Repost from Rav Slifkin's Blog

Under the Black Hat

Yesterday I had the most fascinating miscommunication. Some of you might laugh at me, but it's really a powerful testimony as to the disparity between Israel and the US.

The daughter of a good friend was giving me a ride in New York. She mentioned that her son attends yeshivah ketana. And I was utterly shocked. After all, she had a Master's degree and she was a college graduate from a family that places a very high regard on academic excellence and secular education. How could she be entirely depriving her son of any kind of secular education?

I mentioned something in this regard, and now it was her turn to be surprised. She had no idea what I was talking about. Of course her son receives a secular education! To a very high level, no less. The school does all the State examinations, and participates in science fairs, etc., etc. And her son will eventually proceed to college and to a professional career.

It was at this point that it dawned on me that the term "Yeshiva Ketana" has a very different definition in the US than it does in Israel.

In Israel, if you send your kid to yeshiva ketana, that means, by definition, that there is not only no participation in State examinations (bagriyot), but that there is no secular curriculum at all. Nada, nothing. And the notion of an eventual progression to college and a professional career is absurd - not only do the students not have the necessary academic training, but they have been taught that it is wrong to go to college and to work, and that they should ideally be in kollel long-term and be supported by their wives and others.

Of course, this is highly significant in that it shows just how far apart black-hat Judaism is in the US from Israel. It's not just one term with two meanings - it's one superficially homogeneous sector of Orthodoxy that in fact is living in two utterly different worlds. That which is considered normative, admirable, responsible, and religiously appropriate in the US is rated as unacceptable, shameful, and religiously inappropriate in Israel.

Inevitably, the confusion of distinctions resulting from language and dress can lead to all kinds of dissonance and problems. Many graduates of a fine yeshiva ketana in the US will end up in a yeshiva gedolah which teaches them that they should not go to college and their kids should not receive a proper secular education. And many people who emigrate from the US to Israel mistakenly insert themselves into a community of people who dress like them, instead of a community of people who think like them. Indeed, much of the confusion and distress experienced by many people over the banning of my books was a result of their being under the misconception that certain rabbinic figures were their own rabbinic leaders, instead of being from a completely different worldview.

The lesson: Don't assume that two communities of Jews wearing black hats are anything at all alike.

A Picture of My Great Great Great Great Grandfather Rav Duvche Schuvaks with Rav Kook and Rav Sonnenfeld

(Photo Courtesy of Circus Tent Blog)

Parshas Vayeira

Parshas Vayeira Cheshvan 5780 Based on the Torah of our Rosh HaYeshiva HaRav Yochanan Zweig Weekly Insights Printer Friendly Format  Click Here This week's Insights is sponsored in memory of Mina Bas Yitzchak Isaac. "May her Neshama have an Aliya!"   To Sponsor an Issue of Insights Click Here   That Healing Feeling To him Hashem appeared, in the plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day. He lifted his eyes and saw three men standing before him... (18:1-2) This week's parsha begins with Hashem coming to visit Avraham. Rashi (ad loc) explains the reason for the visit: "It was the third day since the circumcision, and Hakodosh Baruch Hu inquired as to his welfare." Chazal (see Sotah 14a) clearly state that Hashem came to visit Avraham for the mitzvah of bikur cholim, and we are thus instructed to visit the sick just as Hashem visited Avraham. Hashem noticed that Avraham was pained by the fact that he couldn't fulfill the mitzvah of hachnasass orchim (inviting guests into one's home), so He summoned three "men" to come and visit with Avraham. Rashi (18:2) informs us that these "men" were actually angels sent to Avraham, each with a specific task to accomplish. According to the Talmud (Bava Metzia 86b), the angel Michael came to inform Sarah that she would give birth; Gavriel came to overturn Sdom; Rephael came to heal Avraham from his circumcision. This seems a little odd. After all, Hashem Himself came to visit Avraham to do bikur cholim. Ostensibly, this would seem to be the highest level of "medical care" that one could hope to achieve. What possible reason would there have been to also send the angel Rephael to heal him? One of the most under appreciated aspects of recovering from a trauma is considering the emotional state of the patient. There have been countless studies that show that recovery is aided greatly by a person's attitude. Science has tried to explain how the emotional state directly effects the healing process (perhaps the brain releases healing endorphins, etc.) but the link is undeniable. In other words, there are two aspects to healing: 1) recovering from the actual physical trauma to the body and managing the pain and 2) restoring the patient's proper emotional state, which has been negatively affected by a diminished sense of self. The latter is obviously very much exacerbated by the medical environment where most patients are treated like an object, or worse, a science project. The significant indignities (hospital gowns - need we say more?) suffered in that environment have a strong and deleterious effect on a patient's emotional state because it causes a terrible impact to one's sense of self. Hashem visited Avraham not to heal his physical body or to help manage his pain. This is, after all, the domain in which Hashem placed Rephael to administer. Rather, Hashem come to visit Avraham in order to restore Avraham's sense of self. After all, if the Almighty comes to visit you, you're a pretty "big deal," and an important part of His plan. This too is a form of medical treatment as understanding that you matter is the basis for wanting to recover, which therefore speeds up the healing process. This is the point of bikur cholim (and unfortunately, often overlooked). All too often, bikur cholim is performed perfunctorily; that is, the person visiting makes some "small talk" for a few moments and promptly begins to ignore the patient; either watching television, talking to other visitors or answering phone calls and emails. We are instructed to follow Hashem's lead in bikur cholim by making sure the person understands that our visit is all about them, conveying that we care about them, and ensuring that they know they are important. In other words, your job in bikur cholim is to restore the patients sense of self. In this way, you are following Hashem's example and actually participating in the healing process.   Looking for more inspiration? Join one of Rabbi Zweig's live broadcast classes on RabbiZweig.com   People in Glass Houses... Let a little water be fetched, please, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. I will fetch a morsel of bread, that you may nourish your hearts. After that you shall pass on; seeing that you have already come to your servant. And they said, So do, as you have said (18:3-5).    Rashi (ad loc) quoting the Gemara (Bava Metzia 86b) explains that Avraham was under the impression that these "visitors" were Arabs, whom were known to worship the dust that was on their feet. This was a type of idol worship; as they were a nomadic people who traveled frequently - thus they worshipped the "god" of the roads. They viewed the dust of the road as something sacred; something that should be bowed down to (Maharal). The Gemara goes on to say that the angels didn't appreciate Avraham suspecting them of such a thing and actually criticized Avraham in their response: "Did you actually suspect us to be Arabs that bow to the dust of their feet? First look at your very own son Yishmael (who regularly does that)?" In other words, the angels are telling Avraham - before accusing others of misdeeds get your own house in order. How does the Talmud know that this is what the angels replied to Avraham? Our sages don't invent conversations out of thin air. Where in the verses can our sages deduce that this is what actually took place? If one examines the verses carefully, it can readily be seen what caused the sages to come to this conclusion. Consider, for a moment, three people who are traveling in the blistering heat on a parched and dusty road; desperate for some sort of shelter. They come across a welcoming tent with a benevolent host offering them not only respite from the sun, but plenty of water and food as well. The host only has one stipulation; "please wash your feet, I will then fetch you water and food while you're comfortably resting in the shade of my tree." What should be the appropriate response to this kind and generous offer? One would imagine that you don't have to have the manners and etiquette of Emily Post to respond; "thank you kind sir! Of course we will do as you wish!" Yet the angels respond in a very odd manner; they basically command him, "so shall you do, just as you have said." Clearly Chazal are bothered that this is an inappropriate response to a kindness that is offered with a generous heart. Chazal therefore conclude that the angels aren't responding to his generous offer, they are responding to his accusation or assumption that they are idol worshippers. Now their comments begins to resonate - before trying to fix other people's shortcomings, first take care of the very same issues that you have in your own home. Perhaps most remarkable is how Avraham responds to their chastising of the manner in which he runs his household. After all, it's never easy to open oneself to honest criticism. One would imagine that accepting severe criticism from someone you are going out of your way to be kind and generous toward would give one serious pause. Yet Avraham takes their criticism in stride and literally "runs" to make preparations for them and otherwise oversees that all their needs aren't just minimally met; they are offered expensive delicacies and attentive service. Undoubtedly, this is why Avraham is the paragon of the attribute of chessed. True kindness shouldn't be delivered based on your feelings toward the recipient; true kindness is based on the needs of the recipient and doing whatever you can to show them how much you appreciate the opportunity to be of service. Click Here to Make Your Reservation Today! Did You Know... In this week's parsha the Torah describes the destruction of Sedom and the story of Lot and the melachim. The story ends as they are fleeing Sedom; Lot's wife, ignoring the angels' explicit orders, turns around to gaze at Sedom getting destroyed. She immediately turns into a pillar of salt, because, as Rashi (19:26) recounts, she sinned with salt by refusing to serve it to guests in her home in Sedom. What has become of this pillar of salt? Josephus states that he saw the pillar himself (Antiquities 1:11:4). Additionally, the Gemara (Berachos 54b) tells us of the bracha (Baruch Dayan HaEmes) that one should say upon seeing that pillar. Clearly the Gemara wouldn't be giving us a bracha to say if there was no chance of ever seeing this pillar of salt - so we know that it existed in the time of the Gemara and there's a chance that it still exists today. So, where might it be? Fascinatingly, there's actually a mountain along the southwestern part of the dead sea in Israel, part of the Judean Desert Nature Reserve, that's called Mount Sedom. Mount Sedom, or Jabel Usdum in Arabic, is, according to The Living Torah (by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan), the most likely location as to where Lot's wife died, based upon the contention that Lot was heading south to escape. Furthermore, even nowadays, there's a pillar on that mountain called Lot's Wife, which seems to resemble a human form. See picture. Interestingly, while the Torah doesn't mention her name, we learn in Sefer HaYashar 19:52 that her name is Ado. This Week's The Desire to Live Parsha Breaks are short Divrei Torah (generally 5-7 minutes long) given by the Rosh HaYeshiva between Mincha and Maariv at one of the Yeshiva's daily minyanim.  These links can easily be downloaded on your smartphone. Talmudic College of Florida, Rohr Talmudic University Campus, 4000 Alton Road, Miami Beach, FL 33140 SafeUnsubscribe™ boruch.rizel@gmail.com Forward email | Update Profile | About our service provider Sent by insights@talmudicu.edu in collaboration with Try email marketing for free today! ReplyForward

A Palace in Flames (Lech Lecha 5780)

Why Abraham? That is the question that haunts us when we read the opening of this week’s parsha. Here is the key figure in the story of our faith, the father of our nation, the hero of monotheism, held holy not only by Jews but by Christians and Muslims also. Yet there seems to be nothing in the Torah’s description of his early life to give us a hint as to why he was singled out to be the person to whom God said, “I will make you into a great nation … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

This is surpassingly strange. The Torah leaves us in no doubt as to why God chose Noah: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations; Noah walked with God.” It also gives us a clear indication as to why God chose Moses. We see him as a young man, both in Egypt and Midian, intervening whenever he saw injustice, whoever perpetrated it and whoever it was perpetrated against. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart; I have appointed you as a Prophet to the nations.” These were obviously extraordinary people. There is no such intimation in the case of Abraham. So the Sages, commentators, and philosophers through the ages were forced to speculate, to fill in the glaring gap in the narrative, offering their own suggestions as to what made Abraham different.

There are three primary explanations. The first is Abraham the Iconoclast, the breaker of idols. This is based on a speech by Moses’ successor, Joshua, towards the end of the book that bears his name. It is a passage given prominence in the Haggadah on Seder night: “Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshipped other gods” (Josh. 24:2). Abraham’s father Terah was an idol worshipper. According to the Midrash, he made and sold idols. One day Abraham smashed all the idols and left, leaving the stick with which he did so in the hand of the biggest idol. When his father returned and queried who had broken his gods, Abraham blamed the biggest idol. “Are you making fun of me?” demanded his father. “Idols cannot do anything.” “In that case,” asked the young Abraham, “why do you worship them?”

On this view, Abraham was the first person to challenge the idols of the age. There is something profound about this insight. Jews, believers or otherwise, have often been iconoclasts. Some of the most revolutionary thinkers – certainly in the modern age – have been Jews. They had the courage to challenge the received wisdom, think new thoughts and see the world in unprecedented ways, from Einstein in physics to Freud in psychoanalysis to Schoenberg in music, to Marx in economics, and Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in behavioural economics. It is as if, deep in our cultural intellectual DNA, we had internalised what the Sages said about Abraham ha-Ivri, “the Hebrew,” that it meant he was on one side and all the rest of the world on the other.[1]

The second view is set out by Maimonides in the Mishnah Torah: Abraham the Philosopher. In an age when people had lapsed from humanity’s original faith in one God into idolatry, one person stood against the trend, the young Abraham, still a child: “As soon as this mighty man was weaned he began to busy his mind … He wondered: How is it possible that this planet should continuously be in motion and have no mover? … He had no teacher, no one to instruct him … until he attained the way of truth … and knew that there is One God … When Abraham was forty years old he recognised his Creator.”[2] According to this, Abraham was the first Aristotelian, the first metaphysician, the first person to think his way through to God as the force that moves the sun and all the stars.

This is strange, given the fact that there is very little philosophy in Tanach, with the exception of wisdom books like Proverbs, Kohelet and Job. Maimonides’ Abraham can sometimes look more like Maimonides than Abraham. Yet of all people, Friedrich Nietzsche, who did not like Judaism very much, wrote the following:

Europe owes the Jews no small thanks for making people think more logically and for establishing cleanlier intellectual habits… Wherever Jews have won influence they have taught men to make finer distinctions, more rigorous inferences, and to write in a more luminous and cleanly fashion; their task was ever to bring a people “to listen to raison.”[3]

The explanation he gave is fascinating. He said that only in the arena of reason did Jews face a level playing-field. Everywhere else, they encountered race and class prejudice. “Nothing,” he wrote, “is more democratic than logic.” So Jews became logicians, and according to Maimonides, it began with Abraham.

However there is a third view, set out in the Midrash on the opening verse of our parsha:

“The Lord said to Abram: Leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s house . . .” To what may this be compared? To a man who was travelling from place to place when he saw a palace in flames. He wondered, “Is it possible that the palace lacks an owner?” The owner of the palace looked out and said, “I am the owner of the palace.” So Abraham our father said, “Is it possible that the world lacks a ruler?” The Holy One, blessed be He, looked out and said to him, “I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe.”

This is an enigmatic Midrash. It is far from obvious what it means. In my book A Letter in the Scroll (published in Britain as Radical Then, Radical Now) I argued that Abraham was struck by the contradiction between the order of the universe – the palace – and the disorder of humanity – the flames. How, in a world created by a good God, could there be so much evil? If someone takes the trouble to build a palace, do they leave it to the flames? If someone takes the trouble to create a universe, does He leave it to be disfigured by His own creations? On this reading, what moved Abraham was not philosophical harmony but moral discord. For Abraham, faith began in cognitive dissonance. There is only one way of resolving this dissonance: by protesting evil and fighting it.

That is the poignant meaning of the Midrash when it says that the owner of the palace looked out and said, “I am the owner of the palace.” It is as if God were saying to Abraham: I need you to help Me to put out the flames.

How could that possibly be so? God is all-powerful. Human beings are all too powerless. How could God be saying to Abraham, I need you to help Me put out the flames?

The answer is that evil exists because God gave humans the gift of freedom. Without freedom, we would not disobey God’s laws. But at the same time, we would be no more than robots, programmed to do whatever our Creator designed us to do. Freedom and its misuse are the theme of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the generation of the Flood.

Why did God not intervene? Why did He not stop the first humans eating the forbidden fruit, or prevent Cain from killing Abel? Why did the owner of the palace not put out the flames?

Because, by giving us freedom, He bound Himself from intervening in the human situation. If He stopped us every time we were about to do wrong, we would have no freedom. We would never mature, never learn from our errors, never become God’s image. We exist as free agents only because of God’s tzimtzum, His self-limitation. That is why, within the terms with which He created humankind, He cannot put out the flames of human evil.

He needs our help. That is why He chose Abraham. Abraham was the first person in recorded history to protest the injustice of the world in the name of God, rather than accept it in the name of God. Abraham was the man who said: “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justly?” Where Noah accepted, Abraham did not. Abraham is the man of whom God said, “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.” Abraham was the father of a nation, a faith, a civilisation, marked throughout the ages by what Albert Einstein called “an almost fanatical love of justice.”

I believe that Abraham is the father of faith, not as acceptance but as protest – protest at the flames that threaten the palace, the evil that threatens God’s gracious world. We fight those flames by acts of justice and compassion that deny evil its victory and bring the world that is a little closer to the world that ought to be.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Sacks