Showing posts with label Torah. Show all posts

In general, I am pretty thankful to G-d for having been born a girl. But there is one day a year that for some reason I always become intensely jealous of my male counterparts and wish I could switch places with them just for once. And that day is Simchat Torah.

In this day and age, women have many opportunities that were not available to them before. Perhaps these opportunities are not as complete or varied as the ones men receive, but it is nevertheless an improvement on the situation we had a century or two ago. One example that comes to mind (and it is an important one) is education, and if we are talking about it from a Jewish religious perspective, I can go even further by mentioning study of the Talmud. For a long time, Talmud study belonged solely to men. Boys would grow up immersed in it, while the most girls might get is hearing parts of it from their fathers and brothers at home. Even now, most Orthodox girls are not exposed to Gemara in a school setting, unless they attend a more 'modern' school. But at least those girls who truly want to learn it have the opportunity. They can choose to attend schools where such classes are being offered -- and it is not difficult to find such a school. Now that I'm Stern, I'm taking an Intro to Talmud class. There are plenty of further classes in Gemara, and Stern also has chavruta programs and night seder, so that any girl who is interested in it can learn. Of course, it is nearly impossible to catch up on all the material they could have covered if they had been learning it from childhood like boys do, but I suppose you can't have everything.

Another thing I experienced in Stern for the first time was an all-girls Kabbalat Shabbat, the welcoming of the Shabbat on Friday evening. It was so perfectly beautiful and spiritual -- the singing, the dancing. I had never seen anything like it before. There were no men so we were able to sing the Kabbalat Shabbat and be involved in ushering in the holy day.

Even the night of learning that is customary for men on Shavuot is now an option for girls too. Last Shavuot, I went with my friend to a lecture program organized by Ohr Naava for girls on Shavuot night. It was the most exhilirating feeling, being able to learn and be involved instead of just going to sleep like on any ordinary night. We returned home in the very early hours of the morning, satisfied and happy. There should be more programs and opportunities like that for girls, and I am looking forward to next Shavuot to see what it brings. Lectures, groups, perhaps private chavruta learning.

And that brings me to something I have not yet seen -- a Simchat Torah celebration where girls can do more than just look at the men dancing with the Torah scrolls. I don't mean an event where men and women mix and celebrate together, for I'm sure I can find that in non-Orthodox circles. I'm talking about an Orthodox environment that is in the spirit of the Torah and the holiness of the holiday, but where women can be active participants in the joy instead of merely sitting and passively watching the proceedings. Look at weddings -- there is celebration on both sides of the mechitza. Why can we not have a similar arrangement for holidays such as Simchat Torah? Are there places that do this perhaps and I am just not aware of it?

I always watch the dancing in shul on Simchat Torah and every year it makes me wish that just for one day I could be one of the guys and be on the other side of the barrier, dancing. That is why it always frustrates me when I see men who are somewhat lackluster in their 'simcha,' who -- instead of dancing with joy and looking like they mean it -- shuffle along as though they are fulfilling an obligation and just following the tide. I suppose that it is easy to take something like dancing on Simchat Torah for granted when you do the same thing year after year, but from my side of the shul, it's upsetting. It makes me happy though when I see men being enthusiastic about it and singing loudly and putting all their energy into the dancing as they dance before the Torah or hold it tightly themselves.

So I am thankful for Gemara, I am thankful for Kabbalat Shabbat, I am thankful for Shavuot. L'shana haba Simchat Torah?

As we know, G-d takes care of the poor and gives us commandments to help out those who are in need -- widows, orphans, converts, the poverty-stricken, and so on. We are obligated to help out anyone who is at a disadvantage or might be oppressed by others. In Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:9), it says the following:

ובקצרכם את קציר ארצכם לא תכלה פאת שדך לקצר ולקט קצירך לא תלקט

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not fully reap the corner of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.

If you look closely at the Hebrew text (as this is not apparent in the English translation), you see that it starts off by addressing the people using the plural form -- ובקצרכם -- and then as the verse continues, it suddenly switches off to the singular form when it says לא תכלה. But if the entire verse is addressed to the same audience, why does it at first address them in plural and then in singular?

Kli Yakar interprets the commandment as follows. Even at a time of gathering, when many people are gathering their crops, you should not think that the poor person can support himself through the field of other people and therefore you do not have to leave off a corner of your own field. The obligation is put on every individual and he cannot exempt himself because of others. So even though everyone is leaving off a corner for the poor and it might seem like this farmer's little corner does not matter, the Torah is saying that it does matter, because every single individual person is obligated to do this.

You see this a lot in life. When people need help -- people who are not really close to us, or are even total strangers -- we tend to think that someone else will come along and help them. We don't want to take responsibility for those people. After all, who are they to us that we should help them? We assume that somebody else will come to their assistance. We pretend we don’t see. We act as if it’s not our problem. We think, “There are hundreds of people who know about this or see this person is in need of help – one of them will help. My help doesn’t matter.”

And of course, you know what happens in situations like these. Chances are that nobody ends up helping because everyone thinks someone else will. But that someone else also doesn’t want to take responsibility for something that does not personally affect him or his close group of friends and family. I mean, if you don't want to take responsibility, why should somebody else?

In psychology, this is known as the diffusion of responsibility. When the responsibility is spread over all the people involved and there are a lot of people, you assume that someone else will help and if they don't, that must mean that no help is required -- even though this is not at all the case.

Earlier this month, I had the honor of attending a lecture by Elie Wiesel. The topic of the lecture was the tragedy of the St. Louis ship and its passengers during World War II, when Jewish refugees from Germany were denied entry in Cuba, America, and Canada. These countries refused to take responsibility for them, even though they could have saved them from death. (Various European countries eventually agreed to allow a certain number of the ship's passengers in.)

Elie Wiesel spoke about the things we can learn from those events, and two of those lessons were that when help is required we should give it right away, and when victims rely on assistance, we should not think others will do it because others think we will.

Most of us know of people who need help, of things that need fixing, of the changes we could effect, but how many of us will actually stand up and do something about it, instead of waiting around for the next person? Because you never know when that next person will come or if he will come along at all. I know I would find it difficult to be that person who takes the responsibility and does what needs to be done.

But if we want to make a difference in this world, we have to stop having the "someone-else-will-do-it" mindset and start thinking more along the lines of, "I will do it. I will take the responsibility on myself."

I presented a lesson on Parshat Mishpatim today to a class of tenth graders, based on Rashi, Ramban, and Rav Hirsch. I thought I might share with my readers part of what I said about Rav Hirsch's commentary.

Most of Parshat Mishpatim focuses on halakha – it contains over 50 of the 613 mitzvot, and most of them are simply listed one after the other. They do not take up a lot of space – only one sentence, or even just a few words, and sometimes it is a bit hard to understand what exactly a mitzvah entails, because what is written here is so brief and lacks detail.

Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his introduction to Mishpatim, explains that what we read here in the Written Torah – Torah she’b’ktav – does not contain all of halakha. When you read through the verses of the Torah, you are not getting all of Jewish law – that we can only get with the help of the Oral Torah – Torah she’ba’al peh. And not only is the written Torah incomplete without the oral Torah, but Rav Hirsch even states that the primary source of halakha is in the teachings of the Oral Torah. According to him, the written Torah – the actual pesukim that we read – are not the main part of Torah. We follow halakha based on our tradition – based on the Oral Torah that was passed on through the generations, which was ultimately put into writing in the Talmud. That is where we get the Law from. And the Written Torah is used to help the memory or when there are doubts about the halakha.

We see in the Torah itself that Bnei Yisrael already got the Torah and lived by it for forty years before Moshe gave them the actual book of the Torah right before his death. So they already knew the Torah – they knew everything that was told to them at the time of Mt. Sinai, which is why all the details did not have to be actually written in the Torah.

That is why, the written Torah was not meant to be used as a primary source for halakha. It was meant to be used by those who already knew halakha well, to help renew their memories. And also, it was meant to be used as a reference by those who taught halakha to a new generation, in order to confirm the teachings of the Oral Torah, so that students would find it easier to remember in their heads the halakha because they not only heard it from their Rabbanim, but they also had it written down right in front of them.

Rav Hirsh actually gives a brilliant parable to the relationship between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. And this is something that all students can relate to. When you are a student and you sit in school for about eight hours on average every day, you have many different classes a day and different subjects. So the teacher is standing there in front of the classroom, speaking to you, giving over information and knowledge, and what do you do if you want to remember what she says so you can later get it right on the test or – better yet – use it for life? You take notes! Now, most people do not write down every single word the teacher says. (Some people don’t even write a single word the teacher says, relying instead on their friends’ notes, but that’s a separate issue.) So you listen to what the teacher is saying, and you write the general ideas. Might there be things that you are missing, especially if the teacher is going fast? Yes; definitely!

If the teacher is telling you a story in connection with the lesson, you probably won’t write the entire story down, but you might write a few key words or jot down "story about ___", and when you later look over your notes and see those few words or one sentence, you will remember the entire story. But what about a girl who is not in class that day and later copies your notes? Will she be able to know the entire story based on the few words you wrote down as a reminder to yourself? No; she won’t. It will be up to you to explain it to her.

And that, according to Rav Hirsch, is the relationship between the Oral Torah and the Written Torah. The Oral Torah is the lesson, and the Written Torah – the Chumash – are the notes taken on the lesson. So the people who were at the lesson only need some notes in order to remember the whole lesson. But for those who did not hear the lesson, those notes are not of much use. Those notes will not be able to give them as thorough an understanding of the lesson as if they had been there. And if they try to understand the whole lesson and put it together in their minds based on those brief notes, they will of course make quite a few mistakes. They won’t understand parts of it, they will think other parts are useless, and so on.
And that is why we need the Oral Torah, which is a more accurate representation of the lesson than the brief notes that are written down in the pesukim.

One of the things that people sometimes ask is, “Where does it say that in the Torah?” If they don’t want to follow a certain halakha or they want to find a way around it, they say, “Show me where it says that in this Chumash. It does not say anywhere that I can’t do these things that the Rabbis are telling me not to do! If you find me where it says I have to do that, then I’ll do it! Why should I do it if it’s not in the Torah?”

If you understand what Rav Hirsch wrote, you will understand why that is a wrong attitude. A person cannot just decide to only follow what is written straight out in the Torah, because a) the Written Torah is not the primary source of halakha, and b) the Written Torah is just like notes on a lesson; it does not contain everything. You need the oral tradition in order to know what the halakha is. Therefore, a person cannot say that because a certain halakha comes from the Oral Torah, it is any less important than something that is written straight out in the Chumash – because it is every bit as important.

It says in Shemot 24:7 (Parshat Mishpatim) the following:

ויקח ספר הברית ויקרא באזני העם ויאמרו כל אשר דבר ה' נעשה ונשמע

Moshe took the Sefer HaBrit and read it to the nation, and they said, “All that Hashem speaks, we will do and we will listen.”

When we were children, we always learned that the Jews first said that they will do and then said they will listen because they wanted to show that they were accepting the Torah unconditionally – they agreed to follow everything G-d would tell them, even before they knew what it was.

Rav Hirsch, however, explains this differently. He says that “na’ase” refers to the Written Torah, and “nishma” refers to the Oral Torah. So the Jews were agreeing to not only do what is written in the Torah, but also to follow all that G-d has told them. They accepted upon themselves to follow the oral tradition as well, so that they could serve Hashem completely – because without the Oral Torah, our avodat Hashem would be incomplete. We need it. Both parts of the Torah are important, and we need to learn from each of them.

There is usually more than one way of interpreting a person's actions or words, and depending on what you want to see or hear or believe of the person, you will understand these things in different ways.

Two people can have completely different interpretations of a single action or speech, and these understandings sometimes form a full contrast to each other. They are total opposites. The same action can be either praised or condemned, depending on how you look at it.

The Torah illustrates this point repeatedly, but I want to specifically mention two instances in Bereishit (Genesis) in which the commentaries on the Torah had opposing understandings of somebody's actions.

1. 4:13 -- ויאמר קין אל ה' גדול עוני מנשוא

After Cain's murder of his brother Abel, G-d punished him by cursing him through the ground and condemns him to a life as a wanderer, unable to settle in one place. Here, Cain asks G-d whether his iniquity is too great to bear. Or at least that is what it means according to the simple explanation of the verse -- the pshat. But according to other explanations, Cain was not asking a question. Rather, he was admitting the severity of his sin.

Rashi writes, based on Bereishit Rabbah:

בתמיה, אתה טוען עליונים ותחתונים, ועוני אי אפשר לטעון

According to Rashi, Cain was asking a question; he said that G-d is able to bear the upper and lower worlds, and yet it is impossible for Him to bear Cain's sin? If G-d is so mighty, why can He not bear a simple human's action? After all, compared to supporting the entire world, it seems almost like nothing. Cain was questioning G-d's decree and trying to get more mercy and a lighter sentence, even though G-d was kind enough to him in allowing him to continue living. So according to Rashi, Cain was claiming that his sin was not too great to bear.

Ramban, on the other hand, says something completely different. First he quotes Rashi, and then he proceeds to disagree with him by saying:

והנכון בפשט שהוא וידוי אמר אמת כי עוני גדול מלסלוח וצדיק אתה ה' וישר משפטיך

Cain was in reality saying viduy -- he was confessing his sin and admitting that his sin was too great to bear or forgive, and that G-d was the righteous one and made a fair decree. According to Ramban, Cain was also saying to G-d that he is being thrown off the face of the earth and that G-d is hiding His face from him because Cain will no longer be able to pray or bring sacrifices, but nevertheless, Cain admits that he fully deserves the punishment and that G-d acted fairly with him.

Now that is quite a difference! If you look at Rashi, you see Cain as someone who does not want to admit his guilt or repent of the crime, but who only wants G-d to be more lenient with him, while if you look at Ramban, you see a fragile human being who confesses the severity of his sin and mourns that he is being sent away from G-d's presence and will no longer be able to pray to him or bring sacrifices. He sees that he will be all alone in the world from that time, and that without G-d's protection, he is vulnerable and will inevitably be killed. Rashi and Ramban paint two completely different portraits of Cain, and that is what makes it fascinating to read and learn all the different outlooks. It seems that Judaism is very much about being able to see one thing multiple ways. That's the beauty of it.

2. 4:26 -- ולשת גם הוא ילד בן ויקרא את שמו אנוש אז הוכל לקרא בשם השם

Adam's third son, Seth, had a son named Enosh, and then it became common to call by the name of G-d.

And once again we have two commentaries whose interpretations of this verse are nothing alike. One commentary says that this refers to the beginning of idol worship, while the other commentary says that calling out G-d's name was to counteract the forces of avoda zara. But either way, it seems that idol worship began in the time of Enosh.

Rashi interprets the word "huchal" as the following:

לשון חולין. לקרא את שמות האדם ואת שמות העצבים בשמו של הקב"ה לעשותן עבודה זרה ולקרותן אלהות

It is an expression of profaneness, of cheapness -- to call people and idols with the name of the Holy One in order to make them idols and call them gods.

People cheapened G-d's name and made it mundane by using it for inanimate objects and creating gods for themselves. So the fact that it became common to call by the name of G-d refers to idol worship, according to Rashi.

Sforno also draws a connection to idol worship, but he takes this verse in a totally different direction. He writes:

אז התחילו צדיקי הדור לדרוש לרבים את שם ה' כענין ויקרא שם בשם ה' אל עולם כי הוצרכו לסתור דעות עובדי כוכבים וגלולים שהתחילו אז כדברי רז"ל

The righteous people of that generation then began to publicly call out in the name of G-d in order to counteract the forces of avoda zara that began at that time.

So the same word -- huchal -- can be used to refer to either idol worshippers or to those who fought against it, depending on how you understand the verse!

Life works the same way. Many things depend on your outlook and your understanding of them -- if you choose to see it one way, that is how it will be to you. But there is always another way to look at it that is equally correct and equally reasonable to believe.

I wanted to write about the famous often-quoted (and often misquoted) phrase in Pirkei Avot about excessive conversation with a woman, but my schedule has been very busy, so I had no choice but to wait for a better time. Right now seems like the right time though, especially since Bad4Shidduchim just wrote a post about self-deprecation and the impression it makes on a date. So, how do these two things -- self-deprecation and excessive conversation -- connect? What do they have to do with each other?

There are a few lessons written in Pirkei Avot 1:5 in the name of Yosi ben Yochanan. The one I will be focusing on is the following:

ואל תרבה שיחה עם האשה. באשתו אמרו. קל וחומר באשת חברו. מכאן אמרו חכמים כל זמן שאדם מרבה שיחה עם האשה, גורם רעה לעצמו

Yosi ben Yochanan warned not to engage in excessive conversation with a woman. This is said about a man's own wife, so even more so about another man's wife. From here, the sages say that one who talks excessively with a woman causes himself harm.

This can be interpreted a few different ways, but for our purposes, we are going to go with the Bartenura -- Rav Obadiah ben Avraham's commentary. He gives different examples of how talking excessively with a woman can cause a man harm, and his reasons are very logical. I am going to focus on his second explanation of the bad effects of sicha im ha'isha.

א"נ מתוך שהוא מספר לה שחבריו גינוהו וביישוהו אף היא מבזה אותו בלבה. וזה גורם רעה לעצמו

When he talks to his wife (and the same thing can apply to a woman he is dating) and he tells her how his friends shamed him, she will also come to scorn him in her heart.

Sicha refers to idle chatter. When it is excessive, the chances are greater that someone will make a self-deprecating comment to make the conversation more interesting or to entertain the other person.

It is important for a wife to be able to respect her husband, but if he is constantly putting himself down and, so to speak, saying lashon hara about himself, it will inevitably affect the way she perceives him and relates toward him. While open communication and honesty is obviously important in a marriage, or in any relationship, there are certain limits to everything. In this case, one must draw limits when it comes to self-deprecating remarks. Nobody is perfect, and as human beings, we are all flawed -- that is the beauty of it. We would not be as interesting if we were all perfect. But at the same time, there is no need for us to draw attention to our failings.

You might think that you are only being honest because you care about someone and want them to know "the real you," but at what price? Are you willing to risk losing respect in the eyes of your wife or the woman you are dating? Are you willing to risk the failure of your relationship if, as Bad4Shidduchim wrote, you discuss your flaws on the first or second date and that is the first impression your date has of you?

It is easy to say that we should not judge a person or respect him less because of his flaws, since all of us have our flaws, but when that person parades his faults and stamps them onto his forehead, it is difficult not to view him in that light. I know that I try not to judge people unfavorably, but when they display themselves in a negative light and tell me how lazy, useless, or unintelligent they are, I cannot help but see them that way. I might say to them, "No, don't say that; you are not as bad or as unlikable as you think or make yourself seem," but at the same time, those words become imprinted on my mind in connection with this person. It has happened more than once to me that people spoke scornfully of themselves, and I formed a negative opinion of them based on that. And I really did not mean to do that.... That is just what happened as a result of what they said. It feels so ironic though that I lost respect for some people because they spoke self-deprecatingly about themselves.

People are serious when they tell you that sometimes you are your own worst enemy.

Knowing something and having no clue as to how you know it or what the source is just might be one of the most frustrating things when you are trying to convince someone else of something.

I remember finding a little piece of information in a Chumash with English commentary once in seventh grade -- a full five years ago -- but since it was not my Chumash, I could not go back and check afterwards. I could not even remember which commentary it was, so there was no way for me to find the original source -- not that I was even interested in finding an original source in seventh grade. I just stored the little tidbit that I had learned in my mind and mentioned it to some people when the subject came up. The inevitable question was always, "How do you know?" And what could I possibly answer besides for, "Um, I'm not quite sure where that piece of information can be found, but I remember reading it in some Chumash." Without a source, people will not fully believe what you say, for which I don't blame them, because I would do the same thing.

Well, guess what!

I finally found the source after five years of wondering! So I am not crazy after all, and I did not imagine it.

For this, I owe a huge thank you to the Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez, who not only gathers all the information but also lists all his sources! I love The Torah Anthology. :]

The history of the Jews has not been an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. Persecution, forced conversions, slaughter, discrimination, ridicule -- all generations have experienced these things to some degree. But in His kindness, G-d allows the Jews a period of time during which they can rebuild and restore themselves after each tragedy. For example, Columbus set sail and discovered America at around the same time as the Spanish Expulsion. (In fact, he sailed during the very same week that the last of the Jews left Spain.) His discovery of America eventually gave the Jews another opportunity to escape the oppression in Europe.

I recently learned about the history of Spanish Jewry in school, and I decided to read The Disputation of Barcelona. It is the written account by Ramban (Nachmanides) of the debate between himself and an apostate named Pablo Christiani in the summer of 1263 in Barcelona. It was held in front of King James I of Aragonia and other Christian nobles. Debates such as these were common in mediaeval Europe, where Christians, seeking to prove the validity of their religion, forced prominent Jews to participate. The Church would then declare that the Christian had won the debate, although it was usually obvious that that was not at all the case. It was as a result of this that Ramban had to leave Spain. The Church published their own version of the debate at Barcelona, but the only surviving account of the event now is that of the Ramban (translated into English by Rabbi Dr. Charles B. Chavel). Although it is only 42 pages, it is a fascinating read, and I would recomment it to anyone (and especially to those who have doubts about the truth of Judaism). You can purchase it here, or try finding it in your local Jewish library or bookstore.

One of the things that I found very interesting was what he said about mankind's original immortality:

"Behold, the first man lived 930 years. Scripture explains that he died because of his sin and that had he not sinned, he would have lives many more [years] or [perhaps] forever. All of us, gentiles and Jews, admit that the sin and pubinshment of the first man will be voided in the era of the Messiah. If so, death will cease from all of us [ordinary mortals] after the coming of Messiah. As far as the Messiah himself is concerned, death is completely inoperative against him. Thus, it is fitting that Messiah live for thousands of years or [even] forever."

(p. 16)

So according to this, man had the potential to live even longer than a millenium, if not forever. But because the first man, Adam, sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, his life was cut short and he could no longer be immortal.

Ramban went on to explain, in answer to the king's question about the whereabouts of the Messiah:

The answer is clearly written in Scripture. The first man was placed in the Garden of Eden, which is upon the earth. When he sinned, it is stated, And the Eternal G-d sent him forth from the Garden of
Eden. If so, this one, who is free from the punishment of man, abides there in the Garden of Eden.

(p. 16)

What Ramban is saying is that since Adam's sin and punishment had no effect on the Messiah, he could both be immortal and dwell in the Garden of Eden. Adam was only expelled from it as a punishment for eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

The Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez, a commentary on the Torah by Rabbi Yaakov Culi (1689 - 1732), has a fascinating explanation of why exactly Adam was banished from the Garden of Eden for his sin. He was punished thoroughly for that sin -- his stature was reduced, his beauty was diminished, he had to work hard for his food, etc. In all, Adam was given ten curses. What I found interesting though was that this commentary connected the curse of mortality to the curse of being banished from the Garden of Eden.

One of the trees that as in the Garden of Eden was the Tree of Life. G-d never forbade Adam from eating the fruit of that specific tree, and according to the Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez:

"G-d would have not minded if Adam had eaten from it and gained immortality; creation was originally set up in such a manner that no creature would die. It was only after Adam sinned that he was banished from the Garden of Eden so that he could not gain immortality by eating from the Tree of
Life."

(p. 278, The Torah Anthology - Genesis I 1.)

G-d wanted Adam to be able to live forever, and Adam did indeed have that opportunity. Not only was G-d watching over him to make sure no harm came to him, but Adam was also permitted to eat from the Tree of Life, which would extend his life. Therefore, when G-d wanted to curse Adam by making him mortal, He also had to banish him from the Garden of Eden, so that Adam would not be able to prolong his life by eating from the Tree of Life. The Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez shows that Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden was because of his curse of mortality, which was the punishment for his sin. It was a direct, logical result.

Going back to what Ramban said about the Messiah's immortality, we can apply the Yalkut Me'am Lo'ez's explanation to it. The Messiah can reside in the Garden of Eden, because he is supposed to be immortal.

And when the Mashiach comes to gather our scattered nation and redeem us, we will also have the gift of immortality that we were originally meant to have and would then logically be permitted to experience being in the Garden of Eden.