Category Archives: Jewish Thought

A Nazi’s Revealing Order

There are railcars and there are railcars.

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.

Ki Savo – Schrödinger’s Moon

Seizing on the fact that the Hebrew word for a granary – osem – shares two letters with the word for “obscured” – samui – Chazal make an intriguing assertion: Blessing [i.e. increase in volume] is common only in things that are “obscured from the eye” (Bava Metzia 42a).

The pasuk on which that truth is based is in our parsha: “Hashem will order the blessing to be with you in your granaries [ba’asamecha]…” (Devarim, 28:8).

Rav Dessler (first chelek of Michtav M’Eliyahu, pg. 178 in my ancient edition) explains that what we call cause and effect, the essence of physics, is really an illusion; only Hashem’s will is operative, even in what we call physical nature. And so, when something is out of sight, where cause and effect cannot be perceived, His will can cause bracha in the hidden.

That idea of natural law’s suspension in the case of something beneath perception is vaguely, but tantalizingly, reminiscent of quantum physics’ “Schrödinger’s cat” thought experiment, where direct cause and effect is seemingly suspended – on the subatomic level, but with theoretical implications for the macroscopic world. The issue underlying Schrödinger’s paradox remains an unsolved problem in physics.

Be that as it may, though, something important will in fact be “obscured from the eye” in a few weeks: the moon, on Rosh Hashana. The moon is Klal Yisrael’s timekeeper, and time is the most fundamental element of nature. Klal Yisrael’s clock will not be visible on the first of the days of teshuva.

And time itself, in a sense, will be suspended then. Because we can interfere with its natural, relentless march forward – or, at least, with its unreachable past. Through the bracha of teshuva, which Chazal tell us can change the very nature of our pasts, traveling back, in a way, in time – turning past wrong actions done intentionally into actions done inadvertently; even, with the deepest teshuva, repentance born of pure love of Hashem, into meritorious acts.

Of Judaism But Not In It

A longform piece I wrote about the Noble Prize laureate physicist I.I. Rabi was published by Tablet, and can be read here.

Ki Seitzei – A Puzzling Parallel

It is striking and strange that a phrase that is to be proclaimed by the yevama, the childless widow whose brother-in-law does not wish to marry her, is the precise phrase in Megillas Esther, bearing the same cantillation, used by Haman when he tells Achashverosh what should be proclaimed as “the man whose honor the king desires” is paraded through the city in royal robes on the royal horse. And is proclaimed, in the end, by Haman as he parades Mordechai.

“Thus shall be done to the man… who will not build up his brother’s house” (Devarim 25:9).

And “Thus shall be done to the man… whose honor the king desires” (Esther 6:9).

The phrase occurs in only those two places.

Strange, as well, is that (to my knowledge) none of the major commentaries so much as notes the parallel.

Adding to the essential riddle is that, mere pesukim after the yibum description, are the commandments to “remember what Amalek did to you” and to “wipe out the memory of Amalek.” Haman, of course, was a scion of Amalek.

What occurs to me is that Mordechai, before whom Haman’s “Thus shall be done…” ends up being proclaimed, is “filling in,” so to speak, for the long-deceased King Shaul, who allowed the Amalekite king Agag to live, resulting in Haman. A yavam is similarly “filling in” for his deceased brother. Years ago, my daughter Shiffy Jakubowicz, then Shiffy Shafran, added at our Shabbos table that yibum is a hakamas sheim, an “establishment of an identity,” and what we are commanded to do to Amalek is mechiyas sheim, the “obliteration of an identity.”

Both my and her observations are intriguing. Although the ultimate meaning of the riddle remains elusive.

Shoftim – Commanded

Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker once asked students if they would rather face the vicissitudes of their lives or be transformed into totally happy pigs.

A young woman raised her hand and said, “I’d rather be a happy pig.” Other hands shot up. “Me too!” “Same here!” “Pig!” “Pig!” “Pig!”

R’ Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev conveys a pithy thought on the wording of the parsha’s prohibition against bowing down before “the sun, moon or other heavenly bodies that I have not commanded” (Devarim 17:3).

The Berditchever notes that it is permitted to bow to a human being.

And indeed, Avraham bowed to his guests who appeared in the guise of men; Yosef’s brothers bowed to him. Ovadiah bowed before his master Eliyahu.

Why is that permitted? Explained the Berditchever: People, by virtue of our being commanded creations, intended to not just exist but to shoulder responsibility, are singular parts of creation. Our being commanded exalts us, places us on a plane above everything else in the universe.

The sun and the moon – and animals – are not charged, or able, to choose. They are bound by their natures and their instincts.

Not so, us.

The phrase “that I have not commanded,” above is understood by Rashi as “that I have not commanded you to worship.” The Berditchever, however, sees something else in the phrase: “that I have not graced with commandments.” That are not, in other words, commanded, and thus exalted, entities like humans are.

On Rosh Hashanah, which rapidly approaches, we are judged for our choices. And yet it is a festive holiday. Because even as we face our failures and stand kivnei maron, “like sheep,” before the Judge of all, we celebrate. Because we are, in the end, not sheep, nor mindlessly happy pigs. We are commanded beings – something that should fill us with joy.

They Won, Their Loss

An essay I wrote about Shabbos laws in Israel, and Shabbos was published by Religion News Service. It can be read here.

Parshas Re’ei – Survivors

Kol yimei chayecha – “All the days of your life” – is a phrase we first meet in the Torah when Hashem pronounces the fate of Adam after the sin of eating from the eitz hadaas: “Cursed is the ground because of you. Through suffering will you eat from it all the days of your life” (Beraishis 3:17).

The phrase recurs in a seemingly unrelated context, about the mitzvah of eating matzah on Pesach, in our parsha: “…so that you will remember the day you left Egypt all the days of your life” (Devarim 16:3).

That pasuk, cited in the Haggadah, elicited a novel thought from Rav Avrohom, the first Rebbe of Slonim: “When recounting Yetzias Mitzrayim, one should remember, too, ‘all the days’ of his own life – the miracles and wonders that Hashem performed for him throughout…”

The generation before mine, the one that came of age during the Second World War, could well relate to that idea. My father endured years of forced labor in Siberia, courtesy of the Soviet Union. My father-in-law was a veteran of several concentration camps, and suffered the deprivations and tortures for which they are infamous.

And, I know, on Pesach, thoughts of their experiences were in their minds. My father and his friends pocketing and then hiding a few wheat kernels here and there, to be secretly ground and baked in the middle of the night into matzos. My father-in-law, in a Dachau satellite camp, reciting with a friend parts of the Haggadah they knew by heart.

But the Slonimer Rebbe’s thought is appropriate for every life, even lives of relative calm and plenty like our own. Because, as a result of the sin of the eitz hadaas, adversity and tragedy entered the world and came to define all humans’ lives, to one or another extent. We all have experienced things that were daunting or worse, and from which we were saved. We may not have been liberated from a literal gulag or camp, but we are all, on one or another level, survivors.

And we need to consciously recall that fact, all the days of our lives.

Comfort Food for Thought

Back in 1988, I buried a Reform rabbi. Literally.

To read about who he was and why I undertook that holy task, click here.

Eikev – Strangers in Strange Lands

Both remarkable and timely is a digression by the Sefer HaChinuch on a mitzvah in the parshah. The mitzvah, #431, is ahavas hager, the commandment to love a convert (Devarim 10:19). In addition to the mitzvah to love every fellow Jew, there is an additional one to love someone who was not born into the people but chose to join it.

After providing details of the mitzvah, the Chinuch includes the Talmudic admonition (Bava Metzia 58b) to not remind a convert of his pre-Jewish past. “… in order to not cause him pain in any way.” He adds that anyone who is lax about helping a convert or protecting his property, or is insufficiently respectful of him or her, violates this mitzvas aseh.

And then he writes: “We are to learn from this precious mitzvah to have mercy on any person who finds himself in a foreign place” and “not ignore him when we find him alone and far from those who can help him.

“And with these sentiments, we will merit to be treated with mercy by Hashem… the pasuk hints to this idea when it adds ‘because you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ reminding us that we were once burned with the deep pain felt by any person finding himself among foreign people in a foreign land… And Hashem in his mercy took us out of there. Our own mercy should likewise be felt for any person in a similar situation.”

The Chinuch’s expansion of the mitzvah’s underlying idea, even though ahavas hager applies only to a convert, is striking and most pertinent today.

A bandwagon from whose sides all too many happily hang is the anti-immigrant one. To be sure, immigration is something that rightly has rules, and borders cannot be totally open to all. But the Jewish attitude toward those foreign-born people who (often having risked their lives) are among us – legally or otherwise – is to be one of mercy and concern.

The pasuk’s reminder of our ancestors’ sojourn in Egypt is pithy here too. Many, if not most, American Jews are no more than a generation or two removed from their own immigrant forebears. Our parents or grandparents found themselves on these shores, far from their birthplaces, strangers in a strange land. We can imagine their pain and fear. And should recognize the similar pain and fears of others, including newer newcomers to America.

Vo’eschanan – Little Sins Fuel Bigger Ones

The Kotzker Rebbe likely meant it as a poignant joke when he reportedly remarked that the reason the Ten Commandments had to be both seen and heard (Chazal describe the revelation at Har Sinai as a synesthetic experience – e.g. Yalkut Shimoni 299) was that the word “lo” in lo signov would clearly be seen written with an aleph, not a vav.

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.

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life