Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Three Stories about Staying Power

Three Stories about Staying Power

From time to time I pose the question - as a question, not an answer - of the ability of non-Israeli Jewry to sustain itself over time. I usually ask if it has staying power, since without it, Jews don't remain Jews for more than a few generations. Here are three recent stories about Jewish staying power.

The Bible doesn't much deal with non-military threats to Jewish existence, except a bit in some of the latter sections. Thus, the commandments to hold on no matter what, and the conceptual-religious-cultural mechanisms of doing so were mostly developed in the second millennium of Jewish existence. No single source for this is more important than the discussion initiated at Lod (Lyyda), where a wealthy Jew named Nitza gave his attic to a group of scholars to study. In the attic, so we're told, rabbi Yochanan taught what he had learned from Shimon ben Yehotzadak: All of the laws of the Torah, if a man is told to break them or be killed, he should break them and not be killed, except for idolatry, incest and murder.

The Gemara then goes into a long discussion which introduces distinctions such as if the demand is private (then there's more leeway to save one's life) or public (in which in some cases it is forbidden to give in at all). The motivation of the person making the demand and the threats is also relevant; if it's personal, or national, and so on. (Sanhedrin 74a and b)

At the time this was not a theoretical discussion, as many in the Talmud are, as there was a war going on with the Romans. Yet the rabbis could not have foreseen how serious their discussion would someday be; their conflict with the Romans was still largely political, or at least concentrated on the degree of autonomy the Jews of Judea would have within the Roman Empire. Many centuries later, after the Roman empire was no more, there would repeatedly be cases in Medieval Europe where the Jews would be faced with the full enormity of the dilemma, and large numbers of them would choose to die rather than to give in. (One assumes there were also large numbers who chose to give in, but their descendants were not Jews so their decision is lost). The horrible but extraordinarily powerful concept of Kiddush Hashem - Sanctifying His Name even through martyrdom - starts with this passage in the Talmud, which we passed last week.

During the Shoah, a number of rabbis reversed the logic of the ruling: if the enemy is attempting to destroy all of the Jews, without offering them any choice in the matter, perhaps they may transgress so as to survive, a few of them. A twist the earlier rabbis had not foreseen.

The second story began six years ago today, on May 2nd 2004, when Tali Hatuel, eight months pregnant with her first son, loaded her four daughters into the family van. Hila was 11, Hadar was 9, Ronny was 7,and Meirav was 2. They all lived in the village of Katif, and they were off to pick up their husband-father David, and go vote in the internal Likud poll on Ariel Sharon's plan to pull them out of Gaza. On the road to Ashkelon Tali was shot by Palestinian murderers, who then walked up to the stalled van and shot the four girls at close range.

The five were buried in a row: Tali, her foetus still in her, and to either side of her, two daughters.

I assume the murderers understood that such a murder on that particular day would likely hamper Sharon's plan of leaving Gaza. To the best of my knowledge the murderer or murderers were never apprehended, though one may hope they died in the 2009 attack on Hamas.

David Hatuel mourned his entire family, was forced out of their home the following summer, then remarried and now has three small children. His new wife is scrupulously left alone by our usually irrepressible media: there are some lines that are still not to be crossed. David himself, however, talks from time to time. In an interview over the weekend he said that he hasn't built a new family, he has built a second floor. Tali and her daughters are the first floor, Limor and her three (so far) are the second floor of the same family. His three new children have three sets of grandparents.

So that's the second story about staying power. Sort of puts things into perspective, doesn't it.

The third was this morning. We went to a Brit- the celebration of circumcision which Jewish boys undergo on their eighth day after birth. The great grandparents were there, and the grandparents, and lots of siblings and cousins and friends. The new-born is the first-born to his parents, and his mother looked deeply distressed as the moment approached. New mothers of new-born Jewish boys usually are, but the first is the hardest. Nearby I noticed another young woman, deep into her first pregnancy: she also has a boy coming, and she literally had tears in her eyes as the moment approached.

The baby, by the way, cried for about 30 seconds and then was given a pacifier with wine on it and went back to sleep, as always happens. Still, I'm always struck at this event by the underlying message that being Jewish hurts.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Three Stories about Staying Power

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Even the Greatest of Them

Even the Greatest of Them

There's been a flurry of condemnation of some South African Jews who disapprove of Richard Goldstone to the extent that he won't be joining the synagogue services of his grandson's bar mitzva. JTA says he has been barred; the Jerusalem Post offers a fudged version of the story, in which some of the protagonists seem to be backing away from the appearance of their decision without changing it. J.J. Goldberg at The Forward notes the story, and many of his readers think it's disgraceful.

The story emphasizes an aspect of the story of the Goldstone report not often directly mentioned: that Jews are a community, and always have been; that the community has its own internal dynamics; and that Richard Goldstone dealt his community a grievous blow by adding his stature to a nasty defamation of it. (I'm not going into the issue of the report here, because I've already done so here, but having read the entire 575 pages of it I have no problem in calling it a nasty defamation).

The tool of nidui (roughly similar to the Greek practice of ostracism) has been one of the most powerful methods of sanction and censure in Jewish communal life. During the millennia in which the Jews had no state power to wield, it was perhaps the most powerful tool in their arsenal, but it predates even those times.

Perhaps the most famous nidui ever was the casting out of rabbi Eliezer in the 2nd century CE. Rabbi Eliezer was one of the greatest of the tanaim, the scholars who created the Mishna; indeed, he is one of fountainheads of the Mishna; he appears thousands of times in the Talmud and his impact was enormous. He also seems to have been a stubborn pedant, unwavering in his puristic interpretations, a fact that eventually led to his clash with the other scholars of his generation. In one of the most fascinating discussions in the history of religion (any religion), R. Eliezer took the side of God against the scholars but lost, and when he refused to accept this he was cast out.

As he lay on his deathbed a group of his disciples came to visit him, among them rabbis Akiva and Yehoshua. First they loitered outside his chamber, as R. Eliezer rebuked his son for putting care of him above preparations for the approaching Shabbat. The disciples then entered, while sitting across the room because of the nidui order.
- R. Eliezer: Why did you come?
- We came to learn.
- Where were you up till now?
- We were busy [they didn't want to pain him by saying they had been respecting the order]
- We'll see how you die
- R. Akiva: What will my death be like?
- Yours will be the worst of them all [R. Akiva was later tortured to death by the Romans, in an emblematic act of martyrdom]

R. Eliezer then crossed his arms across his chest: Oh, what will be lost when I go. I studied much Torah from my teachers, but what I took from them was like a dog lapping at the sea [so great was what I didn't have time to learn]; I taught much Torah to my students, but they didn't take more than a drop from a vessel. I have studied 300 rules about the affliction of leprosy that no-one ever asked me; I've studied 300 rules of the farming of squash that no-one ever asked me except R. Akiva once [These are arcane matters; his passing would mean the loss of such details that are not common knowledge].

The disciples and R. Eliezer got into a detailed discussion of holiness and impurity; to one of the questions he added that a leather item if treated in a particular manner is pure - and on the word Pure he died.
Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and said The nidui is over, the nidui is over [otherwise it could also have affected the burial arrangements].

Richard Goldstone is not an important Jew, not in any Jewish context; ostracizing him may make him feel sorry for himself, but it's no great matter in a Jewish context.

Sanhedrin 68a; the Daf Yomi thread is presented and explained here.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Even the Greatest of Them

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Rescuing Lust from Extinction

Rescuing Lust from Extinction

The following story appears at least twice in the Talmud, the more detailed version (if memory serves) near the end of the Yoma tracate. However, having recently passed it in Sanhedrin, I'm posting from there.

The context is a discussion of the laws of idolatry. As is standard practice in the Talmud, there's lots of extremely detailed discussion of hypothetical matters that don't happen in the real lives of the scholars doing the discussing. Sometimes (tho often not) these discussions eventually mention the fact that they're religious and intellectual exercises, not practical discourses. So in this case. Having spent days on the minutiae of idolatry, the Gemara wonders how it came to be that the Jews lost their interest in the practice. After all, it was clearly a major issue in the early biblical times, yet the scholars of the Talmudic era apparently had never heard of Jews engaging in it for many centuries.

If you're into modern historical analysis of documents as a primary way to decipher the events of the past, the Gemara's answer won't satisfy you, because it's a fable (or myth, or metaphor, or allegory, or something. The literary folks will better know which term it is). According to this fable, the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem once managed to capture the flaming lion cub of idolatry which had emerged from the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Its roars were terrible to hear, but the prophet Zachariya told them to force it into a cage and pore molten lead over it; lead apparently having special sealing properties, as any reader of Superman comics will confirm.

(If you're less than 40-some years of age and don't know what I'm talking about with the Superman allusion, forget it. Not important).

Since they were having such a good day (Et ratzon) the Sanhedrin decided also to do away with lust. They prayed that the beast of lust be handed over, and when it was they caged it for three days, waiting to see the implications. (They realized the danger of their actions, and were being careful). As they had feared, the absence of lust in the world wreaked havoc; as the Gemara describes it, during those three days even the hens stopped laying eggs. Wondering if they might request that Lust be so limited than men would have it only for their rightful wife, the Sanhedrin recognized that this would not be granted. So they blinded the Beast of Lust but then let it free; as a result, men no longer lust after their immediate female relatives, and incest became rare.

Sanhedrin 64a

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Rescuing Lust from Extinction

A Dynasty that Still Lives

A Dynasty that Still Lives

The Davidian dynasty can be traced, generation by generation, for about 1,500 years, from Boaz and Ruth in the 11 century BCE all the way to the leaders of the Jewish community in Babylon in the fourth century CE.

How much of it can be scientifically demonstrated, I do not know. The existence of King David himself was proven by an archeological finding at Tel Dan just a few years ago. Here's a new story, in which Eilat Mazar, an archeologist digging in Jerusalem, says she has found a wall of the city that was constructed by Solomon.

The item notes that not all archeologists will welcome this interpretation of the finding, since some of them regard the Biblical stories of the Davidian kingdom as unreliable. It's an argument which has been raging in the academic journals for the past 20 years, perhaps more. My impression is that the conservatives, the ones who credit the Bible with greater reliability, are slowly gaining ground (no pun intended), but then again, that's also where my preferences would naturally lie, and I'm not reading all the academic stuff, so who knows.

Disagreeing about the House of David is not a new pastime. Just this morning I passed a section in the Sanhedrin tractate in which rabbis from the second and fourth centuries CE tired to agree on how it could have been that David wedded both Meirav and Michal, two daughters of Saul: wedding sisters is forbidden. (Yes, I've heard of Leah and Rachel, but that's a different story). One possibility is that Meirav died before Michal was wedded, another possibility is that there was a legal screw up in which Meirav ended up never wedding David, and the Gemarah hacks away at it for about a page. The axiom of the discussion is that these ancient Biblical figures were organizing their lives according to the very detailed rules being formulated in the Mishnaic era - an improbable assumption. Yet the attempt to look back 1,400 years and fit old events into a contemporary legal framework is ultimately no more silly than peering back 3,000 years so as to fit them into a contemporary political one, is it?

(Sanhedrin 19b)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Surviving Adversity

Surviving Adversity

Many of Israel's enemies, including some home-grown ones, seem to feel that if enough pressure is brought to bear on the Jews, they'll give up on their national project and move "back" to where-ever, so long as it's far away. This is an odd preposition, with no evidence to back it up, but it seems to keep the Palestinians and many other Arabs hoping, and they undoubtedly garner satisfaction from Westerners and Jews who tell them eventually it'll work.

In week or two the Daf Yomi folks will pass this story, about obstinate perseverance in the face of the military might of the most powerful empire of the day, Rome. Many Jews grew up on the story, but in these days of limited Jewish education, perhaps many others haven't. I'm reasonably certain many of Israel's enemies don't know the story or the tradition it fits into, which is regrettable since they clearly underestimate how obstinate we can be. The story took place in the decade of 135-145 CE, most likely.

The Gemarah is discussing how judges are appointed, and they're examining the rule that only judges who have been accredited by three previously accredited judges may set fines.

-Really? So how to explain the story told by Rav Yehuda in the name of Rav? [Here's the story]
Blessed is the memory of Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, for if not him, the laws of fines would have been forgotten.
- How forgotten? They could have been re-learned?
- Rather, the authority to apply them would have been abolished. Once the Roman rulers decreed that anyone who accredited judges [the word is smicha] would be killed, and anyone who received smicha would be killed, and any town where smicha was done would be destroyed, and any county were smicha happened would be razed. What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava do? He went to an empty spot between two mountains, between two towns between two counties in the area between Usha and Shfar'am, and there he did smicha for five scholars: Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yossi and Rabbi ELiezer ben Shamua. Rav Avaya adds Rabbi Nechemia to the list. When they realized they'd been seen by the enemy, he said to them, Run, my sons! What will happen to you, they cried. He told them, I'm here like an unturned stone [perhaps this means I won't run, and they'll kill me but I won't feel it, as a stone feels no pain]. The Roman soldiers didn't let up until they had stabbed him with 300 spears.

The Gemarah isn't convinced: there were two additional judges there, but the story doesn't mention them because they were less important than Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava [so the story doesn't prove that a single judge can give smicha]

Another problem with the story:
Was Rabbi Meir accredited by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava? Didn't Raba bar bar Hana teach us in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: Anyone who says Rabbi Meir wasn't given smicha by Rabbi Akiva, has it all wrong!
The Gemarah explains: Rabbi Akiva did give Rabbi Meir smicha, but he was too young at the time and it wasn't recognized, so he had to be given smicha again, this time by Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava.

The spot where this took place is still empty; you cross it when you take Route 6 north of the Barkai junction. Shfaram is an Arab-Druze town by the same name; Usha is a Jewish village.

[The daf Yomi thread starts and is explained here]

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Death and Transactions

Death and Transactions

Tomorrow the Daf Yomi brigade will finish Bava Batra (I'm ahead right now, and finished already). At 176 double pages Bava Batra is the longest of all tractates; actually, it's the third segment of a mega-tractate called Nezikim, which contains 414 double pages. So even at the breakneck speed of a double page a day, we've been in Nezikim for well over a year. Coming up is Sanhedrin, which deals with courts (and lots of other things, this being the Talmud).

By way of farewell from Nezikim, here's a story we passed a few weeks ago. The Gemara has spent many pages on the laws of shchiv merah - a person who is approaching death. There are various ways in which a shchiv merah differs from a healthy person when it comes to transfer of property. First, since they may have but little time left, the procedures of transferring property are mostly waived. There's no need for a contract, for example. Second, unlike a healthy person who gives someone property but then can't take it back since ownership has passed to the recipient - if a shchiv merah heals, he or she can claim the property back, since the presenting of it was predicated on approaching death which fortunately didn't happen. The way to gauge if a shchiv merah intended to give a present (irrevocable) or hand out property soon not to be needed anymore (revocable) is to see how much property was handed out. If the shchiv merah handed out all his or her property, clearly it was in the expectation of death and thus revocable.

There, I summarized the whole thing in one paragraph. Cool.

So here's the story, which I'll try to tell in a mildly accurate rendition of the original, minimal wording and all:
The sister of Rav Dimi ben Yosef owned a small orchard. Each time she was weak she'd give it too him, and take it back when she felt better. One time she was weak and sent for him:
- come, take.
- I don't want.
- come and craft it however you wish.
He came and wrote a contract which left her with part of it.
When she got up, she wanted it back.
[Rav Dimi apparently refused]
She went to Rav Nachman [perhaps the greatest judge of the period]. Rav Nachman sent to Rav Dimi: Come.
- No. What for. I left her part of it, and she signed a contract. [My case is waterproof].
- If you don't come I'll beat you with a whip that draws no blood [I'll excommunicate you].
[Rav Dimi apparently came]
[Rav Nachman to the witnesses]: What did she do?
- She cried vey I'm dying and I won't see my brother! [who was refusing to be bothered]
- In that case, she really felt she was dying, and giving presents right before death can be revoked [if death doesn't happen].

Bava Batra 151 a-b.

As I've often said, this thread starts and is explained here.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Contracts, the Iternationale, and Massachussets

Contracts, the Iternationale, and Massachussets

We're nearing the end of Bava Batra, the longest of all tractates. The final chapter, from page 150, deals with the technicalities of contracts: who writes them, what's their correct form, and so on. On page 157a there are a number of sayings and stories from Abayeh, one of the major scholars of the 4th generation of Babylonian Amoraim, so early 4th century. Thus, if someone asks for an example of your signature, always write it at the top of the page, otherwise they may write obligations above it and you'll have to meet them. The Gemarah then tells of a Jewish tax collector who came before Abayeh: "If your honor would give me a sample of his signature, in the future I"ll be able to reduce the tax on scholars recommended in writing by your honor". As Abayeh was about to sign at the top of the page, the tax collector tried to pull it up so as to leave space above the signature. Abayeh told him the rabbis had already warned us of scoundrels such as him.

We learned this page last week. Also last week, the New York Times had an article about internet passwords and how many of us make it easy for hackers to break through them. Apparently the single most common password is "123456", and many millions of users use one of 20 popular passwords.

The differences between the world of 310 and 2010 are too numerous to count. The issues, whoever, are exactly precisely the same. Abayeh, were he alive today teaching Bava batra, would easily recognize our modern day scoundrels, and would remind us that "the rabbis already warned us about them".

In 1871, in the excitement of the Paris Commune, a fellow named Eugene Pottier wrote a poem called the Internationale. Within a few decades it was the socialists' anthem world wide, and after 1918 it became the anthem of the Soviet Union. It never really caught on in the United States, but in many parts of the world it was the rousing anthem. Israeli socialists were still singing it into the 1980s (though I expect they're mostly glad we've forgotten this). The song had many versions in dozens of languages, but all included the theme

This is the eruption of the end
Of the past let us wipe the slate clean
Enslaved masses, arise, arise
The world is about to change its foundation

or, in a more rousing rendition:

For justice thunders condemnation:
A better world's in birth!
No more tradition's chains shall bind us,
Arise you slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations:
We have been nought, we shall be all!

(Wikipedia, predictably, offers many versions. The Hebrew is a pithy "Olam yashan nachriva").

The idea of destroying the old world so as to build a better one has rather fallen out of fashion recently, to the extent that most people today don't believe how real the intention was. Yet not long ago this impulse was the motivating idea behind humanity's worst political movements, Nazism and Communism both (but probably not fascism, which is ironic as today that term is the one used for "whatever nasties we don't like"). In their different ways, Communists from Petersburg to Phnom Penn really did intend to build a new world with new people, and the Nazis agreed fully.

Yet the impulse is still there. Not, admittedly, through violence. No, today's inheritors of the idea hope to re-wire humanity and start history anew by smothering us all in kindness, I can't say it any other way:

Our point was simple and direct: "Your success depends on helping people believe that they can count on each other, that they are not alone in a ruthless world in which people are out for themselves, and there is a possibility of building a society based on kindness, generosity, and caring for each other. Unless your programs actually allow people to feel in their own lives that they are part of build a new society based on love and generosity of spirit, they will soon fall back into the older paranoid view-that we are all competing with each other and have to look our first for number one. And that will likely them right back into the hands of the most conservative forces in this society. It's that simple, President Obama: if your policies do not give people a personal experience of caring and generosity, people will quickly succumb to the fearmongers who compete in the media over who can make people most afraid, most cynical, and most angry."

Written and e-mailed last week By Rabbi Michael Lerner, of Tikkun Magazine, cited by Jeffrey Golderg, who seems to be on the mailing list. Goldberg pokes fun at Lerner, and right he is in doing so, but I'm more interested in the underlying theme. All that happened was that a Republican won a by-election in Massachusetts, after all. For Lerner, this is the demise of the chance Obama never properly grasped to change human nature.

Lerner is a side show, yes, but he's not Richard Silverstein or even Mondoweiss. He's been in the public eye since the Civil Rights Movement reached Berkley, Bill Clinton reputedly read his Tikkun Magazine even while at the White House, and perhaps his wife does still, who knows. He thinks it's possible, indeed, the only admirable option, to reform humanity into something it isn't, never has been, and - if Bava batra is any indicator - unlikely to be anytime soon.

(As an aside, sometimes I wonder what kind of rabbi Lerner is? He must have learned Bava Batra, no? How does he fit it into his understanding of the world? And also, since he's a strident critic of much Israel has done these past few decades, what does that say about Israel?)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Pikuach Nefesh

Pikuach Nefesh

Pikuach Nefesh is the Hebrew term for the obligation to put the saving of a life above all other commandments. The source of the term is from the Yoma tractate, 83a, where the mishna discusses the conditions in which it is permissible to break the sanctity of Yom Kippur. One example is when a structure has fallen on someone who may still be alive, and the rule is that the rubble is to be removed (mifakchin alav et hagal). There is then a long and detailed discussion, which includes the commandment that the labor is to be done by the men, with no attempt to have it done, say, by children who aren't fasting anyway.

2,200 years later, a team of Haredi men has joined the Israeli rescue team in Haiti, and they're proudly working throughout the Shabbat. Yet another small expression of the importance of having a Jewish state.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Interactions With Arabs

Interactions With Arabs

Heard the one about how the Zionists were European colonialists determined to screw the poor Palestinians? And how by now, they're the only colonialists still standing, but even they will sooner or later succumb to the inexorable logic of history? I have no doubt you have.

Of course, there were always a few scratches on the neatness of the story. The Jewish language, for example, is not only Semitic, it's Western-Semitic, meaning it originated at the east edge of the Mediterranean. There's the single most widespread best-seller in the annals of Man, the Bible, which rather clearly puts the Jews in the land no-one was then calling Palestine. There are the many archeological finds, some of them very old even by the standards of archeology, in the Jewish language, confirming the Jewish story. There's the fact that most Zionists didn't come from European colonial states, there was no home state they could rely on and be colonials from... in short, Zionism looks exactly like an elephant except it doesn't have four legs, no trunk, no floppy ears, no thick gray skin, isn't the right size, isn't an animal at all, and doesn't have tusks. Other than that the resemblance is striking.

Every now and then there's another little gem. If the Jews were here so long ago, you might ask, didn't they ever interact with Arabs? Not, obviously, 3,000 years ago when there were no Arabs here to interact with. But later, perhaps?

I refer you to Bava Batra. The discussion is about farmers who neglect to clear their vineyards from other crops, thus transgressing on the prohibition of mixing crops. Rabbi Eliezer takes this so far as to forbid the use of a vineyard where thistles haven't been removed. The Gemarah asks in what way can thistles be construed as a second crop, alongside the vines? Rabbi Hannina explains that Rabbi Eliezer saw how Arabs ("arvaya" in the Aramaic) collected thistles to feed their camels.

Bava Batra156b.

This thread started and is explained here.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Disaster in Haiti

Disaster in Haiti

Given the magnitude of the destruction and suffering in Haiti, we should pause a moment from our daily matters and hope the aid workers can still save as many lives as possible.

Coincidentally, this week the daf yomi project is passing a number of mishnas which deal with earthquakes, and how inheritances are divided when buildings fall on families and it's not possible to know which family member died first, thus notionally bequeathing their property to other family members who also died. The legal issue could have been demonstrated with other scenarios, of course (what happens when families die in a war and we don't know details, for example). Yet earthquakes have always been with us and always will, so they're an easily recognizable tag for the more abstract "What happens when simultaneous sudden death strikes?"

Bava Batra 157-158

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Educating Thieves

Educating Thieves

We participated last night in a study group that looks at social issues in Jewish sources. Yesterday's question was what the Jewish way of charity (tsedaka) is; after almost two hours of looking at various texts, talmudic, biblical, and medieval, I can't say we'd answered the question, not at all. Maybe in a couple of months.

We were joined by a Haredi friend. Not marginally Haredi: very Haredi. From the center of the Haredi world. After the session I briefly chatted with her about the methodology, rather than the content. "You people study Torah very very differently than we do. It's fascinating, but I'm going to have to get used to it, if I can. We're very careful about what we say and attribute to the sources; you seem willing to entertain all sorts of ideas about what's perhaps going on in the discussions and interactions between the scholars".

Which means, even once you've got a firm grasp on how to understand the sources - no small feat, which most contemporary Jews can't do - and even if you've accumulated quite a bit of the content, there are entire schools of learning that do it differently, and in many cases probably understand the sources differently.

So, back to my introductory snapshots.

The Gemara is discussing permissible and prohibited commercial behaviors: how to weigh and measure produce. At one point Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai muses that the discussion itself is problematic. On the one hand, detailing the tricks may give thieves new ideas. On the other hand, not talking about it may give them the feeling the rabbis (who are also the magistrates) aren't street-wise, and they'll be encouraged to cheat.

So what did he decide, asks the Gemara? (Which is an interesting question, since we've already been told the answer). Rav Shmuel ben Itzchak explains that Yochanan ben Zakai chose to detail the specifics because of verse 9 in Hosea 14: The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. The Torah tells what is right, even if some people will stumble.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Talmudic Tall Tales and Yarns

Talmudic Tall Tales and Yarns

The section of Bava Batra we're at right now (pages 73-76) contains a long series of fantastic tales; Mark Twain would have appreciated them had he had the access. Unlikely as it may sound, the first page or two resemble... Star Wars. No, there's no Republic, no Empire (that would be Rome) and no Jedi. But the reality described... what can I tell you? If there's any way you can go and see for yourself, do so.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Wills, Society, Sovereignty

Wills, Society, Sovereignty

Ever been to the National Gallery of Art? Or, if you're on the West Coast, the Getty Museum? Ever heard of the 3,000 libraries set up by Andrew Carnegie? Or the vaccine against Yellow Fever, developed with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation? For that matter, do you ever reflect on how Warren Buffet and the Gates family are doing more the the governments of the world to fight the sicknesses which plague the poor world? Have you ever been to, or benifited from, an American university? (Or an Israeli one, for that matter)?

The reason I ask is because all this philanthropy and the many billions of dollars like it is not to be taken for granted. Actually, it's largely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon; Continental Europe doesn't "do philanthropy" in a similar way; there, the assumption is that Society - meaning, the government, the state - must supply things like universities, libraries, museums and all matter of social programs.Of course, rich people do support all sorts of fine things, but to a more limited degree. In some countries, the idea of an entrepreneur giving away his fortune rather than bequeathing it to his children is downright illegal. The Economist recently wrote about this, in a fascinating column.

Europe’s inheritance laws pit the Anglo-Saxon emphasis on freedom and markets against a continental focus on social “solidarity”, meaning the belief that shielding people from the vagaries of fate is an overriding public interest (even if that sometimes rewards the feckless). It is no coincidence that Europe is equally divided over labour laws that favour competition, versus those that protect workers from the whims of markets and bosses alike.

This can easily be emotional stuff, too. Surely continental inheritance rules trample personal freedom and are blind to individual merit? Surely the Anglo-Saxon way is a hostage to human caprice? Yes, and yes, at least sometimes.

This is the sort of thing that national sovereignty was invented for: to give different societies the ability to create the conditions that best fit their values, and to allow them to change and modify as they decide. Interestingly, Jewish laws of inheritance seem to lean closer to the Anglo-Saxon, free-market, freedom of choice version. The sections that deal with this in Bava Batra - mostly the 8th-9th chapters - detail the laws and practices of wills and inheritance, and rather resemble the Continental laws, but the freedom to dispatch of ones property as one sees fit up until the moment of death is broad, and supersedes all laws of inheritance. Even on ones' deathbed (Shchiv mera) one can hand out ones' property according to any whim. The laws of the State of Israel are roughly similar, whether because of the British influence, inherited from their 1919-1948 Mandate, or because of Jewish tradition, or both.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Tikkun Olam

Tikkun Olam

A number of readers have posted thoghtful questions over the past few weeks, to which I haven't related, mostly for lack of time. I have however made myself a list of comments I should respond to by and by. Here's one.

A reader asked me what my position is on Tikkun Olam, the Hebrew term which literally means "fixing the world", and which has become a recognized term in English, at least in broad circles of progressive thinkers in America but perhaps also beyond; I expect Richard Goldstone sooner or later will tell us he's engaging in Tikkun Olam.

Judaism is a very (very) old religion, and it pre-dates all the major ideological fault lines of the modern world by two or three millennia. So in that context, it's meaningless to speculate what "traditional Judaism" thought about the role of government in redressing the woes of society, for example. The Bible says nothing about health care one way or the other, and the Talmud has no position on international law. True, some of the most visionary and uplifting sentiments in human history come from the Bible - the aspiration to a world without war, and a world ruled by justice (until you begin to look closer and it turns out mercy may trump justice). Yet the same Bible - sometimes, the very same prophets - also contains some extraordinarily harsh sentiments about the fate of evil people and evil nations.

Anyway, traditional Judaism as developed by the Pharisees - the only group that culturally survived the cataclysm of the destructions of the first and third centuries - was a practical culture, and mostly shied away from visionary meta-schemes. Tikkun Olam is a perfect case. It's a Talmudic term, and as I've explained here, and also here, it doesn't mean what the English language thinks it means. Tikkun Olam in Talmudic tradition is a legal mechanism for resolving some kinds of complications which can arise from pedantic readings of the law.

So you've got some Biblical prophetic statements that contain a yearning for a theoretical perfected world (but no program to reach it). You've got the earthy rabbinic scholars who don't worry about perfection of the world and focus on the here and now. To be fair, in the middle ages there are once more Jewish voices that talk about perfecting the world, indeed, perfecting all of existence; some of those strains of thought then made their way into Hassidic Judaism, three hundred years ago - but I really don't think there's much affinity between those ideas and the ones of rabbi Lerner at Tikkun Magazine. The contemporary Tikkun Olam thinkers may not be earthy and pragmatic, but they're hardly religious mystics in the meaning of the Kabala.

Where did the modern usage of Tikkun Olam come from? I don't know. If any reader wishes to point us at some way of finding out, be my guest. I expect that if someone were to trace the lineage, it would be something like 18th century Enlightenment, French Revolution, then the more radical parts of the French Revolution, from there to the utopian strands of 19th century European thought -and about that time, newly enlightened Jews leaving their ghettos and joining the general European discussion, liking one of the camps and going back to their own sources to prove that Judaism said the same thing - which it probably didn't, but that was irrelevant.

This is a subject worthy of more than a blog post, but that's what I'm offering at the moment.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Mourning for Jerusalem

Mourning for Jerusalem

The UNHRC decision yesterday took the deeply flawed Goldstone Report, pared off the few sections that were critical of Hamas, and added condemnation to Israel for trying to keep the peace in Jerusalem, an issue which has nothing to do with anything - or perhaps, has everything to do with it.

In a few days the Daf Yomi brigade will reach this story (I'm still a few pages ahead):

After the destruction of the Second Temple many of the Pharisees decided never again to eat meat or drink wine, as a statement of their grief. Rabbi Yehoshua engaged their leaders in conversation, and asked why?
- Because with the destruction of the Temple we can no longer bring sacrifices, nor pour wine on the alter.
- Well, then why eat bread? Bread was part of the ritual, too?
- You're right. We won't eat bread, either, only fruit.
- But fruit [in the broader meaning of agricultural produce] shouldn't be consumed either. After all, we used to bring our tithes to the Temple, and we can't do that anymore?
- You're right. We'll only eat agricultural produce of the sort that wasn't brought to the Temple.
- But water? We can't drink water anymore, either, can we? Water used to be poured on the alter?

To this they had no answer, and Rabbi Yehoshua continued:
My children, come and I'll try to resolve this for you. We can't not mourn. Yet we can't mourn too much, for if we do there will be no life. So we must mourn as part of life, thus: When a man paints his home he should leave a small section unpainted. When preparing a feast, he should leave a small part unprepared. When a woman puts on her jewelry, she should put on a bit less. As it is written, "If I forget thee Jerusalem, let my right hand wither". [This was written after the destruction of the First Temple, so Rabbi Yehoshua was referring to a cultural tool which had already proved itself]. And whoever mourns Jerusalem will yet see her in her celebration.

Bava Batra, 60b

Did Rabbi Yehoshua know that he was fine-tuning the culture of mourning to a level - not too harsh, but not too easy, either - that would be sustainable for almost 2,000 years? I doubt it. Yet the impulse was clearly there. Mourning must fit into life.

The significance of the story isn't the ancient legend, but the fact that ever since it has been possible to see Jewish homes with a patch of unpainted wall, zecher lachurban, a memory of the destruction. Because the balance Rabbi Yehoshua sought was correct, we have indeed, after a very long time, seen Jerusalem rebuilt as the capital of the Jews.

In Yemin Moshe, a neighborhood across from the wall of the Old City, there is a wealthy man who recently refurbished his home. Instead of leaving an unpainted patch, he had an artisan use a new-fangled technology to etch page 60b into a block of Jerusalem limestone, and mount it in his living room wall.

Is this a sign of mourning, or of celebration?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

When did Baghdad Start?

When did Baghdad Start?

Here's a nice little mystery.

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia (which I prefer to Wikepedia for reliability), Baghdad was founded by the Caliph Mansur, in 762. This was a while ago, but by the standards of the region it's actually almost modern; by the 8th century the recorded history of this part of the world already had a couple millennia under its belt.

In our Talmud study group we yesterday noted in passing the appearance in a duscussion of one Rav Hanna of Baghdat. One of our group, who knows a lot, commented that this is the first and only mention of Baghdad he's aware of in the Talmud, most of which took place in older Babylonian cities such as Sura, Pompedita, and Nahardea.

Except that the passage seems to be talking about the early Amoraitic period, say, third or fourth century at the latest, and in any case not the eighth.

Bava Batra 142b.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Fallible Rabbis

Fallible Rabbis

The Talmud is arguably the most influential book in all of Jewish writing - and Jews have written many many books. The Torah (Pentatuch) of course ranks higher and is more seminal; the rest of the Bible only notionally so, I'd argue. Absent either Talmud or Torah and you have no Judaism; over the centuries, however, considerably more time has been invested in relating to the Talmud, and that's the sense in which I'm willing - a bit gingerly - to position the Talmud even higher than the Torah.

This year the 100,000 or more of us who do Daf Yomi have been doing the Nezikim tractates (Bava Kama, Bava Metzia and now Bava Batra); in many ways, these three, perhaps along with the Shabbat, Sanhedrin, and perhaps Kiddushin tractates are the most improtant of all 37 tractates.

What do these volumes, whch stand at the center of Judaism, mostly deal with (bearing in mind that all tractates wander all over the thematic landscape)? Not theology, as you might expect of the heart of an ancient religion; not how God relates to us and back. Nor even religious belief in any recognizably Protestant form, of Faith, say, or Destiny. The Nezikim tractates deal with civil law. What happens when my ox damages your vegetable patch. How do we know when a contract is valid. This month we've been discussing things like setting boundries between fields, respecting the neighbor's property, figuring out what happens when two people claim the same property. In a month or two we'll have a long look at the laws of inheritance. (I peeked).

Which means these discussions which stand at the heart of Judaism deal with the reality that people living together will have a lot to bicker about. Real people in the real world will have all sorts of differences about lots of things in their daily lives. This can't be changed or abolished, but hopefully it can be regulated.

It's not only the simple folk or the uneducated. The other day I passed the story of Rav Kahana, whose field was washed away in a flood, and who then rebuilt his fence on his neighbor's land. There's a medieaval scholar who explains he did this by mistake, but that's not the reading as I see it, since he was certain enough about it to be taken to court. The Gemara then tells both of the ruling that was handed down, but also of how Rav Kahana himself - as an important scholar - participated in the legal discussion of how such a case should be ruled. This is not the first time I've come across such a case, where an important scholar and religious leader is censured (or exonerated) for his earthly actions. Even important rabbis, leaders of their communities and figures of reverance for the following millennia, were real people, and they had real quarrels just like everybody else.

Bava Batra 41a-b. (Note for Soccerdad and the other eagle-eyed pedants: Yes, I know this is a few pages ahead of the schedule. I'm a progressive fellow).

Have I ever mentioned that this thread starts and is explained here? Well, it does.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Staying Power of American Jews

The Staying Power of American Jews

The section of the Bava Batra tractate we covered last week spent more than two double pages discussing various aspects of tsedaka, which is sort of a cross between charity, alms-giving, and philanthropy. (No, they're not all the same - and see also the previous post). At one point the discussion focuses on the case where a prominent non-Jewish woman sought a scholar to manage a donation for her. R. Ami turned her down, while Rava accepted the charge. The Gemara assumes they both knew the same halachic restrictions and stipulations on non-Jews and Tsedaka, but ultimately it seems the differing decisions were a matter of geopolitics. The woman was the mother of a Persian king. R. Ami, living in Eretz Yisrael under Roman jurisdiction, could turn her down, while Rava, living under the jurisdiction of her son, couldn't. (Bava Batra 10b).

Borrowing this ancient story for a very contemporary topic, it should be clear that American Jews and Israelis may have legitimate differences on many issues, even assuming either community ever had unanimity an anything on its own side. Geography matters today, as it did eighteen hundred years ago.

My question regarding this editorial in The Forward isn't about it's thesis, but about it's unspoken underlying quandary. The thesis is that the Birthright program which flies young American Jews to Israel for 10 fantastic days isn't enough to forge a long-term bond with Israel; the main follow-up program, apparently, looks sort of like an attempt to proselytize to orthodox Judaism, and this must be countered.

Fair enough for what it's worth. Yet isn't the real problem, even as described by the editorial itself, that for most young American Jews, short of orthodox Judaism there isn't much of a program or option that's particularly compelling?

The community is far less adept at effectively reaching out to single, unaffiliated Jews in their 20s, who marry and procreate later than their parents, and enter adulthood at a time of limitless opportunities as Americans, including the opportunity to ignore their faith and live outside the tribe. Worrying though the Jewish Enrichment Center is, it fills a void left by the inability or unwillingness of more progressive denominations to engage in the kind of passionate outreach characteristic of the ultra-Orthodox. This dynamic is played out on college campuses, where students flock to the warmth and welcome (and, let’s be honest, the liquor) offered in a Chabad house on a Friday night rather than the more institutional atmosphere of the local Hillel or synagogue.

I'm not being judgmental. The historical evidence is that Jews have carried on longer than any other known group, in spite of more adverse conditions, because they wanted to. On past evidence, then, they'll probably continue carrying on to the extent they have the willpower. Where the willpower is insufficient, so will the staying power be lacking.

Pervasive indifference of American Jews to their Judaism is regrettable for Israel, but not an existential threat. It may be such a threat to American Jewry.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

TSEDAKA

Tsedaka

Rabbi Yehuda says:
Ten elements were created, each more powerful than the next.
Rock is hard, but iron cuts it.
Iron is hard, but fire melts it.
Fire is powerful, but water douses it.
Water is powerful, but clouds carry it.
Clouds are powerful, but wind dissipates them.
Wind is powerful, but living bodies contain it.
The body is strong, but fear breaks it.
Fear is powerful, but wine banishes it.
Wine is powerful, but sleep supersedes it.
And death is more powerful than them all.
Yet tsedaka (charity, good deeds) protects from death, as is said (Proverbs 10 verse 2)
"righteousness delivers from death" [The original Hebrew says Tsedaka, which is not synonymous with righteousness].

Bava Batra, 10a.

This thread began, and is explained, here.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Olive Trees

Olive Trees

Metula, earlier this week: view of the main street taken from the center of the village. The white structure at the bottom of the block is a packing house; the fence behind it is the Lebanese border. The fields beyond it and the mountains beyond them are Hezbullah territory. Yet it wasn't always so. Here's my report.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Olive Trees

One compelling justification for democratic nationalism is that it requires the nation to organize its affairs according to its values and priorities. Witness the American discussion about healthcare this summer; a national conversation about society, responsibility, life and death and how best to balance them. Each nation has its own set of laws that reflect its own discussion; were there a single, right way of organizing human affairs, it might long since have been adopted everywhere. (Or not. People aren't always sensible).

It was ever thus. Take the 3rd century as an example. Still reeling from the double calamities of defeat and destruction at the hand of Roman legions in the two previous centuries, there was yet a vibrant Jewish presence in the Galilee doing its best to hang on, and its laws reflected its conditions. Here's a small example. A second-century Mishna moots the ownership of olive trees swept downstream by a flood from one man's grove to another's field, where they took root. Third-century Rabbi Yochanan ruled that they were not to be repatriated, forbidding the uprooting of olive trees "mishum yishuv Eretz Yisrael", because of the need to settle the land of Israel. Rabbi Yirmiya added that this ruling was so compelling it overrode all other considerations. (Baba Metzia 100b and 101a).

Their efforts were only mildly successful. A few pages on the discussion is of standards of fertility to be expected from a field of wheat. Rabbi Yochanan says four se'ah of grain is needed to reap one kor; Rabbi Ammi says it takes eight se'ah. An old man explained to the scholars that in Rabbi Yochanan's day the land was still fertile, but by Rabbi Ammi's, conditions were worsening and good harvests were rare. (Bab Metzia 105b). Over the next few centuries the land degraded and the Jewish population dwindled.

*****
Sometime in the early 19th century a Jew from Russia named Bronstein arrived in Safed, largest of four significant Jewish communities (the others were Tiberius, Jerusalem and Hebron). I can't tell much about Bronstein, since no-one remembers, but we can safely say he didn't see any political significance to his move. He lived in a large multinational empire dominated by Russians, and was moving to another large multinational empire, dominated by Muslims. He was a Jew who saw an opportunity to move to Erez Yisroel and that was enough.

A great grandchild of his, we'll call him Levy, was an enterprising artisan. Yet Safed in the 1890s didn't offer much, so when he heard that the Baron Edmond de Rothschild was recruiting settlers for a new agricultural settlement, he signed up. No-one intended to launch a new chapter in Jewish history. The program was meant merely to create economic viability for Jewish existence. That it would be part of something greater became obvious only later.
In 1896 Levy, his wife and children, and a few dozen other families settled on a plot of land purchased by the Baron northeast of Safed on a low hill above a broad valley; to the east a gurgling creek ran through a canyon and tumbled over a high waterfall before flowing south into the swamps of the Hula valley. They called their settlement Metula.

Though they had no experience and very little guidance, the settlers of Metula planted apple and olive trees on the rocky plots behind their huts, and grain on the broad fields in the valley to the north. They worked hard; some gave up while others persisted. Levy's sons brought brides from Safed and set up their own families. The agricultural environment hadn't improved since the days of Rabbi Ammi. If anything, it was worse. Yet the trajectory had changed and these peasants were clawing back, not slipping.

They continued not to see themselves as national harbingers. When one daughter had a tumor her mother took her to the hospital in the big city: Beirut. When the doctors couldn't save her she was buried there. If there's still a Jewish cemetery in Beirut, she lies in it. Another time there were skirmishes between warring local factions, and one of Levy's sons sent his wife and newborn twin sons across the mountains to shelter in the Jewish community of Tyre. One of them died on the road, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Tyre – which almost certainly no longer exists.

After World War I the French and British carved up the defeated Turkish Empire. The area around Metula was so remote it took two extra years to finalize the border, which was drawn so that the village was the northernmost tip of the British Mandate. So northernmost that the border ran a literal stone's throw from the last house; the fields in the valley were all in the French Mandate. It took another few years to agree that the Jewish farmers in Mandatory Palestine would be permitted to work their fields in Mandatory Lebanon; an international checkpoint was set at the bottom of the hill between the homes and fields, and the farmers crossed it every day. This arrangement was respected until the State of Israel replaced Mandatory Palestine and the Lebanese blocked access to the fields. Even then, the eldest of Levy's grandsons, a towering giant of a man, used to break through the border each spring, drive his tractor to the family's fields, and plow one furrow. These fields, he was saying, had been his grandfather's, his father's, and he wasn't relinquishing title merely because of some international border that someone had drawn.

A grandson of Levy's was killed in Israel's War of Independence. A great grandson was killed as a paratrooper in the early 1960s, and another in the Yom Kippur War. Yet they're a hardy stock, are Levy's descendents. Almost 200 years since the first Bronstein left Russia for Safed, and 115 years since he and his wife set off for a barren hill above the Hula, some descendants are still there. They've long since accepted the loss of the fields in Lebanon, but they still farm the orchards and press olive oil. Levy's surviving grandsons are in their eighties and nineties, and you can still find them in Metula, living on the original short street. Where once a checkpoint was today stands a fruit packing factory, and the fence behind it is a sealed border. The great grandchildren and their children are spread far and wide: there is at least one great great great grandchild in New York, but most are Israelis. They span the political spectrum from settlers to far-left activists; there are lawyers and doctors and metal workers and hoteliers and dreamers; one is a property magnate with global reach, another works on a dairy farm on the West Bank. When I visited last week one descendant was drawing up plans for a new commercial initiative better adapted to the 21st century – but still in Metula.

*****
Jews used words and ideas to preserve their bond to their land. The essential bond itself, however, not the idea, is expressed in deeds. Harvesting olives is a reality and a metaphor. Seventeen centuries ago the harvesting couldn't stave off the general deterioration. A hundred years ago it was essential in launching the revival.

The other day one of the men told me of a chore he had, and asked if I'd join him: the extra two hands would make it easier. It was late afternoon, when the fierce sunlight of an August midday eases into gentle golden rays. Together we mended a fence, pulling, tugging, reinforcing, as the men have been doing for more than a century. Half a mile from the Lebanese border; it was comforting and peaceful.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations