To read what informs that contention, please click here.

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Indeed, the Talmud uses that added indignity to illustrate a popular (well, at the time) saying: “Poverty follows the poor.” (Bava Kama, 92b).

But the metzora’s prescribed announcement of his condition, says the Talmud, teaches other things too. Like the importance of letting others know of one’s sufferings, so that they might pray for him (Mo’ed Katan 5a). And it hints, too, to the need to mark a grave, so that people won’t inadvertently contract tum’ah by passing over it (ibid).

The Shelah (Rav Yeshayahu HaLevi Horovitz, c.1555-1630), however, sees in the metzora’s announcement a hint to yet something else. Parsing the phrase differently, he reads it as saying “and those ritually contaminated will call out [about others] ‘Contaminated!’ ”

In other words, some people project their own deficits onto others.  As the amora Shmuel said, in the context of genealogical status: “Those who assert a flaw [in others], it is their own flaw that they in fact assert” (Kiddushin 70a).

Indeed, it isn’t uncommon to see people in the public sphere who seem to make a habit of accusing others of a particular proclivity or wrongdoing being exposed as having the same proclivity or having been engaged in the same sin.

So if we ever have the unpleasant experience of being accused of something by someone who is given to lobbing the same accusation at others, we might do well to pause. And, rather than take the allegation personally, realize that the accuser may, in fact, suffer from insecurity, and that he is really accusing himself.  

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The Zohar informs us of the folly of such thinking.

On Moshe’s exhortation near the beginning of parshas Vayakhel that the people donate materials for the construction of the Mishkan – “Take from yourselves a portion for Hashem…” (Shemos 35:5), the mystical text states:

“From yourselves” —  from what is [truly] yours, not from [what you have obtained from] usury and not from [what you have obtained from] theft.  Because if it is [obtained through unethical means, the giver] has no merit, but, on the contrary, woe to him, as he has come to recall his sin.”  

Not only would the Mishkan’s holiness have been compromised if any of the precious metals or fabrics used for its construction were besmirched by its donor’s bad behavior in obtaining it, but also, any donation of wrongly obtained material would be a reminder of the donor’s sin.

The same point is said to have been made, particularly pointedly and wittily, by the Kotzker Rebbe, on Chazal’s statement that, at Sinai, the people saw with their eyes what normally could only be heard with ears.  That way, allegedly said the Kotzker, there would be no way for anyone to hear the lo (“Thou shall not”) in lo signov – “Thou shall not steal” – as being spelled lamed-vav, meaning, “For Him, steal.”

It would seem that the notion of justifying economic crimes with virtuous use of ill-gotten gains is nothing new. It existed in the 19th century — and even in Biblical times.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The Gemara (ibid) sees in the aron, which contains the luchos, shivrei luchos and a Torah scroll, a metaphor for the coherence of conscience and behavior that defines a true scholar. “A talmid chacham,” Rava teaches there, “who isn’t tocho kiboro,” – whose inside [essence] isn’t like his outside [the image yielded by his behavior] – “isn’t a talmid chacham.”

My revered rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, noted that the Gemara’s wording is pointed. We are not exhorted to bring our “outsides” into line with our “insides” – to first achieve purity of heart and then display its signifiers – but rather the other way around. We do right to first emulate the comportment and behavior of those more spiritually accomplished than we are – to present an image of observance and propriety – even if our souls may not be as pure as our clothing and actions seem to declare. 

That is because, in the Sefer Hachinuch’s words, “A person is affected by his actions” and demeanor. How we dress, speak and act can change who we are.

Achieving coherence of appearance and heart must be the ultimate goal for us all. But we shouldn’t feel hypocritical or despondent if, in the process of reaching that goal, we show the world a better image of ourselves than we deserve. What matters is only that we are working to bring our inner selves into line with our outer ones.

What’s more, according to a Midrash brought by Rashi on the posuk uvicheit yechemasni imi (Tehillim 51:7), Dovid Hamelech lamented the fact that when his parents conceived him, their intent was basically selfish (a thought reflected as well in his words ki avi vi’imi azovuni, Tehillim 27:10). And yet, Dovid’s father was Yishai, who, the Gemara  (Shabbos 55b) says was one of the humans who never sinned! 

The inescapable conclusion is that self-interest isn’t sin. The essential sense of self is inherent in being human, and no contradiction to righteousness. 

That, too, is reflected in the aron. It was gold within and without, yes, but there was wood (perhaps hinting to the eitz hadaas) between the golden layers. One’s toch and bar can be pure and consistent, but there is always a self in the middle. And that’s inherent in being human.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A sure way to anger an atheist is to challenge him to explain why anyone should be pleasant, or ethical or moral – beyond the mere utilitarian gain of a social contract. He will jump up and down and insist that goodness and badness exist. But, in the end, without a Higher Power’s guidance, those words are utterly fungible.  Good and bad behavior, sans a Divine Guide, carry no more ultimate meaning than good or bad weather. And flowers appreciate thunderstorms.

Parshas Mishpatim begins with the connection-letter vav, indicating that the laws that follow, many of them dealing with financial dealings, torts and other interpersonal matters, were, no less than the “Ten Commandments” and mizbei’ach laws of the previous parshah, “from Sinai,” as Rashi, quoting Midrash Tanchuma, notes.

Inherent in that vav-connector, says Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, is the fact that, for Jews, seemingly mundane business and interpersonal dealings are to be conducted ethically not as mere parts of a social contract but rather as the fulfilment of Divine command.

And, he continues, it is a distinction with a momentous difference. “Rivers of blood” have been spilled, he points out as an example, “up to and including the present,” as a result of human reinterpretation of “Thou shall not murder.”  

When killing, or stealing, or harming others are only man-made social constructs, ways will be found to sidestep them or “clarify” their application when deemed necessary. By contrast, one who accepts the Torah’s ethical laws as a divine charge will perforce treat them as truly binding and absolute, no matter what.

Those with the custom of saying a “lishem yichud” declaration of holy intent before putting on tefillin or taking an esrog and lulav in hand generally don’t do so before signing a contract or treating another person pleasantly.  

But there’s really no reason not to.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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It has come up today in the context of a video message from Democratic lawmakers, reminding members of the military that they must refuse to obey illegal orders.

My thoughts on the matter are here.

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“I, too, knew,” Hashem tells Avimelech in a dream, “that it was in the innocence of your heart that you did this” (Beraishis, 20:6).

So, if Avimelech was innocent in taking Sarah, why didn’t Hashem merely prevent the king  from approaching  her?  Why were he and his family and entourage physically punished?

Perhaps the answer lies in what Avraham told Avimelech, when the king demanded an explanation for having misled him:

“Because,” Avraham explained, “I said ‘There is no fear of G-d in this place’” (ibid, 11).

A leader, that tells us, has the ability, and responsibility, to influence the mores of his society. And if a society evidences lack of “fear of G-d,” its leadership is implicated in the evil.

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That would be Hamas, which called the attack “a heinous crime, a blatant aggression, and a flagrant violation of all international norms and laws.” Words that nicely describe the goals and daily diet of the lynch mob itself.

Second place in risibility went to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which condemned the strike as a “blatant criminal act.” This, from a group whose dozens of terrorist attacks include detonating a bomb in a Hadera market in 2005, killing seven people and injuring 55; another one the following year in a Tel Aviv eatery that killed eleven and injured 70; and a suicide bombing at an Eilat bakery that killed three.

Then, of course, were the expected words of condemnation from the usual pack of wolves, like Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Syria, Sudan, Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Turkey, the UAE and Libya. And let’s not slight Kazakhstan, Mauritania and the Maldives.

Joining the clamoring canines were Jordan, Spain, Italy, Germany, the European Union, the United Kingdom and France.

And, at least perfunctorily, the U.S. too. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” (We’ll leave the highly debatable description of the country unaddressed for now, due to space limitations.)

Ms. Leavitt did add, though, that “However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. did join the other members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the strike.

Ah, such short memories some have. Does no one recall how, on May 2, 2011, the Obama administration violated the territorial integrity of Pakistan, in Operation Neptune Spear, when SEAL Team Six members shot and killed a man named Osama bin Laden? You know, the founder of al-Qaeda and orchestrator of the recently commemorated September 11, 2001 attacks? Three other men and a woman in the attacked compound were also killed in that operation.

Or the first Trump administration’s violation of Iran’s space on January 3, 2020, when an American drone strike took out Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani, the second most powerful person in Iran at the time?

The world tut-tutting Israel for actions it has taken is, of course, nothing new. In fact, it’s become something of a new normal. But it goes back quite a long way, at least to 1960, when Mossad agents captured Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. (He was spirited to Israel, tried and found guilty of war crimes and executed in 1962.)

At the time, The Washington Post huffed that “anything connected with the indictment of Eichmann is tainted with lawlessness.” And The New York Times wrote that “No immoral or illegal act justifies another.”

And when, in 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, cries of woe were heard around the world (though Iran was gratified, having tried, and failed, to destroy the same facility a year earlier).

The New York Times called the attack “an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression.” The Los Angeles Times referred to it as “state sponsored terrorism.” The United Nations passed two resolutions rebuking Israel for its chutzpah.

The Reagan administration, too, voted in support of a U.N. Security Council resolution that strongly condemned the raid, and the president suspended the delivery of six F-16 fighter jets to Israel.

There are those who maintain that, justification aside, Israel’s attack on a perceived ally of the U.S. was a strategic mistake. Others claim that, in the end, the net result will be positive. I don’t claim the geopolitical savvy to make any judgment in the matter.

What I do claim, in light of history, is the right to point out that Western powers’ condemnations of the Israeli strike against Hamas members in Doha are somewhat (to employ a less charged word than the one that first occurs)… inconsistent.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

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As Rav Elchonon Wasserman wrote, even today, when the urge to worship literal idols is absent, there are a number of “isms” that represent still–beckoning idolatries of the modern era.

In warning against assimilating other nations’ idolatries, Moshe Rabbeinu tells our ancestors that

“You saw their abominations and their detestable idols, of wood and stone; of silver and gold that were with them” (Devarim, 29:16).

Rashi explains the separation (reflected in the cantillation notes) of the phrases “of wood and stone” and “of silver and gold” by noting the latter’s proximity to “that were with them.” He explains that the idolators of old had no compunctions about exposing their wood and stone statues to public view but took pains to protect their valuable metal ones by keeping them “with them,” under lock and key.

I wonder if there may be another way of reading the pasuk’s separation of the phrases.

The “silver and gold” phrase doesn’t explicitly mention idols, although it’s certainly reasonable to assume that the early reference to “abominations and… detestable idols” refers as well to the final phrase of the pasuk.

But maybe that last phrase can also be read as a discrete reference, not to idols per se but, rather, to literal “silver and gold” – in other words, to other nations’ infatuation with precious metals, with amassing wealth.

With, in other words, one of the modern idolatries, one of the “isms” that would tempt Jews in the future: materialism.

The Midrash in Koheles Rabbah (1:13) observes that: “One who has one hundred [units of currency]wants two hundred”; and implies that the progression only continues on from there.

Aspiring to being able to provide for one’s family’s needs is obviously proper, as is aiming for wealth to support good causes. So, in the modern economic system, is saving for the future.

But aspiring, when one has “100,” to attain “200” simply for the sake of having more – and billionaires have no need to double their wealth – is something else. It may reflect the aspiration of societies around us, but it should have no place among Jews. We are not to imitate others in either their literal idolatries or in their addiction to “silver and gold.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Several years ago, I noted how an incongruity seems to lie in the case of Yishmael. Although his descendants, as Rashi notes, will prove to be cruel tormenters of his half-brother Yitzchak’s descendants, he is judged “ba’asher hu shom”: where he is at the current moment (Beraishis 21:17).

The Mizrachi and Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin address the problem by noting that the ben sorer u’moreh has already himself acted in an ugly manner, whereas Yishmael’s cruel descendants lay generations in the future. (I suggested, based on a question, another approach, that internalizing materialism and luxuries, like the ben sorer has done, is a particularly weighty indicator of hopelessness.)

Rav Zevin, based on his approach, also reveals a different dimension of the law of ben sorer u’moreh, which is virtually impossible to happen, given Chazal’s requirements for prosecution (see Sanhedrin 71a), and, according to Rabi Yehudah, indeed never did, and exists only to edify us.

He explains that just as the boy’s harsh judgment is based (as above) on his having demonstrated the seeds of criminality already, so are all of us responsible for whatever bad we’ve done, and for its implications for our futures.

But, he continues, when Rosh Hashanah arrives, we are able to engage in doing teshuvah, which removes our past sins from the divine calculus. And, thus, even though we may indeed – like Yishmael’s descendents, lihavdil, did in their horrible way – lapse in our own ways in the coming year, at the moment of judgment, we are judged “ba’asher hu shom.” Where we stand at the moment of din.

Which, Rav Zevin, suggests, is why the parsha about Yishmael’s life being saved by Hashem is read on Rosh Hashanah.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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One person who has successfully gotten aid to civilians has been rewarded with… death threats. Read why here.

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Even among the brave, though, one imagines that the possibility of dying, even if fully recognized and accepted, would cause anguish. And yet, what are described as being sources of anguish to a fighter, even one ready to give up his life, are the thoughts that someone else might assume his place in occupying his new home, in harvesting his new vineyard, in a new marriage.

That points to a fundamental, if illogical, part of human nature. Losing out on something feels bad, but losing out to someone else is worse. In fact, a low salary has been shown to be less stressful on its own than the knowledge that someone else with the same skills and job is making more money. And when the anguish of “losing out” to someone else is compounded with the idea that the other’s “win” happens even before one has had a chance to experience the fruits of his labor, as in the exempted soldiers’ cases, it is all the more intense.

The inclination to envy, born of the sense of self, comes easily to us. In fact, it is inherent to being human.

That a sense of self isn’t a sin is evident in a a Midrash brought by Rashi on the pasuk “uvicheit yechemasni imi” (Tehillim 51:7); Dovid Hamelech lamented the fact that when his parents conceived him, their intent was basically selfish (a thought reflected as well in his words ki avi vi’imi azovuni, Tehillim 27:10). And yet, Dovid’s father was Yishai, who we are told (Shabbos 55b) died sinless.

We are, of course, admonished to not feed feelings of jealousy (Devarim 5:18), to not allow them to bring us to covet what another person has. But the initial feeling of resentment is part and parcel of being a human being. It’s the dwelling on it, intensifying it, that is wrong.

Its appearance, however, should not make us feel despair, only human, and challenged to resist it.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A piece on the site written by its media editor Max Tani disclosed that the Times had originally wanted to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding that “an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying – from starvation.” While the child may, sadly, have been malnourished (ultimately, Hamas’ fault – and its intention, since Gazans’ suffering does wonders for its p.r.), his shocking physical state was mainly due to the ravages of his disease.

Responsibly, though, the report notes, the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. According to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that running the photos might call into question the paper’s reporting (smart guys!). Especially since the article claimed that many of the children suffering from hunger had been healthy kids, without preexisting diseases.

According to internal messages obtained by Semafor, the paper’s managing editor Marc Lacey expressed his concern. “Do we want to use a photo,” he asked “that will be the subject of debate when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?”

Sagely, executive editor Joe Kahn agreed, writing that “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art[icle] really should not do that, either.”

And so they wisely opted not to publish Youssef’s photos. Instead, they ran, as noted last week in this space, those of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, an 18-month-old child in Gaza, whose tiny, emaciated body was the perfect accompaniment to the news story. At least, that’s what the editors thought.

Problem was, of course, that Mohammed was also suffering from serious diseases, cerebral palsy and a suspected genetic disorder, a fact that, when publicized and called to the Times’s attention, was shared in an “Editor’s Note” (posted to the original story, not on the paper’s main social media account) four days after the article appeared and the photo of the “born healthy” child had been widely and irresponsibly republished by other media.

So, let’s recap, just to be clear: The head honchos at the “paper of record” recognized how journalistically irresponsible it would have been to accompany an article saying that healthy Gazan children were being reduced to skeletal shadows of their former selves with a photo of a child with a serious medical condition, the main cause of his sad state. And then went ahead and did precisely that, choosing a different child with a serious medical condition.

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

If Mr. Lacey, as quoted above, is correct in his contention that “there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are,” it’s odd that no other clearly malnourished, wasting away young people have had their photographs plastered on his paper’s front page. Could it be that there may indeed be such a shortage?

I don’t know. There is certainly great need in Gaza, and Israel and the U.S. are taking serious steps to ensure that aid to residents isn’t intercepted by Hamas and criminal gangs.

What I do know is that there was a strong desire on 8th Avenue to publish some photo of an ostensibly starving child. So strong that the Old Gray Lady tripped on her skirt and fell face-first into an omelet.

As Semafor reported further, “One thing that pro-Israel critics of the Times and some staff at the paper agree on is that there is a large contingent of staff at the paper who are opposed to the war in Gaza, and blame Israel for the crisis.”

It would seem that, at least on the West Side of Manhattan, objectivity, like irony, is dead.

© 2025 Ami Magazine

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One understanding of that commandment is provided by Abaye in the Talmud (Yoma 86a): “That [one should cause] the name of Heaven to be beloved [by others] through you.”

He explains that if one conducts himself properly, studying Torah, serving scholars and conducting business with honesty, people will say “Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah” – thereby engendering observers’ love for Hashem.

The Rambam (Yesodei HaTorah 5:11) echoes that statement, adding the importance of taking care to not “separate [oneself] too far [from normal life]”.

Causing others to love Hashem is arguably easier today than ever. Since society is so often crass and rude, even conducting oneself in a normal, reasonable way does not go unnoticed. A “please” or “thank you” or “good morning,” not to mention a smile, stands out. And if offered by an identifiable Jew, can create love for Hashem.

Another approach to the mitzvah of loving Hashem is recorded in the name of Rav Akiva Eger, based on the fact that emotions can be cultivated and harnessed.

A key to observing the “love Hashem” commandment, he suggests, is provided each day just before we recite the Shma, which introduces it. The final brachah before krias Shma in the morning ends with “Who chooses His nation Yisrael with love”; and the one before the evening recitation, with “the One who loves His nation Yisrael.”

In other words, recognizing Hashem’s love for us yields reciprocal love for Him.

As Shlomo Hamelech teaches in Mishlei (27: 19), Kamayim hapanim lapanim… – “As water reflects a face back to a face, so is one’s heart reflected back to him by another.”

What is true in human relationships is equally true in our relationship with our Creator.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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In his lengthy lamentation about Israel’s ostensible descent into genocide, Omer Bartov somehow overlooks a most germane distinction between Israel’s war to vanquish an enemy bent on its destruction and murderous campaigns like those that took place in Bosnia, Darfur, Armenia, Rwanda and Cambodia — and certainly the one carried out by Nazi Germany.

How Israel is waging its war against an enemy that has loudly declared its genocidal intentions is rightly open to criticism, and subject, too, to a reasoned defense. But it is a strange sort of “genocide” that can end immediately with the rulers of the attacked region simply laying down their arms, releasing those they kidnapped who are still alive and leaving the scene.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran

Staten Island

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Even then, though, after being reminded of the halacha, Moshe demurs, telling Pinchas that “the reader of the letter should be its contents’ executor.”

It is an interesting aphorism, but was there any compelling reason why Moshe didn’t rise to the task of dispatching Zimri and Kozbi himself? It is hard to imagine the ultimate defender of Torah and Klal Yisrael not wishing to himself undertake what needed to be done to defend the Torah and protect his people. After all, the immediately preceding psukim have him punishing those who engaged in worship of Baal Pe’or.

Rav Shlomo Ganzfried, the author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, in his sefer Aperion, suggests a reason, beyond the upshot of the aphorism, for Moshe’s hesitancy.

He points out that Zimri had challenged Moshe, asking if Cozbi was forbidden to him. “And if you say that she is forbidden, what about the daughter of Yitro to whom you are married? Who permitted her to you?” (ibid).

Moshe feared, Rav Ganzfried suggests, that if he were the one to dispatch the sinners, it might be seen as the settling of a personal score, not the heeding of a Torah law. It might be perceived not as an act of kana’us but rather of negi’us.

It occurs to me that Moshe may not so much have been concerned with what others might think but rather demurred and invoked the aphorism of the letter-reader because of the singular nature of kana’im pog’im bo.

Normally, a violator of the law must appear in court and his case properly adjudicated. Kana’im pog’im bo is an exception to that. Thus, the executor of the punishment is acting in a way like a judge. Halacha disallows a judge from adjudicating a case if he has any relationship of pre-existing bias for or against a litigant. So Moshe may have felt he could not halachically assume the role of a kana’i here. As to who could, well, he said to Pinchas, “You read the letter.”

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Rav Yonason Eybeschutz has an alternate, and very pith, take on the phrase. 

He asserts that wealthy people don’t wear expensive clothes and eat expensive meals primarily because of the enjoyment they may provide but, rather, because of the status they convey. (Think of Lamborghinis that need repairs more often than Hondas, or Rolexes that keep time no better than drugstore watches.) Put most bluntly, members of the upper class want to show that they are different (implying, presumably, better) than the hoi polloi. “That,” writes Rav Eybeschutz, in his sefer Ahavas Yonasan, “is the nature of man.”

The mon, though, served as a great equalizer, allowing the poorest person to taste whatever delicacy he imagined as he consumed it. 

Taking the word for “the nation” as referring to the upper class of the midbar-society; and “family” to mean social stratum, he sees the complaint of the wealthy as being about the erasure of the possibility to adopt status symbols. The removal of that option deeply pains those accustomed to believe their worth can be telegraphed by what they wear or eat (or drive).

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That nazir, of course, was Shimshon, whose mother, Tzalphonis, was visited by an angel predicting his birth and establishing that he was to be a protector of his people – and a nazir, from birth and beyond. She, too, she was instructed, was to refrain from ingesting anything forbidden to a nazir.

When she related the details of the visitation to her husband Manoach, he beseeches Hashem to offer instructions for raising the child they will be having.

But, wonders Rav Shimon Schwab, the laws of nazir were well known and established. What was Manoach asking for?

What’s more, when his prayer was answered and the angel appeared again, the heavenly visitor seems to add nothing to his previous instructions. “The woman,” he says, “must abstain from all the things against which I warned her… She must observe all that I commanded her.”

Rav Schwab suggests something novel. He sees Manoach’s request as having been about the challenge of a non-nazir like himself raising a nazir. It was a request, so to speak, for chinuch advice.

And, Rav Schwab,  points out, the Hebrew word for “she must observe,” tishmor, can also mean, when spoken directly to a man, “you must observe,”  indicating that not only should Manoach’s wife heed the laws of nezirus, but so should he. The only way to successfully  raise a nazir, in other words, is to be a nazir. 

Thus, asserts Rav Schwab, the chinuch lesson delivered by the angel was one that is a lesson to all Jews for all generations: If we don’t ourselves model what we want our children to become, we cannot expect them to develop as we wish. What children see in their parents is the single most important part of their upbringing. 

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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What Chazal said in Avos (1:15), “Say little and do much” echoes in “Actions speak louder than words.”

As does “Don’t judge a book by its cover” in “Do not look at the container, but at what is in it” (Avos 4:20).

What the Gemara teaches (Bava Metzia 71a) with “The poor of one’s own town come first” is conveyed in “Charity begins at home.”

“No pain, no gain” is rendered by Ben Hei Hei as “According to the effort is the reward” (Avos 5:26). 

Sometimes, though, a subtle difference in how an idea is rendered by Chazal carries meaning.

Like the “Golden Rule,” which, in popular usage is rendered “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Hillel’s version (Shabbos 31a) is, of course, “What is hateful to you do not do to your fellow.” While the popular version may seem, at first glance,  nicer, Hillel’s is without question more demanding, and more meaningful. 

In parshas Behar (Vayikra 25:35), we read: “If your brother becomes poor… strengthen him.” The word for “strengthen” – vihechezakta – can also mean “take hold of.” Which leads the Midrash (Sifra, Behar), quoted by Rashi, to convey that one should try to intervene before a crisis becomes serious.  When a person has already fallen into poverty, “it will be difficult to give him a lift, but rather uphold him from the very sign of the failure of his means.” The mashal offered is of a donkey whose load is tottering. It can be held in place by one person, but if it has already fallen, it will take many people to right the donkey and replace its load. 

“A stitch in time saves nine” or “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” are how an uninformed-by-Torah pundit might put the idea.

What makes the Midrash’s meaning more meaningful, though,  is that it is in the context not of saving oneself time or work or trouble but, rather, of how best to help another person. 

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Like now. Because of a case before the US Supreme Court . Which you can read about here.

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In the case of any other sin (unless the coercion is part of an effort aimed at destroying Jewish practice), the forbidden act should be committed and one’s life preserved.

That law is derived from the phrase vichai bahem, “and live through them” (Vayikra 18:5).

The Chasam Sofer notes the incongruity of the fact that vichai bahem is written immediately before a list of arayos, one of the three cardinal sins – not in the context of sins where life trumps forbiddance. And he writes that “it would be a mitzvah” to explain that oddity.  

One approach to address the incongruity is offered by the Baal HaTurim. He sees an unwritten but implied “however” between vichai bahem and what follows. So that the Torah is saying, in effect, life is paramount except for cases like the following.

A message, though, may lie in the juxtaposition itself without adding anything: that living al kiddush Hashem – “for glorification of Hashem” – is as valued as dying for it. When one is commanded to commit a sin in order to preserve his life, that, too, is a kiddush Hashem. Because in such cases, one’s choosing to live is Hashem’s will.

What also might be implied is what the Rambam writes (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 5:11), that the way a person acts in mundane matters can constitute either a kiddush Hashem or its opposite. If one’s everyday actions show integrity and propriety, that constitutes a glorification of Hashem’s name.

And so, perhaps, writing the words teaching us that concern for life in most cases requires the commission of a sin as an “introduction”of sorts to the imperative to die in certain other cases may be the way the Torah means to impress something upon us: the essential equality between dying al kiddush Hashem and living by it.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Thus, the house’s owner is commanded (Vayikra, 14:36) to remove utensils from the house before it is pronounced tamei, spiritually unclean – letting others see things he has that he may have been asked to lend but claimed he didn’t have (and, by Hashem “saving” the vessels from tum’ah, demonstrating the very opposite of tzarus ayin).

The Kli Yakar explains that the words that translate as “[the house] that is his” (Vayikra 14:35), reflect the miser’s mindset, that what he has is really his. What he misses is the truth that what we “own” is really only temporarily in our control, on loan, so to speak, from Hashem.

Puzzling, though, is that Chazal also describe nig’ei batim, the “plagues of houses,” as a blessing, because the Emorim concealed treasures in the walls of their houses during the 40 years the Jews were in the desert, and when a Jew whose home was afflicted would remove the diseased wall stones, he would discover the riches. (Rashi, ibid 14:34, quoting Vayikra Rabbah 17:6).

A reward? For having been stingy? 

No, but perhaps a lesson in the form of  a reward.

Being stingy bespeaks a worldview, as noted above, that misunderstands that what we have is “self-gotten,” not on loan from Above. And that mistaken worldview yields an assumption: that we need to hoard what we have, lest anyone deprive us of it.

The once-tzar-ayin-afflicted homeowner, having had to remove a stone from his wall and belongings from his house, is presumably chastened by the experience. But now he is shown something to fortify his new outlook: a demonstration that wealth can come (and, conversely, go) unexpectedly and suddenly, and that we waste our energy and squander our good will by “cramped-eyedness.” We get what is best for us to have. And it comes from Above, not below.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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As Rav Nachman says (Megillah 25b): “All mocking obscenity is forbidden except with reference to idol worship.” And the examples the Gemara offers are almost all about defecation.  The characterization of all idolatry as “avodas gilulim” in various places in Tanach may also be intended as a scatalogical reference, since galal is a word for biological waste.

And then there is the specific case of  Pe’or, the major idolatry whose entire service involves hallowing the act of defecation itself.

Rav Shimon Schwab, zt”l, brings up Rav Nachman’s dictum to suggest an intriguing understanding of one of the bigdei kehunah, the “priestly garments.” Rashi points out that it seems to him that the garment is apron-like, but worn in reverse of how aprons are usually worn, tied in the front with the bib in the back.

The Gemara, Rav Schwab reminds us, assigns an atonement that is effected by each of the bigdei kehunah. The ephod atones for the sin of idolatry (Arachin 16a).

Idolatry, notes Rav Schwab, is ultimately about worship of the physical, about veneration of the base. And that is why, as per Rav Nachman’s statement, it is derided by the navi, and permitted to be derided by us, as scatalogical in its essence. 

And so, he then posits, it is fitting that the ephod, the beged kehunah that atones for the sin of idolatry, is worn, oddly, in a way that covers the wearer’s lower back, subtly recalling its particular role among the bigdei kehunah.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The law, of course, is aimed at ensuring that a decision will be made without prejudice. As the pasuk continues, “for bribery blinds the clear-sighted, and perverts the words of justice.”

And the Gemara (Kesuvos 105a) states that, beyond the obvious wrong in a judge’s favoring one litigant over the other, the Torah is teaching us that a remuneration is sinful “even if the purpose of the bribe is to ensure that one acquit the innocent and convict the guilty,” where “there is no concern at all that justice will be perverted.”

That, too, is understandable. If one litigant offers money or service to a judge, even in exchange for only the latter’s impartial and best judgment, there is still the fact that the judge, by accepting the offer, may favor the offerer.

But the Gemara seems to say, too, that a bribe “to acquit the innocent and convict the guilty” is forbidden even if it is offered by both litigants (see Derisha, Choshen Mishpat 9:1). Presumably offered simultaneously, where there isn’t even the fact of one party being the first to offer, thereby prejudicing the case.

Why should that be? Nothing is changed by such a joint bribe to deliver a proper judgment.

It could be that there is no logical answer. That mishpat, judgment, is, in the end, a chok, a Divine ordinance, and, no less than other laws in the Torah that defy human reason, so must  judgment of court cases follow the Torah’s direction, logical to our minds or not. But the pasuk’s providing a reason for the prohibition – that bribery “blinds the clear-sighted” – would seem to require some rationale here. 

The best I can come up with is that the entry of any other factor – money or any other benefit – beyond the testimony of the litigants and the pertinent prescribed laws somehow pollutes the process of adjudication. Mishpat must be executed in purity, with no extraneous elements present. Anything less, puzzling though the fact may be, somehow perverts a judgment.

© 2025 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Moshiach’s arrival seems imminent.

To read about those media’s accomplishments, please click here.

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The kidnapping and gagging of a professor?  An administrator’s cancellation of the professor’s class? . A warning that he’d be fired unless he taught a certain point of view? Three strikes, you’re out.

To see the answer, click here.

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Some commentaries understand that as indicating that the Egyptians protected livestock and shunned the consumption of meat. Ibn Ezra writes that the Egyptians were “like the people of India today, who don’t consume anything that comes from a sensile animal.”

Pardes Yosef (Rabbi Yosef Patzanovski) references the Ibn Ezra and explains that the ancient Egyptians considered the slaughter of an animal to be equivalent to the murder of a human being.

Although far distant in both time and place from ancient Egypt and India, some people in the Western Hemisphere today have come to embrace the notion that the sentience of animals renders them essentially no different from humans.

To be sure, seeking to prevent needless pain to non-human creatures is entirely in keeping with the Jewish mesorah, the source of enlightened society’s moral code. But those activists’ convictions go far beyond protecting animals from pain; they seek to muddle the fundamental distinction between the animal world and the human. A distinction that is all too important in our day, for instance, when it comes to issues pertinent to the beginning or end of life, or moral behavior. 

A book that focuses on “the exploitation and slaughter of animals” compares animal farming to Nazi concentration camps. Its obscene title: “Eternal Treblinka.” Similarly obscene was the lament by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals founder Ingrid Newkirk that “Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.”

But even average citizens today can slip onto the human-animal equivalency slope. American households with pets spend more than $60 billion on their care each year. People give dogs birthday presents and have their portraits taken. Such things might seem benign but, according to one study, many Americans grow more concerned when they see a dog in pain than when they see an adult human suffering.

We who have been gifted with the Torah, as well as all people who are the product of societies influenced by Torah truths, consider the difference between animals and human beings to be sacrosanct. 

It is incumbent on us to try to keep larger society from blurring that distinction.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The angel that confronted Yaakov when our forefather re-crossed Nachal Yabok to retrieve some small items looked, according to one opinion, “like a talmid chacham” [Chullin 91a].

The most straightforward takeaway from that contention is that one cannot rely on the appearance of a person as being reflective of his essence. That’s an important lesson, as it happens, for all of us, and to be imparted to our young. Honoring someone who looks honorable is fine, but trusting him requires more than that. 

But there’s a broader, historical message in that image of a faux talmid chacham too. 

From the 19th century Wissenschaft des Judentums movement to the Reform and Conservative ones to the Jewish nationalism that sought to replace Torah with a Jewish state to “Open Orthodoxy,” there have been many efforts to distort the essence of Judaism – dedication to the Creator and His laws for us.

They have all sought to don conceptual garb proclaiming their “Jewish” bona fides. But they have all been revealed to be no less masqueraders than the sar of Esav wrapped in a tallis. 

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Yishmael is commonly perceived as the progenitor of some Arab peoples, an association that would seem to dovetail disturbingly with how Avraham’s first son is characterized in the parsha, as a “pereh adam,” an “unbridled man” given to violence (see Rashi, Beraishis 21:9), someone whose “hand is against all others” and, as a result, causes “all others’ hands to be against him”(ibid 16:12).

The striking savagery wrought by Arab terrorists, from the Hebron massacre of 1929 to October 7, 2023 (and countless attacks on innocents between those events) lend credence to the idea that Yishmael’s middah persists in our world.

Strikingly, the Muqaddimah, a famous 14th century text by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, seems to agree with the Torah’s characterization of Yishmael. Ibn Khaldun engages in blunt judgments about various populations, including his fellow Arabs, who, he writes, are the most savage of people; he compares them to wild, predatory animals.

The notion that violence is tolerated in – or even embraced by – parts of the Arab world, more than in other societies, is evoked by the flags of some modern Arab states. That of the largest one, Saudi Arabia, features a sword (and the country’s official emblem, two crossed ones).  Oman’s and Hamas’ flags also prominently feature swords. Hands clenching AK-47s are on the Fatah movement’s flag, which also includes the image of a hand grenade and is graced with a blood-red Arabic text that probably (just guessing here) doesn’t read “give peace a chance”. 

The Palestinian Authority’s “national anthem,” called “Fida’i,” begins, “Warrior, warrior, warrior” and ends “I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior, I will die as a warrior…”

No individual Arab should ever be assumed to be a violent person, of course. But a proclivity for violence seems to be part of Arab culture, a tragic reality noted not only by Ibn Khaldun but presaged by, lihavdil, the Torah.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The Torah’s prohibition of bribery differs  in two surprising ways. Firstly, the prohibition is on a judge alone, for taking a bribe,  not on a litigant offering one. (Though, in the latter case, the offerer is nevertheless responsible for “putting an obstacle before the blind” – causing the judge to sin – Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 9:1)

And, secondly, a judge is forbidden to take a bribe not only to influence his decision in a particular direction but even to execute his judgment properly. Even, according to the Derisha (ibid), if both litigants offer the same bribe for that purpose alone.

It seems that the Torah’s law against bribery isn’t aimed at preventing quid pro quo per se (forgive all the Latin). It’s not, in other words,  a law about wrongdoers but, rather, about maintaining a purity of justice. Anything superfluous at all, whether or not it actually affects a verdict, that is injected into the holy mission of judging a case contaminates the enterprise.

Because a Jewish court isn’t a simple adjudication of a dispute between individuals; it is the performance of a holy act.

That might seem a slight distinction, but it really isn’t. So momentous is the undertaking to judge a case that the Talmud says it is as if the judge has partnered with Hashem in the act of Creation (Shabbos 10a). And that a judge who misjudges “causes the Divine Presence to withdraw from Klal Yisrael” (Sanhedrin 7a).

Which is why the Shulchan Aruch  considers a compromise reached between litigants to be preferable to an actual court hearing and law-based ruling (Choshen Mishpat 12). Judgment, it seems, is so daunting, so charged  an endeavor, it is best resorted to only when necessary. The stakes, no matter how small the financial impact may be to the litigants, are just too high.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That is something that the Ohr Hachaim introduces in his commentary on the pasuk “And He will give you mercy and have mercy upon you” (Devarim, 13:18).

That “give you mercy” is his focus. He writes:

“This act of killing [here of the idolaters of an ir hanidachas] creates a natural cruelty in the heart of a person.”

He continues by referring to what “we are told by the sect of Yishmaelim who murder at the command of the leader, that they experience a great euphoria when they kill a man, and the natural feeling of pity is extinguished in them…”

Therefore, he explains, “Hashem assures the Jews that [after their commanded act of killing], their innate feelings of mercy… will be returned to them anew” despite their having been weakened through the act of killing. 

And, further, that they will thereby be granted Heavenly mercy themselves, since “Hashem has mercy only on the merciful.”

Modern psychiatry recognizes something called “perpetrator trauma,” a presentation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms caused by an act or acts of killing.

But what the Ohr Hachaim is expounding upon is a different upshot of perpetrating violence: the erosion of the natural human instinct of mercy.

And his report about not only the post-murder desensitization of assassins (the word “assassin,” as it happens, derived from an Arabic name for the reputedly murderous Nizari Ismaili sect) but of their being enthralled by taking lives resonates all too strongly today, when we have seen Yishmaeli murderers exulting  after killing men, women and children. Even the mere imagining of murdering Jews is enough to enrapture some, as they joyfully and mindlessly chant their hope to rid the Holy Land of Jews “from the river to the sea.”

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The U.N. informs us that “Acts of terrorism propagating a wide-range of hateful ideologies continue to injure, harm and kill thousands of innocent people each year,” and that the international body “has an important role in supporting Member States to implement the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy by standing in solidarity and providing support to victims of terrorism.”

And, indeed, the visitors’ welcome area’s display of large photographs of such victims includes tributes to victims of 9/11 and of terrorist attacks in Boston, Indonesia and Kenya, among other places.

Conspicuously missing, though, is any mention of the countless Jewish victims of Islamist terror over so many years. And this, less than a year since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israelis, the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Many have long judged the U.N. as a hypocritical, corrupt and useless institution. Ample evidence for that contention is displayed at the U.N. today.

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Who knew?

To read why I wax somewhat cynical regarding that revelation, click here.

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One valuable truth is the subject of two English sayings that don’t have a Talmudic aphorism-cognate. The truth, though, is telegraphed by the Torah itself, in one word, in parshas Behar.

“A stitch in time saves nine” and “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” both communicate the fact that a modest effort expended in a timely manner can prevent the need for a much greater effort down the line.

In the Torah, that message lies in the word “vihechezakta” – “and you should strengthen” in the pasuk “Should you brother become impoverished and his means falter near you, you should strengthen him, be he a stranger or resident…” (Vayikra 25:35). 

Rashi notes that “stranger” refers to a non-Jew who has forsworn idolatry. And goes on to quote the Sifra: “Do not leave him by himself so that he comes down in the world until he finally falls altogether, when it will be hard to raise him. Rather, uphold him from the first moment of the failure of his means.” 

The illustration provided is a donkey whose load is tottering. Rushing to straighten it is easy and will prevent the need to strain to lift it off the ground should it fall.

It’s an important, if straightforward, truth: Helping someone in even a small way early in a financial decline can prevent the need for a greater lift from a deeper poverty into which he may otherwise fall.

It can even save his life, as the pasuk continues, “And he will live with you.” 

What I find interesting is that the English aphorisms are simple wise advice to an individual, about protecting himself from harm.

In the Torah, the truth is indicated in a word about protecting someone else.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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But consider: Dovid’s father was Yishai – one of the four people who Chazal tell us (Shabbos 55b) “died by the counsel of the nachash,” the serpent in Gan Eden.  In other words, he was personally without sin.  And yet he is being described as, in some way, selfish?

It seems clear that ultimate self-concern is part and parcel of being human. So no one can actually love another quite the same way he loves himself.

Nor can loving one’s fellow like himself mean that one must give each person he meets half of his possessions. That would render him penniless in short shrift.

R’ Meshullam Gross, in his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, notes that the wording of the imperative to love others like oneself uses the word lirei’acha (literally, “to one’s fellow”) rather than the simpler es rei’acha, echoing the wording of the commandment to “not covet… all that is to your fellow” in the Aseres Hadibros (Shemos 20:14).

Thus, he suggests, the imperative here is to consider the possessions – and honor, and concerns… – of one’s fellow as dear to you as if they were yours. In other words, love the fact that your fellow has what he has and deserves what he deserves – as much as you love what you have and feel you deserve.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Two indistinguishable goats were brought on Yom Kippur before the Kohein Gadol, who placed a randomly-pulled lot on the head of each animal.  One lot read “to Hashem” and the other “to Azazel” – the name of a steep cliff in a barren desert.

The first was sacrificed as a holy korban; the second, taken to the cliff and thrown off, dying unceremoniously before even reaching the bottom.

There are two ways to view human life, either as the result of intent or the product of accident.  And a corollary follows: Either our lives are meaningful, or they are not.

If the roots of our existence ultimately lie in randomness, there can be no more meaning to good and bad actions than to good or bad plays; no more import to right and wrong than to right and left.  Societal norms can be promoted, but a social contract is a practical tool, not a moral imperative.  Only if there is a Creator in the larger picture can there be ultimate import to human life, placing it on a plane meaningfully above that of mosquitoes.

The Torah’s most basic message is the meaningfulness of human life. 

Might the goat brought as a korban symbolize recognition of the idea that humans are beholden to something greater?  And the counter-goat, fate to a desolate, unholy place, allude to the perspective of life as pointless, lacking higher purpose?

Strangely, the Azazel-goat is described by the Torah as carrying away the people’s sins.

Might that mean that sin stems from not realizing how meaningful our lives are?  And might a reminder about that idea on the holiest day of the Jewish year spur thoughts of repentance, of re-embracing the grand meaningfulness that is a human life?

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That is particularly evident in the fact that, in the case of nig’ei batim, the tzara’as that afflicts walls of a house, the owner, before the house is declared tamei by a kohein, is told to take the home’s vulnerable vessels outside, exposing them to public view. What’s more, the Torah’s concern for the owner’s possessions stands as a lesson to him about caring for others’ needs.

Jews, as a people, are famously generous. We may be frugal, but that bespeaks something positive, our recognition of the worth of even small things. When it comes to charity, though, U.S. Jews per capita are more philanthropic than any other ethnic or religious community.

But tzarus ayin can manifest itself in a realm apart from charity. The Kli Yakar sees in the phrase “asher lo habayis” – “that is to him the house” (Vayikra 14:35) – an indication of a miser’s mindset: he thinks the house is truly his, when, in reality, it, like all we may think we “own,” is only temporarily in his control, on loan, so to speak, from Hashem.

Chazal created an entire class of imperatives based on that reality: birchos hanehenin, “blessings to be made before indulging.” When we recite a brachah before enjoying food or even fragrance, we are acknowledging that what is about to benefit us is from Hashem.

It’s ironic that a society like ours today, so blessed with such plenty, is not more careful when it comes to acknowledging our blessings. “Bruchanoi” may be somewhat reminiscent of the first three words of a brachah, but only somewhat. And quickly mumbling a brachah as some sort of irksome incantation without thinking about what its words mean is no replacement for summoning the gratitude the brachah is meant to express.

Even generous eyes can be miserly. Ours shouldn’t be.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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An “aptronym” is a person’s name that is amusingly appropriate — like that of the lawyer named Sue Yoo, or of BBC meteorologist Sara Blizzard.

I’ve got another one, at least for Hebrew speakers. To read what it is, click here.

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Kosher species require cud-chewing and split hooves, yet the camel, the text states, is forbidden “because it chews its cud, but does not have a [completely] split hoof”; and the pig, “because it has a cloven hoof that is completely split, but will not regurgitate its cud.” The “becauses” are seemingly misplaced, since the reason for the species’ forbiddance is for the lack of one kosher sign, not the presence of one.

Similar wording is used regarding the two other “one sign only” species mentioned, the hyrax and the hare.

The Kli Yakar perceives something poignant in the placement of the kosher signs after the “becauses.” He writes that “their pure sign adds extra impurity to their impurity, as we find that Chazal compared Esov to a pig that sticks out its hoofs when it lies down to make it appear as if it is kosher, but its inside is full of deceit. This represents anyone whose inside is not like his outside, in the manner of the hypocrites … Therefore, the pig’s split hoof is a sign of impurity because the split hoof can deceive people and make it appear as if it is kosher.”

The Chashmonai king Yannai, before he died, told his wife “Don’t be afraid of the Perushim [Torah-faithful Jews] or of those who are not Perushim, only of the hypocrites who present themselves as Perushim, for their actions are those of Zimri while they ask for reward like Pinchas received” (Sotah 22b).

Presenting oneself as a better version than that of one’s reality, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, once told me, isn’t wrong – if one aspires to that better version. As the Chinuch put it, “what is on the outside can awaken the inside.” 

But pretension for the sake of pretension is being, well, piggish. 

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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It’s a word that we find in a seemingly different context in Koheles (3:19), where Shlomo Hamelech says that u’mosar ha’adam min habeheima ayin – “and the superiority of man over animal is nothing.”  

Which, as it happens, well encapsulates Amalek’s philosophy. Famously, its name in gematria equals safek, doubt, which reflects Amalek’s conviction that human life is meaningless, just the yield of random evolution, that there is in fact no essential difference between people and animals; and, thus, that there is no ultimate meaning to human life.

That sentiment, of course, isn’t Shlomo’s true conviction; he concludes Koheles with the statement that “kol ha’adam” – the essence of man” – is reverence for Hashem and fulfillment of His directives. The “no difference” pasuk is an unwarranted cry of exasperation, not a description of final fact.

I remember seeing a worthy thought about what that word ayin in the Koheles pasuk might hint at, rendering it not an uninformed cry but, rather, a statement of deep truth.

The first time the word ayin is used in the Torah is in the sentence: vi’adam ayin la’avod es ha’adama – “and man was not yet there to work the land” (Beraishis 2:5). 

As Rashi explains, for the first vegetation to emerge, there needed to be rain, and rain would only arrive when there was a consciousness that could appreciate it as a divine gift. The “working” of the land, the avodah alluded to, was thus avodas haleiv, the “work of the heart” – a recognition and declaration of gratitude.

And so, the “difference between man and animal” may in fact be precisely “ayin” – namely, what the word hints at in Beraishis: awareness of Hashem and gratitude for His benevolence, which only conscious human beings can feel and express. 

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Re “For Gaza’s Babies, War’s Effects Will Never End,” by Alice Rothchild (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 11):

The effect of the Israel-Hamas conflict on expectant mothers and on babies is horrific, as is all the death and destruction in Gaza today.

It must end immediately.

Hamas must do what Germany and Japan did in 1945: surrender — and, here, release the kidnapped Israelis it hasn’t yet murdered.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
New York
The writer is the director of public affairs at Agudath Israel of America.

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Elsewhere, of course, with two exceptions (hitting the Nile and the ground, because Moshe had been saved by water and earth) it is Moshe’s staff that is used to fulfill divine commandments, as in the splitting of the sea and, in the desert, the hitting of the rock to bring forth water. But here, why isn’t Moshe the one charged to cause the miracle?

A lesson may lie in the oddity. Moshe, we remember, was earlier, at the burning bush, told to throw his staff to the ground, where it turned into a snake (Shemos 4:2,3). There, the command was issued after Moshe expressed doubts about whether the Jews would listen to him.

And, as Rashi explains there, the transformation of the staff was not meant as some demonstration of miraculousness but rather as a rebuke to Moshe, for having doubted the Jewish people’s willingness to hear His message.

So perhaps the reason Hashem wanted Aharon and not Moshe to perform the demonstration before Par’oh was to spare Moshe embarrassment over the memory of the rebuke he had earlier received. The reminder, of course, was still there, in a staff turning into a snake. But at least Moshe himself was not asked to perform the very action that had telegraphed the rebuke.

The Mishna (Bava Metzia 58b) says that one may not remind a repentant sinner of his prior deeds, nor a convert’s son of those of his ancestors. Perhaps the lesson here of Aharon being given the order to throw the staff down is that even a subtle reminder can be a source of embarrassment to another, and thus, something to carefully avoid.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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I once wrote an essay contending that it is no sin – in fact, it is proper – that we feel, and demonstrate, our deepest love for the circle closest to us. And greater concern for the next circle out than for those beyond it.

Some Jews seem embarrassed at the idea of Jews acting with special alacrity on behalf of fellow Jews. But they are misguided. 

In fact, I suggested, the only way to feel any concern for the “outer circles” is to hone one’s love for those in one’s inner one first. Exercising the “empathy” muscle with regard to those closest to us is what allows us to have true empathy at all for those most distant.

Moshe Rabbeinu, the “most humble of all men,” was not naturally given to interfering in conflicts. And yet we find him doing so thrice in the parsha: First, by killing the Mitzri who was beating a Jew; second, by berating a Jew who was hitting another Jew; third, by standing up to the non-Jewish shepherds who were bullying the non-Jewish daughters of Yisro.

A dear talmidah of mine from long ago, Tanya Farber, suggested that my observation about how empathy for those distant from us is only enabled by first feeling, and acting upon, empathy for those close to us may inform Moshe’s interventions. What empowered Moshe’s decision to stand up for Tzlafchad’s daughters may have been his standing up earlier for fellow Jews.

The only way to truly “love humanity,” and not just mouth half-hearted concern for it, is to first concentrate on the easier, but essential and prime, endeavor of loving those to whom we are closest.

© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky, zt”l, points out that the genesis of Yosef’s release from prison and ascension to the position of viceroy in Mitzrayim lies in his having noticed that his fellow prisoners, the king’s baker and butler, were crestfallen one morning.

He didn’t ignore that fact. “Why do you appear downcast  today?” he asked them (Beraishis 40:7). And they proceeded to tell him of their dreams, which he then interpreted.

“Come and see,” Rav Kaminetsky advises, “the greatness of Yosef,” who, after being wrongly imprisoned by other Egyptian officials, nevertheless, when he saw these officials in a state of depression or angst, was so concerned that he immediately asked them what was wrong.

That’s a lesson for life. When we see someone out of sorts, we are often inclined to ignore the person or even steer ourselves in another direction. But it is that inclination to avoid the sad person that should be ignored. We may not have the solution to the depressed person’s problem like Yosef had for his fellow inmates’ dilemma. But asking  “What’s wrong?” or “Can I help?” are the proper responses.  If only because they are expressions of concern. 

Which  may help lift the spirits of the inquiree. 

And even, perhaps, benefit the inquirer.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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To read about my fantasy, and more, click here.

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Yosef Chaim Cara, a 17th century Polish rabbi, points out in his sefer Kol Omer Kra that after Hashem tells Avram, concerning his future progeny, to “Look heavenward and count the stars, if you are able to count them” (Beraishis 15:5), the Torah goes on to say that “the sun was ready to set… (ibid, 15:12). 

So “count the stars,” it seems, was spoken during daytime.

Rav Karo perceives in that fact a poignant idea. The Jews have never been as multitudinous as the stars – and have never even comprised a population of major proportions. Hashem’s message to Avram, says Rav Karo, was not about numbers but rather about impact. 

It was: “Are you able to count the stars of the heavens when the sun is shining? Even though the stars are there, they are invisible because of the powerful light of the sun.”

Your progeny, Hashem was telling Avram, will not be many in number but will, like the sun’s light, be overwhelming in importance.

“All the nations,” explains Rav Karo, “will learn from [the Jews] what is proper and just. Without them, he continues, “the world would only continue to sink into darkness.”

Paul Johnson, in the epilogue of his “A History of the Jews,” writes about his subject:

“To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life, and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience and so of personal redemption; of the collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice… [of] monotheism.

“It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if they had never emerged.”

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A dove holding an olive branch in its mouth has become employed as a symbol of peace. To be sure, the sign that the flood was receding was certainly a happy one. But the message of the dove, according to Jewish tradition – the source, after all, of the Torah’s account itself – was not about peace.

It was, in the words of the Gemara (Eruvin 18b), an expression of willful dependence on the Creator. “The dove,” the passage states, “said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: ‘Master of the Universe, let my food be bitter as an olive but given into Your hand, rather than sweet as honey but dependent upon flesh and blood’.”

The dove had been well-fed by Noach throughout the months of the flood. But it is described as grateful for the opportunity to be fed directly by the Divine, without a human intermediary. So, rather than “peace,” the dove and its bounty are a symbol of striving for closeness to God.

And then we have the rainbow, the Divine “sign” given to Noach, and to all humanity, adopted of late as a symbol of “pride” in flouting the Torah’s directives to humanity regarding human sexuality. The dove being misguidedly co-opted as a symbol of peace is disappointing. But it pales beside the rainbow’s employ to promote things profoundly at odds with Torah and truth.

The rainbow, according to the Torah’s text, is a sign that Hashem will not destroy His world again – even if humanity is deserving of such, which may be one reason for Chazal’s admonition to not gaze exceedingly at a rainbow; it would be embarrassingly uncouth.

The flood itself came about in part because of sexual immorality (Rashi, Beraishis 6:11).

Nothing could be more woefully misguided than employing the rainbow as a celebratory symbol of what played a role in causing the world’s destruction in the time of Noach.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A document from a horrible moment in Holocaust history was recently discovered by a Tel Aviv University PhD candidate. You can read about it here.

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That is to say, the commandment is to be understood as “Do not steal,” not “Steal for Him” – which would imply that, for a holy cause, theft is a virtue.

But the Kotzker certainly intended his quip as a serious lesson: Lofty ends don’t justify forbidden means.

If a Jew should “bend the rules” with regard to business or governmental dealings, he is guilty of gezel akum.  Even if his intention is to benefit a charity or Jewish institution.

Hopefully, we all realize that. But when, on occasion, we have read of some such liberty-taking, it behooves us to consider the fact that even those of us who would never consider doing such a thing ourselves might have reason for introspection.

Because a fundamental concept in Judaism is the idea of arvus, that all Jews are intertwined, that we are all responsible for one another. And so, if a Jewish thief exists, it is the “fault,” in a sense, of us all. That’s why we say “Ashamnu…” – “We have sinned” – in first person plural.

That outright Jewish violator of “Do not steal” may have been empowered by our own, less blatant, thievery. Like gneivas daas, stealing another’s mind (misleading him); or gezel sheina, depriving another of sleep; or what Chazal consider to be “stealing from a poor person,” namely, not returning a greeting (Berachos 6b).

Many are the understandings of nachamu nachamu ami – the repetition of the word for “be comforted” in the haftarah of Vo’eschanan. But, considering that the word nechama can mean both comfort and change of heart (as in Beraishis 6:6), perhaps the repetition reflects, too, the fact that our repentance from small transgressions have an effect on preventing larger ones. 

And some comfort surely lies in that fact.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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But when what has gone by was a tyrant’s ruthless torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, it’s not one of those times.

To read what I am referring to, please click here.

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You can read about the flag, the bulls and more here.

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A musing on that issue can be read here.

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Slight divergences between the Torah’s words or phrases and Targum Onkelos’ rendering of them are often laden with meaning.

One such seemingly minor change is in the Targum’s translation of Moshe’s words: “Were we to slaughter the deity of Mitzrayim in their sight, will they not stone us?”

Moshe, of course, was replying to Par’oh’s suggestion that, if the nation’s Jews needed to have a festive gathering, they could hold it within Egypt’s borders. Moshe responded that, since animal sacrifices would be part of the celebration, and Egyptians worshiped sheep, the suggestion was a non-starter.

The Targum renders “will they not stone us?” as “will they will not say to stone us?”

Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop, zt”l, in Mei Marom, observes that Par’oh could certainly have posted soldiers to protect the Jews celebrating in Egypt. And so Moshe couldn’t really have expressed a fear of being attacked. He was expressing instead a refusal to get people upset.

How much there is to learn from this about middos, Rav Charlop muses. “Even when it comes to the greatest mitzvah, one should not do it in a way that causes others pain, even if there are no real repercussions.”

Obviously, there are mitzvos that might in themselves upset others; they must be performed all the same. But when a mitzvah or minhag might cause pain or outrage to some – kapparos in some public places is an example that comes to my mind – concern for the feelings of others are not something to be ignored.

© 2023 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Major mirth greeted Stanford University’s Information Technology department’s list of words to be shunned by the university’s publications and website. Words like “webmaster” and “blacklist.” 

And yet, there is some food for thought in the list too.

My take on the matter is here.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence has added to his sins — to date, they include calling his childrens’ mother “mother” and declining to dine privately alone with any woman other than his spouse — a deeply offensive (at least to some) menorah.

Read all about it here.

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An oldie about Chanukah that appeared in the New York Times can be read here.

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If you aren’t familiar with the story of Roddie Edmonds, a Tennessee-born non-Jewish sergeant who fought in World War II and was captured by the Nazis, you can read it here.

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Regardless of whether or not all or any of the results of the recent elections pleased you, they revealed a supercharged Orthodox Jewish community in New York. Even if some secular media crazily choose to portray Orthodox participation in the democratic system as somehow nefarious, we Orthodox Jews should be proud of our neighborhoods’ impressive voting record. 

Shortly before election day, someone immersed in studying Torah and earning a living told me that he doesn’t follow political matters and, assuming (rightly or not) that I was better informed about such things, asked me for whom I thought he should vote. My response took him aback. “It makes no difference,” I said. “Just vote.”

That’s because, no matter how we might like to imagine things, no single vote, nor hundred votes, nor thousand votes, usually makes a difference in the outcome of a congressional or gubernatorial election. But what always makes a difference is the post-election map informing elected officials which neighborhoods care enough to turn out en masse. And when it comes to that map, every vote makes a difference.

And that’s what should be foremost in our minds during the months before every election, when campaign engines noisily rev up and ads and endorsements dominate the airwaves, print media, robocalls, pashkevilim and car-mounted loudspeakers.

Because, while there may well be reasons to back this or that candidate, or to support or oppose this or that proposal, there is – or should be – no place in our lives for the political tribal war mentality that has intensified immeasurably in politics over the past seven years.

Demonization of parties and individuals may excite a certain type of citizen (like the kind who enjoys watching boxers open cuts in their opponents’ faces or render them unconscious). But insulting those with whom we may disagree is not something that responsible Jews do.

Campaigns these days resemble ancient Roman gladiatorial contests, where citizens cheer their chosen heroes and signal for hungry lions to deal with those they disfavor. But that’s not what politics should be to a believing Jew. To us, an election is a means of civilly advancing our interests and what we believe is best for the city, state or country in which we live. For those in need of violent release, there’s Canadian hockey.

Getting overheated over politics is incongruous with Torah values, simple menschlichkeit and reason.

While our hishtadlus is necessary, in the end, we must remember that lev melech bi’yad Hashem, “the heart of the king is in Hashem’s hand” (Mishlei 21:1). What is decisive is the Bashefer, not the ballot box, the Creator, not the casting. Our power lies in choosing how to live, not how to vote. 

To be sure, there might theoretically be a candidate for some office who is truly deserving of vilification – say, a Nazi human trafficker with a penchant for cannibalism. But they are, I think, rare.

When it comes, though, to candidates whose positions one simply feels are wrongheaded or detrimental to our community or to society as a whole, expressions of opposition are rightly made with reason and calm, not fire and fury. 

An object lesson, I personally think, lies in the public disparagement some rained down upon Kathy Hochul. 

Whether or not one thinks she was the better candidate, the Governor has shown good will to her Orthodox Jewish constituents – in her budget’s substantial increases in allocations for nonpublic schools, security grants for Jewish institutions and funding for hate crime prevention; and in her veto of a bill that would have allowed the Town of Blooming Grove to effectively discriminate against religious Jews. 

And yet, because she didn’t endorse what we feel she should have with regard to yeshiva education, some went into full-scale attack mode.

Now that Ms. Hochul has been elected governor, how might that harsh and uncalled-for crassness sit with her?

I don’t expect Ms. Hochul, a seasoned politician with a thick skin, to turn on the community because of the thoughtless words of a few. I think she truly respects the Orthodox community. But can we at least recognize that joining the “attack mode” of contemporary American politics can backfire?

And, even more important, that it is wrong? 

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The parents of a 17-year-old read Amazon’s email to their son thanking him for his order and asking if it had met his expectations.

It had, unfortunately. A month earlier, the boy had died by suicide.

To read about the case, and what I believe it should mean to us, please click here.

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The law of kana’im pog’im bo – “the zealous ones can attack him” – that Pinchas acted upon to dispatch Zimri and Kozbi is a highly unusual, if not singular, one: If one poses it as a halachic query, it is rendered a forbidden act; but if acted upon without consultation, it is meritorious. How can something prohibited be a mitzvah? We find yibum rendering what was an aveira (relations with one’s brother’s wife) a mitzvah, but there the situation has changed, with the death of the brother. Here, the same act under the same circumstances is both wrong and right.

In physics, there is something called the “observer effect,” referring to the fact that the act of measuring something affects what is being measured. For instance, a thermometer placed in a liquid can’t truly measure the liquid’s temperature, since the thermometer’s own temperature changes the liquid’s (and using a thermometer with the same temperature as the liquid would require knowing the liquid’s temperature beforehand).

The observer effect is even more pronounced in quantum physics, where even the most basic act of observation disturbs the state of subatomic particles.

I wonder if something like the “observer effect” may exist in the halacha of kana’im pog’im bo. The act itself, in its essence, is proper; it is the introduction of self that changes the status of the law, rendering the act forbidden. 

If the aspirant to the status of “zealous” has the presence of mind to query whether he should act, the answer is that he should not. Once a he has entered the situation, it changes what was permitted, even meritorious, into something forbidden. With the introduction of self, everything changes.

When an act of kana’us is performed automatically, though, devoid of “self”-consciousness, without consideration of its potential impact on oneself, it is praiseworthy. And Pinchas, who acted out of pure dedication to Hashem, with no concern for self, is rightly praised.

© 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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That seeming truism was the official ruling of New York’s highest court last week, necessitated by a suit brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project aimed at freeing the pachyderm from prison – the effective description by the group of the Bronx Zoo.

The 5-2 decision by the state Court of Appeals ruled that “while no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion,” a writ of habeas corpus, a fundamental Constitutional right protecting against unlawful imprisonment, is intended to protect the liberty of human beings and does not apply to animals.

The two dissenting judges called Happy’s confinement “inherently unjust and inhumane” and “an affront to a civilized society.”

Judaism considers it forbidden to cause animals unnecessary pain, a prohibition called tzaar baalei chaim, “pain of living creatures.” At the same time, though, the Torah explicitly considers animals to be subject to the needs of humans. While it must be accomplished in as painless a way as possible, utilizing animals for work and even killing them for food or leather are fully sanctioned by the Jewish religious tradition.

Whether being confined to a zoo for the edification and admiration of humans constitutes “undue pain” is an open question. But my guess is that, assuming the confined animals are treated well, which generally is the case in modern zoos, there would be no problem in the eyes of Jewish law with keeping Happy in the Bronx. Presumably Happy is happy.

So the New York court, while it has no obligation to mirror Judaism’s take on anything, has essentially adopted the Jewish view of animals.

Reading of the case brought back a memory. Over my many years serving as spokesman for a national Orthodox Jewish group, Agudath Israel of America, I once received a call from the producer of a network television news program. I was naturally honored and straightened my tie before picking up the phone.

Dropping my voice a couple octaves to project the requisite gravitas, I asked how I might be of help. 

I imagined the caller would want the Jewish take on some pressing issue of the day, and was quickly and properly deflated by her question:

“Rabbi, what we’d like to get your take on is the question of whether pets go to heaven.”

“Pardon?” I objected.  She repeated herself, and I responded that I really didn’t think I wanted to participate in the planned program.

She persisted, though, and, eventually, having been given a day to think it over, I consented.  What I came to realize was that if the issue was really, as the producer claimed, so important to so many, there must be some reason.  And then I realized the reason.

Many of the most fundamental philosophical and moral issues of our time – indeed of any time – touch upon the special distinction of humanness.  That is why proponents of abortion on demand, which they choose to call “choice,” choose as well to call an unborn child a “pregnancy,” or, at most, a “fetus.”  Dehumanizing (used here in its most simple sense) a baby makes it easier to advocate for terminating him or her. 

Ethicist Peter Singer has gone a significant step further, making the case for the killing of already-born babies who are severely disabled.  He has written, pointedly, that infants are “neither rational nor self-conscious” and so “the principles that govern the wrongness of killing nonhuman animals… must apply here, too.”  Or, as he more bluntly puts it: “The life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee.”  Professor Singer advocates as well the killing of the severely disabled and unconscious elderly.

In that mindset, I pondered, why not be accepting of intimate relations, beyond owner/pet comradeship? Wouldn’t objections to marital bonds between humans and “other animals” be a form of “speciesism”?

Indeed, years ago, a man testified before a Maine legislative committee that proponents of a ban on animal sexual abuse are “trying to force morality on a minority,” and asked a judge to allow his “significant other” – of the canine persuasion – to sit by his side during a court case.  The petitioner had been told that he needed special permission, he said, because, “my wife is not human.” 

As it happens, Professor Singer is supportive of jettisoning morality here too.  The only conceivable reason for considering human-animal intimate relations to be unworthy of societal sanction, he cogently observes, is the belief that human beings are inherently superior.  That, indeed, is the position of Judaism, and the professor rejects it summarily.  “We are,” he maintains, “animals.”

And so what I came to realize is that much indeed of import to the contemporary world in the end revolves around the difference between animals and humans.  It is a difference that not only keeps pets from meriting heaven, because they lack true free will and the divine mandate to utilize it, but also charges us humans to act as something above our physical, animal selves, including according special respect to other humans, including those who are very new or very old. 

And so, that was the point I tried to make when the producer and her entourage eventually shlepped their camera equipment to my office to film the segment. 

Some of my comments survived the editing process. “Heaven,” I said at one point, “is something one earns, one doesn’t just ‘go to’ it.”

“Animals tend to bond with their caregivers,” I added, “and that’s the way it should be. But that doesn’t erase the distinction between the animal and their caregiver.” And then, tipping my hat about how old I am, I said, “Timmy can go to heaven, but Lassie can’t.”

I hope viewers of the program were spurred to think about the qualitative difference between humans and animals, and the idea that humans can, by their choices, earn eternal reward.  Because it is a fundamental – in fact, the most fundamental – fact of life.

And these days, more trenchant than ever.

(c) 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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The most recent mass murder tragedy (at least at this writing, on June 1) was the assault on an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. It was the latest of some 950 school shootings – you read that right – since the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 people were shot to death. (With other mass shootings included, the number is some 2500.)

At one extreme, The New Republic’s Walter Shapiro wistfully floated a 28th Amendment to the Constitution reading: “The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.” And it’s not only “libs” who feel that way. Conservative columnist Bret Stephens has called the 2nd Amendment “a legal regime that most of the developed world rightly considers nuts.”

On the opposite end of the ideological shooting range was, among many others, former President Donald Trump. In a speech (during which, amusingly, weapons were banned from the room) to a National Rifle Association gathering in “celebration of Second Amendment rights” three days after the Texas massacre, Mr. Trump blamed school shootings on “the existence of evil in our world,” which is no reason “to disarm law-abiding citizens.” On the contrary, he averred, it is “one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”

News flash: One can lick and bite one’s ice cream cone. And climate change can be seen both as a reason to wean ourselves off of oil and not as heralding the imminent end of the world. 

Likewise, some gun control measures can, at least if political donations can be put aside (big “if,” that), make at least some difference.

To be sure, Mr. Trump is right about evil. There are also mental conditions that (unlike the vast majority of such illnesses) can lead to violence. Addressing societal and emotional ills should be part of the effort to curb gun violence. (Arming ostensibly law-abiding citizens, not so much. Imagine an impulsive fellow in a bad mood from an argument with his wife who was eyeing the parking spot you just pulled into.)

Moreover, it’s folly to imagine that stricter gun laws will end gun violence. While Texas’ gun laws are famously lax, New York’s are famously strict, which didn’t prevent the recent shooting up of a Buffalo supermarket, abruptly ending ten lives. 

But, really, are lightweight rifles that can fire off a round every half-second at three times the velocity of a typical handgun with ammunition designed to inflict maximum damage necessary for animal hunting or self defense? Those would be the AR-15-style weapons so popular with mass killers, like the ones used at, among other massacres, Sandy Hook, Buffalo and Uvalde. And which are unbelievably easy to purchase.

And is there something outrageous about federally-mandated universal background checks – even of currently unregulated gun sales between private parties? While the N.R.A. opposes such measures (and even registration of firearms), a 2020 Gallup Poll showed that 96% of Americans favor them. 

Or anything onerous about requiring waiting periods for gun purchases, to prevent impulsive violence? Or about “red flag” laws allowing temporary restriction on gun possession by people whose family members or law officers deem to be a danger to themselves or others?

Or even, dare it to be said, raising the legal age for gun ownership? The peak ages for firearm violence are 18 to 21. Could we splurge and make it, say, 25?

Gun ownership, after all, isn’t an unlimited right. Like driving a car, it is subject to restrictions born of safety concerns.

No one – nor even all – of those things will stop gun violence.

Because, in the end, the adage is true: guns don’t kill; people do.

But they tend to do a good deal of killings with all-too-deadly, all-too-accessible guns.

© 2022 Ami Magazine

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Most of the Jewish passengers were heading to Hungary, to visit the burial placeof a revered rabbi, Reb Shayeleh Kerestirer, on the anniversary of his death. They had to scramble to get on flights with other airlines.

In a statement shortly after the incident, the airline claimed that the travelers had been blocked from the flights because, on their earlier flight from New York, they had refused requests to honor the airline’s medical mask requirement. 

Numerous passengers, however, told news outlets that they and the vast majority of Jewish travelers had heeded the mask mandate and had been unfairly grouped together and punished because of a small number of rule-violators.

Holding anyone who happened to look Jewish accountable for the infraction of a few was, obviously, well… Problematik.

Exacerbating things was one of several videos disseminated by Dan’s Deals, an air travel website, that went viral schnell. In it, after an irate passenger heatedly protested the collective punishment, a Lufthansa supervisor blurted out that it had been “Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.”

Lufthansa found itself in quite a Kuddlemuddle.

Many were upset by the accounts and videos. Agudath Israel executive vice president Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel wrote a letter to Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr the following Monday asking that he research the “disturbing accounts” about the flight, which indicated that “People were being punished simply because they shared ethnicity and religion with the alleged rule violators.”

The next day, Lufthansa said that it “regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight.” “We apologize to all the passengers unable to travel on this flight,” the airline added, “not only for the inconvenience, but also for the offense caused and personal impact.”

“What transpired,” it continued, “is not consistent with Lufthansa’s policies or values. We have zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism and discrimination of any type.

“We will be engaging with the affected passengers to better understand their concerns and openly discuss how we may improve our customer service.”

While an apology was certainly warranted, many were less-than-impressed with this one. Yad Vashem director Dani Dayan, the ADL and the Agudah were among the disappointed.

They, variously, made the points that regretting the “circumstances surrounding the decision” was not the same as regretting the decision; that no reference was made to the remark about how “Jewish people… were the mess”; that passengers’ “concerns” were blatantly obvious, namely, that they were targeted for mistreatment only because they are Jews; and that focus should be trained not on “how [Lufthansa] may improve its customer service” but rather on the egregious nature of what transpired and on steps Lufthansa will take to make sure that such incidents never occur again.

In the wake of those complaints, on the 11th, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr personally apologized for the incident in a video call to the rabbi of Berlin, Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal.

“Antisemitism has no place in Lufthansa,” Mr. Spohr told the rabbi. “What happened should not have happened. Our company represents a connection between people, cultures, and nations. Openness and tolerance are the cornerstones and there is no room for antisemitism.”

Rabbi Teichtal subsequently told Dan’s Deals that the CEO’s apology sounded genuine and that he was told that the employees involved in the incident have been suspended, pending an investigation.

There is much to unpack from the incident. Firstly, despite the airline workers’ indefensible actions, if in fact there were any passengers who were asked to mask and refused, they were not only wrong but the ultimate cause of what all the other affected passengers had to endure.

Secondly, is angrily badgering a person, like what evoked the “Jewish people who were the mess” comment, the Jewish way to deal with even an unconscionable decision? Would the Chofetz Chaim have indignantly berated an airline employee? Yes, the indignation brought forth an ugly response. But scratch many a person enough (let aside a German) and you’ll strike antisemitic sentiments. But is such scratching a mitzvah? Or proper?

Thirdly, and more happily, I was struck by a snippet of one video taken at the time. It was of a group of heavily-armed German police standing at the ready. From somewhere in the crowd of irate passengers flew a crude accusation: “Nazis!”

The policeman in charge positively simmered and then stepped forward. “Who was it?” he asked. And then, when there was no response, he raised his voice: “WHO WAS IT? WHO SAID THAT?”

No one came forward to claim the slur.

But the officer clearly considered it deeply insulting. 

(c) 2022 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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A rumination on the draft Supreme Court decision is here.

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To read about the case and the concept, please click here:

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You have an idea. “If you can understand me,” you yell, “tap once.” A single tap. “If you’re injured,” you then say, “tap twice.” Two taps. There’s someone there.

An apt metaphor for something very important. To read what, please click here.

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The next summer, we were treated to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mask requirement for the chamber, in which Ms. Taylor Greene declared: “You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star… were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”  Under pressure from her peers, the congresswoman later apologized; but her point, such as it was, had been made, and likely energized her like-minded supporters.

Then came Oklahoma GOP chairman John Bennett’s comparison of private companies requiring employees to get vaccines to — three guesses — the Nazis’ forcing Jews to wear a yellow star.

The odious comparisons just seemed to pile up, across the country. They were getting attention, after all, and attention is catnip for political felines. Of course, the offensive comments, each in turn, were all roundly condemned by Jewish groups. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Last week, though, may have offered us the Mother Of All Such Slurs, when broadcaster Lara Logan, once a respected CBS News foreign correspondent and now a Fox Nation commentator, appeared on the “Fox News Primetime” program, where she addressed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recommendation that Americans get fully vaccinated, including  booster shots, in the wake of the appearance of the Omicron COVID variant. Her words:

“This is what people say to me, that he doesn’t represent science to them. He represents Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the Second World War and in the concentration camps. And I am talking about people all across the world are saying this.”

A cursory search turns up no one but Ms. Logan saying such a thing, but maybe those people all across the world spoke with her privately.

As usual, Jewish groups rightly rushed to condemn her statement. But she was impervious to the criticism, later re-tweeting to her 197,000 Twitter followers a Jewish fan’s comment: “Shame on the Auschwitz Museum for shaming Lara Logan for sharing that Jews like me believe Fauci is a modern day Mengele.” Well, that makes two people, anyway.

This introduction shouldn’t be, and probably isn’t, necessary, but for any readers not fully familiar with Josef Mengele, yimach shemo vizichro: He was a Nazi doctor given the title “Todesengel” — German for malach hamaves. At Auschwitz, he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers and helped administer the Zyklon B, or hydrogen cyanide, gas. 

Mengele was particularly interested in twins, separating them on their arrival at the concentration camp, and performing experiments on them, including infecting them with germs to give them life-threatening diseases, performing operations on them without anesthetics and killing many of them to compare their and their siblings’ internal organs.

As to Dr. Fauci’s sin, it is being cautious — overly so, to his critics — about public health measures.

Aside from the insult and offensiveness of the Holocaust comparisons, the repeated use of the murder of six million Jews as a political tool should bother us for another reason:

With each one, even dutifully followed by condemnations, the memory of Churban Europa is further dulled a bit, the force of its historical reality subtly blunted. The public mind is, slur by slur, lulled into regarding the Holocaust as a mere metaphor. That may be of no concern to the offenders, but it should be to us.  

Because the cascade of casual co-optings of the Holocaust to score political points dovetails grievously with the diminishing number of living links to the events of 1939-1945.

And all the loathsome little Holocaust deniers and revisionists are just licking their lips as they wait in the wings.

© 2021 Ami Magazine

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Judaism permits, even requires, abortion in limited cases, and responsible Jews cannot endorse measures that give a fetus the same protections as a born child.

But, with regard to Sarah Seltzer’s rumination on Judaism’s abortion position, there is nothing whatsoever in the Jewish religious tradition that permits abortion as a mere “choice” to be made for personal, economic or social reasons.

Nothing whatsoever.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
New York
The writer is director of public affairs at Agudath Israel of America.

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When parents of young people seek proper husbands or wives for their sons or daughters (or when the young people do the seeking themselves), one or more of a number of factors are usually considered. For some people, the “quality” of the family of the prospective mate is paramount. For others, his or her yichus, or ancestry, plays a major role. 

Others, still, look for someone of financial means, if only to ensure that the potential couple won’t be overly pressured by legitimate economic needs. 

At the beginning of Klal Yisrael’s development, we find Eliezer, the servant of Avraham Avinu, tasked with finding a proper life partner for Yitzchak. Eliezer was a wise and accomplished man, someone who was not only wholly dedicated to Avraham but who (as per a drasha based on the adjective “damesek” used before Eliezer’s name [Braishis 15:2]) “would draw up and teach” (“doleh umashkeh”) all that he had learned from Avraham to others (Yoma, 28b). He is described by Chazal as “an elder who sat [and studied] in yeshiva” (ibid).

In fact, were it not for the fact that, at the start of Klal Yisrael, a Cna’anis would be unfit to be one of the Imahos, Eliezer’s own daughter would have fit the bill.

So, at least at that point in history, at least general yichus mattered. As did family, since Avraham asked Eliezer to look for Yitzchak’s shidduch among his kinfolk.

But we don’t find Avraham offering his servant any further guidance about how to find the right person. Avraham, it seems, knowing Eliezer’s high level of wisdom and character, relied entirely on his faithful servant’s judgment.

And what Eliezer clearly sought out in a mate for Yitzchak, as per his prayer that he be guided to a young woman who will gladly give him and his camels water (Beraishis 24:14), was a person exemplifying chesed — kindness. 

Beyond all other priorities, whether worthy or less so, what most matters when it comes to shidduchim, is the character of the potential life partner. 

All else, even if it may seem important, is secondary.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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An article I wrote for Religion News Service about haredi efforts to aid beleaguered people can be read here.

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New York Daily News, Aug. 26, 2021

by: Avi Shafran

A very old, very wry, very pointed Jewish joke:

Goldberg is in the waiting area of a European airport holding the handle of his large suitcase and looking agitated. He approaches one traveler and asks him, “What do you think about Jews?”  The fellow smiles benevolently and responds, “They are very fine people.” Goldberg thanks him and moves to another person, asking the same question. The response: “All humans are equal and worthy of respect.” Then to a third traveler; same question, similar answer.  Then another, and another. Ditto.

Eventually, though, one of the accosted responds differently: Taking a deep breath and glowering at his questioner, he says, “They’re the scum of the earth, greedy plotters to overtake the world, killers of babies, causers of wars and cheats!”

“Ah!” says Goldberg happily, looking heavenward. “Finally! An honest man!” And then, turning to the spewer of the hate, he asks “Would you mind watching my suitcase while I use the restroom?”

There are indeed regions of the world where the populaces, ignorant and gullible, can be relied upon to swallow and regurgitate the most hateful canards about Jews, and who are all too ready to hate people they’ve never met as a result. 

But surely not in the Western world.

A few items from recent days:

August 19. A school, a synagogue and a bus shelter were spray painted with antisemitic messages in Toronto.

August 20. The Los Angeles County District Attorney charged two former Torrance police officers with vandalism for allegedly spray-painting a swastika on the back seat of a car.

August 21. A man punched a 64-year-old Orthodox Jewish man as they passed one another on the street in the heavily-Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill. Earlier in the day, the same man punched a Jewish child in the neighborhood.  In a separate incident on Aug. 12, a 72-year-old Jewish man was slapped and had his kippah knocked off his head in another suspected hate crime in London.

August 22. Robert Smart, an evangelical Christian who lives in Florida, was outed as a prolific QAnon antisemite. He has more than 300,000 followers on Telegram, where, as “GhostEzra,” he posts Nazi propaganda, Holocaust denial and “a slew of conspiracy theories that often range from obliquely to explicitly antisemitic,” according to Logically, an organization that tracks disinformation online and uncovered his identity.

August 23. An 18-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah in Cologne, Germany, was beaten by a group of 10 attackers in a public green space and taken to the hospital with a broken nose and cheekbone.

August 23. A man violently slapped a Jewish man in the face, in front of the victim’s wife and five children, at the children’s pool area of an Aventura, Florida hotel’s resort water park. The assaulter’s wife, according to police, called the victim’s wife a “dirty Jew.”

When, as occasionally happens, I meet a fellow Jew who is convinced that if you scratch any non-Jew hard enough, you’ll find an anti-Semite lurking beneath, I vociferously disagree. I’ve experienced (in addition, to be sure, to my share of Jew-hatred, including both verbal and physical assaults) too many acts of non-Jews’ kindnesses, and known too many good people who don’t share my religion or ethnicity.

And so the joke about Goldberg, I know, is an exaggeration.  But perusing the news on almost any given day, I know, too, that exaggerations aren’t fabrications. They may overstate a case to make a point.  But the point is often, as it is here, an entirely valid one. 

Goldberg may be a joke. But antisemitism isn’t.

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Faced with just such an asinine address, though, Bil’am isn’t struck silent and doesn’t collapse in shock. In fact, he seems entirely unfazed, and simply reacts to his donkey’s protest — “What have I done to you that you struck me these three times?” — by responding “Because you mocked me!” (Bamidbar 22:28-29). 

What occurs to me as a possible explanation of his nonchalance is that he had become so oblivious to the difference between animals and humans — and indeed related to his beast as a partner in life — that the shock factor simply wasn’t there. True, the donkey had never spoken before, but maybe the animal simply hadn’t had anything to say until then.

The view of man as a mere fur-less ape is evident, too, at the end of the parsha, where the idolatry of Ba’al Pe’or celebrates the base physical functions that humans and lower creatures share in common. 

The idea that humans are a mere subset of the animal kingdom has been taken by celebrated “ethicist” Peter Singer to its logical conclusion. Human infants, he has said, are “neither rational nor self-conscious,” and so, “The life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee.”

Equating humans and animals, which is common in our times as well as in ancient ones, isn’t just a means of legitimating debauchery. 

It is nothing less, when truly internalized, than a prelude to murder.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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Even those of us with limited exposure to farm animals can easily differentiate between a cow and a donkey. Which leads Rashi to explain that when the Torah refers to our need to differentiate between the meat permitted for us Jews to consume and that which is prohibited, it means distinguishing between things like “a trachea [of a permitted animal] that has been cut exactly halfway across [which doesn’t satisfy the requirements of shechita] and one that has been more-than-half cut.”

A rather fine distinction, of course, a matter of a millimeter or less. 

Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin, zt”l, sees it as a template for judgments to be made throughout our lives.  There is a mere hairsbreadth’s difference between holiness and its opposite, he notes in his sefer LaTorah V’lamoadim. He cites the Talmudic account of Rabi Meir’s recollection of Rabi Yishmael’s words upon hearing that Rabi Meir was a sofer. “My son, be very careful in your work… for if you omit a mere letter or add one [which, in certain cases could radically change the meaning of a word], you could destroy the entire world.”

Similarly, Rav Zevin notes, we are enjoined to see ourselves as if we are half-worthy and half-unworthy; and Rabi Elazar ben Rabi Shimon adds that the world itself can be dependent on its merits outweighing – even by a single mitzvah – its demerits.  And so, with each decision we make, we should imagine that only choosing correctly will preserve the world.

Even a mere momentary thought can be that crucial element, he adds, since a marriage effected by a man who betroths a woman “on the condition that I am a completely righteous person,” but whose subsequent actions indicate otherwise, requires a divorce to be dissolved.  Because, as the Gemara says, “perhaps he had a thought of repentance” when he betrothed the woman on the condition.

The words of Robert Frost, in his famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” come to mind.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

We often make decisions in our daily lives without considering that our choices could be potentially life-changing, even earth-shattering.” But, in fact, any of them could be.

© 2021 Rabbi Avi Shafran

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