sinaí para recibir la Torá de Di-s. Desde entonces, se hace referencia a este evento en el idioma de nuestras sabios como la “Entrega de la Torá” De hecho, la Torá misma se llama a si misma nuestro “regalo del desierto” (Números 21:18).

La Torá, sin embargo, también se describe como la “adquisición” de Israel (Proverbios 4:2), así como “la herencia de la congregación de Iaakov” (Deuteronomio 33:4).
¿Entonces, qué es, un regalo, una adquisición o una herencia?
La Torá es una adquisición para la cual nosotros debemos esforzarnos y trabajar para que se vuelva nuestra a través del estudio diligente y la observancia meticulosa. De esta manera, experimentamos el sentido más profundo de satisfacción que sólo un logro totalmente – adquirido puede traer.

La Torá es un regalo Divino, su sabiduría está por encima de lo que nuestros egos finitos podrían lograr. Como tal, despierta nuestros esfuerzos más trascendentales, nos eleva de nuestra temporalidad, haciéndonos mucho más infinitos de lo que somos.

Y la Torá es nuestra herencia, nuestra primogenitura. Como tal es siempre nuestra. Incluso cuando nosotros no la ganamos. Incluso cuando nos negamos a recibir el regalo que nos ha sido entregado . Pues la Torá es parte de nuestro ser.

Segun tomado de, https://es.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/638561/jewish/Adquisicin-regalo-o-herencia.htm#utm_medium=email&utm_source=94_magazine_es&utm_campaign=es&utm_content=content

Bamidbar begins with a census of the Israelites. That is why this book is known in English as ‘Numbers’. What is the significance of this act of counting? And why here at the beginning of the book? Besides which, there have already been two previous censuses of the people and this is the third within the space of a single year. Surely one would have been sufficient. And does counting have anything to do with leadership?

The place to begin, is to note what appears to be a contradiction. On the one hand, Rashi says that the acts of counting in the Torah are gestures of love on the part of God:

Because they (the children of Israel) are dear to Him, God counts them often. He counted them when they were about to leave Egypt. He counted them after the Golden Calf to establish how many were left. And now that He was about to cause His presence to rest on them (with the inauguration of the sanctuary), He counted them again. (Rashi to Bamidbar 1:1)

So we learn that when God initiates a census of the Israelites, it is to show that He loves them.

In contradiction to this, centuries later King David counted the people, but there was Divine anger and 70,000 people died. How can this be, if counting is an expression of love?

The Torah is explicit in saying that taking a census of the nation is fraught with risk:

Then God said to Moses, “When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each must give to God a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. (Ex. 30:11-12).

The answer to this apparent contradiction lies in the phrase the Torah uses to describe the act of counting: se’u et rosh, literally, “lift the head.” This is a strange, circumlocutory expression. Biblical Hebrew contains many verbs meaning “to count”: limnot, lifkod, lispor, lachshov. Why does the Torah not use these simple words, choosing instead the roundabout expression, “lift the heads” of the people?

The short answer is this: In any census, count or roll-call there is a tendency to focus on the total: the crowd, the multitude, the mass. Here is a nation of 60 million people, or a company with 100,000 employees or a sports crowd of 60,000. Any total tends to value the group or nation as a whole. The larger the total, the stronger is the army, the more popular the team, and the more successful the company.

Counting devalues the individual, and tends to make him or her replaceable. If one soldier dies in battle, another will take his place. If one person leaves the organisation, someone else can be hired to do his or her job.

Notoriously, too, crowds have the effect of tending to make the individual lose his or her independent judgment and follow what others are doing. We call this “herd behaviour,” and it sometimes leads to collective madness. In 1841 Charles Mackay published his classic study, Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, which tells of the South Sea Bubble that cost thousands their money in the 1720s, and the tulip mania in Holland when fortunes were spent on single tulip bulbs. The Great Crashes of 1929 and 2008 had the same crowd psychology.

Another great work, Gustav Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) showed how crowds exercise a “magnetic influence” that transmutes the behaviour of individuals into a collective “group mind.” As he put it, “An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” People in a crowd become anonymous. Their conscience is silenced. They lose a sense of personal responsibility. Crowds are peculiarly prone to regressive behaviour, primitive reactions and instinctual behaviour. They are easily led by figures who are demagogues, playing on people’s fears and sense of victimhood. Such leaders, he said, are “especially recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous excitable half-deranged persons who are bordering on madness”, a remarkable anticipation of Hitler. It is no accident that Le Bon’s work was published in France at a time of rising antisemitism and the Dreyfus trial.

Hence the significance of one remarkable feature of Judaism: its principled insistence – like no other civilisation before – on the dignity and integrity of the individual. We believe that every human being is in the image and likeness of God. The Sages said that every life is like an entire universe. Maimonides says that each of us should see ourselves as if our next act could change the fate of the world. Every dissenting view is carefully recorded in the Mishnah, even if the law is otherwise. Every verse of the Torah is capable, said the Sages, of seventy interpretations. No voice, no view, is silenced. Judaism never allows us to lose our individuality in the mass.

There is a wonderful blessing mentioned in the Talmud to be said on seeing 600,000 Israelites together in one place. It is: “Blessed are You, Lord … who discerns secrets.” The Talmud explains that every person is different. We each have different attributes. We all think our own thoughts. Only God can enter the minds of each of us and know what we are thinking, and this is what the blessing refers to. In other words, even in a massive crowd where, to human eyes, faces blur into a mass, God still relates to us as individuals, not as members of a crowd.

That is the meaning of the phrase, “lift the head,” used in the context of a census. God tells Moses that there is a danger, when counting a nation, that each individual will feel insignificant. “What am I? What difference can I make? I am only one of millions, a mere wave in the ocean, a grain of sand on the sea-shore, dust on the surface of infinity.”

Against that, God tells Moses to lift people’s heads by showing that they each count; they matter as individuals. Indeed in Jewish law a davar she-be-minyan, something that is counted, sold individually rather than by weight, is never nullified even in a mixture of a thousand or a million others. In Judaism taking a census must always be done in such a way as to signal that we are valued as individuals. We each have unique gifts. There is a contribution only I can bring. To lift someone’s head means to show them favour, to recognise them. It is a gesture of love.

There is, however, all the difference in the world between individuality and individualism. Individuality means that I am a unique and valued member of a team. Individualism means that I am not a team player at all. I am interested in myself alone, not the group. Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam gave this a famous name, noting that more people than ever in the United States are going ten-pin bowling but fewer than ever are joining teams. He called it “Bowling alone.” MIT professor Sherry Turkle calls our age of Twitter, Facebook, and online (rather than face-to-face) friendships, “Alone together.” Judaism values individuality, not individualism. As Hillel said, “If I am only for myself, what am I?”

All this has implications for Jewish leadership. We are not in the business of counting numbers. The Jewish people always was small and yet achieved great things. Judaism has a profound mistrust of demagogic leaders who manipulate the emotions of crowds. Moses at the burning bush spoke of his inability to be eloquent. “I am not a man of words.” He thought this was a failing in a leader. In fact it was the opposite. Moses did not sway people by his oratory. Rather, he lifted them by his teaching.

A Jewish leader has to respect individuals. He or she must “lift their heads.” However large the group you lead, you must always communicate the value you place on everyone. You must never attempt to sway a crowd by appealing to the primitive emotions of fear or hate. You must never ride roughshod over the opinions of others.

It is hard to lead a nation of individuals, but this is the most challenging, empowering, inspiring leadership of all.

Shabbat Shalom.

As taken from, https://mailchi.mp/rabbisacks/bamidbar-5779-244179?e=97ac870b13

by Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo

One of the most challenging aspects in Judaism is how to relate to the concept of revelation. The uncompromising claim by (Orthodox) Judaism that the Torah is not a book written by human beings, but is the result of a revelation of God’s will, requires a formidable amount of faith in the face of today’s widespread skepticism and secularity.[1]

Over the last few hundred years, a major argument has erupted concerning the divinity of the Torah’s text. Since the days of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico Politicus (17th century), we have witnessed numerous Bible scholars dissecting the Torah in every way possible, concluding that the traditional Jewish claim of its divinity is unfounded and farfetched.

Throughout the many years, religious scholars have unsurprisingly responded with heavy artillery. They have written profound papers showing that the arguments of Spinoza and others were mistaken and often lacked intellectual objectivity.[2] In our days, a sincere but problematic attempt has been made by some mathematicians and Jewish outreach programs to prove the Torah’s divinity through “Torah codes,” which presumably are found within the biblical text.

But, is this the right approach? If the Torah is indeed the ultimate divine word, as Judaism maintains, is it at all possible or even advisable to take an academic approach to verify its divinity? Wouldn’t the fact that it is divine make it totally unreceptive to academic scrutiny and proof? Isn’t this similar to studying organic matter by applying accepted criteria used by scientists when studying inorganic phenomena? Moreover, scholars, as well as teachers in outreach programs, should ask themselves if they are not violating the prohibition “You shall not test the Lord, your God, as you tested Him in Massah” when they look for definite proofs. (See Devarim 6:16 and Shemot 17:7)

On the other hand, if we don’t want to use the academic approach, what approach are we able to take? Or, are we asked to just believe this claim without any verification? A kind of Credo quia absurdum (“I believe because it is absurd / impossible”), originally attributed to Tertullian in his De Carne Christi (c.203-206). The possible meaning of this statement is that what is sometimes foolish to a human being may be true to God. (See NT: Corinthians 1:17-31)The phrase inspired a celebrated bon mot by H.L. Mencken: “Tertullian is credited with the motto Credo quia absurdum—’I believe because it is impossible.’ Needless to say, he began life as a lawyer.”

This kind of approach seems to contradict Judaism’s fundamental belief that one should make use of one’s God-given intelligence and reason even when it comes to matters of belief. To believe because it is absurd is not an option.

What then are the means by which to grasp or reject the Torah’s divinity? Why are we not as convinced as our forefathers who did believe in its divinity? Is this due to the fact that we are more intellectually sophisticated than they were? Or that our studies have now proven beyond doubt the absurdity of this belief? Many of us may be of this opinion, but we should ask ourselves if we are not guilty of self-deception.

Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (1785-1865), in his monumental work HaKetav ve-HaKabbalah, seems to touch on this problem and shows us a way that is neither academic nor the result of blind faith.

Commenting on the quality of the revelation at Sinai and quoting the verse: “And the appearance of God’s glory was like a consuming fire (aish ochelet) on the mountain top, before the eyes of the Israelites” (Shemot 24:17), the venerable rabbi asks what is meant by the expression “a consuming fire.” Doesn’t this indicate a destructive force? Why not just say that God is like fire?

Reminding us of the fact that at Sinai the entire nation of Israel had risen to the level of prophecy immediately following a life of misery and spiritual slavery in Egypt, he continues:

The truth is that the people of Israel were not all equal in their spiritual level. And they did not all see or perceive the same kind of revelation at Sinai. Rather, each one was able to receive this revelational experience only in accordance with the spiritual condition of their soul. Every Jew saw something, but what they experienced was directly proportional to the preparation they had put into it. When a person was less prepared, they experienced only a minimal level of revelation at Sinai; and the one who prepared more received more. This is the meaning of “a consuming fire.” The perception of God’s greatness is exactly the same as the way fire takes hold of various objects. There are materials that are intrinsically combustible, so that when you touch them with a flame an enormous fire erupts. But, there are other items that are fire-resistant, and when you put a flame to them nothing happens. Just as nature has made certain materials receptive to fire, so it is with the Sinai revelation.

A flame grows or diminishes depending on the combustibility of the material it comes in contact with. So it is with the Jew, and with all people. Their receptivity to the divinity of Torah is proportionate to the condition of their soul.

I would suggest that the reason we are nowadays confronted with so much skepticism concerning the Torah’s divinity is not only because of intellectual sophistication and academic biblical studies (which are often very subjective), but also because of lack of spiritual receptivity, which is developed through labor of the soul. This may seem like a convenient escape when dealing with the issue at hand. But in truth, it touches on the very essence of people’s spiritual condition. As with music and art, the Torah cannot be approached from the perspective of academic learning. It is the soul’s language that is at stake. Fire cannot penetrate where no spark burns. Or, as the common expression goes, “Like attracts like.”

Aristotle once said, “The slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge of lesser things”.[3]

It would be wise for all parties concerned to stop trying to affirm or deny the Torah’s divinity and first ask: Are we or are we not made of material that is combustible with the inner world of the Torah which could possibly open the way for us to recognize the divinity of Torah? Only when we have transformed ourselves and our souls into spiritual fire can we ask questions concerning the Torah’s divinity and come up with honest answers. As long as our souls are not open to the possibility that we could recognize its divinity, we cannot reject or accept this claim. This is the fundamental question we need to ask ourselves on Shavuot.

Chag Sameach!

Notes:

[1] To understand whether original Orthodoxy really claims that all of the Torah was given at Sinai, see Dr. Marc Shapiro in his The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004) Chapter 7.Dr. Shapiro shows clearly that many earlier and later Orthodox sages were of the opinion that parts of the Torah text as we know it today were added or even removed with Divine permission. See also Sanhedrin 21b and Bamidbar Rabba 3:13 where it says that Ezra the Scribe edited the Torah.

[2] For a comprehensive treatment of the academic approach toward the Torah, see my books Between Silence and Speech, 1995, chap.10, and The Written and Oral Torah, 1997, pp. 201-233, both published by Jason Aronson. Both essays are by now outdated and need to be partially revised.

[3] Quoted by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1:1:5 AD 1).

As taken from, https://www.cardozoacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Is-the-Torah-Divine-646.pdf?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=2b11ec0937-Weekly_Thoughts_to_Ponder_campaign_TTP_548_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dd05790c6d-2b11ec0937-242341409