Marry a man you don't love

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Here's something true and powerful I saw on Facebook. Don't doubt this happens. The only criticism is that it fails to acknowledge that there is also a male side of this equation.

Marry a man you do not love. Hear about him from your great-aunt Faiga, and then from your great-aunt Shprintza. Nod politely as they gush about his middos. Smile graciously as they rave about his learning. Agree respectfully that he will, indeed, be the next gadol hador.

Concede to their pleas to meet him just once. Put on your Shabbos suit – the navy one, not the black. Blow-dry your hair in front of the mirror. Apply a small amount of pale pink lipstick and some blush. No eye makeup. Slip into your navy 2” heels with the large hideous bow. Walk down the stairs. Groan inwardly when you see him, shifting uncomfortably in the straight back chair.

Russian Gays may one day be German Jews

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Like I told the social networks this morning:

Any Jew who can't understand why no one stopped Hitler back in 1935 needs to ask himself what he is doing today to help Russian gays.

Predictably, some took offense at this comparison, and delivered responses endeavoring to make it abundantly clear that Germans murdered Jews, while the Russians are merely talking smack. True. But as I said in my follow-up:

I said 1935. In 1935 no one anticipated genocide. In 1935 the issue was persecution and outrageous public statements and pre-Olympic posturing. Sound familiar? Moreover, just two years earlier, in 1933 German Orthodox Rabbis (including the Sridei Aish) wrote to Hitler pledging loyalty and expressing the belief that his antisemitism was mere political posturing that could be dropped now that he was securely in power.

That letter the rabbis sent to Hitler, by the way,  ranks as one of the top unintentionally embarrassing things our leaders have ever done. You can be sure the German Rabbis meant well, and consulted Daas Torah and everything. They  probably believed that Hitler was a rational actor who could be trusted to behave sensibly. History proved them wrong, of course, but its hard to blame them for not knowing in 1935 what we know in 2013.

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What proof is the Torah?

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 A guest post by Y. Bloch

This summer, the Knesset passed a draconian law unfairly targeting a segment of the Israeli public of which I am a proud part: alcoholics. Taxes on liquor shot up across the country, and the higher the alcohol content, the higher the price. Shocking! Who's to say that 4% Coors Light should be cheaper than Yekev HaGalil's 96% Gold?

Oh, it's our Finance Minister Yair Lapid. Never mind then, I can't say no that beautiful, beautiful man.

Maybe he has a point. Maybe there is a difference between different types of alcoholic drinks. After all, there's a reason that we drink beer in steins, wine in goblets and vodka in shot glasses. The proof is in the proof.

What does this have to do with this summer's raging debate on Torah mi-Sinai? Perhaps more than one might think. We keep obsessing over the eighth Maimonidean Principle of Faith, in which he basically quotes the Talmud's statement that anyone who declares that any verse of the Torah was "not said by the Holy One, Blessed be He, but by Moses of his own accord" is a heretic (anonymous beraita in Sanhedrin 99a; also R. Eleazar of Modiin, Sifrei, Num. 112), but the Talmud itself elsewhere (Abbayei in Megilla 31b) says exactly that, in the same words, about the Curses in this week's Torah portion (and, presumably, the rest of Deuteronomy).

It seems to me that Maimonides is a bit of a straw man here, or maybe a scarecrow. We don't really know what he means because he does not explain it. He merely codifies both Talmudic rulings (Laws of Repentance 3:8, Laws of Prayer 13:7).  Furthermore, the core of the objection seems to be that one is attributing the given verse or letter to man and not to God. As far as I can tell, the current debate has nothing to do with this, as everyone seems to concede that the Torah comes from God. True, he does introduce the topic in his Mishnaic commentary (Sanhedrin 10:1) by saying that "the whole Torah which we have today was the one given to Moses," but he goes on to explain that the problem is in viewing some parts of the Torah as having greater holiness than others, and this introductory part is mentioned only there, not in Mishneh Torah.  It's also worth noting that Maimonides also attributes the Oral Torah to Moses, knowing full well that the Talmud is full of arguments and disputes.

So can we move on from Maimonides? What is more concerning to me is the idea of our Torah being the Torah of Moses, and this is where our alcohol analogy is relevant.

Sure, there are Tannaitic opinions that the last eight verses of the Torah were written by Joshua, leaving the Mosaic content at just under 99.9%. Or maybe it's the last twelve, since Moses never comes down after ascending Mt. Nebo, bringing the Mosaic content to just under 99.8%. Or maybe it's those last four chapters, since in Deut. 31 the Torah is already handed over to the Levites, complete, bringing the Mosaic content down to below 97.9%. There's still a world of difference between that and saying that Moses only wrote a few chapters of the Torah, maybe some poems, travelogues or genealogies. There's a world of difference between saying that Abraham didn't have camels or live until 175 and saying that he never existed. Is it really so ludicrous to distinguish between the Coors Light and the 96% Gold?

Excuse me, it's time to refill my tumbler.


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The new Hirhurim look familiar.

Gil has unveiled his new Hirhurim. The plan is to include lots of writers, many of them famous in their own right. Also, comments have been nearly eliminated and he says they will be moderated with extreme prejudice. Wow. He's reinvented Cross Currents.

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It isn't heresy.

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We can agree, I think, that all of us, including RYA, are 8th ikkar heretics. All of us know that some Tannaim and Rishonim recognized that some verses, or phrases, or letters were added later. All of us have studied these teachings, and all of us understand that if those great men, beginning with  R. Yehuda on BT Bava Batra 15a can say that some verses in the Torah weren't written by Moshe, then clearly, it is not kefira to suggest that there are parts of the Torah that were written later, by people other than Moshe.

If all of us agree that the 8th ikkar is not operative or enforceable, why are the YCT rabbis being attacked as heretics? How can they be persecuted for violating a rule everyone of us knows is a bad rule, a rule violated by great Rabbis, too? Let the gentlemen of Cross Currents (plus Menken who, lets be truthful, is no gentleman) say that Farber et al are wrong. Let Gordiner and the rest fight their corner, and make their arguments as forcibly as possible. But, at the same time, let's demand that they make their case without hurling around the H word.  Farber et al simply can not be heretics if the ikkar they are accused of breaking is an ikkar no one acknowledges as having any validity.

(This isn't the time or place to speculate on the RCA's real motive for attacking the new rabbinical seminary, but suffice it to say that established organizations always get their noises bent out of shape when upstarts encroach on their turf. This heresy nonsense might very well be a tool, a tool used knowingly by men who should know better, for the purpose of rubbing out their professional rivals.)

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War of words

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 A guest post by Y. Bloch 

As Shabbat Ki Tetzei ends here in Israel, I can't help but notice how many of the weekly parasha sheets decided to focus on this week's release of the first 26 of 104 Palestinian prisoners ahead of the latest round of peace talks. I've already written about my personal reaction, as a terror survivor, elsewhere, but I wonder about the use of Jewish sources, especially the Torah itself, to approach these difficult hot-button issues. 

It strikes me as disingenuous the way some invoke verses like the final one in last week's portion (Deut. 21:8), "And you shall clear out the innocent blood from your midst;" after all, those verses refer to what we define here as "criminally-motivated murder," a personal grudge between two individuals. "Nationalistically-motivated murder," on the other hand, is about tribal grudges, the waging of war by other means. The immediately following verse is, "When you go out to war against your enemies, Lord your God will put him in your hand and you will take him captive." So the Torah itself acknowledges that there are captives, prisoners of war, those taken during war whom we do not subject to the criminal justice system.

But perhaps it is I who is being disingenuous now. The Torah goes on to talk about the "woman of beautiful form," since there is no concept of adult males being taken captive in biblical war. (I'm unsure if there is any significance to the shift from the masculine shevi to the female shivya as a term for all those taken captive.) Incarceration is a post-biblical concept, so there really are no prisoners of any sort in the Torah, and the only enemies who would survive war would be children and women, all of whom would be enslaved.

So maybe there is nothing to be learnt from the Torah on this subject. But if so, how can we say that it guides our morality? It's one thing to say that tzaraat is not leprosy and reinterpret over a hundred verses of text as a roundabout warning against slander, but is war not war anymore? Or are we simply left with Maimonides, since he is the last Jewish sage to seriously deal with these laws? This at least I'll say about the parasha sheets: they are dealing with the question, even if I find their answers at best unsatisfying and at worst dangerous. 

Shavua tov.

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Spelled naar, but vocalized as naara.

In the whole Torah we find just one place where the word נַּעֲרָה is spelled plene (malei). Everywhere else the word appears as נַּעֲרָ, that is with consonants of the words naar, but vocalized as naara.

One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that a semantic shift occurred. Once a word with the consonants of our naar (we can't guess how it was vocalized) was a general world for child, or perhaps tween, with context indicating if a male or female child/tween was intended. Gradually, that word changed, or narrowed, to mean "male child/tween", with the original word preserved in the Torah.

This sort of narrowing has occurred many times in the English language. A famous example is the world "girl" which once was a gender-neutral word meaning child.

Interestingly enough, it follows from this explanation means that Deuteronomy is older than some of the books of Nach, where the word naarah is spelled in the more modern way.

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Abraham's betrayal of Sarah or the most feminist post I've written yet

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At the beginning of his adventures Abraham travels to Egypt to escape a famine. Along the way a thought occurs to him. He turns to Sarah, his wife, and says: "Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.” 

What is Abraham's plan? What is he saying but not saying? I see two possible interpretations:

CHOICE ATell the Egyptians you're my sister, and (lucky!) they won't bother us at all. We'll stay together, but the Egyptians will be so impressed with the fact that you're my sister, that they will treat me well and spare my life, and no harm will come to you.

CHOICE B

Tell the Egyptians you're my sister. Yes, they will still take you to the harem but at least I'll get some money as a result. Look, they are going to take you away no matter what we do, but if they think we're married, I'll get killed. At least let me make a buck from this unfortunate situation.

Traditionally, I don't think either of these two readings is assigned to the verse. In the second interpretation, Abraham is exhibiting the morality of a pimp. In the first, he's clueless. I don't know of any Rabbinic commentary that understands Abraham's behavior in either way.

When we learned this verse in third grade, I think the teacher interpreted it something like this:

CHOICE C

Tell the Egyptians you're my sister. They're probably still take you and make you the Pharoh's wife, but that's ok; anyway, God will eventually come to the rescue. Meanwhile, thanks to you, I'll get rich. After God steps in and solves the problem, we'll enjoy the bounty together. 

That works for third graders, but only because third graders don't understand sex and violence. When you're eight years old, becoming a king's wife doesn't sound so bad. Sarah will probably get a nice vacation in the palace where, at worst, she might run into some trouble with the kashrus or have a hard time finding a private place to daven. For a third grader, I suppose that's a perfectly appropriate reading, but as you get older, and the blind spots shrink, it becomes untenable. Sarah isn't being taken away to enjoy the king's indoor swimming pool. She's not going for her pleasure at all. The king is going to rape her, and then he's going to keep her around, like a bird in a cage, until he feels like raping her again. This is the plan Abraham's words are setting in motion.

Just as a third grader has blind spots, so do adults. All of us read from a certain perspective and in light of the other things we know. I think most Orthodox Jews encounter this story from Abraham's perspective. The classical commentators speak of Abraham's tests and inner dialogues are invented for him, but to the best of my knowledge no energy is exerted toward imagining Sarah's experience. Moreover, while they show no reluctance to say that Abraham sinned against God, they fail to see that he also sinned against his wife. The crime against Sarah is neither discussed nor identified.

Nowadays, our OJ Rabbis likewise see only part of the story. They use the story to drive home points about modesty, without seeming to understand just how immodest Abraham's proposal is. Instead of using the story to remind wives to avoid tempting foreign men, why don't they use the story to remind us of our obligations to our wives? An appropriate modern moral might be: Don't focus on your career (the accumulation of riches) at the expense of your wife. Their reason for choosing the former over the latter isn't that the Torah tells us one thing and not the other, but that the Torah tells us nothing at all, leaving us to find or create interpretations that do the Torah's speaking for it.

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Who's a priest?

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In Deuteronomy the priests are called הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם. In Leviticus they are בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֲנִים or הַכֹּהֲנִים בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן. Ever wonder why?

The theory of the critics is that Leviticus is the work of Aaronid priests who were protecting their prerogatives. They wanted it perfectly clear that they, and not anyone else, were the true priests. Outside of the material attributed to the Aaronid priests (specifically Deuteronomy) the priests are often called הַכֹּהֲנִים הַלְוִיִּם, which say the critics, suggests some sort of rivalry between the Levites, or a family of Levites, who thought they were entitled to serve in the Temple or bring offerings and the Aronids who wanted it made clear that right belonged to them, and them alone. (Preceding shared for informational purposes only. DovBear is not trying to steal your soul and he may not even accept the truth of the summary he has just shared.)

Being honest: I don't know how the Rabbinic interpreters dealt with this inconsistency. Can someone point me to their solution?

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Look what they are sending home from camp!

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One of the Facebookers put this up to protest the despicable pedagogue his or her child is receiving at one of those horrible Brooklyn camps. The item you see is some kind of salad dressing container. Its label reads: Oil and water don't mix; Yidden and Goyim remain separate.

What a great Arts and Crafts project! Is Shlomo Goebels the head counselor?

Remember, though: Modern Orthodox camps where kids might mix swim or straggle back from the pool without their tzitzis are the real danger!

UPDATE: Look what I found on the Interwebs!

"To try to make a hybrid of Germans and Jews is as absurd as suggestingthat Christ and Satan should form a partnership"

From: mel.fo@verizon.net
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2005 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: Germans who still want to be Germans
Since the end of WW II, Jews have been working very hard - within the framework of the so-called "Holocaust" of course - to crush and squeeze "German-ness" out of the Germans. The ancient enemy of the Jews is the family of White nations of Europe but, for at least a couple of centuries, the German nation has received the special focus of fear and loathing, born of envy, of those Jews who are driven to reduce Europe to a Jewish domain.
Can Germans and Jews be made to form a hybrid of the two? In my opinion, they cannot. To try to make a hybrid of Germans and Jews is as absurd as suggesting that Christ and Satan should form a partnership. Remember, oil and water don't mix! Germans and Jews are polar opposites, even more sharply opposites than are Christians and Jews! The classic German character is one of honor, candor and independence, whereas the classic Jewish character rests on lying, concealment and a preference for authoritarianism.
The most that can be said of a mix of Jews with Germans is that a few Jews may discard or lose their Jewishness and, in essence, take on the psychic orientation of Germans. I believe it works the other way only superficially.
It is no mere accident of history that Hitler has become the number one whipping boy of the Jews. This was inevitable not only because Hitler led the Germans in WW II, but because deep within the Jewish psyche there is a model of their opposite and the one whom they most deeply fear and hate. There is no flesh and blood person who so closely conforms to that model as Hitler.
It may be said as well that deep within the psyche of the racially intact White man and White woman lies a model of themselves, of their own race, lying even deeper than the model of the Christian man and woman.Those Jews who are so assiduously effacing and trashing what is left of traditional White society are profoundly offensive and menacing to the instincts of those White people who are still racially intact.It is inevitable that Germans, bye and bye, will rediscover their deeper instincts. I can't believe the day when that happens is very far away.
One of the marks of a psychically badly damaged White person is that he behaves as though he believes his race is already defeated by the Jews. He believes in his own inferiority and weakness. He believes Jews are superior to his own people. He cannot find within himself the capacity to resist his own extermination, or to believe that it is even possible! In fact, he tries his best to emulate the character of Jews.
Mel Fowler

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Who wins: Torah or Science?

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The question "Who wins: Torah or Science?" contains an underlying error. It rests on the familiar but false assumption that the Torah says something. In fact, the Torah says nothing. The talking is done by people, and when the people talk about Torah what they do is called "interpreting."

Now, of course all interpretations are not created equal, But what can't be denied is that there exists a plurality of Torah interpretations that are generally accepted by the Orthodox Jewish community as legitimate. Some of us call that collection of legitimate interpretations "authentic" or "Torah True."

Many of us first encounter these "authentic"  interpretations without realizing that they are interpretations. For instance, almost all of use were taught that Rivka is three years old when she marries Yitzchak and this was presented to us as a historical fact. In reality, Torah interpreters deduced Rivka's age based on their interpretation of various verses. Some interpreters concluded that she was three; others concluded that she was 13, or even older on her marriage day. Because we have no extra-biblical information about Rivka - a diary, for example, or a marriage license - the truth is unknowable. All we have are the competing interpretations (and by the way I can't say this too often: Its a disgrace and embarrassment that school teachers never teach the controversy, instead choosing to present one particular interpretation as if it was a true, universally accepted fact.)

Let's say an intrepid archaeologist were to uncover a set of artifacts that were unquestionably Rivka's. And let's say that those relics clearly and incontrovertibly demonstrated that she was 13 years old on her wedding day (as taught by Tosfot et al). How would Judaism respond? Would we continue to teach that she married at age three, or would we embrace Tosfot's equally valid, but less famous interpretation?

In the realm of science, something like this has happened many times. Once, wise man believed in a geocentric universe and this was reflected in Torah teachings that put the earth at the center of creation. After Copernicus, some Torah authorities resisted, but gradually, gradually, as the evidence became insurmountable, they came around. Now, any verse that suggests the sun moves is read differently. Instead of reading those verses in light of Ptolmy, we read them in light of Copernicus.  Interpretations of verses that suggested the sun moves, were replaced with interpretations which acknowledge that the sun never moves.

~~

This is only the most famous example of a Torah interpretation reconciling itself to science, but there are many others. A favorite of mine relates to an interpretation of Exodus 16:20, a verse that tells us that leftover maan became wormy and then, afterwards, became rotten.

According to the science of the ancient world this is backwards: First food goes bad, and then worms spontaneously generated from the putrid food. Both Rashi and Ramban catch this, and both of them reinterpret the verse in light of what they understand to be the scientific reality.  Today, we aren't bothered by this because we're relying on a different set of scientific facts, and we read and interpret the verse in light of those facts

~

Before Copernicus everyone read verses about the sun moving as if that was the reality - because they thought the sun actually moved. After Copernicus, no one had to officially decide to reinterpret the verses. It just became obvious. Because its incontrovertible fact that the sun doesn't move, it was also incontrovertible fact that those verses couldn't be read to mean that the sun was moving. 

Or to say it more correctly, before Copernicus we all were wearing one set of goggles, so we read the verses one way. After Copernicus we all had on a different set of goggles so we read the verses differently. 

Now, those of us who have studied evolution are not wearing the same pair of goggles, anymore. The evidence for evolution is that strong. Its that insurmountable. So those of us who are aware of the facts of evolution have no choice but to read verses related to creation differently. This is unavoidable because of the goggles we wear, the goggles that become impossible to take off once we become aware of insurmountable facts.

So, who wins: Torah or Science? Science of course. But it isn't Torah that is being defeated. Torah endures. All that's lost is a particular interpretation. And because the facts tell us that the defeated interpretation was false, what's the real damage?

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Deuteronomy is Different (Part 3)

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The first post in this series, presented a ruling by Abaya that treats Deuteronomy differently. The second, shared a quote from Ezra and asked why Ezra refers to a law from Deuteronomy as being merely a decree of the prophets when he should have identified it as a Torah law. In this post, I provide a list taken from Wikipedia (yes, I am that lazy):

Laws unique, within the Torah, to the Deuteronomic Code

Laws of religious observance

• Against false prophets, at Deuteronomy 13

• Ordering idolaters to be stoned to death, at Deuteronomy 17:2-7

Laws concerning officials

• Ordering judges to be appointed in every city, at Deuteronomy 16:18

• Ordering there to be a supreme central tribunal, at Deuteronomy 17:8-13

• Restrictions on the king, at Deuteronomy 17:14-20

• Concerning the rights, and revenue, of the Levites, at Deuteronomy 18:1-8

• Concerning the future (unspecified) prophet, at Deuteronomy 18:9-22

• Restrictions on admittance to the priesthood, at Deuteronomy 23:1-8

Military law

• Concerning behaviour during war, at Deuteronomy 20, and 21:10-14

Criminal law

• Ordering a ritual atonement by the people for untraced murder, at Deuteronomy 21:1-9

• Concerning the corpse of a criminal, at Deuteronomy 21:22-23

Civil laws

• Against the removal of boundary markers, at Deuteronomy 19:14

• Concerning primogeniture, at Deuteronomy 21:15-17

• Ordering undutiful sons to be stoned to death, at Deuteronomy 21:18-21

• Against transvestitism, at Deuteronomy 22:5

• Prohibiting taking a mother bird at the same time as its nest, at Deuteronomy 22:6-7

• Ordering roofs to be constructed with parapets, at Deuteronomy 22:8

• Prohibiting newly married women from being slandered, at Deuteronomy 22:13-21

• Concerning escaped slaves, at Deuteronomy 23:15-16

• Against religious prostitution, at Deuteronomy 23:17-18

• Concerning the crops of a neighbour, at Deuteronomy 23:24-25

• Concerning divorce, at Deuteronomy 24:1-4

• Against punishing the family of a criminal, at Deuteronomy 24:16

• Limiting the number of lashes, at Deuteronomy 25:1-3

• Against muzzling oxen during threshing, at Deuteronomy 25:4

• Concerning levirate marriage, at Deuteronomy 25:5-10

• Ordering women to be modest, at Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Ritual

• The ritual of the first fruits and of the tithe, including a prayer, at Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Why aren't these law mentioned earlier in the book? Were are they withheld? Several of the laws that appear in Deuteronomy are repetitions, at times with minor variation, but the list above consists of laws that are unique to Deuteronomy.
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Deuteronomy is Different (Part 2)

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In the previous post, I provided a Talmudic passage in which Abaye treats Deuteronomy as categorically different then the rest of the Torah. As the following passages show, it seems plausible that an earlier authority shared that opinion.

“And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’ - Ezra 9:10-12

In this passage, Ezra denounces intermarriage, a practice that he considered a scourge and fought with all his vigor. Oddly enough, he says that intermarriage was "commanded by your servants the prophets"  However, this law was first set down in the book of Deuteronomy (7:3). Why does Ezra appeal to the prophets in his denouncement of intermarriage when an appeal to the Torah itself, or even to the single chief prophet who wrote the law, would carry much more authority?

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Deuteronomy is Different (Part 1)

If I'm reading my scorecard correctly, the current and continuing  conversation about Orthodox Jewish heresy was initiated when A. Gordiner accused Rabbi Zev Farber of denying the "singular Divine authorship of the Torah."  One wonders what he would say to Abaye? 

Quite by chance I discovered this passage at the end of BT Megilah. (31b). The gentlemen of the Talmud are discussing the curses that are announced in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and wondering if we are permitted to interrupt them to start a new aliya. We join the conversation in progress:

Said Abaye: This rule (against making an interruption  was laid down only for the curses in Leviticus, but in the curses in Deuteronomy a break may be made. What is the reason? — In the former Israel are addressed in the plural number and Moses uttered them on behalf of the Almighty;in the latter Israel are addressed in the singular, and Moses uttered them in his own name.

Tosoft and others are quick to point out that Moshe spoke through prophesy. Even so,  you  can not deny that Deuteronomy is viewed by Abaye as categorically different from the other four books. As a result, his halacha treats Deuteronomy differently. 

Is this the same as denying the "singular Divine authorship of the Torah"? It depends on how much credit Moshe is given. Most of the book is made up of his speeches. Was he the author of hs own words or not? On Megillah 31B Abaye, plausibly, is saying he was.

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Shema: Don't be haredi?

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 A guest post by Y. Bloch

When is a Jew required to say the words "Shema Yisrael"?
This question brings to mind the classic image of putting a hand over one's eyes and uttering the most famous verse in the Torah (Deut. 6:4): "Hear O Israel, Lord our God, Lord is one." However, those specific words are not mandatory. As the Shulhan Arukh rules (OH 42:2), "One may recite it in any language, as long as one is as precise in pronunciation and grammar as one would be in the Holy Tongue."
In fact, the phrase "Shema Yisrael" appears a half-dozen times in the Book of Deuteronomy, but the only time that one is required to read those precise words is on the battlefield, as detailed in the Torah portion we read yesterday, Shofetim. Maimonides writes this in Mishneh Torah (Laws of Kings and Their Wars 7:3):

When the armies assume battle positions and will shortly join in war, the war-annointed priest stands in an elevated place before the array of the entire army. He addresses them in the Holy Tongue: "Hear O Israel, today you are about to wage war against your enemies. Do not be faint-hearted. Do not be afraid. Do not panic and do not be broken before them. God, you Lord, is the One accompanying you to do battle for you against your enemies to deliver you." (Deut. 20:3-4).

What is so special about this script that it must be recited in its original Hebrew? What would have been lost in translation?
At first glance, it might seem that the Torah is merely using synonyms for being scared in this exhortation. However, Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, the 12th-century sage known as the Rokeach, explains in his Siddur (p. 117) that there are actually four types of fear in biblical parlance, the third of which is listed first in our verse (rakh levav), and for good reason:

Hared is faint-hearted, hared of sin. "And who is hared for My word" (Isaiah 66:2) -- fearful of war.

Indeed, throughout Scripture, we find the terms rakh-levav and hared used interchangeably. In fact, haredim is used in the final chapters of Isaiah (66:5) and Ezra (10:3) to refer to penitents, what we now call baalei teshuva. Similarly, the penitence of the righteous King Josiah (II Kings 22, II Chron. 34) is referred to as his being "rakh-levav" (literally, "soft-hearted"), while Pharoah's intransigence in Exodus is referred to as strong-, heavy- or hardheartedness.

Thus, being hared or rakh-levav when confronting one's own sins is appropriate (and timely for the month of Elul). However, when facing enemies, being hared or rakh-levav is inappropriate. One must be steadfast; one must not lose heart. One must have the courage of his or her convictions; one must stand and fight these external enemies. One is forbidden to be hared or rakh-levav when fighting to save the nation.

We can now understand the view of Rabbi Jose the Galilean in the Mishnaic tractate of Sota (8:5): "'He who is afraid and rakh-levav'--this refers to one who is fearful about the sins he has committed." R. Jose is trying to use the same definition for rakh-levav here as we do for Josiah, but we rule that this is qualitatively different. The haredim, the penitent, should be the first in the ranks. Ultimately, the Torah allows military exemptions only for wars of choice, and this is the ruling in both the Mishna (ibid. 7) and the Mishneh Torah (ibid. 4):

In which instances are the above-mentioned individuals sent away from the battlefront? In a war of choice. By contrast, in a war of necessity, the entire nation must go out to war, even a groom from his chamber and a bride from her canopy.

We look forward to the day when Israel's heavy military burden will be a choice; but as long as it is exigent, we do not have the hared/ rakh-levav option. We cannot let ourselves be faint-hearted.

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If Trayvon Were Tuvia: The Orthodox (Non)response to the Zimmerman Verdict

Yes, yes. This first appeared on Cross Currents. Now I am running it here. More on why later. For now, what do you think?

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If Trayvon Were Tuvia: The Orthodox (Non)response to the Zimmerman Verdict
By Guest Contributor, on August 7th, 2013

by Chaim Saiman

A Jewish boy¬— lets call him Tuvia Mendel— is walking home one night. Maybe he is a bit drunk, maybe not. Tuvia attracts the attention of a non-Jewish neighborhood watchman who describes him as wearing a dark suit, white shirt, black hat and white strings hanging out of his pants. The watchman calls the police, who advise him to hold back. Activities ensue and Tuvia is shot by the watchman. The watchman maintains that he was acting in self-defense and the jury so finds.

Other than changing Tuvia’s name and identity, lets try and hold all the other elements of the Trayvon Martin case constant, simply replicating the debates about the facts and the inferences to be drawn from them from the real case into our own. True, the trial brought out wildly different accounts of what happened, but if it was Tuvia rather than Trayvon, is there any doubt the Orthodox community would resolve these ambiguities differently?

"Off the derech" - a crisis?

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A guest post by dstaum

Today, Harry Maryles wrote about the "off the derech" phenomenon, which many have labeled a "crisis".

Harry makes some good and compassionate suggestions, such as families remaining accepting of their children, no matter the path they choose.

I'd like to look at this from another perspective, with just a few short points:

• Who says that Orthodoxy is the right path for everyone? Even if you believe it contains ultimate truth, one-size-fits-all is a very doubtful proposition when it comes to religion.
  
  
• Young, autonomous individuals should have the right to make their own choices, and those choices should be respected, not seen as mistakes that should only be tolerated in the name of compassion and family harmony.
  
  
• Here is my biggest point: by declaring an "OTD phenomenon", Orthodoxy lumps all young people who have left that sect into one group. It lumps someone like Abandoning Eden, a blogger who is a successful academic and has a happy marriage, into the same pool as young yeshiva dropouts who may be on drugs and have no jobs, no marketable skills, and sometimes, nowhere to live. Not only is this disrespectful of the Abandoning Eden types, but far worse, it treats the very real problems of the young dropouts as symptoms of their having left Orthodoxy. And their real problems, which need solutions like rehab, job training, and support sytems, get ignored.
  
  Until we look at young people with such problems as individuals, we won't be able to help those who actually need help.

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