Two-minute Torah: Conflict of Laws

What does one do if two different authorities give you conflicting orders? For example, during Prohibition the manufacture and sale of wine was prohibited. But according to some understandings of Jewish law, wine (as opposed to grape juice) MUST be used for Friday night Kiddush and the four cups during the Passover Seder. What to do?

As it happens, the Prohibition legislation allowed for a "sacramental exemption" and both synagogues and Catholic churches were able to obtain wine under it. But what if such an exemption had not been allowed?

This week's Torah reading contains a curious line. Lev. 19:3 says "Everyone shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall observe My sabbaths, I am the LORD." Why are the two combined in this one verse?

It should be noted, of course, that both observing the Sabbath and honoring our parents had already been commanded in the Ten Commandments. So we already know that we are supposed to do these things. What new knowledge does this particular verse impart to us?

Rashi says that the verse is specifically addressing a situation where one's parent tells him or her to violate Shabbat. Yes, in general we are supposed to obey our parents, but in this particular case, the verse is clarifying that at least as far as Shabbat goes, our obligation to God outweighs our obligation to our parents. In other words, the letter "vav" in the verse really means "nevertheless", not simply "and."

I don't know whether this was a common issue in Rashi's day but it is not uncommon today. In sociology, "Hansen's Law" tells us that in immigrant societies, the third generation often seeks to reclaim what the second generation discarded. And thus it is not uncommon for American Jews who are grandchildren of immigrants (as I am) to be more observant than their parents. And with the growth in the number of Jews by Choice, it is also not uncommon for observant Jews to have non-Jewish parents. And so our parents may schedule a family reunion on Shabbat, or expect us to attend some other type of event on Shabbat. We feel a tension because we know we are supposed to honor our parents, but we also have Shabbat norms that we should not violate.

This verse gives us guidance. If it is possible to honor our parents' wishes without violating Shabbat (or eating non-kosher food), we should do so. Hopefully, our non-Jewish or non-observant parents will meet us halfway and seek to accommodate our needs. But if it is impossible to do both, Shabbat takes precedence. And it stands to reason -- we are obligated to honor our parents, but both us and our parents are obligated to honor God.

American Jews and the Jesuit-Dominican Dispute in China

Have you ever heard of Kaifeng, China? Kaifeng was the home of the only indigenous Jewish community in China. There have been other Jewish communities in places like Harbin and Shanghai, and a few years ago, a colleague of mine went to Beijing in his capacity as mohel to perform a circumcision, but these communities are made up of Western expatriate Jews. Kaifeng was the only home of indigenous Jews, who were Chinese in culture, language, and appearance. It is surmised, though not known for sure, that they were descendants of Persian Jewish merchants who settled in Kaifeng and then married local women.

The Kaifeng community became known to the West through the work of Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary who had gone to China in the late 1500s with, among other things, the goal of contacting indigenous Chinese Christian communities who were believed to exist. He was contacted by a Jewish government official from Kaifeng who had been told about this bearded Westerner who believed in one God. The Chinese Jew assumed Ricci was Jewish, Ricci assumed the official was Christian, and it took some time until the confusion was straightened out to Ricci's satisfaction, although the Chinese Jew apparently never quite caught on. Today, the Kaifeng community is only a memory, though there are still some descendants of the Chinese Jews in the Kaifeng area. If you ever travel to Cincinnati, you can go to the Rare Book Room at the Hebrew Union College and see documents from the Kaifeng Jewish community which were saved by Jesuits. They are fascinating, being written in both Chinese and Hebrew.

While Ricci and his fellow Jesuits preserved the knowledge of Judaism in China, they also played an important role in introducing Western ideas to China and Chinese ideas to the West. They did not, however, succeed in converting many Chinese to Christianity. The Jesuits believed that many of the ideas of Confucianism were more cultural than religious, and could be made compatible with Christianity if correctly understood. In particular, they were willing to allow their Chinese converts to continue veneration of the dead. The Jesuits' Dominican rivals reported this to Rome, and the Jesuits were recalled, to be replaced by Dominicans and Franciscans who were much more “orthodox” in their approach. As a result, Christianity never really spread significantly in China, as would-be Chinese converts could rarely bring themselves to give up venerating their ancestors as the price of becoming Christian.

It is not always easy to determine whether a practice is religious or merely cultural. I doubt that there is anyone in our congregation who has a problem with observing Thanksgiving, but in Baltimore or New York, for example, the question of whether or not to close a Jewish day school on Thanksgiving is a hot-button issue that serves to demarcate a school as Modern Orthodox or “ultra”-Orthodox. In our family, we do not wear Halloween costumes or put up Halloween decorations, but we give candy out to those who come to our door.  To my way of thinking, Halloween retains enough of its non-Jewish religious origin so that I am not comfortable actively observing it. Yet, as part of the larger American society – and realizing that most Americans, most Jews included – don't see Halloween as religious, I act as a good neighbor in distributing candy.

Thanksgiving is an easy call – secular, American, appropriate for Jews to observe. Halloween is less easy – I don't observe it but I don't strongly object if other Jews choose to do so. Christmas or Easter, it seems to me, is also an easy call. And yet . . .

The fact of the matter is that almost all contemporary Jews have Christian relatives. A Jewish elementary school child today is far more likely to have at least one Christian grandparent than he or she is to have at least one immigrant Jewish grandparent. Whereas once the hostility between Jews and Christians was so great – on both sides – that the child of a convert to Judaism was unlikely to have a strong relationship with his or her Christian grandparents, today that is no longer the case. Christian grandparents proudly participate in the Bar and Bat Mitzvah services of their Jewish grandchildren. Under the circumstances, it is not reasonable to expect that a Jewish family refuse to attend Christmas or Easter celebrations of their extended Christian family members.

When I am asked to set parameters for the participation of non-Jewish friends or relatives in a Jewish service, the main guideline which needs to be followed is that the non-Jew not do anything which would create the appearance that they were in fact Jewish. So they could not have an aliyah, lead the congregation in required prayer, count as part of a minyan (which consists of ten Jews), and so on. They can read the prayer for the government, the prayer for peace, or additional readings which are not part of the service itself. We try to be inclusive of non-Jewish friends and relatives while maintaining the integrity of our Jewish worship.

It seems to me that these guidelines should be followed in reverse when a Jew is invited to a Christian celebration. It is perfectly fine to attend as a guest, as long as it is clear that this is what is happening. Keleigh and I have on occasion attended Christmas celebrations at the home of some of her relatives in Kentucky, who went out of their way to make sure that there was food which we could eat. They understood that we could not participate in any of their prayers or Christmas songs.

Our participation in a multicultural, pluralistic society creates questions and dilemmas our ancestors never imagined. In resolving them, I recommend we use the wisdom of a Matteo Ricci – who, it should be noted, was offered , and declined, the position of Chief Rabbi of Kaifeng if only he would give up eating pork.

Two-minute Torah: Nadav and Avihu died for your sins?

Dear Friends:
There are teachings in each religion that those of other religions
often find puzzling. In my experience, one of the Christian ideas that
Jews find to be odd or problematic is the teaching that Jesus died for
our sins. It seems pretty strange. Each of us is responsible for the
wrongs that we do. How can someone else's death atone for my sins?
This week's Parasha, Shemini, contains the story of the death of Nadav
and Avihu. They were the two oldest sons of Aaron. They went into the
Tabernacle to offer a sacrifice -- one which they had not been
commanded to make -- and were burned up. Moses says to his brother
Aaron: "I will show myself holy through those who are near to me, and
I will be glorified before all the people." And Aaron was silent.
Moses then says that he and his surviving sons are not to perform the
typical mourning rituals on behalf of Nadav and Avihu, "but your
brethren, the whole House of Israel, may bewail the burning which the
Lord has kindled."

Most commentators have assumed that the deaths of Nadav and Avihu were
a punishment, and have tried to figure out what the punishment was
for. Most focus on one of two ideas. Either the punishment was for
religious innovation -- we are supposed to do the rituals we are
commanded by God to do and not invent our own. Or for drunkenness --
while the text does not explicitly tell us they were drunk, the Torah
does tell us shortly after this story that Kohanim, priests, are not
allowed to drink alcohol prior to performing the sacrifices.

The Sefat Emet, a Chasidic commentator who lived from 1847 to 1905,
offers another possibility. Here is his comment on the story:

"Concerning the verse but your brethren, the whole house of Israel,
may bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled. It appears that
every man of Israel is obligated to weep for them, as it is written in
the Holy Zohar, Parashat Acharei. And the matter can be explained in
this way: they were completely righteous (tzaddikim g'morim). And our
sages have said that "in the place where a penitent (ba'al teshuvah)
stands, the wholly righteous cannot stand. This being the case, they
were punished on our behalf, therefore we have to weep for them. And
it is best not to go on about this matter."

What is the Sefat Emet saying about Nadav and Avihu? Were they sinners
or saints? Was their death punishment or vicarious atonement? And why
is it best not to go on about this matter?

Two-minute Torah: "Command" vs. "Speak"

This Shabbat we read Parashat Tzav. The word "tzav" is an imperative form of the word which also gives us "mitzvah." Therefore "tzav et b'nai Yisrael," the first phrase in our Parasha, means "command the Israelites" or even "proclaim a mitzvah to the Israelites." The Torah is full of mitzvot but the formula "tzav et b'nai Yisrael" does not appear that often. Usually it is "vayidaber Adonai et Moshe l'emor" -- God spoke to Moses, saying. Why here is it "command" and not just "say"?

Rashi writes: "The expression “command” always implies urging ("ziruz") one to carry out a command and also implies that the command takes effect at once and is also binding on future generations. Rabbi Shimon said: “Especially must Scripture urge the fulfillment of a command in cases involving financial loss.”

It may be that the reason ziruz, urging, was so necessary here was because the commandment concerned the bringing of the daily sacrifices, which were to be brought twice daily for all eternity. Inasmuch as this would require the expenditure of vast sums, some hesitation might be expected. However, in the case of other mitzvot, e.g. lulav, even though they require expenditure of money, it is limited, so the Torah does not use the word tzav in connection with such commandments."

Rashi shows a recognition here that Jews may not always be enthusiastic to fulfill the mitzvot. Of course here there is a rational basis for the reluctance -- it's expensive. And the fact of the matter is that financial issues were often a challenge to fulfillment of mitzvot -- but the halacha tried to evolve to accommodate external reality. For example, the selling of chametz before Passover was developed because of Jewish distillers and liquor merchants who found it impossible to literally dispose of their entire inventory for Passover.

But of course there were limits. Late Friday night services were an American invention. In the old country services were held Friday evening at sundown, not at 8 or 8:30 pm. But in America in the early part of the 20th century, people had to work on Shabbat. Business put up signs that said "if you don't come to work on Saturday, don't come to work on Monday either."  But no one ever explicitly said it was OK to work on Shabbat.

Today the disincentive to observe mitzvot is rarely financial.Jews in prior generations went to work on Shabbat because they really had to -- there was no legal protection for religious observance and there was a legitimate issue of survival. People felt that they were doing the wrong thing but felt they really had no choice. Although there were people who made the sacrifice, they knowingly chose poverty in order to observe Shabbat. But today for the most part nonobservance is through choice, not necessity.

If something is a mitzvah we can deduce two things about it. One is that we would not otherwise do it; the other is that we can do it. God doesn't waste time commanding is to do the self-evident but neither does God command us to do the impossible. What's yourreason for not observing some of the mitzvot you currently choose not to observe?

Two-minute Torah: Sanctuaries (Parashat T'rumah)

I frequently talk about the way North American Jews often mistranslate the word "mitzvah" as "good deed" when in fact it really means "commandment." Traditional Judaism is a religion of obligation. The ten commandments are ten commandments not ten suggestions.  Whether we follow them or not is a different matter, but in general the Torah phrases itself in “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not,” not “if you feel like it.” 
The beginning of this week’s Parasha is most unusual in that regard. Last week we read the special Maftir for Shabbat Shekalim about the half-shekel temple tax which was due from every individual before Pesach. The reading was quite clear -- the rich were not to give more, nor the poor to give less. Every individual was to give precisely one half-shekel. But this week we read that the offerings for the building of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, had to be voluntary. “You shall accept gifts from every person whose heart so moves him.” 
Then a little bit later the Torah says: “v’asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham.” "They shall build me a tabernacle that I may dwell among them."  If you know Hebrew, the phrase is a little bit odd. One would expect the text to say “ v'shachanti b’tocho” – "they shall build me a tabernacle that I may dwell in it.” 
The point is that God does not need a house. God dwells everywhere – the building of the Tabernacle is not necessary so that God can have someplace to live. The building of the Tabernacle is a concrete gesture of love for God so that God dwells among the people. This is why it has to be voluntary. 
Other ancient peoples really did believe that their gods lived in the sanctuaries that they built for them. But our God dwells everywhere and has no need of a specific place to live -- although sometimes we might wish that God would just stay in the sanctuary and leave us free to run things elsewhere as we see fit.
Do the sanctuaries we build today really symbolize our love of God? Or are they monuments to our own selves?

Two-minute Torah, Mishpatim: Bible Translation and the Abortion Debate

Dear Friends:


Those of you who attend Shabbat morning services regularly hear me make the same point over and over: many of the translations we use are really mistranslations and that to be a truly knowledgeable Jew, a person needs to know Hebrew. Our values as Jews are rooted in Jewish texts, but in order to interpret these texts properly we need to understand them correctly.

I'd look to look at a few verses from this week's Parasha, Mihspatim:
Exodus, Chapter 21 (Revised Standard Version)  
22: "When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 
23: If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 
24: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 
25: burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.  
What does it mean in verse 22 that "no harm follows" (in Hebrew, lo yihyeh ason)? The Jewish tradition understands this to mean that if someone causes a pregnant woman to miscarry, he is fined; but if the woman herself dies, that is murder and subject to the death penalty. The corollary to this is that a fetus is not considered a full human person, since unlike the Code of Hammurabi, the Bible does not contemplate fining someone for the commission of murder. If the fetus were equal to the mother, the punishment for causing a miscarriage would be death, not a fine. This is the source of Judaism's fairly lenient approach to abortion (certainly as compared to the approach of Catholicism or most Evangelicals.)

And yet, they too have rooting in the text. The word which we read as "harm", ason, is understood in the Septuagint, the authoritative Greek translation, as "form."  In other words, if the fetus has “no form” then causing a miscarriage incurs just a fine, but if the fetus has “form” then it is life for life, etc. This difference between the Hebrew and Greek texts worked its way into Christian understanding as the Church became a Gentile movement and the normative text was not the Hebrew Tanach but the Greek Septuagint. So in Judaism the fetus does not achieve personhood until birth but in Catholic and evangelical Christian thought, the fetus achieves personhood at the point at which it has a recognizable form. I know that sometimes the concerns over the accuracy of translations can seem pedantic and picayune, but since the Bible still has a lot to say about the issues which concern us, this is an example where differences of translation have significant consequences.

Laws of Mourning -- Theory and Practice

 When I began my rabbinical studies, I had a good background in Hebrew (from having spent a college year in Israel) and in both Bible and philosophy (from my college studies at Georgetown) but I didn't really know that much about traditional Jewish practice. One of our first year courses was designed to make us familiar with some of the more common rules and concepts that as rabbis-in-training, we might be expected to know -- since as early as our second year, we would be sent out to serve as student rabbis in small congregations.

    My teacher and later dear friend Rabbi Ben Hollander (who passed away about four years ago) was teaching us about the concept of aninut and the status of being an onen. An onen (a person in aninut) is someone who has lost a parent, spouse, child or sibling but has not yet buried them. During this period, Rabbi Hollander explained, one is "exempt from all the mitzvot." So in all innocence I responded "then that would be a good time to run out and get a cheeseburger." After recovering from his shock, Rabbi Hollander said "let me amend what I said. An onen is exempt from all the positive mitzvot," meaning, that he or she is not obligated to perform the "thou shalts"(tefillin, prayer at fixed times. etc.) but still has to follow the "thou shalt nots" (keeping kosher, refraining from work on Shabbat.)

    Many years later when I was the rabbi in York, Pa., a congregant passed away and his two brothers came to minyan that evening, before the funeral. It was our practice there to wait for a minyan and phone people who lived near the shul if we were one or two short  in the evening (on the assumption that in the evening people are in less of a hurry to get to work than they are in the morning). Someone said to me "Rabbi, we have a minyan, let's start" and I responded that we did not have a minyan, that Dave and Lew don't count. Everyone looked at me in astonishment, because they, too, had not been taught about the concept of aninut.

    In Judaism, rights and obligations go hand-in-hand. Why does a child under the age of 13 not count in a minyan? Because they are not obligated to pray. This is also the reason we do not count Gentiles for a minyan, or why Orthodox congregations do not count women. While arguably children, women and non-Jews are obligated to pray to God, they are not obligated to say the formal liturgy at a set time. If you are not obligated, you aren't part of the minyan. And since an onen isn't obligated to pray (since their one and only obligation is to prepare for the burial), should they nevertheless show up for services, they cannot be counted towards the minyan.

    I have found that many Jews who are in general not particularly observant, nevertheless seek to follow the laws of mourning fairly closely. I am not sure why this is. It may be a realization that there is great wisdom to be found in these practices. Or perhaps, it is a sense of loyalty to our deceased relatives, a desire to be a link in the chain of tradition. However, I've found that as much as there is a desire to follow these laws, there is also widespread misunderstanding of them.

    This is not the time or place to give an exhaustive overview, but I want to highlight a couple of areas where I've noticed a divergence between what many in our community do and what Jewish law prescribes.

    I've already mentioned aninut. Besides the fact that an onen is exempt from the requirement to pray and does not count in a minyan, the halacha also prescribes that we not greet or attempt to console the mourners until after the funeral.  It is perhaps a natural desire to greet the mourners at the earliest opportunity, particularly in this day and age when all of us have family and friends who live all over the world and whom we don't see that often. But prior to the funeral, the mourner is busy dealing with burial arrangements and concentrating on dealing with his or her loss, and should be left alone. The proper time and place for consoling the mourner is during the seven days of shiva. It is not proper to go into the room where the mourners are gathered prior to the funeral even if you consider yourself a close friend. Be certain to attend either the Meal of Consolation right after the burial, or visit the family and participate in the minyan during the shiva, and express your condolences at that time.

    Another area where there is some confusion is how long to say the Mourner's Kaddish. I have noticed that it is increasingly common for people to say Kaddish for eleven months after the death of any relative, but in fact, the practice of saying Kaddish for that length of time strictly speaking applies only to the death of a parent.

    Why is this so? The Torah commands us (several times) to honor our mother and father, and the sages understood that part of honoring a parent was to mourn for them for a full year. For other relatives, we engage in formal mourning only for thirty days (though of course emotionally, we grieve for much longer.) Eventually the period of saying Kaddish was standardized at eleven months, because the Talmud says that saying Kaddish helps the souls of the wicked ascend to heaven, and the most wicked souls have to wait as long as a year. Since no one wanted to imply that they thought their parents were wicked, it became customary to say Kaddish for eleven months rather than a full year.

    Why don't we mourn the full year for other relatives? I suspect that there is a sociological/historical factor at work here. Remember that until very recently, families were much larger, infant mortality was higher, and so on. A typical person might have eight or ten siblings and eight or ten children. As general mortality rates were higher and widows or widowers tended to remarry, a person might well have two or three spouses during their lifetime. If formal mourning continued for a full year for every sibling, spouse, or child, a person might well spend their entire life in formal mourning. And so, the tradition limits the requirements of formal mourning to thirty days for all but a parent.

    The end of formal mourning practices like saying Kaddish doesn't meant that one's sense of loss or grief is over, it is merely a signal that it is time to begin to pick up the pieces and try as best as one can to go on with the rest of life. Beyond that, I recognize the fact that for most Jews, Jewish law no longer carries the authority it once did. If you feel called upon to say Kaddish beyond 30 days, for example, no one is going to stop you, but you should not feel obligated to do so either.

    At times of loss, we often come to realize the inherent wisdom of our tradition and the power it has to bring us comfort. If you have questions about anything I've written or need guidance in terms of these laws and practices, I am always ready to be of assistance.

    May we always meet at joyous occasions.