Charisma + Messianic Identity = Disaster

(Yerushalmi/Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'anit chapter 4)

We use the word “charisma” casually these days. Someone who is a popular and commanding presence, whose opinions are revered (sometimes beyond reason), and who gains a loyal following, is considered charismatic.

In the realm of business, this can be an asset. But there is a down side too: Charisma can command blind fanaticism in the service of megalomaniacs with dangerous values and perilous agendas.[1] Similarly, in politics a charismatic leader can serve the needs of the society, or exploit the society to serve his narcissistic needs.

In the religious and theological realm, charisma is a divinely bestowed spiritual power or personal quality that lends an individual authority over large numbers of people. The notion of “divinely bestowed” authority elevates religious charisma to another ballpark. Max Weber wrote about this phenomenon in Economy and Society. Thomas Robbins, in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, writes:

The notorious David Koresh (née Vernon Howell) rose to the leadership of the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the earlier schismatic Davidian offshoot of the SDA Church (Bromley and Silver 1995, Pitts 1995). Koresh "identified himself as the Lord's anointed and saw the standoff at Waco as the literal fulfillment of an intensifying campaign by demonic earthly rulers to destroy the righteous remnant" (Boyer 1993:30). It is arguable, then, that the most potentially volatile form of personal charismatic leadership is the messianic pattern in which charismatic leaders "identify the millennial destiny of humankind with their own personal vicissitudes and demonize any opposition to their aspirations and personal aggrandizement" (Robbins and Anthony 1995:244). "Messianic" leadership combines the instability of charismatic authority with the potential for volatility and tension inherent in apocalyptic world-rejecting movements.[2]

Jewish tradition has spawned a number of charismatic, messianic figures, among them Shimon ben Kosiba, the subject of much discussion in masechet Ta’anit, chapter 4 of the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud). Bar Kosiba led the Jews of the Land of Israel into a disastrous revolt against Rome in 132 C.E. He is better known by the appellation Bar Kochba (son of the star) because no less than R. Akiba identified him as the long-await messiah. The Rabbis of the Yerushalmi, however, dub him Bar Koziba (“son of lies” or “son of disappointment”), explaining:

R. Shimon ben Yochai taught: Akiba, my master, would interpret the following verse: A star (kokhav) shall come forth out of Jacob [and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab] (Numbers 24:17). Shimon ben Yochai then interprets for us: A disappointment (koziba) shall come forth out of Jacob. (Ta’anit 4:5)

Initially, the rebellion spearheaded by Bar Kochba succeeded. Bar Kochba took on the title of Nasi (prince) and coins were minted with the dates “the first year of the redemption of Israel” and “the second year of the redemption of Israel.” The Roman Empire was compelled to commit 12 legions — nearly half its army — to fighting the fledgling third Jewish commonwealth; the emperor Hadrian experienced costly losses. Concerning the Jewish side, the Roman consul Cassius Dio, who published an 80-volume history of Rome, wrote that 580,000 Jews died in the war, 50 fortified cities were razed, and 985 villages were decimated. Even accounting for victor’s hyperbole, the revolt was an unmitigated disaster.

Surprisingly, the Rabbis recollection of Jewish losses was far greater. Writing generations after the cataclysm of Bar Kochba’s failed revolt, they tell us that in Bar Kochba’s fortress refuge Betar alone, 80,000 myriads were slaughtered by Emperor Hadrian. The Rabbis of the Jerusalem Talmud don’t hold back: they view Bar Kochba with contempt, derision, and loathing. They recount bone-chilling legends that reflect their abhorrence of, and hostility toward, Bar Kochba.

R. Yochanan said: There were 80,000 pairs of trumpeters surrounding Betar. Each was in charge of a number of soldiers. Ben Koziba was there, and he required 200,000 soldiers to [cut off their] fingers [as a sign of loyalty to him]. The Sages sent word to him: How long are you going to turn Israel into a maimed people?

The Rabbis tell us that Bar Kochba, like so many charismatic leaders, did not countenance opposition to his authority and agenda. The story of how he murdered R. Eleazar of Modi’in is blood chilling.

R. Eleazar of Modi’in would sit on sack cloth and ashes and pray every day, saying, “Lord of the universe! Do not sit in judgment today! Do not sit in judgment today! Hadrian want to go see him. [The Talmud then describes how a Samaritan convinced Hadrian to allow him to spy on Betar on behalf of the Emperor and thereby pave the way for Hadrian to defeat the city. The Samaritan enters Betar through a drain pipe, finds R. Eleazar, and pretends to whisper into the rabbi’s ear. The Samaritan spy is caught and brought to Ben Koziba, and he confesses his mission.] [Ben Koziba] went to R. Eleazar of Modi’in. [Ben Koziba] said to him, “What did this Samaritan say to you?” He replied, “Nothing.” [Ben Koziba] said to him, “What did you say to him?” [R. Eleazar] replied, “Nothing.” [Ben Koziba] gave [Eleazar] one good kick and killed him. Immediately a heavenly voice broke forth and said, Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword descend upon his arm and upon his right eye! His arm shall shrivel up; his right eye shall go blind! (Zechariah 11:17) Forthwith Betar was taken, and Ben Koziba was killed.

The Rabbis continue to describe the slaughter that ensued in disturbingly graphic terms. For example, Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel recalls the massacre of school children in a manner reminiscent of the way R. Chananiah b. Teradyon was said to have been martyred at the hands of the Romans during the Hadrianic persecutions[3]:

It has been taught: Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel says, “There were 500 schoolhouses in Betar. The smallest of them had no fewer than 500 children… On account of the sins, they wrapped each one [of the children] in his scroll and burned him, and out of them all, I alone survived.

The Rabbis next tell us that the Emperor, Hadrian, owned a vineyard that was 18 mil square (approximately 10 miles square, with a perimeter approximately 40 miles in length). The Rabbis tell us: The length [of the perimeter] was the distance from Tiberias to Tzippori (Sepphoris). Hadrian, they recount, surrounded his vineyard with a wall of the bones of slaughtered Jews that was as high as a man is tall, and as wide as one’s handbreadths. They hold Bar Kochba responsible for the deaths making that wall possible.

There is no end to the Sages’ contempt and scorn for Bar Kochba. With the divine imprimatur bestowed upon him by R. Akiba, he was inordinately dangerous.  Charisma can be dangerous; combined with a messianic overlay, it is deadly. Together, charisma and messianism often come packaged in a personality who is manipulative, exploitative, grandiose, callously unconcerned about human life, and excessively confident. Recall Shabbatai Tzvi, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Osama bin Laden.

Charismatic leaders are often described as “visionary,” but the ones who carry the label messiah harbor visions that are harbingers of death and destruction. Again, Thomas Robbins:

The absence of institutional restraints upon charismatic leaders interfaces with the lack of institutional supports available to sustain leaders' authority. "Charismatic authority," notes Wallis (1993:176[4]) "is a fundamentally precarious status" because leaders' claims to authority rest "purely on subjective factors." Followers' perception of the leader's extraordinary qualities may be situated and ephemeral. The charismatic leader must continually face the prospect that his special "gift of grace" will no longer be perceived and his authority will fade. Johnson (1979[5]) analyzes a spiraling process whereby the steps that Jim Jones took in response to challenges to his charismatic authority brought into play new factors that potentially undermined his authority, and that in turn required new defensive responses. The leader's increasingly frantic defensive measures to shore up his authority and the unanticipated consequences of his responses contributed to the cataclysmic end of the Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana.

Long before Max Weber and legions of sociologists and experts in business leadership wrote about the dangers of charismatic leaders, the Sages of the Yerushalmi were acutely and painfully aware and penned their prescient warning.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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[1] See Jane M. Howell and Bruce J. Avolio, “The ethics of charismatic leadership,” Academy of Management Executives, 1992, Vol. 6 No.2; and Daniel Sankowsky, “The Charismatic Leader as Narcissist,” Organizational Dynamics, Spring 1995, Vol. 23, No. 4.

[2] http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/charisma.htm.

[3] Avodah Zarah 17b. As an aside: I recently attended a wonderful family event in Los Angeles where my family took a walking tour of downtown LA. I noticed that the public library has quotes concerning books and reading cut into sheets of decorative metal outside the library. I further noticed that one was in Hebrew, so I cross the street to take a closer look. I hardly knew what to make of what I read: Gevilin nisrafin v’ha-otiyot porkhot ba’avir (“The scrolls are burning but the letters are escaping to heaven.”) These are the words Rabbi Chananiah ben Teradyon is said to have uttered when the Romans wrapped a scroll of Torah around him and lit it on fire. Very unsettling.

[4] R. Wallis, "Charisma and Explanation," Secularism, Rationalism and Sectarianism , ed. E. Barker et al. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993): 167-179.

[5] D. P. Johnson, "Dilemmas of Charismatic Leadership," Sociological Analysis 40(1979):315-323.

MARKING THE CALENDAR

September 11, 2001 

 When you flew into New York you saw them high above even Manhattan's skyline, defining the city. They epitomized New York. What words can capture the experience of that awful morning 11 years ago? Surely you remember where you were when those iconic buildings, the Twin Towers, crumbled. 

 The indelible images of that day tell the story. Smoke rising from the building. Dust enveloping lower Manhattan. Streams of people walking uptown. All bear testimony to the trauma of the day. As we watched the story unfold on TV that morning our minds struggled to comprehend that these monumental buildings could collapse, that they had collapsed, that we were vulnerable. 

 These events of national shared trauma mark our lives. Decades from now it is likely that when someone asks about 9/11 we will vividly recall the details of where we were and what we did on that tragic morning and the days that followed. The juxtaposition of images of rescuers sacrificing their lives and strangers helping one another, set against the perverse rejoiciung of our enemies wil likely never leave us. Many of us we will remember them as days when our view of the world changed. 

 Our Sages knew traumatic upheaval as well. They marked their calendar with the dates on which the Babylonians, and later the Romans, approached Jerusalem, breached her walls, and destroyed the city. These dates are preserved as a succession of fasts in the 4th, 5th, 7th and 10th months of the Hebrew calendar. 

 The Temple of Jerusalem was an amazing building. Josephus, describes it as “the most admirable of all the works we have seen or heard of, both for its curious structure and its magnitude, and also for the glorious reputation it had for its holiness.” (The Jewish Wars 6.4.8 267-268) It was the Place where God caused his Name to dwell. What could be more indestructible? And yet, the Romans burned it to the ground. 

 The Talmud records the reactions of R. Yohanan and his brother-in-law, Shimon ben Lachish. They lived in the north of Israel, primarily in Tiberias, during the 3rd century CE. Though the Temple had been destroyed generations earlier, the trauma continued to haunt them. Reflecting on the deep losses of those traumatic days they used the analogy of a king whose son was taken from him. 

Rabbi Yohanan compared it to a king who was calculating the calendar (I presume it was a calm and relaxing exercise) when [courtiers] came to him and reported that his son had been taken captive. His calculations went awry. He said, let's begin the calendar from this date. 

Rabbi Shimon ben Lachish likewise compared it to a king who was calculating the calendar when [courtiers] came and reported to him that his son had been captured and forced into prostitution. His calculations went awry and he said, Let's begin the calendar from this date.  -- Y. Ta'anit 4:5, 23a 

 They tell the same story. The loss of the Temple is likened to the loss of a precious and beloved son. The prince, whom one would presume is well protected by the walls of a castle or the diligence of a security detail, has been snatched. Ben Lachish makes the story even darker; the child is forced into prostitution. The prince is not only taken, but debased. The new reality is overwhelming. 

 What do you hear in their story? Two things come to mind. The first is the inconsolable loss. The king loses his mind. He is unable to do that which he had just been doing – calculating the calendar. It wasn't a matter of forgetfulness. Grief stole his mind. He didn't even know what day it was. 

 It is a sense of disorientation. Which way should we go? What policy should we pursue? The questions of what to do in the aftermath of 9/11 are the same questions that baffled the king. Recall the image of President Bush reading to school children when he was informed of the tragedy. What to do? Finish the story? Rush out leaving confused children behind? And where to go? Remember that the president flew about the country – from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska, while the vice-president went into extended hiding. The very first reactions of our political leaders to 9/11 echo the disorientation of the king in our story. 

 My second thought concerns the prince who is taken and debased by his captors. The Romans issued coins proclaiming “Judea Capta” – Judea is captured. Some of the coins portray a bearded captive (representing Judea) standing with his hands bound behind his back while a female (representing Jerusalem) mourns his loss. It echoes our story. The prince is now a prisoner, fair game for whatever follows. His royal identity is meaningless; it has failed to protect him. Even more, he is robbed of his very personhood. 

 We also have gone through a long period of redefining who we are as a nation. Even today we debate the rules of this new warfare: Are we a nation that uses “enhanced interrogation”? What is the role of drones? Are we justified in withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan? More than a decade later we still debate our proper role in the world post-9/11. We are looking to redefine ourselves. 

 Tragedy makes an indelible mark upon us. It is true for national traumas, and it is true for personal traumas as well. Perhaps you know someone who has lost a child, whose loved one has been murdered, or whose friend died in a freakish accident. Like the king of our tale, time moves in a different way than before. We tell time in relationship to the loss. When we hear the phrase “since 9/11”, we know it reflects the sense that something essential changed that day. The past belongs to a different world, and a new era of time starts post-destruction. 

 When Mark Twain's daughter Suzy died, he wrote, “It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.” A thunder stroke – something that stops us so completely we don't know if we can keep going. Something that stops time, just as the calendar no longer made sense to the king of our tale. Something that redefines who we are. 

 The king declares, “Let's begin the calendar anew from this date.” It really happened. The Sages retreated to Yavneh where they initiated the rabbinic era, an approach to Jewish living that did not depend on the offerings brought to the Temple and could function without a geographical center. From that day to this we mark the destruction of the Temple in the traditional fasts of the Jewish year. Rituals of remembrance and moments of silence have begun to emerge in our culture each year to mark 9/11. Like the king, for one moment our nation stood together, thunder-struck, unable to articulate what had happened or where we were headed: and ever since we have marked time in relation to that awful day. From our Sages we should take solace that we will find a new path forward as we define our new day.

 © Rabbi Louis Rieser

Diving into the Yerushalmi again to find a prescient warning

This posting concerns the same section of Gemara from the Yerushalmi, masechet Ta'anit, concerning 5 terrible things that happened on the 17th of Tammuz. Following the lesson on not judging on the basis of guesswork, the discussion veers in another direction: just how it happened, and at whose instigation, the tablets were shattered.  Four opinions are offered:

• R. Yishmael tells us: Moses broke the tablets at the behest of God. R. Yishmael derives his view from Deuteronomy 10:2 in which God says, “I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.”
• R. Shmuel bar Nachman in the name of R. Yonatan tells us: Moses holds one end and God holds the other. Upon seeing the Golden Calf, God attempts to wrest the tablets away from Moses, but his grasp is so firm that God cannot, which is why the very last verse of Torah is …for all the great might power (ha-yad ha-chazakah, lit. “the strong hand) and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel (Deuteronomy 34:12) — this is God’s admission of Moses’ superior strength in this instance.
• R. Yochanan in the name of R. Yose bar Abaye tells us that the tablets themselves try to fly away, but again Moses holds them fast. He calls on Deuteronomy 9:17 to support his claim because it there Moses says, “So I took hold of the two tablets…” suggesting that Moses has to grasp them in order to prevent them from flying off.
• R. Ezra in the name of R. Yehudah b. R. Shimon explains that the stone tablets are inherently exceptionally heavy. The writing — God’s words — holds the tablets aloft, lightening the load, as it were. The writing flies off the tablets, however, and they became so heavy that Moses can no longer hold them up. They fall and shatter.

The opinions expressed share a common idea: God, or the tablets themselves, or the writing on them, wish to disassociate Torah from Israel, presumably because, having worshiped the Golden Calf, Israel is unworthy to receive God’s words. I find this line of thinking peculiar: We have Torah not because we are righteous and deserving, but because we need Torah to become better people. At the moment they are encircling the Golden Calf with song and praise, Israel desperately needs the Torah.

In each case, it is not Moses’ who wishes to shatter the tablets. In fact, Moses attempts to hold fast to the Torah (etz chaim hi l’machazim ba / “it is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it). In the eyes of the Gemara, Moses is the true prophet and shepherd, even more patient and long-suffering than Torah makes him out to be. What is more, he extends the teaching about reserving judgment to another level: reserve punishment. Instead, offer help to change. Ideally, do we give up on someone who fails to follow the right path in life, or do we redouble our efforts to redirect them?

The writing fleeing from the stone tablets is a most curious image, evoking many thoughts. Moses is left with blank stone tablets. Alone, they lack sanctity and value. They are merely stone tablets. How easy it would be to mistake the tablets for Torah. In a similar vein, how often do people mistake scrupulous observance of the minutiae of ritual for the heart and soul of Torah, a value system and way of life that inculcates a sense of compassion and justice?

Just yesterday I heard this story from a woman who has been babysitting for the children of a family that considers itself highly observant. The children are undisciplined and unregulated, and treat her rudely. Yesterday, they behaved toward her with egregious disrespect again and again in their mother’s presence, yet the mother did not make a move to correct them. The woman who recounted the story said: “It makes me very sad to see a family that is so ‘religious’ on the outside but yet can't be bothered to teach there kids the fundamental value of treating others with respect. I am still stunned that a parent can witness behavior like that in their children without being overcome with embarrassment. She never once indicated to them that their behavior was inappropriate or that I was a human being with feelings just like them. But I'm sure if one of those kids flipped on a light switch on shabbos or ate dairy too soon after a meat meal, she would immediately be reprimanded. It just baffles me!” This family, exemplifies the danger of mistaking the tablets for the writing. Their practice is calcified and lifeless. They worship the stones, not realizing that the writing has flown free of them.

This is a danger in a tradition such as ours that places a premium on delineated detailed behaviors; we can lose sight of the meaning and purpose of our practice and the moral values that lie behind it. Rabbi Avi Weiss, whose Orthodox credentials are unquestioned (though not everyone in the Orthodox world is pleased with him) will tell you that the mission of Judaism is to “spread a system of ethical monotheism, of God ethics to the world.” This is our purpose. The mitzvot are vessels for expressing love for God by living ethical values of Judaism. When we place the vessels above the content, the means above the mission, the ritual above the purpose, we worship the blank stone and the writing flies free — away from us. And that is idolatry.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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[1] Marina Krakovsky, “Mixed Impressions: How We Judge Others on Multiple Levels,” Scientific American. January 27, 2010.

Diving into the Yerushalmi and emerging with a valuable lesson

We took a far longer hiatus than we ever intended, and we’re happy to be back. We are studying the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud), masechet Ta’anit (chapter 4) — wonderful material. I’m delighted to share my musings with you, and look forward to your responses, if you’re inclined to share. I'm posting this piece today, and tomorrow I'll post a second.

Ta’anit 4:5 begins with a mishnah that tells us that five [terrible] events occurred in the lives of our ancestors on each of two inauspicious dates: the 17^th of Tammuz and the 9^th of Av (Tisha B’Av). The first event associated with the 17^th of Tammuz is the shattering of the tablets containing Torah (or the Ten Commandments) that Moses received from God on Mt. Sinai. Two aspects of the Gemara’s discussion intrigue me. The first is how the lesson “Don’t judge on the basis of guesswork” is drawn from the account of the Golden Calf in Exodus chapter 32; that's for today's post. The second aspect of the Gemara I want to share concerns how the tablets came to be shattered in the first place; that's for tomorrow's post.

On what basis do we make judgments of others? The Gemara of the Yerushalmi reconfigures Torah’s account by arranging verses out of the order we find them in in Exodus. The Rabbis of the Yerushalmi tell us that when Moses ascends the mountain, God gives him the commandments on two stone tablets, which he promptly conveys to the people, and only after delivering the tablets, Moses tells them, “I am going to spend forty days on the mountain.” When the fortieth day arrives and Moses does not return promptly, the people confront Aaron and demand that he build them an idol to worship — despite the fact that God has already been revealed to them and the Torah delivered to them. This reconfiguration ramps up the severity of their idolatry because God had already been revealed to them and Torah was already in their hands.

God, who is at the peak of the mountain commanding a primo view of everything below, sees what the Israelites are doing. Torah recounts that God informs Moses and threatens to obliterate the Israelites and begin anew with Moses, but Moses convinces God to abandon that plan and forgive the people instead. Joshua hears the noise the people are generating, but misinterprets it as the rumblings of war. Moses, however, recognizes the sound as singing. Gemara tells us that this inspired Moses to observe:

“Here is a man [Joshua] who is destined to govern 600,000 people, and yet he cannot discern the difference between one sort of noise and another!”

Joshua’s premature and faulty judgment calls his leadership credentials into question. How can someone who is unable to distinguish war from joy govern an unruly nation?

Gemara then quotes Torah:

As soon as [Moses] came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing [he became enraged; and he hurled the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain]. (Exodus 32:19)

This occasions R. Chilkiah in the name of R. Acha to teach us that the point of the story is to instruct us: Do not judge on the basis of guesswork. What a marvelous reading of the account of the Golden Calf! Moses is the model and master of this wisdom. God informs Moses:

The Lord spoke to Moses, “Hurry down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoyed upon them. They have made themselves a molton calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to its, saying, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” (Exodus 32:7-8)

But Moses does not know for himself, and responds to God’s report with compassion for his people, convincing God to forgive, rather than annihilate, the people. Joshua hears the ruckus and makes a judgment, but he misinterprets what he hears. His judgment is based on guesswork. It is Moses who withholds judgment; even though he hears correctly, he does not rely on hearing alone. It is only after Moses sees with his own eyes what the Israelites are engaged in that he becomes enraged and hurls the stone tablets to the ground.

Pirke Avot 1:6 records an important teaching of Yehoshuah b. Perachia: Dan et kol ha-adam l’chaf zechut / Judge everyone favorably. Reserve judgment until all the facts are in, and until then give others the benefit of the doubt. How difficult it is to live by this standard!

Rambam (Moses Maimonides), in his commentary to Pirke Avot 1:6, provides guidance for all cases except where someone is well know to be evil:

If someone is unknown to you and you do not know whether he is a righteous man or an evil one: If he does an act or says something that could be interpreted as either positive or negative, judge him favorably and do not think of him as having done wrong.

If one was well known as a righteous man with good deeds: Even if you see him do an action whose every aspect seems to be bad, and the only way of considering it good is through really stretching things and assuming a very remote possibility, it is still obligatory to interpret it as good based on that possibility.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink!, in which he affirmed the accuracy and value of snap judgments, has spawned a great deal of discussion on this matter. Scientific American, reporting research by professors Amy Cuddy of the Harvard Business School, Susan Fiske of Princeton University, and Peter Glick of Lawrence University, provides a divergent view:

When we meet a person, we immediately and often unconsciously assess him or her for both warmth and competence. Whereas we obviously admire and help people who are both warm and competent and feel and act contemptuously toward the cold and incompetent, we respond ambivalently toward the other blends. People who are judged as competent but cold—including those in stereotyped groups such as Jews, Asians and the wealthy—provoke envy and a desire to harm, as violence against these groups has often shown. And people usually seen as warm but incompetent, such as mothers and the elderly, elicit pity and benign neglect.

New research is revealing that these split-second judgments are often wrong, however, because they rely on crude stereotypes and other mental shortcuts...[1]

It would take little imagination for Moses to envision the Israelites engaged in idolatry — the only type of worship they have seen for 400 years in Egypt. And, indeed, God described their activities to Moses with a fair degree of specificity (Exodus 32:7-8, cited above). Yet Moses exemplifies Yehoshuah b. Perachia’s teaching at this most crucial moment in Israel’s history. Had he adopted God’s view without seeing what was happening with his own eyes, he would not have talked God out of destroying the people. Had Moses accepted Joshua’s judgment concerning the noise generated in the Israelite camp, he would have misjudged what was truly happening.

Judging everyone favorably — until the facts overwhelmingly falsify the validity of a positive judgment — is a difficult standard to live by, but standards of righteousness usually are. What is more, as Mother Teresa said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

Life cycle: the wheel goes 'round / b.Sanhedrin 92a

The term “life cycle” is tossed around a lot. Certainly, a community experiences birth, growth, marriage, aging, and death, and then more births in its midst. But does an individual experience a life cycle? I was born, I go through various stages of life, and then I die. How is that a cycle? For the Rabbis it was a perfect cycle: birth, all the stages of life, death, resurrection/rebirth. The belief in resurrection of the dead affirmed for them a true life cycle.

We are still amidst the Rabbis’ epic effort to prove that resurrection of the dead derives from the Torah. They have pulled out nearly all the stops, threatening the loss of olam haba (the world-to-come), citing numerous verses creatively interpreted, and envisioning court cases before Alexander the Great that affirmed their view. Very near the bottom of daf 92a is a passage I take as a unit (though far more learned and esteemed scholars of Talmud disagree).

And R. Elazar said: Whoever looks at a woman’s genitals, his bow will be empty, as it says, Your bow is stripped bare (Habbakuk 3:9).

And R. Elazar said: Be forever in the dark and live.

R. Zeira said: Also we have learned this: We do not open windows in a dark house to see its plague [referring to mishnah Nega’im 2:3]. Learn from this.

R. Tavi said in the name of R. Yoshiyah: What is the meaning of the grave, a barren womb, earth that cannot get enough water (Proverbs 30:16)? What is the connection between the grave and the closed [barren] womb? It is to teach you [that] just as the womb takes in and expels, so too does the grave take in and expel. And in fact these are a kal va’chomer: If a womb, into which things are deposited quietly, and from which things emerge noisily, then [concerning] the grave, into which we deposit things noisily, isn’t it logical that things emerge [from the grave] amidst great noise? From here [we have] a response to those who say that resurrection of the dead does not derive from Torah.

The Rabbis are attempting to prove resurrection from Torah. R. Elazar opens with an image of marital intimacy, the quintessential act that brings new life into the world. If you look at your wife’s genitals in the course of lovemaking, however, your bow I stripped bare. (Please see my note at the bottom of this blog post for more on whether R. Elazar was standing on solid ground with this claim.) At first glance we might think that the verse from Habbakuk applies to the wife, but R. Elazar surprises us and applies it to the husband: the man who looks at his wife’s genitals will suffer either impotence or sterility (I’m not sure which; perhaps he means either). This behavior will result in the diminution of life - a kind of death. Lovemaking intended to engender new life, will achieve the opposite.

Understood this way, his counsel to “be forever in the dark and live” makes sense. He cannot see what he shouldn’t be looking at in a dark room. In other words, give up those romantic candles and buy room-darkening blinds. Perhaps there is a very subtle hint here of where we’re going. Being in the dark to generate new life parallels or foreshadows the dark of the grave, which precedes rebirth by resurrection. From birth to death to life after death.

R. Zeira offers us much the same message, but in citing Nega’im (the tractate about tzara’at, skin afflictions that affect people, clothing, and homes) he suggests that this behavior will bring a plague upon your house. All the good of intimacy gives way to loss, death and disease if you don’t “follow the rules.” From birth to death.

We begin with a fertile womb that doesn’t conceive because of inappropriate sexual behavior. The images of male sterility (diminution of life, death of the potential to have children) and plagues sets us up for R. Tavi’s interpretation of Proverbs 30:16. R. Tavi quotes a snippet from the middle of the verse. (The entire verse, with R. Tavi’s phrase bolded, is: The leech has two daughters, “Give!” and “Give!” Three things are insatiable; four never say, “Enough!”: the grave, a barren womb, earth that cannot get enough water, and fire that never says, “Enough!”) R. Tavi uses this excerpted phrase to equate the grave and the womb, and then apply the argument of kal va’chomer (a fortiori argument) to them. The argument goes like this: Proverbs 30:16 juxtaposes “womb” and “grave” to tell us that they evince the same phenomenon. Sperm is quietly deposited into the womb, but the baby that emerges is noisy. The process goes from quiet to noisy. The grave must therefore follow that same pattern. We deposit the body into the grave amidst the noise of crying and mourning; therefore (1) something must emerge from the grave (as from the womb); and (2) what emerges must be extremely noisy. In the minds of the Rabbis this must mean that people are resurrected to the noise of the messianic age. Hence we derive resurrection from Proverbs 30:16.

Then why the conversation launched by R. Elazar before it? The passage begins with an image of life and procreation -- a couple engaged in lovemaking. Conception and birth. R. Zeira introduces the idea of plague -- it may cause death. Conception, life, then death. R. Tavi’s interpretation of Proverbs 30:16 “proves” resurrection of the dead. We have the process: birth, life, death, rebirth/resurrection.

NOTE:

This passage initially caught my eye because it opens with a claim similar to one found elsewhere in the Talmud, in masechet Nedarim, daf 20. There the Rabbis handily and brilliantly dismantle the claim that a husband should not look between his wife’s legs at her genitals.

Nedarim 20 features a protracted discussion of sexual practices, arrived at by branching off from the main topic twice. R. Yochanan b. Dahabai claims to have learned four things from the Ministering Angels: a man should not engage in anal sex with his wife, nor kiss her genitals, nor converse with her while engaged in lovemaking, nor even look at her genitals. (Puritanical, no? It was H.L. Mencken who defined Puritanism as, “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” R. Yochanan b. Dahabai sounds like he’s from that school.) The Rabbis then recount Ima Shalom’s testimony that her husband, R. Eliezer, engaged in the most modest sex imaginable, never uncovering more than a few square inches of her skin at a time. The Sages then cleverly turn her testimony upside down and use it not only to permit talk during lovemaking, but to laud it. The notoriously strict and stringent R. Eliezer now becomes the model for a liberal attitude toward marital intimacy. But wait! R. Yochanan b. Dahabai claimed he learned the four prohibitions from heaven. The Rabbis are able to dismiss R. Yochanan b. Dahabai’s rules altogether by saying that “Ministering Angels” is merely a polite term for rabbis; hence his rules are simply the opinion of some. In fact, they now tell us, a husband and wife may do whatever they wish because -- as R. Yehudah haNasi unequivocally affirms -- Torah does not regulate consensual sexual acts between a husband and wife. Torah is concerned only with emotional states, especially those that might lead to violence.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

On prooftexting and Humpty Dumpty / Sanhedrin 92a

A man has had a successful business for decades. It is now going down the drain. Despondent, he seeks his rabbi’s advice, thinking that if he cannot find help, he will commit suicide.

The rabbi listens to the man’s tale of woe and offers this advice: “The Torah contains the answers to everything in life, including your problem. Take a chumash and beach chair and drive to the beach. Sit at the water’s edge, open the chumash, and let the wind blow it open. When the chumash stays open on a certain page, you will find your answer there.”

The man does precisely as his rabbi instructed. Three months later, he returns with his wife to the rabbi. He is wearing a $1500 Italian hand-tailored suit; his wife is wearing a beautiful silk dress and expensive jewelry. The man hands the rabbi a generous check and says, “Rabbi, your advice worked wonderfully. I want to donate this money to the synagogue.”

“Which words in the Torah brought this good fortune?” the rabbi asks.

The man replies, “Chapter 11.”

Prooftexting has a bad name among academics, and from an academic perspective deservedly so. The isolated use of biblical verses to prove the “truth” of a religious claim is hardly new. It is the S.O.P. of the Talmud. Often verses are decontextualized, which is a neutral, academic term meaning: wrenched out of context, original intent is ignored, they are made to mean something entirely different. When Alice objects to Humpty Dumpty’s definition of “glory” as “a nice knock-down argument,” Humpty Dumpty replies, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.” Substitute “verse” for “word” and you get the picture.
Chapter ten of Sanhedrin is a magnificent compendium of prooftexts to argue that resurrection of the dead derives from Torah.

In the section that follows, biblical verses are used slightly differently, but essentially this is a form of prooftexting. R. Elazar will argue that when a term is sandwiched between two divine names, that proves it is of special significance. This short passage is a tight unit by itself, and a lovely homily, as well.

R. Elazar said: Dei’ah is great because it was mentioned between two divine names, as it says, For the Lord is an all-knowing God (I Samuel 2:3).

R. Elazar said: The Temple (mikdash) is great because it was mentioned between two divine names, as it says, [in the place] that You made, Lord; in the sanctuary [mikdash] that your hands established (Exodus 15:17).

Rav Adda Karchina’ah objected: But now vengeance is great, for it is mentioned between two divine names, as it says, God to whom vengeance belongs; God to whom vengeance belongs shine forth (Psalms 94:1)

[R. Elazar] said to [Rav Adda Karchina’ah]: Because it is an important matter, it is as Ulla said: Why are there these two appearances [of the term “vengeance”, not one appearance as with dei’ah and mikdash]? One for a measure of good, and one for a measure of punishment.

R. Elazar said: Any person who possesses dei’ah, it is as if the Temple were built in his days because this [dei’ah] was mentioned between two divine names, and this [mikdash] was mentioned between two divine names.

The term Dei’ah, which I left in transliteration, means “knowledge” or “insight” or “wisdom.” That’s a lot of meaning for one word to hold. These are the facets of Talmud Torah, the Rabbis' enterprise.

R. Elazar’s methodology is simple: where a term is found in a verse with a name of God before it and after it, that signifies that it is extremely important and valuable. Dei’ah (knowledge, insight, wisdom, all the facets of Torah study) and Mikdash (either the sanctuary in the wilderness of later the Temple in Jerusalem, where God was served through sacrifices) fit the bill.

This simple structure -- a term sandwiched between two names of God -- opens the door to a raft of pasuk hunting. What other verses possess that characteristic? To what else then is Scripture ascribing greatness? Rav Adda Karchina’ah brings us an example that would seem to imply that “vengeance” must be a great thing according to R. Elazar’s methodology. R. Elazar has no trouble dismissing it because he finds the term “vengeance” twice in the verse and can interpret it to mean both the good kind of vengeance (presumably my vengeance against another?) and the bad kind of vengeance (presumably another vengeance against me?). To our minds, yet another scriptural slight of hand. To R. Elazar, completely legitimate.

R. Elazar now employs yet another rabbinic interpretative trick, a gezeira shava: since both Dei’ah and Mikdash share this distinction, they must be connected. The connection he draws for us is beautiful: one who possesses Dei’ah (understood here as Talmud Torah -- Torah knowledge and wisdom), it as if through his studies he has effectively built a Temple in his own day. Where once the Jewish People served God though sacrifices offered on an altar in the prescribed precinct of the Mikdash, now they serve God through Talmud Torah, the study of Torah. The “program of the rabbis” is furthered by this claim: it’s now all about Torah study.

We read in Pirke Avot (1:2), Shimon ha-Tzddik taught: Al shelosha devarim… The world depends upon three things: Torah [study], Avodah [worship, service], and Gemilut chasadim [deeds of loving kindness]. If we take a closer look, Torah is named first. It is the center post holding up the roof. Avodah has now been defined by R. Elazar as Torah study, Gemilut chasadim is the outgrowth of Torah study. In sum: The world is sustained by Talmud Torah, which serves God and humanity.

There is much truth to that. Torah tells us that the Jewish People came into existence to share our portion of God’s wisdom with the world. This is neither an exclusive claim to wisdom, nor a mandate to convert others. But it does define the Jewish mission: to share the wisdom of Torah with those seeking wisdom.

How well are we succeeding? If I were to be at all honest, I would have to see that we are doing a mediocre job at best. And that’s a generous evaluation. In our day we spend out time in internecine battles over legal trivialities, many centered on kashrut, which are a thin veneer for authority and turf battles. Or we argue about whose interpretation of Judaism is more valid. So unbecoming and such a tragic waste of human time and energy.

Our texts and the way we study them offer priceless riches for exploring the universal questions of humanity: What does it mean to be human? Does my life have purpose? How should we respond to evil? How can I fulfill my potential? How should I raise my children? How should I treat others? What are the attributes of a righteous community? How do we build one? How should community leaders behave? What are our obligations to the poor and homeless? How do we best take care of the sick and suffering? How should we deal with people who are different from us? How do we work our way to peace? Torah is not a textbook for looking up answers -- it is a way to work through the questions to find one’s own answers.

It seems to me that R. Elazar got it right after all.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Lawsuits ancient and modern: nothing new under the sun / Sanhedrin 91a

Eight years ago, Dr. Nabil Hilmi, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Al-Zaqazig in Egypt, announced his intention to sue all the Jews in the world. In an August 2003 interview in the Egyptian weekly Al Ahram Al-Arabi, Dr. Nabil Hilmi, said:

''Since the Jews make various demands of the Arabs and the world, and claim rights that they base on historical and religious sources, a group of Egyptians in Switzerland has opened the case of the so-called 'great exodus of the Jews from Pharaonic Egypt.' At that time, they stole from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless… If we assume that the weight of what was stolen was one ton, [its worth] doubled every 20 years, even if the annual interest is only 5%. In one ton of gold is 700 kg of pure gold - and we must remember that what was stolen was jewelry, that is, alloyed with copper. Hence, after 1,000 years, it would be worth 1,125,898,240 million tons, which equals 1,125,898 billion tons for 1,000 years. In other words, 1,125 trillion tons of gold, that is, a million multiplied by a million tons of gold. This is for one stolen ton. The stolen gold is estimated at 300 tons, and it was not stolen for 1,000 years, but for 5,758 years, by the Jewish reckoning. Therefore, the debt is very large.”

Every plaintiff -- even this one -- has to marshal evidence for his case. Here it is:

And the Lord had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians. (Exodus 25:6)

After Jews around the globe stopped laughing, caught their breath, and got up off the floor, many pointed out that this case was already tried in a court long ago -- the court of Alexander the Great -- in the imaginations of the Rabbis. The Talmud’s court account comes from the beginning of chapter ten of masechet Sanhedrin, daf 91a.

The tenth chapter of Sanhedrin opens with a mishnah that lists six things for which a person forfeits Olam Haba (the world-to-come). Gemara begins with the first item: denying that the belief in Olam Haba derives from Torah. Speculation concerning what Olam HaBa is like will follow. More on that later. Back to the Egyptians’ lawsuit.

The Rabbis tell us that Alexander of Macedon, serving as judge (common for kings in the ancient world -- think of King Solomon) heard three cases against Israel, defended (of course!) by the Rabbis. It’s worth noting quickly that Alexander III of Macedon died in 323 B.C.E., and there were no Rabbis until the latter half of the first century C.E. -- a good four centuries later. No matter. Perhaps the Rabbis painted Alexander into the story because he was a rare conqueror who respected the integrity of the nations he conquered and their territorial borders, the central claim in two of the three cases Talmud says he heard. He did not try to dismantle these nations nor dissolve their culture so long as they paid him tribute. (Alas, his successors had a very different attitude.)

Pausing in the larger discussion designed to prove that Olam Haba (the world-to-come) derives from Torah, we find three stories involving Alexander the Great. The stories themselves have nothing to do with Olam Haba, and seem to have been inserted to demonstrate the disputation skills of Geviha b. Pesisa who is cited in the ongoing discussion. The three stories follow the same pattern: A nation brings a lawsuit against Israel to the court of Alexander the Great. The descendants of Canaan claim Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). The Egyptians claim recompense. The descendant of Ishmael and Keturah claim join ownership of Eretz Yisrael. Each claim is made on the basis of a biblical verse, and each argument is soundly defeated by our savvy disputant, Geviha b. Pesisa, with another verse.

Here is the Talmud’s “transcript” of the case:

… the Egyptians brought a lawsuit against the Jews before Alexander of Macedon. They said: “Is it not written, And the Lord had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians. (Exodus 25:6)? Return to us the gold and silver you took!'

Thereupon Geviha b. Pesisa said to the Sages, “Give me permission to go and argue against them before Alexander of Macedon. If they defeat me, you will say, “You have merely defeated common man.” If I defeat them, you will say, "The Torah of Moses has defeated you.’”

So [the Sages] gave [Geviha b. Pesisa] permission, and he went and argued against [the Egyptians]. He asked them, “Whence do you derive your proof?” They said, “From the Torah.” He said to them, “Then I will bring proof from nothing other than the Torah, for it was written, The sojourning of the Israelites, who dwelled in Egypt, was 430 years (Exodus 12:40). Pay us the wages for the work of 600,000 whom you enslaved for 430 years.

Alexander of Macedon said to [the Egyptians], “Answer them!

“Give us three days’ time.”

They sought an answer but did not find one. Immediately they abandoned their fields [already] planted, and their vineyards [already] planted. And that was the sabbatical year.

In other words: been there, done that, even have t-shirts for the youngest members of the tribe. So it seems that Hilmi doesn’t earn high marks as a lawyer or mathematician, nor does he take home the coveted Originality Prize.

The Rabbis argument is that Jews can stake claim to the Land of Israel on the basis of biblical verses. The choice of verses in the three stories that include the one cited above is clever. Here’s a summary:

#1
Descendant of Canaan: [The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:] Instruct the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as your portion, the land of Canaan with its various boundaries [which Torah proceeds to delineate in detail] (Numbers 34:2)
Geviha b. Pesisa: [Noah] said: Cursed be Canaan; the lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers. (Genesis 9:25)

#2
Egyptians: And the Lord had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians. (Exodus 12:36) Geviha b. Pesisa: The length of time that the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years. (Exodus 12:40)

#3
Ishmaelites and Keturians: This is the line of Ishmael, Abraham’s son… (Genesis 25:12)
Geviha b. Pesisa: Abraham willed all that he owned to Isaac; but to Abraham’s sons by concubines Abraham gave gifts… (Genesis 25:5-6)

Either Geviha b. Pesisa is a genius, or it’s not such a trick to find a verse that can be interpreted to say what you want. I’m voting for the latter, but I will hand it to Geviha: the man is clever. He tells the Rabbis to allow him to represent them before Alexander the Great because if he loses, they can say, “But he’s just a common man,” implying that their defense was not adequate and they are entitled to have the case retried. The Rabbis would now have a turn. But by this time, they have heard the plaintiff’s argument and have a distinct advantage. Geviha, however, never loses.

Underlying this passage -- indeed, all three “cases” -- is the presumption that the People Israel owns the Land of Israel because God promised it to their ancestors, and that title to the land is found not in a bank vault, but in the Torah.

This is a claim that is still heard today. Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 4, 2002, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) delineated seven reasons why Israel is entitled to the land that now constitute the State of Israel. Here is Reason #7:

Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. It is right up there on the desk. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says:

The Lord said to Abram, “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever… Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee.”

That is God talking.

The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, “I am giving you this land,” -the West Bank.

This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true. The seven reasons, I am convinced, clearly establish that Israel has a right to the land.

This is the foundation of the Settlers Movement in Israel. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. (Apologies, couldn’t resist.). In the 21st century, the Bible does not constitute a legitimate claim to the land. It certainly motivates a deep and abiding attachment of Jews to the land of their forebears, but so do the past 3,000 years of continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, and the past 17 centuries of prayer directed to Israel, both physically and religiously. But a claim based on divine fiat leads only to bloodshed. A negotiated settlement is the only path to a cessation of hostilities and secure borders.

A second look at the Talmud’s account of Egypt’s lawsuit suggests the very same thing. Certainly in the mind of the Rabbis, on each occasion, Geviha b. Pesisa brings a verse that trumps his opponents’. Yet the passage demonstrates that one can always pluck out a verse to “prove” one’s case. If the verse is not explicit enough, what do we do? Long ago the solution was interpretation; today we call it spin. Inadvertently, the Rabbis have provided us with an argument that undermines their own argument.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman