Category Archives: Jewish Thought

Merits, Not Munitions

The reporter’s question: “Should the chareidim serve in [Israel’s] military, or at least serve in some other capacity such as recognized public service commensurate with military service?”

The query was posed to me in my capacity as Agudath Israel of America’s media liaison. My response: In the view of chareidim, they are already doing so.

I explained that a religious Jew sincerely believes that his or her life, based as it is on religious observance, charity and Torah-study, helps ensure the security of Jews.

Raw power, after all, doesn’t win wars. Even strategy isn’t decisive. Often, what turn the historical tide this way or that are simple, unexpected happenings.

The Byzantine Empire fell when it did because a single gate to Constantinople was left open in 1453, allowing the Turks to invade and take the capital city.

World War I was famously set off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Less known is that his assassin, Gavrilo Princip, had abandoned his plan. But the Archduke’s driver made a wrong turn that took their vehicle to the very spot where Princip was standing. The car stalled and Princip took advantage of the situation, firing the shots that would yield the death of 17 million people.

In October, 1907, an aspiring teenage artist took a two-day entrance exam for the prestigious Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He thought he did well and was shocked to be informed that he hadn’t made the cut. Dejected, he pursued a different life-path, eventually becoming the Führer of the Third Reich.

German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took a rare leave from his post in France in 1944 to celebrate his wife’s birthday on June 6, reassured by miserable weather that the Allies would not be invading France that week. With the weather’s sudden improvement, the Normandy invasion began in the early morning hours of Mrs. Rommel’s birthday. By the time her husband returned to France, it was too late to repel the decisive offensive.

Some regard such history-altering occurrences as mere happenstance. But a believing Jew knows that history is in Hashem’s hand. That isn’t always evident, but it’s always true.

It was both, though, during the 1967 Six-Day War. While some attribute Israel’s victory over three neighboring Arab countries, aided by others, to superior military prowess, then-IDF Director of Operations Major General (and later Israeli president) Ezer Weizmann, noting the fact that for 3 straight hours, IAF planes flew from one Egyptian airstrip to another destroying the enemy planes without the Egyptians ever radioing ahead to warn their own forces of Israeli attacks, credited “the finger of G-d.” Haaretz’s military correspondent at the time contended that “Even a non-religious person must admit this war was fought with help from Heaven.”

The futility of trying to predict geopolitical matters is no less evident today. Although Russia is committed to keeping Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in power and Turkey is backing the Sunni majority and pushing for Assad’s ouster, the two countries have maintained generally good relations. A year ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, celebrated an agreement for Russia to invest in a major gas pipeline, to pump Russian natural gas through Turkey to Europe. And Mr. Putin praised his Turkish counterpart as “a strong man” willing to stand up to the West.

More recently, though, after the downing of a Russian airliner over the Sinai by ISIS, which Russia claims is aided by Turkey; and then Turkey’s downing of a Russian air force plane that Mr. Erdogan says violated Turkish airspace, Kremlin ideologue Dmitry Kiselyev described the Turkish leader as “an unrestrained and deceitful man hooked on cheap oil from the barbaric caliphate [ISIS].” A recent headline in a pro-government Turkish newspaper asserted that “Putin tries to deceive the world with his lies.”

What relations between the two nations will look like a year hence, whether the war of words will evolve into a missile-and-mortars conflict or blow over, is nothing anyone can know. But one takeaway, here as from so many happenings, is that the only thing one can reasonably expect from history is the unexpected.

I spared the reporter all those observations, offering only what he sought, a sound-bite with which (hopefully) he will balance the piece he’s writing. But it was more than a soundbite. It was a truth – in fact, a Chanukah truth: Divine providence is at work in the world; and spiritual merits, not superior munitions, are what matter in the end.

Through Others’ Eyes

There were ample arrows in my quiver for shooting down the question, or at least for deflecting it. But our Shabbos night seudah guest, a young Jewish woman with limited Jewish background visiting the neighborhood as part of “The Shabbos Project,” didn’t deserve to be subjected to a long shiur about the meaning and beauty of tzniyus, how it elevates those who adhere to it, and how men and women have distinct roles in Judaism.

She clearly felt comfortable at our Shabbos table, a tribute to the calm of Shabbos, my wife’s affability and the presence of another, even younger, guest, our 14-year-old grandson, whose home is Milwaukee but who is a talmid at the Yeshiva of Staten Island.

Our older guest wasn’t aiming to challenge our mesorah, only to convey something that bothered her about authentic Jewish life, to which she is otherwise attracted. She knew, she told us, that a special tisch was planned for later that night for locals and guests at a nearby shul. She knew, too, that the women would be up in the balcony ezras nashim, while the men would be seated below, eating, drinking and singing. “I will be a spectator,” she said, “not a participant.”

For some reason, I resisted the reflexive urge to offer my shiur. I paused for a moment – always a good thing to do – and responded instead from the heart. “You know, I totally understand how you feel,” I said. “That’s the way things are done, and the way they need to be done. But I can really relate to your feeling as you do.”

Pretty lame response, I chided myself. Surprisingly, though, our guest’s reaction was otherwise. She seemed taken aback. Now it was she who paused before speaking. “Nobody has ever said that to me before,” she finally said. “Being validated in my feelings means more than you can imagine to me.”

I expected I might impart some lesson that night. Instead, I learned one. Sometimes it’s not about “answering” or even “addressing,” but simply about empathizing. And, giving it more thought, I realized that that’s the case not only in kiruv but in life. Chazal teach us as much when they tell us not to “judge one’s fellow until you have reached his place” (Avos, 2:4). The message there isn’t simply to not judge others; it’s that we need to put ourselves in the place of others, to see things through eyes that aren’t ours.

The same thought subtly inheres in the passuk that Rabbi Akiva (Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:4) called a klal gadol baTorah: “V’ahavta l’reyacha kamocha.” There, too, the Torah isn’t exhorting us just to love our fellow, but to love our fellow like ourselves. We see things through our own eyes; we are admonished to try to see through the eyes of others.

On the way to shul that Shabbos morning, I wondered if my grandson had been able to relate to our other guest’s angst over, as she saw it, being “left out of things.” So I posed a thought experiment to him. Imagine, I said, if only boys with black hair could have bar mitzvah celebrations. Aharon’s bar mitzvah, a year earlier, had brought two sets of grandparents and an assortment of aunts, uncles and cousins to Milwaukee, where he, his parents and siblings and the extended family all had a truly uplifting and wonderful Shabbos. And Aharon has reddish-blond hair.

He didn’t say anything, but he’s bright. I think he got the point. Our Shabbos guest, unfortunately, had no understanding of tzniyus. To her, separating men and women was no more comprehensible than my imaginary “black hair rule.”

Putting oneself in someone else’s shoes isn’t easy. Sometimes it seems almost impossible. “How could he ever do such a thing?” “What was she thinking?” “What’s the matter with them?”

And empathy isn’t likely the way to go when we’re faced with a psychopath or someone wont to commit premeditated crimes. But most veerings from the straight and narrow are neither calculated nor psychopathic. Whether what stunned us were the actions of a parent or a child, a friend or a stranger, a “kid at risk” or an adult long “off the derech,” it’s easy to admonish or condemn. It’s harder, though, and more important, to put ourselves in the shoes of the offender, imagining the effects of his upbringing, personal experiences, his particular yetzer hara, his distinctive compulsions.

All of us, after all, have personal histories and individual challenges of our own. It pays, in myriad ways, to try to imagine those of others.

Denominational Déjà Vu

This article appeared in the New York Jewish Week

Back in February, 2001, an article I wrote for Moment Magazine caused quite a stir. Its thesis – that, since the Conservative movement’s claim to halachic integrity was not supported by fact, Conservative Jews who respect Jewish religious law should consider joining Orthodox communities – was understandably disturbing to some. Much of the uproar, however, was likely caused by the incendiary title that publication insisted on slapping on the piece. I had titled it “Time to Come Home”; Moment ran it under a large, bold headline reading “The Conservative Lie.”

The article ended up causing some healthy discussion (and, I immodestly add, won an American Jewish Press Association award). It also inspired several Conservative movement officials to call me nasty names. None, though, offered any cogent rebuttal to what I had demonstrated, namely that the process of determining Conservative “halacha” differed in an essential way from the halachic process of the millennia.

Halacha has always been decided through the objective examination of Biblical verses, mediated through the Talmud and legal codes, with a single goal: to discern the Torah’s intention. By contrast, I observed, the Conservative process generally involved first identifying a desired result, and then massaging the sources to “yield” that outcome.

An example I noted was the issue of same-sex intimate relationships. Although halachic literature, based on verses in the Torah, considers such relations unarguably wrong, contemporary Western society, even at the time, had come to embrace the idea of “alternate lifestyles.”

I predicted that, in the realm of sexual expression, the Conservative movement would soon enough “halachically” approve what halacha forbids in no uncertain terms. In 2006, I was vindicated when the Conservative movement’s “Committee on Jewish Law and Standards” endorsed a position permitting “commitment ceremonies” between people of the same sex and the ordination as Conservative rabbis of people living openly homosexual lives. Since then, of course, as homosexual activity has come to be celebrated in the larger world, the Conservative legal system has trotted close behind.

It didn’t take any powers of prophecy to discern what I did, only those of observation and perception. And I perceive precisely the same Conservative approach to halacha in what bills itself today as “Open Orthodoxy.”

That neologism encompasses three institutions: Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, Yeshivat Maharat – educational entities that ordain men and women, respectively – and the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a rabbinic group.

If the “open” in “Open Orthodoxy” means to imply that what has long been called Orthodox Judaism is somehow “closed” to other Jews, that proposition would greatly surprise any non-Orthodox Jew who has ever walked into an Orthodox shul. What it more likely means to suggest is that, theologically, what has until now been called Orthodoxy is somehow “close-minded.”

That stance, though, reveals that the other word in the phrase, “Orthodox,” is deeply misleading. Which is why the Council of Torah Sages, an elite group of widely-respected yeshiva-dean elders, has declared that the new movement has no claim on the title “Orthodox.”

Whether the halachic topic being addressed is same-sex relationships, interfaith interactions, kashrut, marriage, divorce or conversion, the desideratum of “Open Orthodoxy” is unmistakably to bring Jewish religious praxis “into line” with contemporary mores. That may not be not explicit in the wording of “Open Orthodox” statements or responsa – any more than it was fourteen years ago in those of the Conservative movement. But in both cases it is manifest.

In halacha as it has developed over millennia, there are decisions that render permissions and others that yield forbiddances. Tellingly, the Conservative movement’s “halachic” positions are almost exclusively permissive. Ditto for those of “Open Orthodoxy.” In fact, the two movements are, their different chosen names notwithstanding, simply indistinguishable.

Let me stress that I am speaking of a concept here, not people; of theological systems, not the intentions of students who have been attracted to “Open Orthodox” institutions, some of whom are clearly idealists who wish to serve the Jewish people. The problem isn’t those students or their idealism, but rather the proposition they are taught, that halacha is ripe for “updating.” Halacha does indeed take societal developments into account; sometimes they make a difference, sometimes they do not. But the Zeitgeist does not determine the halacha. The accepted elders, the most experienced Torah scholars, of each generation, do. That is itself a premise of the halachic system.

The new movement’s name is a misnomer, a dangerously misleading one. Just as “kosher-style” food isn’t kosher, neither is “Open Orthodoxy” Orthodox. It is neo-Conservatism. Which is why the greatest, most widely recognized, Torah scholars today – and not only those of the haredi world – have rejected its Jewish authenticity.

I take no pleasure in revealing the truth about “Open Orthodoxy.” But truth-in-labeling is not only a civil mandate but a halachic one.

Fourteen years ago, I implored halacha-respecting non-Orthodox Jews to come home to the Judaism of the ages. Today, I experience – apologies to the late Yogi Berra – “déjà vu all over again.” My plea persists.

Black Power

Australian political advisor Robert Hoge was born with a severe facial deformity and describes himself as “the ugliest person you’ve never met.” When he was born, his parents burst into tears.

Mr. Hoge did not allow his disfigurement to prevent him from going about the business of life. In fact, he worked in journalism, a field famously focused on the superficial, and then became a high-profile advisor to former Queensland premier Anna Bligh, the most senior politician in the state.

He describes the attitude that allowed him to overcome his disadvantage.

“Some kids are good spellers,” he writes. “Some have bad haircuts; some are fast runners; some kids are short; some are awesome at netball. But the kids who are short aren’t only short. And the kids who are great at netball aren’t only just great at netball. No one is only just one thing. It’s the same with appearance.”

That truth might seem obvious, but in the contemporary world – and that world’s ills spill into our own machaneh – it is too often overlooked.

And the idea that a single “negative” aspect of a person doesn’t define the person is true not only in the physical realm but, more importantly, if less obviously, in the spiritual.

In the passuk that opens the haftarah of parashas Kedoshim, Hashem declares to Klal Yisrael: “Behold, you are like the children of Kush to Me” (Amos, 9:7). Kush, of course, is usually identified as a region of central Africa. “Children of Kush” would seem an odd simile to use for Klal Yisrael.

The Gemara offers the following: “Just as a person from Kush differs [from others] in [the color of] his skin, so are [the members of Klal] Yisrael different in their actions.” (Moed Katan, 16b).

The Chasam Sofer’s text of the Gemara apparently had “the righteous” in place of “Yisrael.” And, he explains, while every Jew is required to observe all the mitzvos, “there is no single life-path for them all.

“One Jew may excel in Torah-study, another in avodah, another in kindnesses to others; this one, in one particular mitzvah; that one, in another. Nevertheless, while they all differ from each other in their actions, they all have the same intention, to serve Hashem with their entire hearts.”

“Behold the Kushite,” he continues. “Inside, his organs, his blood and his appearance are the same as other people’s. Only in the superficiality of his skin is he different from others. This is the meaning of ‘[different] in his skin,’ [meaning] only in his skin. Likewise, the righteous are different [from one another] only ‘in their actions’; their inner conviction and intention, though, are [the same,] aimed at serving Hashem in a good way.”

A particular G-d-fearing Jew, in other words, may be best suited for a particular area of serving Hashem. He should not be defined by his relative weakness in another area. What matters in the end is his goal, avodas Hashem.

Some well-intentioned parents imagine that their children must follow a particular life-trajectory and land in a specific place. But there are different, equally meritorious, trajectories, and different, equally praiseworthy, landing places for different people. It’s not just that people are dissimilar and will choose a variety of vocations, fields and priorities. It’s that, in our diversity of vocations, fields and priorities, we can all be entirely equal servants of Hashem.

Consider Rav Broka, who, the Gemara recounts (Taanis 22a), was often accompanied by Eliyahu Hanavi. Once, in a marketplace, he asked the prophet whether there were any people among those present who merited the World-to-Come. Eliyahu pointed out one man, who turned out to be a prison guard who made special efforts to protect his prisoners and who had interceded with the government on behalf of his fellow Jews. And then the navi pointed out a pair of jesters. When Rav Broka inquired about the comedians, he discovered that they used their humor to cheer up depressed people and defuse disputes.

Most of us would, understandably, be put off by the prospect of our child becoming a prison guard or a clown. We rightly wish, and guide, our children to be talmidei chachomim and klei kodesh. But if they express their natures in other ways, we must realize that an abundance of vocations can express what matters most: yiras Hashem.

“Don’t tell kids they’re all beautiful; tell them it’s okay to look different,” writes Mr. Hoge about physical traits. As per the Chasam Sofer’s lesson, that advice is no less worthy in more rarefied realms.

What We Build and What We Are

As the 93^rd nears, the 78^th comes to mind.

Agudath Israel of America’s national conventions, that is.

The 93^rd gathering opens tomorrow and will, over four days, feature a constellation of topics and speakers, include the presence of Gedolim, Rabbanim and askanim, and a host a host of us simple folk, seeking information, inspiration and guidance.

There are always greatly worthwhile thoughts shared by those who address the various sessions, particularly the plenary ones on Thursday night and on Motzoei Shabbos. (The public is welcome, free of charge, to all sessions.) But a speech that was made on Motzoei Shabbos fifteen years ago made a particularly deep impression on me. And it remains, I think, as timely as ever.

The speaker, the final one of the evening, was Rabbi Shimshon Pincus, zt”l, the Rav of Ofakim. His address that night would be the only one he would offer at an Agudah convention. He, along with his Rebbetzin and one of their daughters, were killed, R”l, in a car accident in Israel mere months later.

Although over ensuing years, I, like so many, were edified by the collections of Rabbi Pincus’ lectures that were posthumously published, at the time, I had not known much about him.

The backdrop of his speech that night included the brutal lynching, weeks earlier, of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, and a slew of Islamic Jihad and Hamas (yimach shemam) car bombings that killed or injured scores of Israeli civilians.

Rabbi Pincus acknowledged the crisis at home, but took pains, to stress that “tovah Haaretz meod meod.” He exulted over the proliferation of yeshivos and shiurim, over the fact that Jews once alienated from their heritage were returning to it and that the populace is not unduly fearful. “The real crisis,” he contended, “is not in Eretz Yisroel per se, but in the entire Jewish people – Eretz Yisroel is but its heart.”

And he suggested that an important message to Klal Yisrael lies in the fact that the strife in its heart is not a battle between governments but between peoples, and the threat is not so much against a country as against individuals.

He noted the wonderful efforts and projects that Yidden were involved in, the building of yeshivos, kollelim and mosdos chessed. “There is a contrast,” though, he added, “between what people build and what they are.” Perhaps, he suggested, we need to more carefully apply to ourselves as individuals the very same concern that we so strongly translate into community efforts.

“The bnei Yishmael,” he explained, “are claiming that it was their ancestor, not Yitzchak, who was chosen as Avraham’s heir, the son Hashem called ‘yechidcha.’ We must all act as miyuchadim to Hashem. No matter how old, each of us is His ben yachid. Our behavior as such will prove that we are deserving of that honor.”

There is great merit, he explained, in all the special things we do, whether building Torah institutions, establishing social services or, for those of us who aren’t of sufficient means or talent, donating what we can to such efforts, attending shiurim, reciting Tehillim. The power of such things, whether large or small, cannot be overlooked.

But they must not allow us to overlook even more basic, if more difficult, pursuits – like our efforts to work on our middos and personal observance. How we conduct ourselves in public, and in private; how we interact with our spouses, our parents, our children and our friends and, especially, people who are none of those things; how we daven, how we make brachos, how we think – these are, or should be, the most important foci of each of our lives.

And, oh, how easily such “minor” things can be obscured by more “weighty” ones.

Although I have yet to achieve what Rabbi Pincus set forth as the proper goal of a Jew, his reminder has remained with me, and likely always will.

After his tragic petirah, many accounts of his actions and interactions were told.

One concerned a “selling of aliyos” on a Purim morning. The gabbai had announced, “Fifty shekels for pesichas haaron,” for opening the ark. Rabbi Pincus, it was recounted, ran to the bimah and amended the nature of the bidding.

“Pesichah,” he announced, “for reciting asher yatzar word-by-word for one month!”

Bidding ensued, and the winner pledged to undertake the practice for three years.

I would be surprised if the winner stopped even then.

Misguided Mounters

“As if the situation here was not sensitive enough,” groused an incredulous MK Yoel Hasson (Hamachaneh HaTzioni).

He was referring to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely’s comment that her “dream is to see the Israeli flag flying over the Temple Mount” and her conviction that Jews should able to pray on Har HaBayis.

Mr. Hasson had harsher words, too, for the minister, ascribing to her “the stubbornness of a donkey” and calling for her dismissal.

Nor was Prime Minister Netanyahu pleased by Ms. Hotovely’s sentiment. He had her cancel a press conference and impressed upon her the need to clarify that she had not been speaking for the government. He also “requested” that Ms. Hotovely inform his office before any public appearance, so that her messages can be “coordinated” with Mr. Netanyahu’s policies.

The Prime Minister’s move was as wise as Ms. Hotolevy’s was foolhardy. Past weeks have shown that bluster about Har HaBayis provides violent Palestinians with a handy pretext to violently vent the hatred they feel for Jews.

In the wake of Yerushalayim’s liberation from Jordan in 1967, Israel instituted a policy giving the Islamic trust known as the Waqf religious control over Har HaBayis, with Israel responsible for the area’s security. That modus vivendi has generally kept the peace at the site.

That policy dovetailed with the halachic psak din at the time of rabbanim from across the spectrum, including Rav Avrohom Yitzchak Kook, zt”l, that ascending the Mount is forbidden.

Former chief rabbis Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi Doron, and current Israeli chief rabbis Rabbi David Lau and Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, as well as senior “national religious” leaders like Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, have also forbidden Jews from ascending Har HaBayis.

In 2009 Rav Elyashiv, zt”l, called on Israel’s president to actively prevent Jews from visiting the site, both because of the halachic concerns and because doing so can lead to bloodshed. Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch recently declared that those who ascend the Har “will be held accountable” for resultant Muslim attacks on Jews.

In defiance of that wide consensus, in recent years, increasing numbers of nationalist Jews have made a point of ascending the Mount, and have, as a result, raised the ire of Muslims. According to the Associated Press, approximately 10,000 Jews visited the site last year, compared to 200 or 300 annually a decade ago. And a nationalist group is currently offering to pay $516 to any Jew arrested for praying there.

While any excuse suffices for some Palestinians to try to kill Jews, the “reason” professed by recent murderers and would-be murderers has been their perception that Israel is poised to abrogate the 1967 policy regarding the Har HaBayis. It is a perception unarguably fueled by the actions and words of the “Temple Mount activists.”

Those nationalistic Jews, however, value the rush born of physically asserting that the Har HaBayis is Judaism’s holiest site, over whatever hatred or bloodshed it may evoke from violence-prone Arabs. That respected Torah leaders reject that calculus as corrupt is of no concern to them. They are the “young guard,” and know better.

And they bring to mind the Gemara in Nedarim (40a) about the decision made by the melech Rechavam to shun the advice of the elders of his father Shlomo’s court and heed instead the advice of younger advisors (Melachim Alef, 12): “[What might seem] constructive on the part of the young [can in fact be] destructive; and [what might seem] destructive on the part of elders [can in fact be] constructive.” Rechavam’s wrong choice brought terrible schism to Klal Yisrael, fanning the flames of rebellion.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the “activists”, only their wisdom – and their bitachon. Yes, as Ms. Hotovely remarked, Har HaBayis is “the holiest place for the Jewish people.” Thus, agitating for a Jewish presence there now might seem a high-minded thing. In truth, though, it betrays a discomfort with our mesorah, which assures us that the Third Beis HaMikdash will appear only when Hashem sees fit.

Jews who are truly secure in their faith feel no compulsion to engage in political acts (much less actions that endanger other Jews) in order to proclaim that Eretz Yisrael is the Jewish land, and Har HaBayis its spiritual center. Those are indisputable facts.

And they are facts impervious to whatever borders temporal states may choose to draw, and whatever structures mortal men may build. Yishmael is just a custodian, stewarding the Har HaBayis for the day – may it come soon – when the Beis HaMikdash will return to it.

That will happen, though, through merits, not machinations.

Buried Treasure in Tokyo

At a news conference last week, Satoshi Omura, a Japanese researcher and one of three scientists who had just won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, made a comment that was not only modest but, properly considered, profound.

I’ll get to the comment in time. First, though, some background:

The scientists used modern laboratory techniques to discover anti-parasitic drugs that, in the Nobel Committee’s words, “have revolutionized the treatment of some of the most devastating parasitic diseases” in the world.

Dr. Omura’s work was on the development of a medicine that has nearly eradicated the dreaded disease “river blindness” and radically reduced the incidence of the disfiguring disease known as elephantiasis. Dr. Omura’s work has already helped hundreds of millions of sufferers of these diseases, and has the potential of eradicating the ailments entirely.

Parasitic diseases are a threat to an estimated one-third of the world’s population, particularly among the poor in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

The work of Dr. Omura and the other scientists consisted of identifying and isolating a compound, which they called Avermectin, that occurs in nature – in this case soil collected by Dr. Omura from a golf course near Tokyo.

Anti-parasitic agents are not the only blessings concealed in plants and soil. Many anti-bacterial and anti-viral compounds have also been found hidden in plain (if microscopic) sight, and successfully treat dangerous infections common in the Western world.

The most famous one is penicillin, which was discovered in 1928 when an airborne mold infected a petri dish in the lab of Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming. But there are scores of substances in nature that have become effective treatments for myriad maladies.

The bacterium that causes clostridium difficile colitis, or “C-diff,” for instance, a serious intestinal ailment, is prevalent in hospitals and, in 2011 resulted in about half a million infections and 29,000 deaths in the United States alone.

One of the most effective treatments for C-diff is a drug called Vancomycin (which also is the treatment of choice for complicated skin and bloodstream infections and some forms of meningitis). The drug was first isolated in 1953 from a soil sample collected from the interior jungles of Borneo.

Many scientists, upon isolating such compounds and identifying their properties and uses, proudly accept credit for their accomplishments. How many, though, I wonder, stop to think about just what it is they did and didn’t do?

To be sure, much credit is due for the painstaking work of cultivating biological agents, experimenting with them, compiling data, and then collating and interpreting them. But such cures for diseases, in the end, are merely discovered by the men of science, not created by them.

Do the researchers give thought to the Creator of the cures, Who secured them in unexplored places, until the arrival of the right time for their discoveries? Have they considered how odd it is that there even are cures for dreaded diseases in soil and plants?

So much of what is heralded as astounding scientific achievement is simply accessing the miracle of nature, of Hashem’s gifts. When a sheep was first successfully cloned a number of years ago, what was essentially accomplished was the coaxing of genetic material to do precisely what it does naturally all the time: code for traits, replicate and direct protein synthesis. Those things, not the clonings, were, and are, the miracles.

And when they were first performed, heart transplants were amazing. But, at least to thoughtful people, never remotely as amazing as hearts.

Dr. Omura seems to have the requisite sensitivity to recognize, despite the great impact of his accomplishment, the limitation of the role he played.

We don’t understand why diseases are necessary (although they point, like nothing else could, to the fragility of our bodies, and the many miracles we are beneficiaries of when we are healthy). But it should astound us that Hashem has planted cures for ailments in the world He created for us.

Dr. Omura’s comment? After expressing his surprise at having won the Nobel Prize (“I never imagined I would win. If I had, I’d have worn a nicer necktie.”), he offered an assessment of what he had done.

“I merely borrowed,” he said, “the power of microbes.”

He didn’t cite the Creator of microbes (and everything else), and I have no idea of his religious beliefs. But his words, all the same, should serve to remind every maamin of the manifold miracles we routinely, if obliviously, experience, and of the fathomless debt we owe Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Enjoy!

Each year, sitting in the sukkah on the first night of Sukkos, with my wife and whoever among our children and grandchildren we are fortunate to have with us for Yom Tov, I feel a particularly intense elation. Part of it, no doubt, is the result of having managed to erect the sukkah on time. But most of it is born, simply but powerfully, of having so many family members around the table. For many years, though, ironically, my joy also bothered me.

After all, I reasoned, simchas Yom Tov, the happiness we are commanded to feel on a holiday – particularly on Sukkos, “the time of our happiness,” is meant to be, well, simchas Yom Tov, not delight in one’s family.

But then, one year, I reached a more refined understanding of simchas Yom Tov. And I’ve never thought about it quite the same since.

The first hint that there was something here to discover lay in Chazal’s description of how we are to fulfill simchas Yom Tov. The Rambam (Hilchos Shvisas Yom Tov, 6:18), basing his words on the Gemara (Pesachim 109a), instructs a man to buy his wife new clothing and jewelry, to give his young children nosherai and to himself enjoy meat and wine. (Before splurging on that special Cabernet, though, bear in mind the Kaf Hachaim’s admonition that precedence here should be given to one’s wife’s pleasure.) So it’s clear that simchas Yom Tov is defined as taking joy in plainly physical pleasures. What gives?

The Sefer Hachinuch on the mitzvah of celebrating Sukkos echoes the oddity. “The days of the holiday,” he writes in Mitzvah 324, “are days of great happiness to Jews, since it is a time of gathering into the house the grain and fruit, and people are naturally happy.”

But then he subtly addresses the issue of how physical pleasures can constitute simchas Yom Tov: “And so Hashem has commanded His people to celebrate at that time, to allow them the merit of turning the essence of the happiness to Him.”

A striking Midrash (cited by Rashi) on a chapter of Tehillim we recite twice daily this time of year, elucidates the passuk “For my father and mother have abandoned me, and Hashem has gathered me in” (27:10). Dovid Hamelech, says the Midrash, was stating that his parents’ focus was on their personal relationship; it was about themselves, not him. In that sense, explains the Midrash, they “abandoned” him.

But stop and think a moment. Dovid’s father was Yishai – one of the three personages 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?

What occurs is that there is an inescapable aspect of self-awareness (the result, likely, of the nachash’s “success” in Gan Eden) and self-concern that is part and parcel of being human. To lack it is to be an angel. Or, perhaps better, a mere angel. Angels, after all, Chazal tell us, are static; humans, dynamic.

Even the most sublime of human beings have selves. Even the ideal talmid chacham, represented by the Aron in the Mishkan, who is “gold” within and “gold” without, still has a core of wood – a symbol, it may well be, of the Eitz Hadaas, which bequeathed self-awareness in the first place.

And if a sense of self is an inherent part of being a human being, experiencing physical or emotional pleasure at times is normal and inevitable. What the Chinuch may be telling us is that simchas Yom Tov means acknowledging that reality, embracing the pleasure of the harvest – and the joy born of the new clothing and the wine and the meat – but “grafting” it onto the spiritual, conscripting it toward the service of Hashem. By doing that, we elevate the self. We turn the things that make our “selves” happy toward the holy.

What happier moment could be imagined than when Yaakov Avinu was reunited with Yosef after 22 years of not knowing what had become of his beloved son. The Midrash, brought by Rashi, has Yaakov reciting Shema at that moment. Was he not overjoyed at the reunion? Of course he was. But he saw fit to graft his joy onto kabbalas ol malchus Shamayim.

So we should enjoy our meat and our wine, our wives and daughters their new clothes and jewelry, our young’uns their nosh. And we should all consciously try to channel our enjoyment toward its Source.

Eliyahu’s Double Plea

The Rambam’s logic, as always, is unassailable. Miracles, he informs us (Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, 8:1), simply cannot be bases of belief. What appears to us as miraculous, he explains, could always be trickery or magic. Or, we might add, as per the late science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, a “sufficiently advanced technology,” that will always be “indistinguishable from magic.”

To be sure, a miracle can be temporarily impressive, as the Rambam goes on to clarify; and, more important, if sourced in the Divine, can be (like Krias Yam Suf, the be’er and the mann) vivid demonstrations of Hashem’s love and concern for His people. But what lies at the root of Jewish belief, he states, is no miracle, but rather the revelation at Har Sinai, when Klal Yisrael experienced direct communication with the Creator.

The assertion that what appears miraculous cannot in itself prove anything about its source, though, seems frontally challenged by the narrative of the confrontation between the nevi’ei habaal and Eliyahu Hanavi at Har Hacarmel, recounted in Melachim I 18:1-39 (the haftarah of parashas Ki Sisa).

There, we read of how Eliyahu, in order to convince the Jews of the time to stop vacillating between Hashem and a false god, challenged the idolatrous priests to offer, as he would himself, a sacrifice. A heavenly fire that would descend on one of the sacrifices would serve as Divine testimony. Despite efforts of the idolaters to artificially create a “heavenly fire,” as a Midrash describes, and despite Eliyahu’s soaking of his own sacrifice with water, a fire descends from heaven and consumes the Navi’s offering. The people are overwhelmed, and cry out “Hashem, He is G-d! Hashem, He is G-d!”

How, though, to square that account with the Rambam’s words about the limitation of miracles? The answer may lie in a Gemara in Berachos (6a). Eliyahu’s tefillah before the miracle includes the plea Aneini Aneini!– “Answer me! Answer me!” The double entreaty, explains the Gemara, refers to two separate requests, to “cause a fire to come down from heaven” and to “let not the people say that it was the result of magic!”

Far from a challenge to the Rambam’s contention, then, the Gemara’s elucidation greatly supports it. It required a special request of Hashem that the people not dismiss the miracle as meaningless – which they, logically, had every right to do. In other words, that the people regarded the miracle as meaningful was, in a sense, itself something of a miracle.

And, in fact, the conviction to which the people gave voice when the fire descended did not prove lasting. Soon thereafter, Eliyahu despairs at the nation’s slipping back into its wrong ways. Their inspiration at Har HaCarmel was powerful but, in the end, ephemeral. It was based, after all, on a mere miracle.

The declaration “Hashem, He is G-d!”, of course, is what we call out seven times at Ne’ilah, at the very close of Yom Kippur. How odd that a declaration that turned out to be short-lived should conclude our holiest day.

Could it be a subtle warning? A reminder that “spiritual highs” cannot in themselves ensure their own perseverance, that even a state of deep emotion requires “follow-up” determination if it is to be maintained?

The first opportunity to follow up, so to speak, after Ne’ilah is the Maariv that ensues after the thunderous “Hashem Hu HaElokim!”s. A kehillah that davens that first post-Yom Kippur tefillah meticulously and with kavanah is one that has had a successful day.

You may know the story told of the Baal Shem Tov’s horses. The two animals were hitched up to the Besht’s wagon for a trip, but were unaware of the kefitzas haderech, or miraculous “shortening of the way,” that would take place on their journey. When only a few minutes had elapsed as they passed a point that should have taken them a full day to reach, one horse said to the other, “Hmmm. I’m not even hungry. We must not be horses but men!”

Then, when a second landmark unexpectedly went by, the other horse commented, “No, we’re even more than men. We must be angels!” And so the horses proudly trotted on, until they reached their destination ten hours – but many days’ journey – away. By this point, they were famished and, led to a feeding trough, enthusiastically dug in to sate their hunger.

And so, the story ends, it was then that the horses knew, without any doubt, that they were horses.

On Yom Kippur, we withdraw from human activities and stand like angels. When the day ends, though, tired and hungry, we know we are mere humans.

But, if we manage to carry our Ne’ilah recognition into Maariv and beyond, better ones.

The King and Us

One of the findings of a recent Pew Research Center report about Orthodox Jews was that for the vast majority of them – are you sitting down? – “religion is very important in their lives.”

Well, yes.

The study contrasts that with the situation in the non-Orthodox community, where only 20% of its members make a similar claim about themselves.

It’s all too easy for many of us to look down our noses at fellow Jews who express their Jewishness only on occasion, to consider them to have missed the point of the Jewish mission. Judaism can’t, after all, be “compartmentalized.” It is an all-encompassing way of life and needs to inform all the choices we make.

And yet, as always, there’s more to be gained by not looking at others but rather inward. Our Orthodox world, after all, “knows from” compartmentalization too.

There are, unfortunately, Jews who, while they wouldn’t ever dream of eating food lacking a good hechsher or of davening without a proper head-covering, seem in some ways to be less conscious of Hashem at other times.

How else to explain an otherwise observant Jew who acts in his business dealings, or home life, or behind the wheel, or the way he speaks to others, in ways not in consonance with what he knows is proper?

When we experience such dissonance, it’s not, chalilah, that we don’t acknowledge Hashem. It’s just that we tend to compartmentalize; we feel HaKodosh Baruch Hu’s presence in our religious lives, but less so in our mundane ones.

Some of us struggle to maintain a keen awareness of Hashem not only out of shul but even in it. We don’t always pause and think of what it is we’re saying when we make a brachah (or even take care to pronounce every word clearly and distinctly). We allow our observances, even our davening, to sometimes fade into rote. I’m writing here to myself, but some readers may be able to relate.

Many of us – certainly I – must sadly concede that when it comes to compartmentalizing in our lives, there really isn’t really any clear “us” and “them,” the Pew report notwithstanding. There is a continuum here, with some of us some more keenly and constantly aware of the ever-presence of the Divine, and some less so.

Obviously, Jews who are entirely nonchalant about religious observance are at one extreme of the scale. And those who are not only observant but think of Hashem and His will even when engaged in business or navigating a traffic jam are at the other end. But many even in that latter category can still fall short of the ideal of Hashem-consciousness, can compartmentalize their lives.

This is a thought that leads directly to Rosh Hashanah. The first day of a new Jewish year, the start of the Aseres Yemei Teshuvah, is suffused with the concept of Malchus, “Kingship.” The shofar, we are taught, is a coronation call, and the concept of malchiyus is prominent in the days’ Mussaf tefillah. We might well wonder: What has kingship to do with repentance? The answer is: much.

By definition, a king has a kingdom, over which he exerts his rules. There is little escaping even a mortal monarch’s reach, and none of his subjects dares take any action without royal approval. All the more so, infinite times over, in the case not of a king but a King.

And so, we might consider that kingship (or, at least, Kingship) and compartmentalization are diametric, incompatible ideas. If Hashem is to be our Ruler, then there are no places and no times when He can be absent from our minds.

Rosh Hashanah is our yearly opportunity to ponder that thought and internalize it, to try to bring our lives more in line with it. To better comprehend, in other words, that Hashem is as manifest when we are sitting behind a desk, cooking or sending kids off to school as he is when we are reciting Shemoneh Esrei, as present on a December morning as He is during the Yamim Nora’im.

On Rosh Hashanah, we will all be collectively focused on “de-compartmentalizing” our lives, on coronating Hashem over all Creation. May the zechus of that effort bear fruit not only in our personal lives, but in history – may it lead, in other words, and soon, to the day when v’hayah Hashem l’melech al kol ha’aretz.

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life