Arguing With God
Yom Kippur 5763
When we were children, my brother and I adopted a pet guinea pig named Einstein. He had long hair, brown, white and tan splotches. He loved to crawl in our shirts and nibble at lettuce. He was a harmless, innocent animal. And then he died, after maybe, maybe 6 months.
Now they say guinea pigs are supposed to live at least a few years. Not out guinea pigs. Maybe six months.
When Einstein died, I was distraught. How could a compassionate God let such an innocent animal die so young, and animal which had never done any wrong, except maybe crawling too far up my shirt? How could he create an animal which would only live for six months? It seemed unfair, even crual.
I was deeply angry at God, shocked at his injustice, his cruelty. And eventually I got over it.
We sometimes think that religion demands that we passively submit to whatever decrees God sends our ways, that no matter when happens we are supposed to smile and say, this is for the best. And to be sure, there is a tradition of doing that even in Judaism, of finding the positive to everything, of trying to see every experience, every tragedy as somehow a gift from God.
But there is another approach, too, in our tradition. When three Angels visit Abraham and inform him of God’s plans to destroy the entire city of Sodom, Abraham is shocked and confronts God directly: “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? What if there are 50 innocent people in the city? Will you then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike? Shall not the judge of the earth deal justly?”
Does God take it as impetuousness, as do Job’s friends when Job questions God’s ways? Is this a sign of rebellion, questioning God’s ways? No, God answers, gives in to his demand: “If I find fifty innocent people there, I will forgive the entire city for their sake.”
And Abraham keeps bargaining: Now what if there are just five missing from the 50? Will you forgive for forty five? Sure, I won’t do it for the 45.
Will you forgive for forty? Sure.
Now don’t get angry, but what about thirty? Sure.
If I may ask, how about twenty? Sure.
Don’t get angry, but how about ten? Sure.
What hutzpah! I reach my limit after giving Hannah three extensions on her bedtime and 1 extra story. It seems that God has no limit—Abraham just keeps pushing and pushing! Sadly, of course, there aren’t even ten innocent people, but the angels do warn Lot and his family so they can leave.
So why did God tell Abraham? Why did he send the three angels? Genesis 18:17 says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him? For I have singled him out that he may instruct his children and posterity to walk in the ways of the lord by doing what is just and right.”
Abraham is the human who embodies what is just and right, he is the conduit of blessings for the rest of the world. I know Abraham will argue with me, and that’s why I am going to tell him. I want him to argue with me, I want him to stand up to me.
Ramban, the great 14th century French Talmudist and kabbalist, explains: if I don’t tell him, and give him the chance to argue with me, people will say that Abraham was cruel for not speaking up for his neighbors, and they won’t realize what a truly righteous person he was.
The opposite of Abraham in this regard is Noah, who when he found out that God was going to destroy the earth. God tells him to build a boat, he does. Get the animals in, okay. Take your family in and close the earth, okay. Everyone else on earth is going to die, okay.
He sounds righteous—he did exactly what god said. But the Torah calls the flood the “waters of Noah,” it blames him for the flood. Because he didn’t question God’s command. He never stood up to God, spoke up in defense of all the people and animals. God wants us to argue with him.
The great inheritor of this tradition in the modern era was the Hassidic rebbe, Levi Yitchak of Berditchev, the Kedushat Levi. It is said that on one Yom Kippur, he took some hair from a local woman who had been assaulted by kossaks. He said to God, place all of Israel’s sins on one side of the scale, place this lock of hair on the other. Doesn’t this suffering, this injustice, outweigh all of our sins?
A healthy relationship is an honest one. We say after the shema, adonai eloheychem emet, The lord our god is truth. God is not present in a relationship with dishonesty, with disingenuousness. Some people say “Hi, how are you,” and you know the right response is “fine.” That does not create a holy relationship. When we sit down with each other and ask “so how are you doing,” and show we want to take the time to find out, that is a holy relationship.
A healthy relationship with God is an honest one. If all we ever do is say the words we are supposed to say, pretend to feel the things we are supposed to feel, we are just giving lip service. Bahya Ibn Pakuda, author of Duties of the Heart, said rahmana liba ba’ey, God wants our hearts.
The Piazetsner rebbe, Kalonymous Kalman of Shapira, outlines a practice called hitbodedut, which is spontaneous outpouring to God. You find a space where you will be uninterrupted, and you will have a good chunk of time to be spontaneous with God. Maybe you start with some psalms, or just the phrase “Master of the universe” repeated over and over, or a melody. But then you try to hear and express what your soul yearns to say.
He likens our souls to a body buried beneath a pile of trash, with only the pinky sticking out. The more we wiggle the pinky, the more we free it from the rubbish pile. The rubbish pile is all the unimportant things, the trivial things, we get caught up in throughout the day, which obscures what is truly important. We get so caught up in these things we cannot hear the call of our soul, the urge to act in ways that are deeply good and generous. So he says we should just pour out spontaneously what we have to say to God.
There are a lot of words to say from the prayerbook, and they are well written and can be inspiring. But they are a jumping off point, a starting point to a conversation with God about the deepest things in life. What are my hopes for myself for the upcoming year? What if I were to die next year, how did I live my life? Where have I fallen short, and how do I feel about it? What are my hopes and dreams for the world, and where have I fallen into frustration?
As we journey through this Yom Kippur together, I invite you to take the time for this reflection,
For honest, heartfelt conversation with God.
I hope you have a meaningful day or contemplation, of prayer, of cheshbon nefesh, soul searching and repentance.
Shanah Tovah.
I want to talk a little about what our plans are this year for the synagogue. If you looked at our program flyer, and I hope you have, you will see that we have a new emphasis on programs. We have a lot going on.
First of all, we are working hard on providing services and programs to those of you who have been coming for decades and supporting the shul. Our primary focus here is weekly Shabbat services, as well as the daily minyan. I have also been teaching at daily minyan. In the mornings, we are studying the laws of interpersonal ethics, and in the evening minyan we are studying Mishnah.
We also are running the monthly Torah breakfast club, a Sunday morning bagel breakfast and class, which I am focusing this year on contemporary social issues; our next session will be focused on the controversy over Golden Farms. We are offering weekly classes during the daytime, including Hebrew, Halacha, and Jewish Ethics. We are running a monthly lunch-n-learn, at which I plan on opening up some theological issues, such as creation and Torah from sinai. We have a monthly Sisterhood meeting as well as Koffee Klatch, which are nice ways to spend time with each other during the week. We are also branching out, creating social opportunities, opportunities to have fun. We are offering Israeli dancing, Zumba, and outings to Broadway. We’re going to have a lot of fun together.
We are introducing a monthly Movie night. This past week we watched “Food, Inc.,” and we have a great lineup for the year. These are not just social; they are educational, covering serious social topics and Israeli topics.
We are also offering a couple service formats which break out a little from the traditional format. We are offering a monthly Dinner Under the Stars, a singalong-style Friday service in the round followed by a brief childrens’ story and then dinner. Some people have the impression this is only for young families; it’s not, it really is intergenerational—we count on the sisterhood ladies for a full house-- so please, come! We are also offering a free Traditional Friday Dinner, with a kabbalat Shabbat service led by Hazzan Schwartz. And we are starting a Singable Mussaf, which we hope will have everybody singing along enthusiastically; the music is available on our website.
We are also offering a rich array of programs for families with children. We will run a Kids’ Club during the movie night and Torah Breakfast Cub, so parents can bring their children, and both parents and children will have enriching experiences. We will be having holiday celebrations, such as the sukkot hootenanny, a barbeque and singalong, as well as the simhat torah family celebration. And we will be offering Tot Shabbat every other week, as well as a monthly “family ruach service,” a participatory service targeting families with elementary school children.
Finally, we have an exciting opportunity to run our new Hebrew School program at the Windsor Terrace Y, which will be an entry way for the families involved in their after-school program to become involved with FJC. We are breaking from the traditional classroom format, and planning a dynamic program housed at the Y on Prospect Ave, using art, drama, and music to teach jewish values and holidays. The program is Thursdays at 4:30 for children age 5-8, and it’s free for FJC family members, so please tell anyone you know who might be interested. We already have a number of students who were previously uninvolved with the synagogue. It is a great opportunity for outreach and growth.
This is going to be an exciting year at FJC, and I hope that each of you will continue to be a part of it.
Gmar Hatima Tovah.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Bringing the torah everywhere
After college, I studied Hebrew on kibbutz at Sde Eliyahu, a dati leumi kibbutz. We worked on the farm as needed, and one days we were asked to sort potatoes. So we were sitting by the conveyor belt, sorting potatoes, and a girl, Pessie, opposite me on the belt, out of nowhere starts talking about Rashi’s comment to the first verse of the bible.
Beautiful, it’s an interesting verse, an interesting conversation, but pardon me asking, why did she bring it up? In the veahafta, it says to discuss torah when you’re walking on the way, when you lie down, when you get up, all the time. So we should study torah even when we’re sorting potatoes.
Parshat Vayavo details the events on last day of Moses’ life. Moses transfers leadership to Joshua, teaches a song to everyone which we will read last week, and also writes a Torah
Contemporary scholars say that the term “torah” here refers to legal parts of Deuteronomy, not what we call the Torah, i.e. the 5 books of Moses.
Tradition says that it refers to a complete torah scroll, the one dictated by God. This scroll included the final passage detailing about Moses’ death. Imagine writing about your own death? The midrash says, Moses wrote the final verse with his tears. This torah was placed on the side of the ark, and travels with the Jews wherever the ark travels.
The idea is that wherever we go, whatever we do, we take the Torah with us, both as a people and as individuals. We have carried the Torah throughout the world, all hand copied from the original scroll.
One way to understand this idea is that torah should apply to every situation, has to inform every decision we make. I need to take Torah in with me to my house, to my kitchen, my bedroom, to my workplace, to the watercooler at work. I need to apply torah everywhere.
A more literal way to understand this is like Pessie’s potato conversation: we should always be immersing ourselves in torah, wherever we go.
A humorous story is told about R Hayyim Shmuelevitz, the head of the Mir yeshivah, who was given permission to enter the US from Shanghai. The boat trip took a month. And while all the other passengers spent their days pacing around, impatient to see some sign of progress, he spent every day studying the work Shev Shemaitsa. And while everyone else was anxious, he was at ease, totally concentrated on his studies. One of his students gazed out at the sea, and asked him, “where are we?” R. Chaim immediately answered, “In shemaise gimel, in the third chapter.”
The story is almost extreme. It is extreme in the sense that he didn’t notice what was going on. And this is certainly the danger, which we see happening in the untraorthodox world at times, being so immersed in traditional studies that we ignore the real world around us. In this case, though, there was nothing to notice. Once he needed to look up and see where he was, I hope that he would.
For sure, we shouldn’t immerse in torah study so much we don’t notice what’s happening in the world—we should be worldly. We should read the newspaper. We should keep up with contemporary medicine and science.
But we also shouldn’t be so immersed in daily life that it takes us away from torah study.
How many people here read/ watch/ hear the newspaper every day?
How many people here read the Talmud or another sefer every day?
Sadly, so many of us in the liberal world aren’t really immersed in Jewish study; we are completely immersed in the contemporary world.
The truth is, you need to immerse yourself in jewish study to get somewhere with it. For me, studying full time in yeshiva in Israel brought me lightning years ahead in my studies. Just going to shul weekly is not enough. You need to work your way through a sacred book systematically. Even if we immerse ourselves one hour a day in Jewish study, it will make an amazing difference in our spiritual life, and in our ability to think jewishly about the contemporary world.
Many people have asked me to talk about current events, which I am going to try to do, and I am working on a number of sermon series on specific topics.
But it’s also important to go systematically through torah, through Talmud, through other seforim, to build a thorough Jewish knowledge, to build the kind of thought process that will approach current events from a jewish perspective. I want to challenge you: spend as much time studying a sefer every day as you do on the news (at least as a start).
This is what Pirke Avot calls tov Talmud torah im derech eretz—it’s good to combine torah and worldly pursuits.
Beautiful, it’s an interesting verse, an interesting conversation, but pardon me asking, why did she bring it up? In the veahafta, it says to discuss torah when you’re walking on the way, when you lie down, when you get up, all the time. So we should study torah even when we’re sorting potatoes.
Parshat Vayavo details the events on last day of Moses’ life. Moses transfers leadership to Joshua, teaches a song to everyone which we will read last week, and also writes a Torah
Contemporary scholars say that the term “torah” here refers to legal parts of Deuteronomy, not what we call the Torah, i.e. the 5 books of Moses.
Tradition says that it refers to a complete torah scroll, the one dictated by God. This scroll included the final passage detailing about Moses’ death. Imagine writing about your own death? The midrash says, Moses wrote the final verse with his tears. This torah was placed on the side of the ark, and travels with the Jews wherever the ark travels.
The idea is that wherever we go, whatever we do, we take the Torah with us, both as a people and as individuals. We have carried the Torah throughout the world, all hand copied from the original scroll.
One way to understand this idea is that torah should apply to every situation, has to inform every decision we make. I need to take Torah in with me to my house, to my kitchen, my bedroom, to my workplace, to the watercooler at work. I need to apply torah everywhere.
A more literal way to understand this is like Pessie’s potato conversation: we should always be immersing ourselves in torah, wherever we go.
A humorous story is told about R Hayyim Shmuelevitz, the head of the Mir yeshivah, who was given permission to enter the US from Shanghai. The boat trip took a month. And while all the other passengers spent their days pacing around, impatient to see some sign of progress, he spent every day studying the work Shev Shemaitsa. And while everyone else was anxious, he was at ease, totally concentrated on his studies. One of his students gazed out at the sea, and asked him, “where are we?” R. Chaim immediately answered, “In shemaise gimel, in the third chapter.”
The story is almost extreme. It is extreme in the sense that he didn’t notice what was going on. And this is certainly the danger, which we see happening in the untraorthodox world at times, being so immersed in traditional studies that we ignore the real world around us. In this case, though, there was nothing to notice. Once he needed to look up and see where he was, I hope that he would.
For sure, we shouldn’t immerse in torah study so much we don’t notice what’s happening in the world—we should be worldly. We should read the newspaper. We should keep up with contemporary medicine and science.
But we also shouldn’t be so immersed in daily life that it takes us away from torah study.
How many people here read/ watch/ hear the newspaper every day?
How many people here read the Talmud or another sefer every day?
Sadly, so many of us in the liberal world aren’t really immersed in Jewish study; we are completely immersed in the contemporary world.
The truth is, you need to immerse yourself in jewish study to get somewhere with it. For me, studying full time in yeshiva in Israel brought me lightning years ahead in my studies. Just going to shul weekly is not enough. You need to work your way through a sacred book systematically. Even if we immerse ourselves one hour a day in Jewish study, it will make an amazing difference in our spiritual life, and in our ability to think jewishly about the contemporary world.
Many people have asked me to talk about current events, which I am going to try to do, and I am working on a number of sermon series on specific topics.
But it’s also important to go systematically through torah, through Talmud, through other seforim, to build a thorough Jewish knowledge, to build the kind of thought process that will approach current events from a jewish perspective. I want to challenge you: spend as much time studying a sefer every day as you do on the news (at least as a start).
This is what Pirke Avot calls tov Talmud torah im derech eretz—it’s good to combine torah and worldly pursuits.
Forgiving repeat offenders
One of the challenges with forgiving people is that there is a tendency to forgive but not forget. I forgive you, but I’m not gonna do you any favors; I’ll forgive you, but I won’t invite you for shabbes; I’ll forgive you, but I’m not gonna smile at you, not gonna shake your hand, not gonna go out of my way to do you any favors.
The Talmud defines grudges very strictly.
Torah: prohibitions on revenge & grudge
Revenge: You don’t lend me your shovel; I wont lend you mine
Grudge: You don’t lend; I do because I’m not like you
What is the grudge?
Is it that I say “I’m not like you?” That’s actually revenge: saying anything negative is a way we take revenge
So the grudge is holding a negative attitude in the first place, even though I don’t act on it—I do lend my shovel, and I’m not nasty about it. It’s the fact that I held on to what you did in my mind.
So how do you do this with someone who has hurt you repeatedly? How can you possibly love such a person?
The Torah’s prescription is that we rebuke people-we tell them what they did that hurt us. Hopefully, they apologize, and we forgive them.
But what if they’ve done it before, and apologized before?
The commentators say, on the 13 attributes, that God forgives us repeatedly. Every Yom Kippur, we stand before God, and apologize for the same weakness we apologized for last Yom Kippur. Levi Yitzchak once said to himself, but Levi, you said last year you’d be better, and he answered, but this year I really mean it. And every year God forgives us. So to imitate God means to forgive people repeatedly, even for the same offense.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t protect yourself. Abusers will abuse and apologize in an endless cycle, and the only way to protect yourself sometimes is to remove yourself from an abusive situation.
But even when people mean it, even when they really try, it might take time, even years, for them to change. And our trasdition calls us to have the same patience with them as God has with us.
What if we say it’s no use rebuking them, they’ll never change, they’ll never listen? The Talmud says that in that situation, it’s a mitzvah to be quiet. But it’s still a mitzvah to love them, unless they are a truly evil person. And in that case, we need to forgive them even without an apology, just as God is patient with us, keeping us alive even when we don’t apologize to him.
I invite all of us, over the next few days, to clean up all baggage with people, to forgive people even who don’t deserve it, so we can all enter Yom Kippur with a truly clean slate.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Rosh Hashanah Day 2: Making God King
Rosh Hashanah Day 2: Making God King
Rebbe Nahman of Breslav told of a certain king who had a wise man. The king said to the wise man:
"There is one king who signs himself as being 'mighty, great and a man of truth and humility'. As for his being mighty, I know he is mighty because his kingdom is surrounded by the sea and in the sea stands a fleet of warships with cannons, which will not allow anyone to draw near. Inland from the sea is a deep moat that goes around the whole kingdom. To get in, there is only one tiny pathway wide enough for only one man, and there too stand cannons. If someone comes to make war, they fire with the cannons. It is impossible to get near.
"However, as for his signing himself 'a man of truth and humility', I don't know. I therefore want you to bring me a portrait of that king."
This was because this king had portraits of all the kings, but there was no portrait of that king in any king's collection. The reason was that he was hidden from everybody. He sat behind a veil, remote from the people of his country.
The wise man went to the country. He realized that he needed to find out the nature of the country. How do you find out the nature of a country? You find it out through the people's humor. When you want to know something, you should find out how people laugh and joke about it.
There are different kinds of jokes. Sometimes a person may really want to hurt another with words, but when the other takes exception to his words, he says, "I only meant it as a joke". "Like one who exerts himself to cast firebrands and arrows. and then says, I am only joking" (Proverbs 26:18-19) . There are other times when a person may say something that is truly intended as a lighthearted joke, yet his friend is hurt by his words. Thus there are various different kinds of jokes and humor.
And among all the different kingdoms there is one kingdom that includes all kingdoms. In that kingdom is one city that includes all the cities of the entire kingdom that includes all kingdoms. In that city is one house which includes all the houses of the whole city that includes all the cities of the kingdom that includes all kingdoms. And there is one man who includes everything in that entire house. And there is also someone who produces all the mockery and joking of the kingdom.
The wise man took with him a large sum of money and went there and saw how they were mocking and joking in various ways. From the humor, he understood that the entire kingdom was full of lies from beginning to end. He saw the way they would joke about how people defrauded and deceived others in business, and how the injured party would sue in the lower courts where everything was lies and bribery. He would then go to a higher court, where everything was also lies. They used to put on comedies about all these kinds of things.
Through their humor the sage understood that the entire kingdom was filled with lies and deceptions and that there was no truth anywhere. He did some business in the kingdom, allowing himself to be defrauded in the transaction. He took the case to court, but the court was all lies and bribes. One day he would give them a bribe but the next day they would not recognize him. He went to a higher court, and there too it was all lies. Eventually he came before the Supreme Court, but they too were full of lies and bribery. Finally he came to the king himself.
When he came to the king, he said, "Who are you king over? The whole kingdom is full of lies from beginning to end and there's no truth in it."
He began enumerating all the lies in the kingdom. When the king heard his words, he turned his ear to the veil to hear what he was saying. The king was surprised that there was anyone who knew about all the lies in the kingdom.
The ministers of state who heard what he was saying were very angry with him. Yet he went on telling about all the lies in the kingdom.
"It would be proper to say," declared the wise man, "that the king too is like them - that he loves falsehood just as his kingdom does . But from this I see that you are a man of truth: you are far from them because you cannot stand the falsehood of the country."
The wise man began to praise the king greatly. But the king was very humble, and "in the place of His greatness, there is His humility" ( Megilah 31a) . Such is the way of the humble person. The more he is praised and magnified , the smaller and humbler he becomes. Because of the sage's great praise, extolling and magnifying him, the king reached the utmost humility and smallness until he became literally nothing. He could not contain himself, and he threw aside the veil to see who this wise man was that knew and understood all this.
His face was revealed, and the sage saw it and brought his portrait back to the king. [Trans. Avraham greenbaum]
The story is a metaphor. The mighty king is God, hidden behind a veil such that none of us can see him, divorced from reality.
And the kingdom of lies is this world, a world run by greed and injustice, people trying to make as much money off each other in whatever way they can, and where courts and government officials are corrupt.
Where is God in such a world, in a world where 15 million children die of hunger each year, in a world where millionaires control 39% of the world’s wealth but over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day, where Russian and Asian women and children are trafficked as slaves, where dictators in Syria, Libya, Iran, and North Korea are willing to murder thousands of civilians to retain their grip on power, and where people walk into crowded theatres and spray people with bullets?
And the answer, from this story, is: he’s nowhere to be found. He’s hiding. Because this is a world run on the basis of lies and injustice, not on truth and mercy. The world as we know it is a realm of lies, of corruption. God is an absent king, and we are holding the steering wheel.
In the aleynu, which we say every day but we say with a special ceremony today on the high holidays, we declare vehaya adonai lemelech, we look forward to the day when God will be king. Because, in a sense, he is not. God does not rule the world. People rule the world. People destroy the environment. People create inequality. People create violence and slavery.
The aleynu says that on that day God will be one and his name will be one. So what is he now? Fractured. Deeply fractured. Rashi says that as long as the forces of evil are in the world, God’s name is not complete. Not only is God not in charge, but even God himself is broken and incomplete. Because a God who is not in charge of the universe is not fully himself. He’s not yet king.
Rosh Hashanah is not just a day we celebrate God as king, it is a day on which we make God king. The midrash says that if we don’t make god king—im ein mamlichim oti—he is not king.
So how do we make God king?
First of all, we envision a world which is truly a kingdom of God. Not in the sense of a theocracy ruled by some religious elite who force everyone else to follow strict religious rules, like the Taliban, but in the sense of a domain where every transaction is governed by the divine attributes of truth, justice, and mercy. Where business dealings are fair and not deceptive, and people help each other to be able to pursue their own livelihood, where there is no corruption among people in power, where there is no war or oppression, where every human being is able to lead a life of safety and dignity, where animals and the environment are respected, cared for, cherished.
On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, this visualization is the centerpiece of the liturgy. On page 135, paragraph 4, there is a large addition to the third prayer of the amidah, visualizing a state of being where God has become king.
In the first paragraph, “and now,” uvchen in the Hebrew, we envision all of humanity uniting to fulfill the divine will, no longer serving the idols of power, greed, corruption, and violence. Not that everyone has to be the same religion, but that all religions actually take seriously the divine imperative at their core, to love their fellow human being, to care for the earth.
In the second paragraph, we visualize what this will mean for our people, who have continually been pushed around the world and threatened by massive, violent regimes. Iran is, sadly, not new; we have been threatened before and we have survived, and we will outlive Ahmedenijad. But we imagine a day when we can live in peace as a nation, we imagine what Israel would look like, the joyful partying of Jerusalem at peace. Can you imagine the party when we finally make peace with the Palestinians? We need to be able to imagine this, to believe it can become a reality. Maybe when we are davenning this we can add our own details, paint a picture in our minds of what it will look like.
In the third paragraph, we imagine evil vanishing from history and from the human soul. The roots of evil are buried in the human soul from birth, in what Freud called the death instinct and Judaism called the yetzer hara, the drive to destroy, to hate, to harm. We imagine a day when this is eradicated from our souls, from our neighbor’s souls, from all of humanity. This really can happen. We need to make this happen.
Why all the imagination, all the visualization? Is it just a fantasy? Yes, but fantasy is a powerful tool. It gives us a sense where we are going, and helps us believe we can get there. It helps free us from the tyranny of reality, of thinking this is just how things are.
We also envision what it would mean for God to be king in our own lives. The next paragraph says “you alone will rule over all your works.” What would it look like if I made all my decisions by what God really wants? What would I eat? How would I spend my time? How much time would I spend exercising, studying, helping others? Who would I spend my time with? How much time and attention would I give to my spouse, my children, my friends? How would I treat them? Where would I shop, what products would I buy?
The shofar blasts are part of the coronation, too. Every festival has a mitzvah unique to it, and the mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is hearing the shofar. The shofar is used both to signify military victory, and coronation. It is a profound expression of the divine victory over the forces of evil:
In Psalm 47, for example, God is depicted as ascending up the temple mount to be enthroned as king of all the earth. " God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet [shofar]" (Ps 47:5).
The sound of the shofar also is symbolic of the messianic era: "And in that day a great trumpet [shofar] will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out of the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem" (Is 27:13).
Zechariah also writes that "Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow go forth like lightening; the Lord God will sound the shofar, and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south" (Zech 9:14).
To make God king, in Hebrew mamlichim, means
to declare god king, as in saying the kedusha on p. 134,
but more importantly:
to envision a world transformed into the kingdom of God,
and to make God king at least over the few square feet of the world I control, over my life, over my interactions.
Judaism does not claim that everything every human being does is ordained by God. God gives humans free choice, and some people make bad or even evil decisions which hurt other people. Perhaps God mourns with us, suffers with us, grieves with us at the state of the world. And perhaps God also dreams with us, fantasizes with us, shares in our hoping and yearning for the kind of world this could be, for the kind of lives each of us could live.
May we all dream with God, and do a little bit to make that dream come true.
Shanah Tovah,
Have a wonderful new year
Rebbe Nahman of Breslav told of a certain king who had a wise man. The king said to the wise man:
"There is one king who signs himself as being 'mighty, great and a man of truth and humility'. As for his being mighty, I know he is mighty because his kingdom is surrounded by the sea and in the sea stands a fleet of warships with cannons, which will not allow anyone to draw near. Inland from the sea is a deep moat that goes around the whole kingdom. To get in, there is only one tiny pathway wide enough for only one man, and there too stand cannons. If someone comes to make war, they fire with the cannons. It is impossible to get near.
"However, as for his signing himself 'a man of truth and humility', I don't know. I therefore want you to bring me a portrait of that king."
This was because this king had portraits of all the kings, but there was no portrait of that king in any king's collection. The reason was that he was hidden from everybody. He sat behind a veil, remote from the people of his country.
The wise man went to the country. He realized that he needed to find out the nature of the country. How do you find out the nature of a country? You find it out through the people's humor. When you want to know something, you should find out how people laugh and joke about it.
There are different kinds of jokes. Sometimes a person may really want to hurt another with words, but when the other takes exception to his words, he says, "I only meant it as a joke". "Like one who exerts himself to cast firebrands and arrows. and then says, I am only joking" (Proverbs 26:18-19) . There are other times when a person may say something that is truly intended as a lighthearted joke, yet his friend is hurt by his words. Thus there are various different kinds of jokes and humor.
And among all the different kingdoms there is one kingdom that includes all kingdoms. In that kingdom is one city that includes all the cities of the entire kingdom that includes all kingdoms. In that city is one house which includes all the houses of the whole city that includes all the cities of the kingdom that includes all kingdoms. And there is one man who includes everything in that entire house. And there is also someone who produces all the mockery and joking of the kingdom.
The wise man took with him a large sum of money and went there and saw how they were mocking and joking in various ways. From the humor, he understood that the entire kingdom was full of lies from beginning to end. He saw the way they would joke about how people defrauded and deceived others in business, and how the injured party would sue in the lower courts where everything was lies and bribery. He would then go to a higher court, where everything was also lies. They used to put on comedies about all these kinds of things.
Through their humor the sage understood that the entire kingdom was filled with lies and deceptions and that there was no truth anywhere. He did some business in the kingdom, allowing himself to be defrauded in the transaction. He took the case to court, but the court was all lies and bribes. One day he would give them a bribe but the next day they would not recognize him. He went to a higher court, and there too it was all lies. Eventually he came before the Supreme Court, but they too were full of lies and bribery. Finally he came to the king himself.
When he came to the king, he said, "Who are you king over? The whole kingdom is full of lies from beginning to end and there's no truth in it."
He began enumerating all the lies in the kingdom. When the king heard his words, he turned his ear to the veil to hear what he was saying. The king was surprised that there was anyone who knew about all the lies in the kingdom.
The ministers of state who heard what he was saying were very angry with him. Yet he went on telling about all the lies in the kingdom.
"It would be proper to say," declared the wise man, "that the king too is like them - that he loves falsehood just as his kingdom does . But from this I see that you are a man of truth: you are far from them because you cannot stand the falsehood of the country."
The wise man began to praise the king greatly. But the king was very humble, and "in the place of His greatness, there is His humility" ( Megilah 31a) . Such is the way of the humble person. The more he is praised and magnified , the smaller and humbler he becomes. Because of the sage's great praise, extolling and magnifying him, the king reached the utmost humility and smallness until he became literally nothing. He could not contain himself, and he threw aside the veil to see who this wise man was that knew and understood all this.
His face was revealed, and the sage saw it and brought his portrait back to the king. [Trans. Avraham greenbaum]
The story is a metaphor. The mighty king is God, hidden behind a veil such that none of us can see him, divorced from reality.
And the kingdom of lies is this world, a world run by greed and injustice, people trying to make as much money off each other in whatever way they can, and where courts and government officials are corrupt.
Where is God in such a world, in a world where 15 million children die of hunger each year, in a world where millionaires control 39% of the world’s wealth but over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day, where Russian and Asian women and children are trafficked as slaves, where dictators in Syria, Libya, Iran, and North Korea are willing to murder thousands of civilians to retain their grip on power, and where people walk into crowded theatres and spray people with bullets?
And the answer, from this story, is: he’s nowhere to be found. He’s hiding. Because this is a world run on the basis of lies and injustice, not on truth and mercy. The world as we know it is a realm of lies, of corruption. God is an absent king, and we are holding the steering wheel.
In the aleynu, which we say every day but we say with a special ceremony today on the high holidays, we declare vehaya adonai lemelech, we look forward to the day when God will be king. Because, in a sense, he is not. God does not rule the world. People rule the world. People destroy the environment. People create inequality. People create violence and slavery.
The aleynu says that on that day God will be one and his name will be one. So what is he now? Fractured. Deeply fractured. Rashi says that as long as the forces of evil are in the world, God’s name is not complete. Not only is God not in charge, but even God himself is broken and incomplete. Because a God who is not in charge of the universe is not fully himself. He’s not yet king.
Rosh Hashanah is not just a day we celebrate God as king, it is a day on which we make God king. The midrash says that if we don’t make god king—im ein mamlichim oti—he is not king.
So how do we make God king?
First of all, we envision a world which is truly a kingdom of God. Not in the sense of a theocracy ruled by some religious elite who force everyone else to follow strict religious rules, like the Taliban, but in the sense of a domain where every transaction is governed by the divine attributes of truth, justice, and mercy. Where business dealings are fair and not deceptive, and people help each other to be able to pursue their own livelihood, where there is no corruption among people in power, where there is no war or oppression, where every human being is able to lead a life of safety and dignity, where animals and the environment are respected, cared for, cherished.
On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, this visualization is the centerpiece of the liturgy. On page 135, paragraph 4, there is a large addition to the third prayer of the amidah, visualizing a state of being where God has become king.
In the first paragraph, “and now,” uvchen in the Hebrew, we envision all of humanity uniting to fulfill the divine will, no longer serving the idols of power, greed, corruption, and violence. Not that everyone has to be the same religion, but that all religions actually take seriously the divine imperative at their core, to love their fellow human being, to care for the earth.
In the second paragraph, we visualize what this will mean for our people, who have continually been pushed around the world and threatened by massive, violent regimes. Iran is, sadly, not new; we have been threatened before and we have survived, and we will outlive Ahmedenijad. But we imagine a day when we can live in peace as a nation, we imagine what Israel would look like, the joyful partying of Jerusalem at peace. Can you imagine the party when we finally make peace with the Palestinians? We need to be able to imagine this, to believe it can become a reality. Maybe when we are davenning this we can add our own details, paint a picture in our minds of what it will look like.
In the third paragraph, we imagine evil vanishing from history and from the human soul. The roots of evil are buried in the human soul from birth, in what Freud called the death instinct and Judaism called the yetzer hara, the drive to destroy, to hate, to harm. We imagine a day when this is eradicated from our souls, from our neighbor’s souls, from all of humanity. This really can happen. We need to make this happen.
Why all the imagination, all the visualization? Is it just a fantasy? Yes, but fantasy is a powerful tool. It gives us a sense where we are going, and helps us believe we can get there. It helps free us from the tyranny of reality, of thinking this is just how things are.
We also envision what it would mean for God to be king in our own lives. The next paragraph says “you alone will rule over all your works.” What would it look like if I made all my decisions by what God really wants? What would I eat? How would I spend my time? How much time would I spend exercising, studying, helping others? Who would I spend my time with? How much time and attention would I give to my spouse, my children, my friends? How would I treat them? Where would I shop, what products would I buy?
The shofar blasts are part of the coronation, too. Every festival has a mitzvah unique to it, and the mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is hearing the shofar. The shofar is used both to signify military victory, and coronation. It is a profound expression of the divine victory over the forces of evil:
In Psalm 47, for example, God is depicted as ascending up the temple mount to be enthroned as king of all the earth. " God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet [shofar]" (Ps 47:5).
The sound of the shofar also is symbolic of the messianic era: "And in that day a great trumpet [shofar] will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out of the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem" (Is 27:13).
Zechariah also writes that "Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow go forth like lightening; the Lord God will sound the shofar, and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south" (Zech 9:14).
To make God king, in Hebrew mamlichim, means
to declare god king, as in saying the kedusha on p. 134,
but more importantly:
to envision a world transformed into the kingdom of God,
and to make God king at least over the few square feet of the world I control, over my life, over my interactions.
Judaism does not claim that everything every human being does is ordained by God. God gives humans free choice, and some people make bad or even evil decisions which hurt other people. Perhaps God mourns with us, suffers with us, grieves with us at the state of the world. And perhaps God also dreams with us, fantasizes with us, shares in our hoping and yearning for the kind of world this could be, for the kind of lives each of us could live.
May we all dream with God, and do a little bit to make that dream come true.
Shanah Tovah,
Have a wonderful new year
RH1: Be the change you want to see
It has been an intense transition to Brooklyn, and a good one. One of the assets I appreciate most about this neighborhood is prospect park, where I love to go biking, running, and walking. When I first started to run in the park, I noticed that although there were scores of people around, they generally kept to themselves. I am used to a neighborhood in Philadelphia where everyone says hi, but here they didn’t.
I was reminded of the saying in pirkey Avot, which mr Keisler repeats often, that we should always be the first to say hello to everyone we run across, havey makdim shalom lechol adam. So I started to say Hi. It was frustrating. People don’t even glance, make eye contact, to be able to say hi, and it feels really weird to say hi to someone who’s not looking at you.
It is very hard in a place with people who don’t even give you a glance, who walk around with a wall of separation, to be the first to break down the wall. Some of you may know about Mr. Keisler’s father that he was so friendly with everyone, that there were even nuns crying at his funeral. It takes a truly dedicated person to do this. As I have tried, I have wavered, and can only get myself to say hello when people actually look my way.
How can you be the only one to say hello? How can you be friendly, around people who are keeping to themselves?
Pirkey Avot says bemakom she-ein ish, sham teheh ish. In a place where there is no human, nobody acting in a menshlich manner, there you should act menschlich. When you are surrounded by inhumanity, act humane. When you are surrounded by coldness, act warm. Even if you would be the only person acting honestly, act honestly. In a world that does not reflect the values you believe in, at least your life can testify to those values.
being the change you believe in
There can be a great cost to going against the trends, for doing the right thing when nobody else is.
This summer, Lance Armstrong announced that he is not fighting the charges of doping. In effect, he is admitting taking steroids during his years as a champion biker. Lance had a stupendous, superhuman career, winning the Tour deFrance 7 times. His resting heart rate is 30 beats per minute, about half of a normal human. His accomplishments not only seemed superhuman, in fact they were superhuman, dependent on the performance enhancing steroids that his coach gave him.
The problem is, that in competitive sports, if everyone is doing it, you can’t win if you don’t cheat. If you are competing against other bikers who are using steroids, you can’t win without using them yourself. In a game where everyone is cheating, you need to cheat to survive.
In a recent article in Scientific American, the bioethicist Michael Shermer gave this argument a scientific shape, pointing out that moral choices such as using steroids are perceived as economic decisions, and the stakes are too high for any rational person not to cheat. Players are stuck in what game theory calls a Nash Equilibrium, where everyone’s better off if everyone changes, but nobody wants to be the first to change, because whoever changes first loses out. The lone biker to go clean loses the Tour deFrance; people only stop cheating when it no longer pays to cheat.
This same type of dilemma applies on the global scale. Think about the impasse over global warming, and America dragging its feet on the Kyoto protocol. Everyone knows that emissions needs to be capped, and that the world will suffer if we don’t cap emissions. Nobody wants to be the first country to cap their emissions, which will hinder their own economic growth without significantly affecting the climate. And America doesn’t want to cap their emissions without China also capping emissions. Under the Kyoto protocol, China gets a free pass, benefitting by being able to produce goods cheaper. America doesn’t want to be a sucker, capping her own emissions and paying the cost for being the only one to be responsible. So we stalemate, nobody caps emissions, and everybody loses.
Pirkey Avot says Bemakom She ein Ish, sham tihyeh Ish. In a place where there are no humans, there be a human. In a place where nobody is doing the right thing, go against the crowd and do the right thing. Similarly, Exodus 23:2 says don't follow the multitude to do evil.
In other words, I have to make correct moral choices, regardless of whether those around me are doing the right thing, and whether I become the sucker because of it. If I find myself in a context where I will lose out by standing out, I need to follow my values, and do the right thing regardless of the cost.
When I worked as a chaplain at a psychiatric hospital, I often encountered patients who described their path to alcohol or drugs. Invariably, they got caught up with the wrong crowd, hung out with the wrong element that brought them to abusing drugs, and then to worse things. They were never the bad crowd that brought others to irresponsible living. Nobody was. Everybody was a good individual who got caught up with a bad element.
Every crowd is made of individuals. So the principle is, never blame the crowd. The bad crowd is never an excuse—all of them are trying to use the same excuse themselves! Make moral choices independently of the crowd. If everybody did this, there would be no bad crowd. Eduyot 5:6 says better to be called a fool all your life than to be wicked for a moment. Better to be the uncool, to lose out, to be a dupe, than to follow the crowd to do wrong.
Mahatma Ghandi’s grandson quoted him as saying “be the change you want to see in the world.” The first part of the world I can think about changing, and ultimately the only part I can directly impact, is my own life. Addressing problems in the rest of the world seems overwhelming, and most of us never have a chance to significantly impact the major issues we care about, and hear about every day. Not that we should stop there. We should think about how to transform the world. But transforming our own life is the first place to start.
This approach makes it much easier to address some of the huge issues we see in the news, which concern all of us on a daily basis. I mentioned global warming, and the stalemate over the Kyoto protocol. It is one of the great tragedies of the modern era that we are destroying the ice caps and are pushing polar bears to extinction, that the legendary Northwest passage is no longer a legend. The destruction is so massive it can be overwhelming to think about.
I can’t save the polar bears. But I can walk, bike, and take the subway. I can purchase a fuel efficient car. I can be careful about my electricity usage. I can purchase my energy from renewable sources. It’s small, it may not significantly impact the environment, and at times it might be inconvenient, but at least it’s doing something. Recycling, and using products with less packaging, bringing my own bags to the supermarket. Whether or not it helps even a little bit, it’s better to do the right thing.
May God give us the courage to go out on limbs,
to be trailblazers in pursuing what is right,
to bring humanity to places and situations where it is absent.
Shanah Tova Umetukah,
May each of you have a sweet and wonderful new year,
I wanted to take this moment to point your attention to the program flyer. I mentioned a number of social issues today, and I believe deeply that we have an obligation as Jews to be concerned with these issues. In order to think about these issues as a community, we will be having a monthly movie series on Wednesday nights, primarily focused on contemporary social topics, and I want to invite and encourage everyone to attend.
The first movie, “Food, Inc,” will be this Wednesday, and we will have a brief discussion afterwards. We will also be using the Torah Breakfast Club, our Sunday morning adult education series, as an opportunity to study the Jewish sources on these topics. The first Torah breakfast club this month will be about kashrut and ecological and animal rights issues, and will take place this weekend.
Another way that we as Jews maintain social conscience is by making tzedakah a regular practice, especially on the holidays. Although it’s never been done here, it is traditional to bring in tzedakah on the way in to kol nidre, and leave it in the pushke on the way in (because of course you can’t carry money on yontiff). In that vein, we will be collecting checks on the way in to kol nidre for masbia, a local soup kitchen that regularly serves hunderds of hungry new Yorkers. Please being your checks for whatever amount feels comfortable to you.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Is metzitzah bapeh prohibited by Jewish law?
There has been a lot of controversy recently about the procedure of metzitzah bepeh, sucking away the blood orally after a circumcision, which some mohelim do instead of the alternative, using a pipette. The Department of Health has come out against the procedure, and in New York there has been a push to require informed consent for the procedure.
This has been heated by reports of the death of a baby in Brooklyn from herpes, who may have received it from a mohel. According to report in the orthodox newspaper Yated, which interviewed mother, the mother believes that her baby got herpes from another child through a pacifier which he had licked before giving it to the baby
The ultraorthodox community here has been up in arms against the proposal, seeing it as one step toward banning circumcision.
In fact, there have been health concerns for hundreds of years, and massive amounts of discussion on the issue. For centuries, there have been Rabbinic authorities who see metzitzah as optional or even forbidden.
Ramban (14th c) notes in the Yad Halevy, his commentary to Rambam’s book of Mitzvot, that in his time, doctors were against it. Already by his time as he puts it massive quantities of ink had been spilled over this issue. He says that it is not part of the mitzvah and certainly can be done with an instrument. Moshe Schreiber / Hatam Sofer (19c Europe) says it is not even a custom.
Avraham Borenstein/ Avnei Nezer (19c Europe): says it was only done because of safety concerns, not because it is part of the mitzvah. Milah consists of making the cut and uncovering, which together fulfill the double commandment of “hamol yimol,” you shall surely circumsize. The midrash says that the two words in that verse refer to cutting and uncovering, but no midrash says that metzitzah is implied by that verse, or by any other verse from the Torah.
On the other side of the controversy, Haim Hizkiyahu Medini /Sde hemed (19c Israel) argued that it is halacha lemoshe misinai—a law handed down to Moses at Sinai that needs no written source. That’s a pretty hard argument to disprove! Moshe Sternbuch, the current chief haredi rabbi in Israel, also came out strongly in favor of metzitzah as a required part of circumcision.
The roots of the controversy are in a passage in the Talmud, which I want to share with you.
BT Shabbat 133a-b
MISHNAH: WE PERFORM ALL THE NECESSITIES OF CIRCUMCISION ON THE SABBATH. WE CIRCUMCISE, UNCOVER, SUCK [Motzetz], AND PLACE A COMPRESS AND CUMMIN UPON IT. IF ONE DID NOT CRUSH [THE CUMMIN] ON THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, HE MUST CHEW [IT] WITH HIS TEETH AND APPLY [IT TO THE WOUND]; IF HE DID NOT BEAT UP WINE AND OIL ON THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, EACH MUST BE APPLIED SEPARATELY. WE MAY NOT MAKE A BANDAGE FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, BUT MUST WRAP A RAG ABOUT IT. IF THIS WAS NOT PREPARED FROM THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, ONE WINDS IT ABOUT HIS FINGER AND BRINGS IT, AND EVEN THROUGH ANOTHER COURTYARD…
WE SUCK OUT, etc. R. Papa said: If a surgeon does not suck, it is dangerous and he is dismissed.
Isn’t it obvious: since we desecrate the Sabbath for it, it is dangerous?
You might say that this blood is stored up. Therefore he informs us that the blood makes a wound, and it is like a bandage and cumin: just as when one does not apply a bandage and cumin there is danger, so here too if one does not do it there is danger.
Rashi:
“suck” the blood, even though it makes a wound because the blood does not separate from the wound except through metzitzah
“you might say” our mishnah doesn’t teach us that it rises to [the level of] violating Shabbat, because the blood is stored and stands there as if in a vessel, and with metzitzah there is no wound or Torah prohibition, and there is no Torah prohibition [i.e. against metzitzah on Shabbat in general], and [you would think that] that is why it is permitted and not because of danger, [so] a surgeon does who not suck on the weekday, it is not dangerous and we do not dismiss him.
“therefore he informs us that the blood makes a wound”-when it comes out via metzitzah. Nevertheless it is permitted because of danger, since it teaches in the mishnah about a bandage and cumin.
The context of this discussion is a longer discussion of situations in which one breaks the normal rules of Shabbat. An earlier mishnah discussed taking care of a woman during childbirth, which overrides Shabbat because of danger. The Mishnah then discusses circumcision, which overrides Shabbat because of the Torah commandment to circumcise on the 8th day. This passage from the Mishnah is a bit of a hybrid: cutting and uncovering are permitted because circumcision overrides Shabbat, while the other are permitted apparently out of health concerns.
Now for the discussion in the Gemara. A little Talmud 101: the logical game here is a hava amina—what you might have thought, and then what someone came to tell us. According to Rashi, you might have thought that the blood that is sucked away was as if it was stored. Taking a liquid from storage is permissible on Shabbat, so sucking blood, circumcision or not, is permissible. This is why it’s permitted to do it—not because it’s a mitzvah that pushes Shabbat aside, as is the case with circumcision, but because drawing the blood is permissible in the first place.
The next passage is talmud lomar, what we learn. We learn from Rav Papa that drawing blood is considered making a wound, and it is permitted at a circumcision on Shabbat because of safety, just as we are permitted to tend to a woman giving birth. The reason given is safety, not that it is part of the mitzvah and it takes precedence over Shabbat. If the Gemara thought it was a mandatory part of the mitzvah, the discussion would have been very different—it would have needed to justify breaking Shabbat, and found a prooftext for metzitzah.
The reason given in all sources is that it is an issue of safety, not that it is part of the mitzvah. What is the danger? According to an interesting article by Shlomo Sprecher, it is because the rabbis believed that blood causes decay. It is based on a Greek medical model which knew only of bodily fluids but not about pathogens, and which was thankfully overturned by modern medicine.
So in such a case, do we rely on the Talmudic assessment of what is safe or not, or on today’s doctors? I would argue, as do most posekim outside of the haredi world, that we should utilize the most up to date medical advice available, just like the rabbis of the Talmud did. Safety is a halachically relevant consideration, and we need to utilize the best information possible. If doctors say that it is unsafe, then metzitzah is actually prohbited by halachah.
And I’m not making that up—this is what Ramban said, 800 years ago. Here are his words: “If all the doctors of our day agreed that there is a safety concern in metzitzah in these days, then without doubt we would be obliged not only to cancel it, but also to forbid it [even on a weekday] out of concern for saving a life, and all the more on Shabbat…and the one who sucks is violating the Torah…
But the truth is that not all the doctors agree that with metzitzah in these days there is a concern for safety. Today there are also many doctors who say that metzitzah is helpful…It is known that with saving a life we don’t require a majority of opinions. If two say something is dangerous, and even a hundred or a thousand say it is safe, we listen to the two people because of saving a life (pikuah nefashot). And in the matter before us we don’t know how to rule, because whichever way we turn there are safety concerns. Many say that metzitzah is dangerous, but it is not a few who say that if we don’t do metzitzah the infant is endangered.
We only apply the principle of “not requiring a majority of opinions on a matter of saving a life” when the danger lies on one path. For example, on Yom Kippur, if two say that if he fasts he puts himself in danger, and a hundred say there is no danger to fasting, but everyone agrees thatif he eats there is no danger, then we say that on matters of saving a life we do not require a majority of opinions, and we feed him.”
So Ramban had a dilemma. You listen to safety concerns even voiced by a minority of doctors. In fact, safety concerns have the force of halacha: it is forbidden to put your life, or anybody else’s, in danger. But if some doctors say it’s unsafe to do it, and some say it’s unsafe not to do it, what do you do? So in the end he basically throws his hands up in the air and says: let them be, and God help them.
Today, however, no doctors say it is dangerous not to do it. So if only to doctors said that metzitzah is a health risk, and a thousand said it is fine, we are halachically obligated to listen to the two and play it safe. According to this logic, metzitzah with a pipette is merely unnecessary, and any mohel who does metzitzah by mouth is violating the Torah.
Moshe Sternbuch, the current chief haredi rabbi in Israel, wrote something very disturbing on the issue. He was asked: Can a Mohel refuse to do Metzitza BePeh –orally, as opposed to using a pipette- if he is scared that the child is sick with AIDS? He answered, in Teshuvos Vehanhagos, that as there have not been many cases of Mohelim getting sick from babies, one must rely on Shomer Mitzva lo Yodeya Davar Ra—one who is observing a mitzvah will know no ill. He argued that if one must suspect such risks as life threatening, then one would not be allowed to do a bris, ever. However, he says that if a mohel refuses to do metzitza bepeh due to fear of AIDS, the mohel is not called a sinner, but one should try to find a different mohel who will.
Rabbi Sternbuch’s approach of relying on divine protection is shocking. We do not rely on divine protection, even when doing a mitzvah. The Talmud discusses a boy who died when obeying his father’s order to send away a mother bird. He should have lived—he was fulfilling two mitzvot both of which promise long life! The Talmud says, he used a rickety ladder. We don’t rely on divine protection—we need to rely on common sense.
The deeper point here is also that Halacha needs to integrate medical knowledge, not compete with it. If doctors tell us we shouldn’t do metzitzah, then we shouldn’t. If medical information contradicts the Talmud, we should realize that the Rabbis were fallable, and doing their best to apply Torah values in their age, just as we need to do today. The Rabbis tried to learn from the best doctors and astronomers, integrating the most up to date scientific knowledge available. But they got some things wrong, because people didn’t really understand biology back then. Science has advanced tremendously over the last two millennia, and those advances need to be integrated into halacha and into our understanding of Torah, in order to create a vibrant and living Judaism.
Shabbat Shalom.
This has been heated by reports of the death of a baby in Brooklyn from herpes, who may have received it from a mohel. According to report in the orthodox newspaper Yated, which interviewed mother, the mother believes that her baby got herpes from another child through a pacifier which he had licked before giving it to the baby
The ultraorthodox community here has been up in arms against the proposal, seeing it as one step toward banning circumcision.
In fact, there have been health concerns for hundreds of years, and massive amounts of discussion on the issue. For centuries, there have been Rabbinic authorities who see metzitzah as optional or even forbidden.
Ramban (14th c) notes in the Yad Halevy, his commentary to Rambam’s book of Mitzvot, that in his time, doctors were against it. Already by his time as he puts it massive quantities of ink had been spilled over this issue. He says that it is not part of the mitzvah and certainly can be done with an instrument. Moshe Schreiber / Hatam Sofer (19c Europe) says it is not even a custom.
Avraham Borenstein/ Avnei Nezer (19c Europe): says it was only done because of safety concerns, not because it is part of the mitzvah. Milah consists of making the cut and uncovering, which together fulfill the double commandment of “hamol yimol,” you shall surely circumsize. The midrash says that the two words in that verse refer to cutting and uncovering, but no midrash says that metzitzah is implied by that verse, or by any other verse from the Torah.
On the other side of the controversy, Haim Hizkiyahu Medini /Sde hemed (19c Israel) argued that it is halacha lemoshe misinai—a law handed down to Moses at Sinai that needs no written source. That’s a pretty hard argument to disprove! Moshe Sternbuch, the current chief haredi rabbi in Israel, also came out strongly in favor of metzitzah as a required part of circumcision.
The roots of the controversy are in a passage in the Talmud, which I want to share with you.
BT Shabbat 133a-b
MISHNAH: WE PERFORM ALL THE NECESSITIES OF CIRCUMCISION ON THE SABBATH. WE CIRCUMCISE, UNCOVER, SUCK [Motzetz], AND PLACE A COMPRESS AND CUMMIN UPON IT. IF ONE DID NOT CRUSH [THE CUMMIN] ON THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, HE MUST CHEW [IT] WITH HIS TEETH AND APPLY [IT TO THE WOUND]; IF HE DID NOT BEAT UP WINE AND OIL ON THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, EACH MUST BE APPLIED SEPARATELY. WE MAY NOT MAKE A BANDAGE FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, BUT MUST WRAP A RAG ABOUT IT. IF THIS WAS NOT PREPARED FROM THE EVE OF THE SABBATH, ONE WINDS IT ABOUT HIS FINGER AND BRINGS IT, AND EVEN THROUGH ANOTHER COURTYARD…
WE SUCK OUT, etc. R. Papa said: If a surgeon does not suck, it is dangerous and he is dismissed.
Isn’t it obvious: since we desecrate the Sabbath for it, it is dangerous?
You might say that this blood is stored up. Therefore he informs us that the blood makes a wound, and it is like a bandage and cumin: just as when one does not apply a bandage and cumin there is danger, so here too if one does not do it there is danger.
Rashi:
“suck” the blood, even though it makes a wound because the blood does not separate from the wound except through metzitzah
“you might say” our mishnah doesn’t teach us that it rises to [the level of] violating Shabbat, because the blood is stored and stands there as if in a vessel, and with metzitzah there is no wound or Torah prohibition, and there is no Torah prohibition [i.e. against metzitzah on Shabbat in general], and [you would think that] that is why it is permitted and not because of danger, [so] a surgeon does who not suck on the weekday, it is not dangerous and we do not dismiss him.
“therefore he informs us that the blood makes a wound”-when it comes out via metzitzah. Nevertheless it is permitted because of danger, since it teaches in the mishnah about a bandage and cumin.
The context of this discussion is a longer discussion of situations in which one breaks the normal rules of Shabbat. An earlier mishnah discussed taking care of a woman during childbirth, which overrides Shabbat because of danger. The Mishnah then discusses circumcision, which overrides Shabbat because of the Torah commandment to circumcise on the 8th day. This passage from the Mishnah is a bit of a hybrid: cutting and uncovering are permitted because circumcision overrides Shabbat, while the other are permitted apparently out of health concerns.
Now for the discussion in the Gemara. A little Talmud 101: the logical game here is a hava amina—what you might have thought, and then what someone came to tell us. According to Rashi, you might have thought that the blood that is sucked away was as if it was stored. Taking a liquid from storage is permissible on Shabbat, so sucking blood, circumcision or not, is permissible. This is why it’s permitted to do it—not because it’s a mitzvah that pushes Shabbat aside, as is the case with circumcision, but because drawing the blood is permissible in the first place.
The next passage is talmud lomar, what we learn. We learn from Rav Papa that drawing blood is considered making a wound, and it is permitted at a circumcision on Shabbat because of safety, just as we are permitted to tend to a woman giving birth. The reason given is safety, not that it is part of the mitzvah and it takes precedence over Shabbat. If the Gemara thought it was a mandatory part of the mitzvah, the discussion would have been very different—it would have needed to justify breaking Shabbat, and found a prooftext for metzitzah.
The reason given in all sources is that it is an issue of safety, not that it is part of the mitzvah. What is the danger? According to an interesting article by Shlomo Sprecher, it is because the rabbis believed that blood causes decay. It is based on a Greek medical model which knew only of bodily fluids but not about pathogens, and which was thankfully overturned by modern medicine.
So in such a case, do we rely on the Talmudic assessment of what is safe or not, or on today’s doctors? I would argue, as do most posekim outside of the haredi world, that we should utilize the most up to date medical advice available, just like the rabbis of the Talmud did. Safety is a halachically relevant consideration, and we need to utilize the best information possible. If doctors say that it is unsafe, then metzitzah is actually prohbited by halachah.
And I’m not making that up—this is what Ramban said, 800 years ago. Here are his words: “If all the doctors of our day agreed that there is a safety concern in metzitzah in these days, then without doubt we would be obliged not only to cancel it, but also to forbid it [even on a weekday] out of concern for saving a life, and all the more on Shabbat…and the one who sucks is violating the Torah…
But the truth is that not all the doctors agree that with metzitzah in these days there is a concern for safety. Today there are also many doctors who say that metzitzah is helpful…It is known that with saving a life we don’t require a majority of opinions. If two say something is dangerous, and even a hundred or a thousand say it is safe, we listen to the two people because of saving a life (pikuah nefashot). And in the matter before us we don’t know how to rule, because whichever way we turn there are safety concerns. Many say that metzitzah is dangerous, but it is not a few who say that if we don’t do metzitzah the infant is endangered.
We only apply the principle of “not requiring a majority of opinions on a matter of saving a life” when the danger lies on one path. For example, on Yom Kippur, if two say that if he fasts he puts himself in danger, and a hundred say there is no danger to fasting, but everyone agrees thatif he eats there is no danger, then we say that on matters of saving a life we do not require a majority of opinions, and we feed him.”
So Ramban had a dilemma. You listen to safety concerns even voiced by a minority of doctors. In fact, safety concerns have the force of halacha: it is forbidden to put your life, or anybody else’s, in danger. But if some doctors say it’s unsafe to do it, and some say it’s unsafe not to do it, what do you do? So in the end he basically throws his hands up in the air and says: let them be, and God help them.
Today, however, no doctors say it is dangerous not to do it. So if only to doctors said that metzitzah is a health risk, and a thousand said it is fine, we are halachically obligated to listen to the two and play it safe. According to this logic, metzitzah with a pipette is merely unnecessary, and any mohel who does metzitzah by mouth is violating the Torah.
Moshe Sternbuch, the current chief haredi rabbi in Israel, wrote something very disturbing on the issue. He was asked: Can a Mohel refuse to do Metzitza BePeh –orally, as opposed to using a pipette- if he is scared that the child is sick with AIDS? He answered, in Teshuvos Vehanhagos, that as there have not been many cases of Mohelim getting sick from babies, one must rely on Shomer Mitzva lo Yodeya Davar Ra—one who is observing a mitzvah will know no ill. He argued that if one must suspect such risks as life threatening, then one would not be allowed to do a bris, ever. However, he says that if a mohel refuses to do metzitza bepeh due to fear of AIDS, the mohel is not called a sinner, but one should try to find a different mohel who will.
Rabbi Sternbuch’s approach of relying on divine protection is shocking. We do not rely on divine protection, even when doing a mitzvah. The Talmud discusses a boy who died when obeying his father’s order to send away a mother bird. He should have lived—he was fulfilling two mitzvot both of which promise long life! The Talmud says, he used a rickety ladder. We don’t rely on divine protection—we need to rely on common sense.
The deeper point here is also that Halacha needs to integrate medical knowledge, not compete with it. If doctors tell us we shouldn’t do metzitzah, then we shouldn’t. If medical information contradicts the Talmud, we should realize that the Rabbis were fallable, and doing their best to apply Torah values in their age, just as we need to do today. The Rabbis tried to learn from the best doctors and astronomers, integrating the most up to date scientific knowledge available. But they got some things wrong, because people didn’t really understand biology back then. Science has advanced tremendously over the last two millennia, and those advances need to be integrated into halacha and into our understanding of Torah, in order to create a vibrant and living Judaism.
Shabbat Shalom.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Israel: Security through violence?
We are reading Parsha Vayavo this shabbes, “when you arrive”, describing what happens when we reach the promised land. This culminates a long narrative in Vayeitzei of the wars we will fight to arrive there, a very violent narrative which is hard to read as a Jew.
In the blessings and curses, there is a promise that the power balance between Jews and non-Jews will be shifted, but it seems troubling that there still is a power dynamic, that it seems to envision a messianic era in which Jews are powerful and others are not, when there is still an underdog and a victor. Verse 28:10 promises that other nations will be scared of us, instead of us being terrified of them.
Do we really dream of a world where other nations live in fear of us, just as we have been in fear of our enemies?
Today’s haftorah gives a more pacifist approach: violence will no longer be heard of in the land. Similarly, in the prophets we read that a day will come when swords will be beaten into ploughshares. We dream of a day not when we will be stronger than our enemies, but when violence will not be necessary at all. We dream of a day not when Israel will have a bomb and its neighbors will be scared to develop one, but when the Arab nations will respect Israel and let her live in peace.
Notice, however, that in verse 28:10, it does not say other nations will fear us because we will have weapons, but rather because the name of God will be on us. Similarly, in verse 27:6, the Torah states that iron was not to be sounded in the Temple. The rocks were not cut with metal blades because weapons are so antithetical to Jewish spirituality. The power dynamic will be reversed not with force, but by following God’s ways, by doing that which is right and just.
What does it mean that the other nations will fear us? Fear in Hebrew can also be awe, or respect. The Zohar says that if we fear God’s punishment, we are actually focusing our spiritual energies on the agent of his punishment, Satan, and thus actually engaging in Satanic worship. It really says this, right in the introduction. Yir’ah means awe, awareness of God’s wonderfulness.
We are trying to create a day when other nations respect us because they respect the holiness apparent in our actions. A day when everyone knows how well the Jews behave, how generous and honest and upright they are, that nobody would never dream of mistreating us. This is what it means to have the name of God on us: to have the image of God, which is lovingkindness, apparent in our actions.
The story is told that Reb Shlomo once was surrounded by a group of homeless men in Harlem that were intent on robbing him. One of the men, though, recognized him: he always had given him tzedakah, wished him well, treated him like a brother. This is yir’ah: seeing the divine reflected in somebody’s actions, and respecting them.
We dream not of a day when the other nations will fear us, but when they will respect us because of what we do. It is not Israel’s army that will bring security, but organizations like the Magen David Adom, which is consistently the first organization to respond to catastrophes such as the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti.
In the blessings and curses, there is a promise that the power balance between Jews and non-Jews will be shifted, but it seems troubling that there still is a power dynamic, that it seems to envision a messianic era in which Jews are powerful and others are not, when there is still an underdog and a victor. Verse 28:10 promises that other nations will be scared of us, instead of us being terrified of them.
Do we really dream of a world where other nations live in fear of us, just as we have been in fear of our enemies?
Today’s haftorah gives a more pacifist approach: violence will no longer be heard of in the land. Similarly, in the prophets we read that a day will come when swords will be beaten into ploughshares. We dream of a day not when we will be stronger than our enemies, but when violence will not be necessary at all. We dream of a day not when Israel will have a bomb and its neighbors will be scared to develop one, but when the Arab nations will respect Israel and let her live in peace.
Notice, however, that in verse 28:10, it does not say other nations will fear us because we will have weapons, but rather because the name of God will be on us. Similarly, in verse 27:6, the Torah states that iron was not to be sounded in the Temple. The rocks were not cut with metal blades because weapons are so antithetical to Jewish spirituality. The power dynamic will be reversed not with force, but by following God’s ways, by doing that which is right and just.
What does it mean that the other nations will fear us? Fear in Hebrew can also be awe, or respect. The Zohar says that if we fear God’s punishment, we are actually focusing our spiritual energies on the agent of his punishment, Satan, and thus actually engaging in Satanic worship. It really says this, right in the introduction. Yir’ah means awe, awareness of God’s wonderfulness.
We are trying to create a day when other nations respect us because they respect the holiness apparent in our actions. A day when everyone knows how well the Jews behave, how generous and honest and upright they are, that nobody would never dream of mistreating us. This is what it means to have the name of God on us: to have the image of God, which is lovingkindness, apparent in our actions.
The story is told that Reb Shlomo once was surrounded by a group of homeless men in Harlem that were intent on robbing him. One of the men, though, recognized him: he always had given him tzedakah, wished him well, treated him like a brother. This is yir’ah: seeing the divine reflected in somebody’s actions, and respecting them.
We dream not of a day when the other nations will fear us, but when they will respect us because of what we do. It is not Israel’s army that will bring security, but organizations like the Magen David Adom, which is consistently the first organization to respond to catastrophes such as the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti.
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