Magical migrations: the power of fantasy

I mentioned in my previous posting that the Rabbis of the Yerushalmi spare no feelings when it comes to describing graphically the events of 70 C.E. A fuller picture is that while they soundly condemn Bar Kochba as cruel, irresponsible, and abhorrent, and don’t hesitate to tick off sins committed by Israel that account for the brutality she endured at the hands of the Romans, the Rabbis also speak of God’s loving mercy. It appears that the Rabbis’ ideas and emotions are all over the board: God is punishing, but also loving. God ordains Israel’s suffering, but God also seeks to alleviate their suffering. Raw and painful emotions come through loud and clear. But so, too, we find glimpses of hope.

Amidst these passages, wedged in between one horror and another, is a fantasy that made me smile and even laugh.

R. Chanina said: Forty years before the Israelites went into exile to Babylonia, they planted date palms in Babylonia since they wanted to have something sweet to prepare the tongue to study Torah.

R. Chanina b. R. Abbahu said: 700 kinds of clean [i.e. kosher] fish, 800 kinds of ritually clean locusts, and fowl too numerous to count, all went into exile with the Israelites to Babylonia. And when [the Israelites] returned, all [the animals] returned with them, except for the fish called shibuta.

God has providentially seen to the people’s basic nutritional needs. Date palms planted more than five decades earlier would be mature and produce abundant fruit by the time the Israelites arrive in exile. Why date palms? So they can do what will sustain their spirits and traditions: study Torah. Date palms nourish their souls.

Dates were not the only sustenance God provided in exile. A myriads species of fish, locusts, and fowl (all kosher for eating) migrated with the Israelites. This fantastical idea speaks to God’s loving guardianship of Israel.

While we can go along with the fantasy and imagine locusts springing and vaulting their way from the Land of Israel 1000 miles to Babylonia, and birds winging their way to join the Israelites in exile, how could fish possible make the trip? There is no water route from the Land of Israel to Babylonia. Just to make this clear, here’s a map.

Israel is on the west coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which carve out ancient Babylonia, can be seen flowing southeast into the Persian Gulf. How did the fish get to Babylonia?!

R. Huna b. Yosef said: They went into exile through the t’hom (the primordial deep), and they returned through the t’hom.

Two uses of this unusual term — t’hom — jump out at me, each associated with a very different image and message, but taken together, speak to the present situation and the longed-for future.

We first encounter the term t’hom in the second verse of the Torah:

When God began to create haven and earth — the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the face of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water — (Genesis 1:1-2)

The t’hom is the great watery primordial deep. It precedes everything. It is the raw stuff of which God shapes the world. It is beneath the land, beneath the sea, and metaphysically beyond our world. It harkens back to the original creation.

The Flood arose from the primordial deep:

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky broke open. (Genesis 7:11)

Mentioning t’hom not only solves the fantasy’s logical problem of how the fish could reach Babylonia, it evokes the primordial chaos before creation. The events of 70 C.E. are so great a cataclysm it is as if everything has returned to primordial chaos. How can there ever be order again?

We find the term t’hom in the book of Isaiah, as well. The prophet Isaiah lived in the 8^th century B.C.E., long before the Destruction of either the First or Second Temple. Scholars consider chapters 40-55, however, to be the work of another author who lived through the Destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. This section (chapters 40-55) is attributed to an anonymous prophet scholars have dubbed Deutero-Isaiah, who prophesied the redemption of Israel from Exile in Babylonia, restoration to the Land of Israel eternally promised to them by God, and the unbreakable and permanent quality of their covenant with God. In this context, the Deutero-Isaiah uses the term t’hom with a strikingly different valence:

Awake, awake, clothe yourself with splendor,

O arm of the Lord!

Awake as in days of old,

As in former ages!

It was you who hacked Rahab to pieces,

That pierced the Dragon.

It was you that dried up the sea,

The waters of the great deep;

That made the abysses of the Sea

A road the redeemed might walk.

So let the ransomed of the Lord return,

And come with shouting to Zion,

Crowned with joy everlasting.

Let them attain joy and gladness,

While sorrow and sighing flee.

(Isaiah 51:9-11)  

Deutero-Isaiah evokes the primordial chaotic deep. Rahab and the Dragon are primeval monsters whom God tames, bring order to chaos — an integral part of the Creation of the world. In the passage from Isaiah chapter 51, the prophet speaks optimistically: the chaos of the destruction and exile in the 6^th century B.C.E. is not forever. God will return the world to its former state of order, just as long ago God overpowered Rahab and the Dragon. God does not open the “fountains of the deep” as in Genesis 7:11 to unleash death and destruction, but quite the opposite: God dries up the deep to create a safe passage for the Israelites to return to Zion.

This is a powerful image of redemption that evokes the paradigmatic redemption from Egypt. It’s impossible to read about God drying up waters to make “a road the redeemed might walk” and not think of the Exodus from Egypt through the Reed Sea. The Rabbis descend from the Jews who experienced the trauma of destruction and chaos.  It is clear from the Yerushalmi’s account that their descendants also feel traumatized, even generations later. (We should not be surprised, given all we know about the children of Holocaust survivors.) In their fantasy of God’s providential care of Israel in Exile, the Rabbis’ use the evocative term t’hom, which both acknowledges the present reality but also points to a redemptive future. Order will be restored. Even more, Israel will be created anew.

Pesach is around the corner. The message of hope and the possibility of redemption never gets old. In our lives and in the lives of those we love, in the life of the State of Israel we cherish and in the life of the world and all its inhabitants, we need to keep hope and the possibility of redemption front and center, a guidepost to direct our lives.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

Holier than thou... isn't holy

(Jerusalem Talmud, Ta'anit 4:6)

Just how far do we go with our grief and mourning? At what point is it appropriate, and when is it a form of extremism?

We have all seen people whose grief over the loss of a loved one knew no bounds, and barely diminished with time. Such people find it difficult to reclaim a full life and affirm life’s blessings. The genius of Jewish mourning rites and traditions is that they pave a path for us to move forward in stages from being sequestered at home in the depths of intense grief, to going back out into the world. The first seven days (Shiva) are spent at home. People bring food to the mourners, visit, and make a minyan for the mourners to recite Kaddish. The first thirty days (Shloshim) one returns to work, but abstains from entertainment, parties, concerts, and such. After that, one resumes activities, as it feels comfortable. In the case of the death of a parent, the mourning period extends for eleven months; during this period, mourners attend or avoid social events according to how they feel.

But what happens when the loss is not personal, but rather national, and not only that but also cataclysmic? The Destruction of the Second Temple was a catastrophe so great that the Rabbis can only convey its enormity in the most hyperbolic language. Throughout the gemara for Mishnah Ta’anit 4:5 we find claims involving unimaginable numbers and horrifying images:

·      Hadrian slaughtered 80,000 myriads in Betar.

·      More than 50,000 school children were each wrapped in the scrolls they studied and burned alive.

·      10,000 villages were obliterated.

·      80,000 apprentice priests were killed.

It is painful to read these passages. These are numbers we today associate with the Holocaust, a national cataclysm that is well within memory for us.

In this post, I focus on the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6) alone. It begins by telling us, “When Av comes, rejoicing diminishes,” an ironic reversal of what we read concerning the run-up to Purim: “When Adar comes, rejoicing increases.” Our history continues to be part of our emotional experience; our national experience is also our personal experience, even centuries later. Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6 of the Yerushalmi (4:7 in the Bavli), laid out to reveal its structure:

·      When Av comes, rejoicing diminishes. In the week in which Tisha B’Av occurs, it is forbidden to get a haircut or wash one’s clothes. But on Thursday of that week, these are permitted in order to honor shabbat. On the eve of Tisha B’Av, one should not eat two dishes, nor should one eat meat or drink wine.

o   Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel says: One should make some change [from the way one normally does things].

·      R. Yehudah says: one is obligated to turn over his bed —

o   but the Sages do not agree with him. (M Ta’anit 4:6)

Abstaining from haircuts, washing clothes, meat, and wine are all traditional signs of mourning. We engage in these practices during the initial period of mourning (Shiva), immediately after burial, but not subsequently (Sheloshim), and certainly not when the yahrzeit is commemorated on the anniversary of the death in ensuing years. The Mishnah elevates commemoration of the Temple’s “yahrzeit” far above the normal way of marking a yahrzeit. Tisha B’av is a national yahrzeit, yet it appears that the Rabbis encourage perpetual mourning for the Temple. For the Tanna’im (first- and second-century rabbinic scholars) who wrote this mishnah, there is no return to “normal life” because there can be no normality without the Temple. Given the centrality of the Temple and the trauma of its Destruction, this is understandable for the generations within memory.

R. Yehudah goes even farther in a direction I find disturbing. He tells us that one is obligated to turn over his bed. This was the custom when a person died. Ketubot 62b reports that when R. Yehudah b. R. Chiyya did not return home at the expected time from extended study away, his family presumed that the only thing that would have prevented his return was his untimely demise. They therefore overturned his bed.

Yehudah, the son of R. Chiyya, the son-in-law of R. Yannai, went and sat in Rav’s House of Study, but he would return home every [Friday eve at] twilight. Whenever he would come, people would see a pillar of fire [going] before him. One day his studies so captivated him that he did not come [home]. Because they did not see that sign, R. Yannai said to them: Overturn his bed, for were Yehudah alive, he would not have neglected the performance of his marital duties. It was As an error that goes forth from a ruler (Kohelet 10:5), and his [Yehudah’s] soul departed. (Ketubot 62b)

Shockingly, R. Yehudah’s dictate suggests that we go beyond mourning: on Tisha B’Av we should think of ourselves as having died.

How far is it reasonable and healthy to dive back into the sea of grief year after year after year? We are told first to mourn as if the loss were fresh. Then the suggestion is made to engage in a practice that suggests we actually died. It is therefore striking and important that the Mishnah contains within it two objections, two attempts to temper the wholesale rush into excessively intense grief each year.

The first objection comes from Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel. Rather than placing ourselves back in the “Shivah period,” he tells us to do things differently in recognition of Tisha B’Av. Perhaps this means foregoing dinner at a restaurant on Erev Tisha B’Av. Perhaps it means abstaining from activities that make it difficult to prepare for the day to come. I find it significant that Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel leaves it up to us to exhibit good judgment; he trusts us to make proper decisions based on our needs.

The second objection is to R. Yehudah’s suggestion that we overturn our beds, and thereby “throw ourselves into the grave with the deceased.” The Sages reject R. Yehudah’s opinion. This is going too far; they don’t want us to lose all proportion.

Taken together, the Mishnah presents the possibility  — and danger — of descending into the depths of extreme mourning, and gives us two lessons on moderation: (1) Use your good judgment to decide what you need to do to prepare for Tisha B’Av; and (2) don’t go too far.

These are rabbinic principles. Yet we see all around us Jews who have fallen into the pit of viewing all Jewish texts as Holy Rule Books — and infinitely expandable ones, at that. As a result they are growing increasing machmir (strict or severe about Jewish ritual matters) about everything to the point of utter absurdity: they worry about microscopic crustaceans in bottled water , fight over the legitimacy of hekhshers, bully little girls whose very modest clothing is not deemed modest enough , and insist on sex-segregated buses. And the very worst I’ve heard? It was reported in the New York Times that last Yom Kippur, the Bobov Hasidim of Borough Park, Brooklyn have encouraged and enabled hundreds of frail members of their community — people for whom fasting is medically dangerous — to receive IV fluids so they can fast, because, “It’s not considered eating if it goes through a vein.” Halakhah does not condone this: one is not supposed to risk one’s health to fast on Yom Kippur.

I mean in no way to condemn ritual observance; quite to the contrary. When we make our observance meaningful (and not a matter of racking up mitzvah points), we have brought more kedushah (holiness) into the world and built another bridge between heaven and earth. Observance for its own sake (or worse: to prove our religious superiority over others) impedes spiritual growth. Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel understood that exercising our best judgment insures that our observance will connect us to family, community, humanity, Jewish ethical principles and social values — fertile ground for a blossoming neshamah (soul).

When we return to our sacred texts, and read them thoughtfully and carefully, we see that extremism and belonging to the Chumrah-of-the-Month Club is inconsistent with Judaism’s basic principles. It’s not about rules; it’s about finding a path of integrity and kindness through the thickets of life. And it’s about seeking wisdom; wisdom does not come from mindless adherence to rules.

© Rabbi Amy Scheinerman

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."