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Sabato Morais, Social Activist

A commercial house has collapsed; a savings fund has sunk; a me­chanics' bank has burst, a life insurance company has become in­solvent.... Men noted for their self possession appear bewildered. You asked for the reason of so painful a change, and the invariable answer was: "The stringency of the money market, brought about by unforeseen failures among us and abroad. That is enough to upset people's minds."

But for the Victorian language, this might have been written in 2008. In fact, it was declaimed in the Fall of 1893, and is the beginning of a sermon by Sabato Morais, minister of the Por­tuguese Jewish congregation Mikveh Israel in the city of Philadelphia. Morais is mainly remembered today as the Founder and first President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, but his place in American life has been somewhat neglected. The reason for this may be the fact that he cannot quite fit the role of hero of any of the major branches of American Jewish life today, Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. Orthodox as he was in practice, he does not fulfill the role model of the talmudic sage, and has about him a somewhat assimilated air at which the strictly Orthodox might well look askance. For the Conservative, he is insufficiently innovative, too unwilling to take religious risks. And of Reform he was a lifelong opponent. Max Nussenbaum justly called him a “champion of Orthodox Judaism” in his 1964 doctoral dissertation at Yeshiva University.

Morais was born in Leghorn, Italy in 1823 to a family of Sephardic Port­uguese-Jewish descent, the third of nine children and the oldest son. His native language was Italian, and he acquired also a good knowledge of Spanish and French early in life; a great many of the two thousand extant letters addressed to him are in Italian. He was a favorite pupil of Abraham Baruch Piperno, one of the Jewish sages of Leghorn, and at the age of twenty-two was an applicant for the post of Hazzan, or cantor to the Sephardic congregation of London. The Hazzan among the Portuguese Jews was not required to have the quasi-operatic voice favored by the Ashkenazic German and Polish Jews. A sweet voice sufficed, but he was expected to have an intimate knowledge of the complex Jewish liturgy of which every word was individually chanted, and in particular to learn the tradition of his congregation so that he did not deviate from it in the slightest degree. He also had to have a high degree of expertise in the reading of the sacred scrolls. Such memorization normally took years of devoted effort, and few individuals had the skill and patience demanded. The young Morais was unsuccessful, since his lack of English told against him, but he made a great impression even so. The following is an excerpt from a letter sent by the authorities of the English congregation under date of November 18, 1845 to his Italian mentors, couched in the typical Victorian epistolary style:

The departure of Mr. S. Morais demands from us our best acknowl­edgment to you for having recommended to our notice so worthy, deserving an individual, for although he has not been the suc­cessful candidate for the office to which he aspired Justice claims of us that we should bear testimony to the very great satisfaction he af­forded the congregation on the occasion of his public trial, and that he has from his general conduct and unassuming manners whilst here entitled himself not only to the regard of those who were interested in his favor but of all without exception.... he would do credit to any appointment which could be conferred upon him.

The London community did not forget him. A year later, a position opened for a teacher in their orphan school and they invited the young Italian to fill the post. He did so. In London he got to know and admire the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini, and when the latter wished to travel to Europe in 1847, Morais lent him his passport so that Mazzini might avoid detection by the continental police. Of course, there were no photographs in those days. He soon developed a full command of the English language, and was prepared when a call came from the Philadelphia congregation in 1850. The following year, Morais went to Philadelphia, where he served congregation Mikveh Israel for forty-seven years until his death in 1898. He became a much loved figure, and was in the habit of instructing young people without charge in Hebrew language and literature, as he had been instructed himself. Three of his pupils, Solomon Solis-Cohen, Cyrus Sulzberger and Cyrus Adler became prominent community leaders. All wrote to him and of him with warm affection.

Adler, who was a founder of the Jewish Publication Society, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the American Jewish Committee, and who served simultaneously as President of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and Dropsie College in Philadelphia, wrote to him in 1887:

The more the boys [of JTS] know you, the better for them ... I will receive a Ph.D. degree next Tuesday, an end impossible but for the help which you have given me from boyhood and which I never think of but with gratitude.

Solis-Cohen addressed him: "Dear friend and teacher" and signs: "affection­ately your pupil." A San Francisco admirer sent his "respect and affection" to "my earliest friend in this country."

In everything he writes and does, Morais comes across as a warm, loving, emi­nently humane individual with self respect, yet remarkably free of egotism for a man in public life who was the recipient of much honor, including an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania. At no time does he bask in his Sephardic ancestry, as some of his brethren were wont to do, nor does he lay stress on Sephardic tradition in his addresses. Morais looked upon him­self as a Jew without qualifiers, one who revered and loved the Jewish tradition and desired greatly to perpetuate it.

Clearly he came from a close, loving family, and its impress stayed with him all his life. Among a vast family correspondence, an extant letter from his father in Italian, written shortly before his death reads: "If I do not write to you it is not of my volition, but I suffer from irregularity of the pulse ... I send you all my paternal benediction."

Morais’ considerateness is attested to by his finding time to send some stamps for the collection of a little great-niece, who responds with a charming letter in French. All sorts of unfortunates direct their appeals to him: a tu­bercular youth in the state penitentiary, a Corfiot woman seeking the vanished son of a friend, an Italian transient in the Pennsylvania hospital suffering from "a small mental aberration." Morais threw nothing away. Referring to this epistolary flood he writes in 1894:

To acknowledge numerous letters is also a task not infrequently irksome. Still, in order not to appear rude, I have imposed upon myself the obligation of invariably answering them all, either verbally or in writing.

Morais was conscious of walking a tightrope vis-a-vis the public.

If he [the minister] is modest and reserved, he is styled unsociable; if he is accessible and easy, he is charged with too great a familiarity. If he is sincere and open, he is taxed with imprudence. If he denounces public transgressions he is too austere; if he deems it expedient to barely hint at them he is pusillanimous ... however elevated may be the character of the minister of religion, it is shapen in a human mould.

On a number of his addresses he writes self-deprecatory notes, for example, "Like all my early lectures it is faulty in diction and ideas." On another address he writes in Hebrew "I regret having composed it." Not infrequently he recycles old material; thus one is marked "altered, abridged, and corrected from an old lec­ture delivered twenty years before." Morais was also aware that his lectures, eloquent though they were, did not give universal satisfaction.

During nine months of the year, I give weekly instruction from this pulpit ... When the summer season begins, I generally cease speak­ing in the vernacular, and confine myself to the reading of the estab­lished ritual. That some would prefer my following the last named course at all times, I have reason to believe.

Despite Morais' polish and discretion, not too many years passed before he got into hot water in Philadelphia. In 1858 the Jewish world was shocked by the news that an Italian Jewish child, surreptitiously baptized by his nurse, had been kidnapped and taken off to be raised as a Christian. Appeals to the Pope met with the response: Non possumus, We can do nothing. The baptismal waters could not be wiped away, and Edoardo Mortara must be raised as a Christian despite his parents' pleas. Appeals were then made to the President of the United States to intervene and use his influence. The President refused, on the ground that this was an internal matter of a foreign power, involving foreign nationals. On the next Sabbath, when the point in the service was reached when the traditional prayer was recited for the President and the U.S. government, Morais pointedly omitted it. Apparently he felt that a President who would not stand up for civil rights was not worth praying for. The congregation was scandalized. The adjunta, as the governing body of the synagogue is still called, met the very next day and demanded that he restore the prayer for the government, whether he agreed with their actions or not. On December 2, 1858, A. Finzi wrote him a letter marked "strictly private" alluding to "your refusal to recite the prayer for the members of the Government as you have hitherto done." He demonstrates rather tediously that the U.S. government is not dependent for its welfare on Morais' prayers and having exhausted that argument, turns nasty:

You are aware that the Adjunta can suspend you from office, which would only be a step to discharge ... You know that the Board can command a majority to any measure their wisdom may induce them to think correct ... are you prepared to be hurled from a position of pecuniary independence ... to one of unrequited labor in which you might find it difficult to earn a pittance?

After this affair blew over, and the President again got his prayerful due, Morais' penchant for expressing himself on civil rights again got him into trou­ble. On Thanksgiving, 1864, he gave an address in which he referred critically to the institution of slavery. I was unable to find his precise wording, but it seems that he expressed satisfaction at the absence of threats of sedition and secession in the North. Morais was clearly amazed at the violence of the reaction. The synagogue adjunta would brook no reference to this issue which had the country bitterly divided, and decreed that "henceforth all English lectures or discourses be dispensed with, except by particular agreement of the Parnas [President] made in writing." Despite Morais' protests, the gag rule held for about two months. Then some members petitioned the board, and on February 5, 1865, the board voted that the Revd. S. Morais deliver a religious discourse (the word religious is underlined!) on one Sabbath of each month, and any holiday. Immedi­ately before the Passover that year Morais wrote: "I would now respectfully ask that you allow me to address the Congregation whenever I deem it fit." Morais never again indulged in grand gestures as in the Mortara case, but he did estab­lish his freedom to speak on social justice in the pulpit, and he did so frequently. Morais was addressing the most influential Jews in a major American city, and he extended that forum through reports of his addresses which were frequently published, and, as we shall see, he involved himself directly in other ways too. Morais' stand on slavery was rewarded by an honorary membership in the Union League of Philadelphia.

Two major areas of social justice concerned him deeply. One was the issue of religious and racial prejudice and its natural follower, oppression. This included both crass discrimination, and the subtler pressures involved in the movement to make America a Christian country not only notionally, but as a matter of law. Paradoxically, Morais sometimes took a stronger stand on discrimination against non-Jewish groups than Jewish. Why this was may be seen in the notorious Hilton-Seligman affair of 1877. On May 31, 1877, the wealthy Jewish banker, Joseph Seligman went to the Grand Union Hotel at Saratoga for the tenth consecutive year. On requesting his room he was told: "Mr. Seligman, I am required to inform you that Mr. Hilton has given instructions that no Israelites shall be permitted to stop at this hotel." Seligman wrote a stinging letter to Hilton advising him to get out of the hotel business, since he was losing money, not because Jews were staying in his hotels, but because he did not know how to run them. A loud clamor broke out in the press. Morais was asked to speak up, but in this instance he was ambivalent. Yes, discrimination was bad. But the eastern watering places were full of ostentation and display, not to mention the infraction of the Jewish Sabbath and dietary laws that accompanied these unbecoming qualities. Moreover, Seligman had had associations with the Ethical Culture movement which made his Jewish affiliation questionable. Morais was not alone in his feelings. I. M. Wise's mouthpiece in Cincinnati, the American Israelite declared:

If he wants no Jews, let him have none ... keep away from Saratoga, keep away from Long Beach ... they cannot imagine in Europe that the watering places here are the elysium of empty heads and shattered brains, and hearing of the intolerance and stupidity they must be led to think we are a nation of fools and madmen. Stay away from those places, save with your honor also the honor of the American republic.

For once, the arch-reformer Wise and the traditionalist Morais saw eye-to-eye. Quite different and unequivocal was Morais' reaction to the Chinese ques­tion. Morais, gentle soul, observed that the Mosaic law prohibited muzzling an ox while it worked to avoid causing it pain. How then, he wondered, can human beings inflict deliberate suffering on one another? The address that Morais gave on this subject is extant among his papers, but it has some pages missing and it is best to quote it as it was reported in the press. The report conveys well the passion of this remarkable statement:

He animadverted upon the conduct of the lawless towards the un­fortunate aliens of the Mongolian race on the Pacific coast. He termed that demeanor atrocious and the conniving of local offi­cials infamous. He saw in every drop of blood of the Chinese spilt by ruffians a blot of the escutcheon of Liberty. In his mind a racial persecution in this country was a deep humiliation and an insult to the great of old who labored and fought to establish a government broad enough to cover every human being that seeks its protection. Mr. Morais alluded to the Restrictive act limiting the admission of Chinese. He considered it an outrage against a nation of three hun­dred millions with whom we are at peace, and the bill now said to be in course of preparation to forbid the Unites States to Chinese altogether he stigmatized as an indignity revolting to every right thinking man. He held that if even all the inhabitants of Central Asia who come to our shores ... were as depraved as their enemies describe them, no justification could be found for the barbarities to which they are subjected ... he knew that the writings of [China's] philosophers and moralists do not suffer in comparison with those of nations which claim to be the sole representatives of civilization.

In the original sermon Morais censures by name President Chester Arthur for sanc­tioning prejudice in yielding to pressure from unscrupulous politicians. The newspaper report doubtless deemed it discreet to omit this. There is no doubt that Morais had established his right to speak out. It is clear moreover that Reform Judaism did not have a corner on the issue of social justice, despite the grandiloquence of the "Pittsburgh Platform," which laid great stress on this matter and was promulgated at this time. Morais spoke too on the sufferings of the Armenians. After pointing out that there were conflicting reports as to what had happened, he continues:

We cannot too strongly condemn a barbarity that pushes a people into the Mosque at the point of the bayonet. I have read protests from Christendom. I have noticed likewise that in Chicago Rabbis have made their voices swell the sound of these protests against the ruthlessness of the Turks. Nothing new. Jews will always side with the persecuted, and not only side with them, but try speedily to come to their deliverance.

He goes on to cite Moses Montefiore's help for the Maronites in 1860, and Baron de Hirsch's help for both sides in the Russo-Turkish war of 1878. He then protests reports that President Cleveland's intervention was because America is a Christian country. America should support all the oppressed. He continues:

Much as I wish to wipe off from memory words that pierced like a pointed steel, I cannot forget that on a day when by invitation, I pleaded before the members of the Episcopal brotherhood the cause of my oppressed brethren in Russia, I received a most cutting rebuff. I was relating how a Jewish lad had his face and hands burnt with hot irons for having stolen an apple, when the Reverend Dr. McConnel ... most uncharitably remarked that in a Christian country, a minority that keeps aloof from the majority must expect perse­cution. What a companionable guest at the table of Ximenes and Torquemada that Episcopal clergyman would make! How palatable the repast seasoned with invectives against those stiffnecked Jews who need the thumb screw and the hot iron to bring them to the foot of the cross!

Ah, my brethren, I say it again. Take care of your own. For prejudice is stalking abroad and would tread on us ... Still be on the alert by reason of ineradicable prejudice. Take care of your own, my brethren!

The attitude of the Reverend Dr. McConnel was not at all uncommon. As the author of Black Like Me declared: "The first rule of racism is to blame the victim."

Morais concerned himself actively with the weal of Jews in foreign lands. A letter to Charles Emory Smith, minister to Russia from 1890 to 1892, elicited a courteous reply assuring him that the imperial government intended no new repressive measures against the Jews. He declared that Morais' representations were on "a subject in which no representative of the United States could fail to feel a deep interest." He concludes: "I recall our personal meetings with great pleasure and well remember your high standing among your people."

Morais was also in touch with Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, a New York Sephardic Jew, who was appointed U.S. consul in Bucharest in 1870 and at­tempted to further the emancipation which had been promised to Rumanian Jews by the 1856 Treaty of Paris. On January 27, 1874, he wrote to Morais:

I am happy to tell you that my heavy task appears to be in a more promising prospect than ever, and that I cherish the firm belief before very long of accomplishing the emancipation of our long suffering brethren.

Peixotto left Bucharest two years later, his firm belief still unfulfilled.

Another aspect of religious problems was the desire on the part of many believing Christians to emphasize the Christian character of the United States, despite the efforts of the founding fathers to separate Church and State. Jacob Ezekiel, a friend of Morais who later moved to Cincinnati and served as secretary of the Hebrew Union College, took President John Tyler to task in 1841 for using the phrase "Christian people" in a proclamation on the death of President Harrison. Tyler sent him a courteous reply in which he disavowed any intention to offend, and told Ezekiel that "your voice and the voices of all your brethren will ascend to our common father."

Morais was seriously disturbed by efforts to have Sunday recognized in the Constitution as a day of rest, as well he might be, since the provisions of the proposed amendment, which he quotes, were very severe. This decreed that "no person or corporation shall perform any secular labor, nor ... engage in any play, game, amusement or recreation on that day." All assemblies, except for religious worship, were to be forbidden. Penalties were to range up to one thousand dollars, and if one allows for a century of inflation, it appears that the penalty was stiff indeed. Morais condemned the attempt to "chain the State to the clogging wheels of the Church." He declared that the Constitution "will cover beneath her ample folds all that seek protection from the abuse of power, but never will she dictate tyrannical terms to those whom she has promised shelter ... Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

The republican sentiments that were his in his youth came flooding back when he heard statements such as: "official positions and public trusts should be restricted by constitutional enactment to persons in sympathy with the high moral aims of the government." Such thinking, in his view could make "America a scourge in the hands of the crafty to tear the lives of the powerless, whether they be Jews or Christians."

Morais was greatly incensed also by attempts to convert Jewish children to Christianity by deception. This became a particular problem when large numbers of Russian and Polish Jews arrived in Philadelphia in the 1880s and subsequently, in the wake of deteriorating conditions in Eastern Europe, settling in the southern part of the city. Missionaries saw the possibility of evangelizing among these poor, Yiddish-speaking Jews, sometimes using means that were less than totally honest. In one instance, a school was set up which purported to be a Jewish school in which Hebrew was taught, and the children were offered rewards for attendance. While there, unknown to their parents who did not speak English, the children were indoctrinated in the tenets of Christianity. Morais decided to investigate. Accompanied by a friend who knew his way around, Morais slipped into the school and observed what was occurring. The principal of the school became aware of his presence and was furious. She termed it an intolerable intrusion, and threatened to call the police. Morais withdrew. "I did not put her to the test," he comments. "In that instance I considered discretion the better part of valor." Morais then took to waiting outside the school, asking the children their names, and alerting the parents to the fact that the school was not what they thought it was. This avoidance of confrontation was typical of Morais, and stood in the mainstream of a long tradition of Jewish quietism. He was ready to persuade and to cajole, but always wanted to avoid violence, or what he termed "scandal."

The Russian immigrants brought other problems in their train. Although Philadelphia prided itself on being the "city of homes" and did not have the tenements typical of New York City, sweated labor became commonplace in Philadelphia too. Morais declared:

Iniquity alone could have conceived the sweating system, so prolific of evils—a system stunting the growth of children employed under it, bending with premature old age men and women in the prime of life, tainting the atmosphere with foul vapors ... Families vegetating in holes, poisoned with pestilential air, stitching and stitching and stitching, twelve or fourteen hours a day to receive what does not suffice to procure a scanty meal.

Morais' solution for these severe social problems was, it must be confessed, simplistic. The worker should give a fair day's labor and the employer should pay a reasonable wage. Morais was convinced of the ennobling character of labor, and horrified at the thought of the socialist and anarchist tendencies, all too patently linked to atheism, which were unseen riders on the immigrant ships. "Communism!" he cries out at one point. "Horror of horrors! Communism!" Morais' attitude to work was demonstrated by his strong support of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, founded by French Jews in 1860, one of the main aims of which was to give useful work training to young Jews in backward countries. In an unusual outburst, Morais condemns bitterly the action of the Rebbe of the Belz sect of the Hasidim ("miscalled" according to Morais) for making a special trip to Vienna to ask the authorities to keep out these secular schools:

Such is the profanation of the name of God brought about by a pretentious sect that assumes the appellation of "pious" and gives their chief the title of "righteous." A piety which hugs the chains of ignorance, a righteousness which invites persecution.

From our standpoint we can see that the Rebbe of Belz knew very well what he was about. Schools of this type brought with them the French language and secular culture. In North Africa they brought about a rapid destruction of the traditional religious orientation of the community, and this was precisely what the Rebbe wanted to avoid. It is interesting to observe too, that in his fervor Morais slipped into a kind of thinking not unlike the Episcopalian reverend gentleman he condemned. "A righteousness which invites persecution" comes perilously close to condemning the victim who wanted above all to preserve his culture intact.

Arguments over the merits of secular and trade schools were purely academic for the immigrant workers of South Philadelphia. Ankle deep in half-sewn pan­taloons they wanted only to improve their miserable lot. In 1886 there was a strike widespread in the United States in an attempt to secure an eight-hour workday. Two years later a Jewish Tailors' and Operators' Association was organized in Philadelphia and painful events followed. Their first strike was a fiasco, col­lapsing in two days. Before the strikers were permitted to return to work, they were required to take an oath on the Bible that they would never again strike. Morais became deeply involved in efforts to act as an honest broker in subse­quent strike action. Morais' son, Henry S. Morais, asserts that his father settled the 1890 strike with the help of George Randorf, a young man who had useful language skills. Henry Morais hints darkly at the doctrinaire background of the strike:

The cause of the unfortunate workers has, invariably, been injured by the domination of labor agitators, some of whom are rabid An­archists, and would instil poisonous views into the minds of the un­tutored.

Max Whiteman, the historian of Philadelphia Jewry, gives a very positive assessment of Morais' beneficent influence on the strike. Able to bridge the gap between manufacturer and worker, he

disarmed the anarchists with compassion and thereby gained so much support among the Jewish workers that the anarchists were re­luctant to outrage Jewish sensibilities further by irreligious activities such as a projected pork feast at a Yom Kippur Ball.

Morais saw little help for the oppression of Jews in the incipient Zionist movement. He does indeed defend Theodor Herzl, the father of Political Zion­ism, who, he says, is neither a Utopian nor a fanatic. One can see the struggles he had with Herzl's plan to obtain land in Palestine by the changes he made in his text. First he wrote as follows:

to go in search of means to facilitate the acquisition of a spot where the systematically degraded of Abraham's progeny may breathe free­ly is a philanthropic design.

Apparently he was unhappy with the choice of the word "acquisition" because, I suggest, it might militate against his idea, firmly rooted in tradition, that Israel was to wait for the Messiah, and not hasten the end. So he toned down "acquisition" to "securing." But this was still too strong, implying perhaps (God forbid!) some kind of violent action, and so he substituted "recognized purchase." But then, he must have asked himself, can Jews be safe with a recog­nized purchase? And so he settled on "guaranteed purchase," which apparently fulfilled his criteria of security and non-violence. Morais normally did not make fair copies of his addresses, and when he gets into sensitive areas, it is possible to see him painfully arriving at a position in his erasures and alterations. Whether one regards this as an honest striving for a consistent viewpoint, or a difficulty in making up his mind, is a question. It seems that Morais' ultimate conclusion was that Zionism was a pipe dream. In response to a Zionist lecture delivered by Dr. Friedenwald of Baltimore to the Mikveh Israel Association in Philadelphia he declares: "We still believe that the renationalization of our people is still in the remote future."

In contrast to his modern viewpoint on racial discrimination, Morais is very traditional in his attitude to women. He explains the Orthodox separation of men and women in the synagogue as "solely and simply an endeavor to allow the mind to be centered on the worship, and prevent, as far as possible, its being directed to human objects mutually attractive." It is interesting that Morais stresses the mutual nature of the attraction, since it raises the question why women should not officiate and men be the onlookers, but perhaps it is too much to expect him even to entertain such a radical idea. In another address he comments that

Woman occupies a station, which, unless she forfeits it by urging it to extremes, will ever, as at present, enable her to carry into practice the distinguishing traits of her character, scattering around the path she treads the seeds of knowledge and charity.

He here utters a clear warning that woman should not exceed the bounds that nature has laid down.

Morais tried throughout his life to follow his principles of adherence to hu­manity, justice, and true religion as he saw it. Yet, as he felt death draw near, he was not happy. Just ten months before he died, he declares in a letter, "Life has never been to me a delightful gift from my parents, and that for reasons which it were idle and foolish to relate." On the face of it Morais' unhappiness may appear strange. One might say his life had been rather successful. He was widely respected, honored, and loved. He had children who looked up to him, the fruit of a seemingly happy marriage. He retained his mental faculties unimpaired until he had a stroke which took him with merciful speed. I should like to offer some tentative reasons for his depression, recognizing that there can be no guarantee of their accuracy.

I must preface my suggestions by outlining what seems to me to have been the Jewish recipe for survival during the long night of the Diaspora. Jewish militarism died in Masada, destroyed by the superior might of Rome. It was replaced, it seems to me, by a threefold strategy. The first was a devotion to a literary legacy including especially, but not exclusively, the Talmud, which buoyed the spirits of the Jew under next to impossible circumstances, and which assured him of his special relationship with God, interrupted, but not ended, and ensured him a glorious restoration at some imminent date. This was the theoretical underpinning of Jewish survival. The Jew might be spat upon in the street, but he had a secret which kept his ego intact and his will unbent, and which he daily mulled over in his books. Despite all appearances to the contrary he could declare with the Bible of Israel:

Who is like unto thee?

A people saved of the Lord

Who is thy helpful shield

And glorious sword.

Though thine enemies are deceitful to thee,

Thou shalt tread on their high places. (Deuteronomy 33:29)

Second, the Jew maintained a low profile. The stooping gait which is charac­teristic of the Jewish stereotype was not because of a burden of care or worn out observances, but rather to avoid any missiles that might be whizzing over­head. Third, the Jew learned to make himself useful, if not indispensable, by honing skills in language, communications and commerce which permitted his oppressor to hate him as much as he pleased, but tolerate him because he had to. As we well know, this threefold strategy did not always work—the long list of massacres of Jews is testimony to that—but it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

Now Morais was no innovator; he hewed faithfully to these principles. He evinced and tried to inculcate in others a deep love of Jewish sacred literature and espoused the life style which it displayed as a model. He avoided scandal and confrontation and tried, like Moses Montefiore, whom he greatly admired, to improve the lot of his fellows by persuasion and cajoling. He believed firmly that the Jew should be a useful, productive citizen and supported efforts to train young Jews in appropriate skills.

During his life in Philadelphia, Morais witnessed the total breakdown of this millennial strategy for Jewish survival. He saw the loved Talmud burned, not literally by non-Jews as had so often happened in the past ineffectually, but metaphorically by Jews. The Reform movement in Judaism which he had always opposed, without scandal of course, was riding high, destroying the first pillar of the survival strategy I have delineated. He cries out:

Forty-one years I have labored to raise a generation of consistent Israelites, but now that I have seen the departure from earth of nearly all whom I first met in March of 1851, I hear their succes­sors call Moses antiquated, and the rabbis besotted ... Alas for the ears doomed to listen to profanity ... Oh for a reaction, oh for a reawakening of the Jewish spirit.

It pained him deeply that a Jewish convention held in Milwaukee flouted di­etary laws, and he expressed satisfaction that such things did not happen in Philadelphia.

Moreover the pillars of low profile and usefulness were not functioning any more either. With the sharp decline in religious clout under the onslaught of Darwinism and new scientific discoveries, which seemed to attack the very foundations of religion, the charter of anti-Jewish feelings was rewritten. The writings of such racist theoreticians as Wilhelm Marr and Houston Stewart Chamberlain diverted these feelings from their religious context, and took away from the Jew the escape route through conversion that he had previously had. Judaism could no longer be shaken off. It was as undeniable as the color of one's skin. It was a racial characteristic. The Dreyfus trial, which was an active issue in the last years of Morais' life, symbolized the crumbling of these two pillars of Jewish survival. Here was a Jew of modest attainments and even more modest ambitions, who wanted nothing more than to be a useful, docile servant of the French Republic. Despite that, he was broken simply because he was a Jew, and all who rose in his defense, including Emile Zola, were mercilessly disposed of. One must, I think, read some of the anti-Semitic French writing of that period to comprehend the degree to which human beings are capable of detesting other human beings whom they do not even know. Only in this context can we understand the logical outcomes of these events, the Nazi Holocaust of the 1940s on the one hand, and the new kind of Jewish activism and intransigence which have so shocked a world still used to the type of Jewish quietism that Morais symbolizes.

I would speculate, then, that Morais' bitterness of soul was due to his re­alization that the traditional paths to which he had devoted his life could be trodden no longer. The social justice for which he longed was not to be achieved by passionate but always gentlemanly admonitions, and waiting patiently for the Messiah. It was to be done through strikes and boycotts and flaming headlines screaming "J'accuse!" and through the "renationalization of our people," as he called it. These measures were to be coupled with grim confrontations with others who had their own claims to the Jewish patrimony.

Whether the patient, moderate voice of a Morais has any place in our own time is perhaps one of the major questions we face. Let me conclude with his comment on the biblical injunction to "let thy brother live with thee." He declares:

The common adage "Live and let live" ... may seem liberal enough to some, perhaps too liberal in this age of unscrupulous competi­tion, but it falls far below the mark when measured by the Jewish standard of righteousness ... When I am asked to "let my brother live with me" I understand that I may not push him aside, so that I may walk more at large, but that I must make room for him ... "

Morais understood that the bedrock of social justice is the brotherhood of mankind, and that this recognition carries with it the positive duty to make room actively for our fellow human beings. It is a message that has lost none of its freshness, and it speaks as much to our generation as to his.

How the Torah Broke with Ancient Political Thought

How the Torah Broke with Ancient Political Thought[1]

 

by Joshua Berman

 

 

 

For some, the proposition that the Torah needs to be understood in its ancient context seems to diminish from the sacredness and divinity of the text. However, it is precisely through appreciating the Torah in its ancient context that we can arrive at a set of illuminating insights into how the Torah stands out from that context and reveals its divinity, particularly in its approach to political thought.

 

In ways that were astonishingly new and counterintuitive, and in ways that served the purposes of no known interest group, the political philosophy of the Torah rose like a phoenix out of the intellectual landscape of the ancient Near East. Throughout the ancient world the truth was self-evident: All men were not created equal. It is in the five books of the Torah that we find the birthplace of egalitarian thought. When seen against the backdrop of ancient norms, the social blueprint espoused by the Torah represents a series of quantum leaps in a sophisticated and interconnected matrix of theology, politics, and economics.

 

Equality: A Brief History

 

To appreciate the claim that the Torah represents the dawn of egalitarian thought, let us set the idea in historical perspective. It is only in the European revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that we find the rejection of the privileges of rank and nobility that resulted in the delegitimation of entrenched caste, feudal, and slave systems. Greece and Rome had known their respective reformers, yet nowhere in the classical world do we find a struggle to do away with class distinctions. Nor do we find this articulated as a desideratum by any of the ancient authors in their ideal systems. “From the hour of their birth,” wrote Aristotle, “some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”[2] It was assumed that some would be rich and that many, many more would be poor—not simply because that was the way things were, but because that was the way things were actually supposed to be. Justice, for Aristotle, meant that equals would be treated as equals and unequals as unequals. The Greeks and Romans possessed an overwhelming belief in the harmony of various classes.

The medieval mindset, too, believed that an ordered society was one in which each socioeconomic class performed its tasks for the common good. Social stratification was likewise endemic to the empires and lands of the ancient Near East. Nowhere in the region is there articulated the ideal of a society without class divisions founded on the control of economic, military, and political power. It is not merely that the notion of social mobility was unknown to the ancient world; it would have been unthinkable. These cultures believed that the only way that a society could function was if everyone knew his or her station in life. The modern ideas of free choice and equal opportunity would have struck them as surefire recipes for anarchy and chaos. It is in the books of the Torah that we find the world’s first blueprint for a social and religious order that seeks to lessen stratification and hierarchy and to place an unprecedented emphasis on the well-being and status of the common person.

 

Religion and Class in the Ancient World

 

The Torah’s revolution of political thought begins with its theology. The attempt to treat things political as distinct from things religious is a thoroughly modern notion; in not a single culture in the ancient Near East is there a word for “religion” as distinct from “state.” To appreciate the ancient mindset and the conceptual default settings that it supplied, imagine that we are archaeologists digging up an ancient culture called “America.” Deciphering its religious texts, we discover that the paramount god of the pantheon bore the title “Commander in Chief,” resided in a heavenly palace called “White House,” and would traverse the heavens in his vehicle, “Chariot One.” We further discover that Commander in Chief had a consort known as “First Lady”—herself a goddess of apparently meager powers, yet assumed by some to be a barometer of desirable values and fashionable dress. In the heavens was another palace, this one domed and populated by 535 lesser, regional deities, who routinely schemed and coalesced into partisan groupings, and who were known, on occasion, to have been able to depose the Commander in Chief.

 

Put differently, what we would discover is that the institutional order “down below” manifests the divine order of the cosmos “up above.” This phenomenon, wherein the political structure of the heavens mirrored that of the earthly realm, was widespread in the ancient world, and it is easy to see why. Political regimes are, by definition, artificial, constructed, and therefore tenuous. Always implicit is the question: Why should he reign? The imposed institutional order can receive immeasurable legitimation, however, if the masses underfoot believe that it is rooted in ultimate reality and unchanging truth, that the significance of the political order is located in a cosmic and sacred frame of reference. Ancient religion is the self-interested distortion that masks the human construction and exercise of power.

 

For example, we find that Enlil, the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon, utterly resembles his earthly counterpart, the king. Enlil, like his earthly counterpart, rules by delegating responsibilities to lesser dignitaries and functionaries. Like his earthly counterpart, he presides over a large assembly. He resides in a palace with his wives, children, and extended “house.” Generally speaking, the gods struggled to achieve a carefree existence and enjoyed large banquets in their honor. Like kings, gods needed a palace, or what we would call a temple, where they, too, could reside in splendor in separation from the masses, with subjects caring for them in a host of earthly matters.

 

If a god wanted something—say a temple repaired, or the borders expanded—he communicated through various agents with the king, and the king was his focus. The gods never spoke to the masses, nor imparted instruction to them. Within ancient cosmologies, the masses served a single purpose: to toil and offer tribute. They were servants, at the lowest rung of the metaphysical hierarchy. The gods were interested in the masses to the extent that a baron or feudal lord would have interest in ensuring the well-being of the serfs that run the estate and supply its needs. Servants, no doubt, play a vital role in any monarchical order, but it is an instrumental role. From an existential perspective, it is a decidedly diminished and undignified role.

 

Religion and Class in the Torah

 

By contrast, the Torah’s central accounts—the Exodus and the Revelation at Sinai—preempt claims of election and immanent hierarchy within the Israelite nation. The Exodus story effectively meant that no member of the children of Israel could lay claim to elevated status. All emanate from the Exodus—a common, seminal, liberating, but most importantly equalizing event. Although we normally think of the Revelation at Sinai in religious terms, its political implications are no less dramatic, and constitute the bedrock of the Torah’s egalitarian theology. Elsewhere, the gods communicated only to the kings, and had no interest in the masses. But at Sinai, God spoke only to the masses, without delineating any role whatever for kings and their attendant hierarchies. The ancients had no problem believing that the gods could split the seas, or descend on a mountaintop in a storm of fire. Nevertheless, the stories of the Exodus and Sinai necessitated an enormous stretch of the imagination, because they required listeners to believe in political events that were without precedent and utterly improbable, even in mythological terms. Slaves had never been known to overthrow their masters. Gods had never been known to speak to an entire people.

 

The pact or covenant between God and Israel displays many common elements with what are known in biblical studies as ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties, which were formed between a great king and a weaker one. In these treaties, we typically find that the more powerful king acts on behalf of a weaker, neighboring king; sensing an opportunity to foster a loyal ally, he may send food during a famine, or soldiers to break a siege. In return, the lesser king demonstrates his appreciation to the powerful one by agreeing to a series of steps that express his gratitude and fealty. In these treaties the vassal king retains his autonomy and is treated like royalty when he visits the palace of the powerful king. Having been saved from Egypt by God, the children of Israel sign on at Sinai to a vassal treaty as sign of fealty, becoming junior partners to the sovereign king, God. The theological breakthrough of the Torah was the transformation of the metaphysical status of the masses, of the common person, to a new height, and the vitiation of nobles, royalty, and the like. The common man, in short, received an upgrade from king’s servant to servant king.

 

Yet no less significant is the Torah’s call that these stories should be promulgated among the people as their history. The point requires a note of context for us as moderns. Although there are over one million inscriptions in our possession from the ancient Near East, there is nowhere evidence of a national narrative that a people tells itself about its collective, national life, of moments of achievement or of despair, recorded for posterity. Stories abound in the ancient Near East—but they revolve around the exploits of individual gods, kings, and nobles. The most important audience of these materials was the gods themselves—as witnessed by the fact that these texts were often discovered in temple libraries, buried, or in other inaccessible locations. Myths were recited to remind the gods of their responsibilities. Details of a king’s achievements on the battlefield were to constitute a report to a deity about the king’s activities on his or her behalf; they were not composed for the masses. The Kadesh Inscriptions of Rameses II were the exception that proves the rule: Those inscriptions were not only textual, but pictorial; and they were not only carved on stone, but copied and disseminated via papyri. However, most inscriptions of royal activity in ancient times were limited to monumental structures in writing that was inaccessible to the common person.

We may take a page from the history of technology of communication to understand the implication of the Torah’s call to promulgate the accounts of Israel’s early history. The distribution of printed texts in the early modern period is said to have occasioned the birth of modern citizenship within the nation-state. The vernacular languages that were now fashioned and standardized led to the creation of newspapers and novels designed for a mass readership comprised of people who were in disparate locales but could now envision themselves as a public sharing a common heritage, destiny, and range of interests—religious, social, and political. People could now imagine themselves as a political collective, and thus was born the political “we.”

 

It is in the Torah that we see for the first time the realization that the identity of a people may be formed around an awareness of its past. Indeed, the Hebrew Bible is the first work of literature before the Hellenistic period that may be termed a national history. Moreover, the Torah displays an attitude toward the dissemination of texts among the populace that is in sharp contrast to the relationship between texts and society that we find elsewhere in the ancient Near East. It is a contrast, further, that is a reflection of the egalitarian agenda that the Torah seeks to pursue, over against the entrenchment of class distinctions. In an age and place such as our own, where literacy is nearly ubiquitous, access to texts of many kinds and the knowledge they bear is unfettered and, in theory, available to all. But in the ancient world physical access to written texts and the skills necessary to read them were everywhere highly restricted. Indeed, in the cultures of the ancient Near East as well as of ancient Greece, the production and use of texts was inextricably bound up with the formation of class distinctions: Those who possessed the capacity to read and write were members of a trained scribal class who worked in the service of the ruling order.

 

Writing in the ancient Near East was originally a component of bureaucratic activity. Systems of writing were essential for the administration of large states. Indeed, the elite in these cultures had a vested interest in the status quo, which prevented others from gaining control of an important means of communication. Far from being interested in its simplification, scribes often chose to proliferate signs and values. The texts produced in Mesopotamia were composed exclusively by scribes and exclusively for scribal use—administrative or cultic—or for the training of yet other scribes.

The Cambridge anthropologist Jack Goody notes that a culture’s willingness to disseminate its religious literature inevitably reflects an emphasis on the individual within that culture.[3] The comment sheds light on the Torah’s agenda to establish an ennobled egalitarian citizenry, as we are witness to an impetus within the biblical vision to share the divine word with the people of Israel. Moses reads the divine word to the people at Sinai (Ex. 24:1–8). Periodically, the people are to gather at the Temple and hear public readings of the Torah (Deut. 31:10–13). It is telling that the Tanakh never depicts kohanim or scribes as jealous or protective of their writing skills, as is found in neighboring cultures.

 

In sum, we have seen something remarkable about the most basic, familiar aspects of the Torah. The idea of covenant; the story of the Exodus; the fact that the Torah is a written, publicized text—these are as significant politically as they are religiously. They each point to the equal and high standing of the common person in Israel.

 

The Torah’s Radical Conception of Political Office

 

Turning from theology, we see that the Torah radically revamped regnant notions of political office and the exercise of power. What is most striking about the Torah’s statements on political office are two radical ideas about how these offices are to be governed. First, we are witness here to the transition from the law of rule to the rule of law. Elsewhere in the ancient world, the kings composed and promulgated law, but were above it, not subject to it. Before the thinkers of Athens came along, the Torah arrived at the notion of equality before the law. All public institutions in the Torah—the judiciary, the priesthood, the monarchy, the institution of prophecy—are subordinated to the law. Moreover, the law is a public text whose dictates are meant to be widely known, thus making abuse of power more obvious and safeguarding the common citizenry.

Second, we may see that the most important body of authority in the polity envisioned by the Torah is none other than the people themselves. The Torah addresses the fraternal and egalitarian citizenry in the second person, “you,” and charges them with appointing a king—if they desire one—and appointing judges. Put differently, the Torah specifies no nominating body for appointing leaders or representatives. Rather, the collective “you”—the common citizenry—bears ultimate responsibility to choose a king and to appoint judges. From American history we know how unthinkable it was only a few generations ago for many to contemplate the notion that persons of color or women should play a role in choosing who rules. For the royal monarchies of the ancient Near East, the notion that the masses—who elsewhere were serfs and servants—would hold any sway over those that ruled them was equally unfathomable.

 

If the people did elect to have a king, the Torah was determined that he should be but a shadow of what a king was elsewhere. Elsewhere kings played central roles in the cult. In the Torah he plays none. Elsewhere, the king aims to build a strong army. The Torah calls for him to have a limited treasury and to forgo a cavalry (Deut. 17:16–17), limitations that would leave him commanding only a small army. Moreover, were a royal chariot force to serve as the backbone of the nation’s defense, it would inevitably emerge as an elite military class. The great jurist of Athens, Solon, extended preferred status to the members of the cavalry over other citizens. But what confers status in the Torah is citizenship in the covenantal community, and this is shared by all. Elsewhere, the king would consolidate his power through a network of political marriages. The Torah forbids the king from taking a large number of wives (Deut. 17:17).

 

Finally, we see in the Torah a page in the history of constitutional thought, one that would not be written again until the American founding. It pertains to a highly advanced notion of the separation of powers. Classical Greek political thought had already understood that in the absence of a strong center in the figure of a monarch or a tyrant, factionalism threatened the stability of the polity. It was inevitable that the population would contain rich and poor, nobles and commoners. The absence of homogeneity led classical theorists to balance power by ensuring that each faction within society would receive a share of the rule. Yet, the balance of power was not a balance of institutions of government, as we are accustomed to today. Rather, the balance was achieved by allowing each of the socioeconomic factions a functioning role within each seat of government. Thus, in Roman jurist Polybius’ conception, the legislative branch of government in the republic was to consist of two bodies—the senate for the nobles and the assembly for the commoners—with each institution permanently enshrined in law.

 

The notion that the effective division of power was predicated upon its distribution across preexisting societal seats of power was one that would hold sway throughout most of the history of republican thought, from Roman theorists through early modern thinkers. It is central even to the thinking of Montesquieu, the father of modern constitutional theory, who is credited with proposing the separation of powers into three branches—executive, legislative, and judiciary—in his 1748 work, The Spirit of the Laws. Looking at the English model of his day, Montesquieu held that the legislative power should consist of a body of hereditary nobles and of a body of commoners. He saw hereditary nobility not as a necessary evil, nor even as an immutable fact of life, but rather as a boon to effective government. The nobility, with its inherent wealth and power, would serve as a moderating force within government against the abuses of the monarch. Moreover, the fact that the nobility’s strength was derived from its own resources would endow its members with a sense of independence. This, together with developed education and time for reflection, would enable the nobles to contribute to effective government in a way that members of the lower classes could not. Montesquieu could not conceive of a classless society and a regime in which the division of powers was purely institutional and instrumental, where the eligibility to hold office was independent of class.

 

Here the Torah stands distinct. For the first time in history we see the articulation of a division of at least some powers along lines of institution and instrument rather than of class and kinship, where office legitimizes preexisting societal seats of power. Anyone who is “among your brethren” (Deut. 17:15) is eligible to be appointed king. Moreover, the king is appointed by the collective “you” that we mentioned before. How that selection occurs, apparently, is an issue that the Torah deliberately left open so as to imply that there is no body that a priori has a greater divine imprimatur than any other. In this sense, the Torah’s notion of offices that are entirely institutional and instrumental is an idea that would again appear only with the American Founding Fathers.

 

The same is true with regard to the judiciary, as outlined in the book of Deuteronomy. Anyone may be appointed judge, and no less importantly, anyone, in theory, is eligible to participate in the process of appointing judges (Deut. 16:17). One could have thought of any number of bodies that could have been charged with appointing judges: the king, the prophets, the kohanim, or other judges. But the Torah insists: “Judges and officers you shall appoint for yourself” (16:18). The appointment of judges is mandated with the sole purpose of achieving the execution of justice, rather than the assignment of office to perpetuate the standing of a noble class. As Montesquieu noted in the eighteenth century, it is critical that the people appoint judges, so that they have faith in the justice that is meted out. The only source prior to Montesquieu to arrive at this insight was the Torah.

 

God the Economist

 

The Torah understood that in order to create an egalitarian order, it would also need to re-envision the economic structure of society, for without equity, there is no equality. What the Torah proposes is the Western tradition’s first prescription for an economic order that seeks to minimize the distinctions of class based on wealth, and instead to ensure the economic benefit of the common citizen.

 

A ubiquitous feature of the socioeconomic landscape of the ancient Near East was the threat faced by the common person of falling into irreversible insolvency. Social stratification would emerge as the common people would have to sell off their farm animals, their land, and even their own freedom to repay debts. Famine, drought, or war could lead to precisely the kind of economic landscape we witness in the account of Egypt under Joseph, in Genesis 47. The Torah sought to remedy this through radical legislation on several fronts. Elsewhere, the norm was that land was owned by the palace and by the temple. The Torah, in contrast, knows of no land holding for either king or cult. Instead, nearly the entire land is given to the people themselves, in an association of free farmers and herdsmen, subsumed within a single social class. The idea that wide tracts of available land should be divided among the commoners was unprecedented. Perhaps the most famous example of such an initiative from modern times is the American Homestead Act of 1862. With the Great Plains open to mass settlement, nearly any person 21 years of age or older could acquire, at virtually no cost, a tract of 160 acres that would become his after five years of residence and farming. For millions of new arrivals and other landless Americans, the Homestead Act was an opportunity to acquire assets and to bring equality of economic standing in line with equality before the law.

 

The Torah also took specific aim at the institution of taxation. Elsewhere, taxes to the state and to the cult were deeply integrated. In the Torah, no taxes are specified for the state. Of course, no regime would be able to function without taxing its populace—but the Torah apparently envisioned that taxes would be levied without sacral sanction, as was so prevalent elsewhere. God would not be invoked as the tax collector. Moreover, far less surplus is demanded from the people of Israel for the Temple than was customary in the imperial cults of the ancient Near East.

 

Whereas elsewhere cultic personnel controlled vast tracts of land, the Torah balances the status that these groups maintain in the cult by denying them arable lands of their own. They are dependent upon the people they represent for their subsistence, and in some passages are even grouped together with other categories of the underprivileged. The Torah further legislates that one type of tax—the ma’aser ani—should not be paid to the Temple at all, but rather distributed to the needy—the first known program of taxation legislated for a social purpose (Deut. 14:28–29).

 

What is most remarkable about the Torah’s economic reforms is the manner in which the new economy is incorporated into a new measure of time. Elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the calendar was based upon readily perceptible astronomical rhythms: The counting of days stems from observing the rising and setting of the sun; of months, from observations of the waxing and waning of the moon; of years, from observing the seasons and position of the sun. The ancient Near East, however, knows no calendar that incorporates the notion of a week. The week is the invention of the Torah, and is rooted, of course, in the Torah’s account of Creation, in which God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. The result is that throughout the Torah the Shabbat principle determines the schedule of the laws of social welfare, and serves as a great equalizing force between haves and have-nots. Shabbat day is a day of rest for all. In the seventh year—the Sabbatical year—the field lies fallow and is available for all to enjoy, and debt release is enacted. Time itself is marshaled in the establishment of the egalitarian agenda.

 

A Revolutionary Document

 

What power interest could have been served by this program? We have already seen that it was a program that favored neither the king, nor the rich, nor the priesthood. Prophets are hardly mentioned in the Torah, and the criteria set out for validating an individual as a prophet are exacting in the extreme. Sages or philosophers are nowhere mentioned at all. No immediate candidate jumps out of the pages of the Torah as the interested party in the formulation of this new egalitarian order.

 

Throughout the ancient world, the truth was self-evident: All men were not created equal. They saw the world they had created and, behold, it was good. It was good, they deemed, because it was ordered around a rigid hierarchy, where everyone knew his station in life, each according to his class. For the first time in history, the Torah presented a vision to the masses in which the gods were something other than their own selves writ large, a vision with a radically different understanding of God and humanity. It introduced new understandings of the law, of political office, of military power, of taxation, of social welfare. It conceived in radically new ways the importance of national narrative, of technologies of communication, and of a culture’s calibration of time. What we find in the Torah is a platform for social order marked with the imprint of divinity. Within the annals of political thought it is difficult to think of another document that revolutionized so much in such anonymity, and with so little precedent to inspire it.

 

Of course, these notions of equality are but early precursors of our more developed notions of equality today. Yet, the Torah instructs us with the implicit understanding that society changes, and with it, the form in which we fulfill God’s will. We can marvel at how utterly removed the Torah’s political thought was from the prevailing spirit about such things in ancient times. And, at the same time, we can appreciate that without believing that we are limited to the notion of equality as it had been expressed in those ancient times. Rather, the Torah serves as an inspiration for the further elaboration of those ideas as times change and events warrant so doing.

 

 

[1] This chapter is a concise presentation of the arguments I make in my monograph, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

[2] Aristotle, Politics BK1 1254a20, translation by Benjamin Jowett, available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html.

[3] Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 2.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel will give a four-part series on Zoom

On Mondays, October 28, November 4, 11, and 18, from 1:00-2:00 pm EST, Rabbi Hayyim Angel will give a four-part series. It is entitled, "How to Learn Tanakh: Four Illustrative Torah Stories. In this series, we will explore four different texts of the Torah, and weave through classical and contemporary commentary to unpack the meaning of each narrative. The series also will highlight learning methodology that applies to all Tanakh learning.

The classes are held by Lamdeinu Teaneck. To register, go to https://www.lamdeinu.org/programs/

Thoughts for Succoth

Thoughts for Succoth

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

 

Most of our religious observances are indoors--in our homes, in our synagogues.We generally do not like to create a public spectacle of our religious experiences, but we behave modestly and try not to call attention to ourselves as we perform mitzvoth.

There are some exceptions to this. On Hanukkah, it is a particular mitzvah to publicize the miracle by placing our hanukkiyot where they can be seen by the passers-by. Succoth also has some aspects of taking our religious observances into the public square. The Talmud records the custom in ancient Jerusalem where people carried their lulavim into the street when they went to synagogue, when they visited the sick, and when they went to comfort mourners. Even today, many Jews carry their lulavim in public. When it comes to the succah itself, this structure is generally in view of the public: it's built on a patio, or yard, or courtyard etc. i.e. where Jews and non-Jews can see it

Although so much of our religious life is indoors--in the private domain of family and friends--we are sometimes obligated to make a public demonstration of our religious commitments. On Hanukkah, we want to remind the entire world that the Jews heroically defended themselves against the Syrian Hellenists and won independence for the Jewish people. We want everyone to know that, with God's help, we were victorious against powerful and far more numerous enemies.

On Succoth, we also want to convey a message to the general public. The lulav and etrog are symbolic of weapons; they indicate that we are proud of our faith and we are prepared to fight for the honor of our Torah and for our people. The succah is a symbolic statement that although we wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, God's providence protected us, and we ultimately entered the Promised Land. The public demonstration of these mitzvoth indicates our pride and commitment in who we are and what we represent. If we have respect for ourselves and our traditions, we can expect that the nations of the world will also come to respect Judaism.

Sometimes it is necessary for us to stand up in public on behalf of our faith and our people. When Jews betray their faith and their people in public, this undermines the entire Jewish enterprise. If Jewish storekeepers open their shops on Shabbat and holidays, why should non-Jews respect our Sabbath and holy days? If Jews ignore the laws of kashruth, why should non-Jews respect our dietary laws? If Jews don't live up to the high standards of Torah ethics, why should non-Jews admire the Jewish way of life? If Jewish political figures hold press conferences and public meetings on Jewish holy days, why should non-Jews show any deference to our holy days?

Succoth is an important reminder that being Jewish also entails a public stance, the courage to be who we are and stand for our traditions without embarrassment or apology. We need to remind ourselves and others that our holy days and traditions cannot be trampled upon and cast aside in a rubbish bin. If we do not stand up for ourselves, who will stand up for us? And if we do stand up for ourselves, we will be worthy heirs of a great people who have given so much--and have so much more to give--to our world.

The Use of Traditional Scholarship to Build Bridges and Mend Rifts

“The Disciples of the Wise Increase Peace in the World”:

The Use of Traditional Scholarship to Build Bridges and Mend Rifts

 

(This article appeared in Hayyim Angel, The Keys to the Palace: Essays Exploring the Religious Value of Reading the Bible (New York: Kodesh Press, 2017), pp. 292­–308.)

 

Introduction

 

At the end of five different tractates of the Talmud, we find the following teaching:

 

Rabbi Eleazar said in the name of Rabbi Hanina: The disciples of the wise increase peace in the world, as it says, And all your children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children [banayikh] (Isaiah 54:13). Read not banayikh [“your children”] but bonayikh [“your builders”] (Berakhot 64a, cf. Yevamot 122b, Nazir 66b, Keritot 28b, Tamid 32b).

 

Genuine Torah scholars are supposed to be builders of society and increase peace in the world. When rabbis and scholars are seeking heaven and communal unity, their Torah scholarship is the ideal tool to unite diverse people.

 

The Talmud celebrates the diversity of the Jewish people by coining a blessing: 

 

Rabbi Hamnuna further said: If one sees a crowd of Israelites, he should say: Blessed is He who discerns secrets (Berakhot 58a).

 

Rather than considering conformity a blessing, the Talmud idealizes diversity as something for which God deserves praise. We seek Jewish unity, but not conformity.[1]

Command of a multiplicity of opinions, the hallmark of a Torah scholar, can be used to teach the many legitimate avenues into Torah. The sixteenth-century commentator Rabbi Samuel Eidels (Maharsha) explains that God revealed the Torah in the presence of 600,000 Israelites because the Torah can be interpreted in 600,000 different ways![2] Although the cliché “two Jews, three opinions” may be true, a more telling adage would be, “one learned Jew, dozens of opinions.” When Torah scholars learn sources in depth, they realize that every single point is debated by the greatest rabbinic minds. The dazzling range of possibilities teaches uncertainty, and also that people can hold significantly different opinions and still be unified under the roof of the Torah.

We live in an age of terrible fragmentation. Whereas debates are hardwired into Jewish tradition, rifts are detrimental to the Jewish community. Often, rifts arise when each side adopts a partial truth from within tradition to the near-exclusion of another partial truth held by the other side. Good Torah scholarship, in its attempt to navigate the two halves, offers an opportunity to build bridges and mend these rifts.

In this essay, we will briefly survey a few areas pertaining to (1) relations between Orthodox Jews; (2) relations between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews; and (3) relations between Jews and non-Jews. The guiding principle is that a faithful commitment to Torah and unity coupled with the range of opinions from within tradition offers models to build bridges and mend rifts without demanding conformity.

 

Within Orthodoxy

 

Religious Authority of Midrash

Jewish tradition venerates earlier rabbinic scholarship and places a premium on the Talmud and other midrashic collections. Simultaneously, the peshat school from the post-talmudic Geonim down to the present has established that the biblical text remains at the center of inquiry, and non-legal rabbinic teachings are not binding. The scholarly pursuit of truth in Torah is imperative.[3]

            Many within the Orthodox world adopt only half of that truth at the expense of the other. One side dogmatically embraces selected talmudic and midrashic teachings as literal, and insists that this position is required as part of having faith in the teachings of the Sages. Another group dismisses the talmudic traditions as being far removed from biblical text and reality. The first group accuses the second of denigration of the Sages, whereas the second group accuses the first of being fundamentalists who ignore science and scholarship. 

            The truth is, this rift has been around for a long time. Rambam (1138–1204) lamented this very imbalance in his introduction to Perek Helek in tractate Sanhedrin. He divided Jews into three categories:

 

The first group is the largest one….They understand the teachings of the sages only in their literal sense, in spite of the fact that some of their teachings when taken literally, seem so fantastic and irrational that if one were to repeat them literally, even to the uneducated, let alone sophisticated scholars, their amazement would prompt them to ask how anyone in the world could believe such things true, much less edifying. The members of this group are poor in knowledge. One can only regret their folly. Their very effort to honor and to exalt the sages in accordance with their own meager understanding actually humiliates them. As God lives, this group destroys the glory of the Torah of God and says the opposite of what it intended. For He said in His perfect Torah, “The nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6)….

 

Such individuals are pious, but foolish. They misunderstand the intent of the Sages, and draw false conclusions in the name of religion. 

Misguided as this first group is, at least it is preferable to the second group, which also takes the words of the Sages literally but rejects their teachings as a result:

 

The second group is also a numerous one. It, too, consists of persons who, having read or heard the words of the sages, understand them according to their simple literal sense and believe that the sages intended nothing else than what may be learned from their literal interpretation. Inevitably, they ultimately declare the sages to be fools, hold them up to contempt, and slander what does not deserve to be slandered…. The members of this group are so pretentiously stupid that they can never attain genuine wisdom…. This is an accursed group, because they attempt to refute men of established greatness whose wisdom has been demonstrated to competent men of science.... 

 

The first group is reverent to the Sages, whereas the second group is open to science and scholarship and therefore rejects the Sages and their teachings. Both groups fail because of their fundamental misunderstanding of the Sages. 

            Rambam then celebrates that rare ideal scholar, who combines those two half-truths into the whole truth:

 

There is a third group. Its members are so few in number that it is hardly appropriate to call them a group…. This group consists of people to whom the greatness of our sages is clear…. They know that the sages did not speak nonsense, and it is clear to them that the words of the sages contain both an obvious and a hidden meaning. Thus, whenever the sages spoke of things that seem impossible, they were employing the style of riddle and parable which is the method of truly great thinkers....[4]

 

            In addition to Rambam’s insistence on the fact that the Sages did not always mean their words literally, we must add that the greatest peshat commentators, from Rabbi Saadiah Gaon to Rashi to Ibn Ezra to Ramban to Abarbanel and so many others, venerated the Sages without being bound by all of their non-legal comments. These rabbinic thinkers combine reverence for the Sages with a commitment to scholarship and integrity to the text of the Torah.[5]

 

Openness to Non-Orthodox and Non-Jewish Scholarship[6]

Jewish tradition’s commitment to truth should lead us to accept the truth from whoever says it. Rambam lived by this axiom,[7] and many great rabbinic figures before and after him similarly espoused this principle.[8]On the other hand, it is difficult to distinguish between knowledge and theory. Scholarship invariably is accompanied by conscious and unconscious biases of scholars, some of which may stray from traditional Jewish thought and belief. 

This tension is expressed poignantly in an anecdote cited by Rabbi Joseph ibn Aknin (c. 1150–c. 1220). After noting the works of several rabbinic predecessors who utilized Christian and Muslim writings in their commentaries, he quotes a story related by Shemuel Ha-Nagid:

 

Rabbi Mazliah b. Albazek the rabbinic judge of Saklia told [Shemuel Ha-Nagid] when he came from Baghdad… that one day in [Rabbi Hai Gaon’s] yeshiva they studied the verse, “let my head not refuse such choice oil” (Psalms 141:5), and those present debated its meaning. Rabbi Hai of blessed memory told Rabbi Mazliah to go to the Catholic Patriarch and ask him what he knew about this verse, and this upset [Rabbi Mazliah]. When [Rabbi Hai] saw that Rabbi Mazliah was upset, he rebuked him, “Our saintly predecessors who are our guides solicited information on language and interpretation from many religious communities—and even of shepherds, as is well known!”[9]

 

All scholarship is valuable, but all scholars are necessarily biased. There is no easy solution to this dilemma, and rabbinic scholars continue to espouse different approaches for the proper balance in this issue.[10]

 

Sins of Biblical Heroes

In recent years, particularly in Israel, there has been a raging debate regarding the sins of biblical heroes. One side insists that even ostensibly egregious sins, such as David and Bathsheba-Uriah (2 Samuel 11), Solomon and idolatry (1 Kings 11), and others should not be taken at face value. On the contrary, numerous rabbinic sources insist that these biblical figures did not violate cardinal sins as the plain sense of the text suggests.

Others maintain that the biblical texts speak for themselves. The Bible exposes the flaws of its greatest heroes, teaching that nobody is above the law, and nobody is perfect. There also are many rabbinic sources in support of this position.

            In this instance, each side of the debate represents a half-truth. One group properly teaches a deep sense of awe and reverence for our heroes, whereas the other group correctly insists that nobody is above the Torah, and even the greatest figures are vulnerable to sin. Both of these messages emerge from the biblical texts and rabbinic tradition. However, people who adopt only one or the other half-truth cannot even engage with one another. The first group accuses the other of irreverence, whereas the second group protests that the first ignores the biblical text and its commentaries, and also justifies the immorality of religious leaders in the name of tradition.

            Responsible rabbis and educators carefully integrate those two half-truths into a balanced picture more in tune with the biblical texts and rabbinic tradition, teaching that nobody is above the Torah, while maintaining proper awe and reverence for our heroes.[11]

 

Orthodox and Non-Orthodox Jews

 

Judaism includes the basic tenets of belief in one God, divine revelation of the Torah, and a concept of divine providence and reward-punishment. Although there have been debates over the precise definitions and contours of Jewish belief, these core principles are universally accepted as part of Orthodox tradition.[12]

            The question for believing Jews today is: How should we relate to the overwhelming majority of Jews, who likely do not fully believe in classical Jewish beliefs? 

As we will discuss at length in the following essay, there are two medieval models to approach this issue. Rambam adopts a dogmatic approach: Jews who do not fully believe in all central Jewish beliefs are considered heretics and must be excluded from the community. Rambam includes even Jews who are ignorant of Jewish belief or who make honest errors in the category of heretics.

Most medieval rabbinic figures, however, distinguish between heretics who willfully reject Jewish beliefs; and Jews who make honest errors or are ignorant. We must teach the latter, and include them in the community. We ideally want all Jews to learn, observe, and believe in the Torah and tradition. However, we should not exclude as heretics those who fall short unless they intentionally wish to exclude themselves from the community.

The approach espoused by Ra’avad, Duran, and Albo reflects a productive means of addressing today’s fragmented society from within tradition. We stand for an eternal set of beliefs and practices, and we embrace and teach all Jews as we build community together.

 

Jews and Non-Jews

 

The Torah embraces universalistic values that apply to all humanity. All people are descended from one couple, so there is no room for bigotry (Sanhedrin 37a). All people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26).[13] There is a universal morality demanded by the Torah, codified in the Talmud as the Seven Noahide Laws. The messianic visions of the prophets foresee that all humanity will one day live in harmony by accepting God and the requisite moral life demanded by the Torah.[14]

            Simultaneously, God made a singular covenant with the people of Israel through the Torah. Israel plays a unique role as a “kingdom of priests and holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), has a separate set of laws revealed by God, and occupies a central role in the covenantal history between God and humanity. 

            Many within the Jewish community focus almost exclusively on the particularistic elements of tradition, and consequently look down upon non-Jews and non-observant Jews. Many other Jews focus almost exclusively on the universalistic vision of Judaism, ignoring Jewish belief, law, and values in favor of modern Western values. Needless to say, the respective espousing of half-truths again leads to rifts within the community.

            Tradition teaches a sensitive balance of universalism and particularism.[15] The Torah has a special vision for Jews and simultaneously embraces all of humanity in an effort to perfect society.[16]

 

Conclusion      

 

            We have seen several areas where traditional scholarship can build bridges between half-truths that divide people. Within the Orthodox world, reverence toward heroes and the Sages must be balanced with fidelity to the biblical text, commitment to prophetic integrity, and commitment to truth in scholarship. In relating to non-observant or non-believing Jews, we must espouse and teach traditional belief and observance, but not exclude those who are not fully connected to tradition. The Torah teaches both particularistic and universalistic values, and it is critical to adopt both in a faithful religious worldview. This position enables believing Jews to sincerely love all humanity and to long for universal morality and harmony.

            It is easier to espouse a half-truth than to struggle for the whole truth. The perils of this approach are not theoretical, but an unfortunate and avoidable part of our current reality. It is up to the disciples of the wise to build the ideological basis for increasing peace in the world by upholding and promoting the eternal values of the Torah. 

 

Notes


 


[1] See further in Rabbi Marc D. Angel, “Orthodoxy and Diversity,” Conversations 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 70–81.

[2] Maharsha, Hiddushei Aggadot on Berakhot 58a.

[3] See, for example, Rabbi Marc D. Angel, “Authority and Dissent: A Discussion of Boundaries,” Tradition 25:2 (Winter 1990), pp. 18–27; Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi, Aseh Lekha Rav, vol. 5, resp. 49 (pp. 304–307); Rabbi Michael Rosensweig, “Elu va-Elu Divre Elokim Hayyim: Halakhic Pluralism and Theories of Controversy,” Tradition 26:3 (Spring 1992), pp. 4–23; Marc Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis: A Thirteenth-Century Commentary on the Aggadah (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 1–20; Rabbi Moshe Shamah, “On Interpreting Midrash,” Conversations 15 (Winter 2013), pp. 27–39.

[4] Translation from the Maimonides Heritage Center, https://www.mhcny.org/qt/1005.pdf. Accessed March 15, 2016.

[5] See further in Rabbi Marc D. Angel, “Reflections on Torah Education and Mis-Education,” Conversations 24 (Winter 2016), pp. 18–32; Rabbi Nahum E. Rabinovitch, “Faith in the Sages: What Is It?” (Hebrew), in Mesilot Bilvavam (Ma’alei Adumim: Ma’aliyot, 2014), pp. 103–114.

[6] See Hayyim Angel, “The Use of Non-Orthodox Scholarship in Orthodox Bible Learning,” Conversations 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 17–19; Nathaniel Helfgot, “Reflections on the Use of Non-Orthodox Wisdom in the Orthodox Study of Tanakh,” Conversations 15 (Winter 2013), pp. 53–61.

[7] In his introduction to Pirkei Avot (Shemonah Perakim), Rambam writes, “Know that the things about which we shall speak in these chapters and in what will come in the commentary are not matters invented on my own.… They are matters gathered from the discourse of the Sages in the Midrash, the Talmud, and other compositions of theirs, as well as from the discourse of both the ancient and modern philosophers and from the compositions of many men. Hear the truth from whoever says it.” Translation in Ethical Writings of Maimonides, Raymond Weiss and Charles Butterworth (New York: Dover, 1983), p. 60. 

[8] See, for example, Ephraim E. Urbach, “The Pursuit of Truth as a Religious Obligation” (Hebrew), in Ha-Mikra va-Anahnu, ed. Uriel Simon (Ramat-Gan: Institute for Judaism and Thought in Our Time, 1979), pp. 13–27; Uriel Simon, “The Pursuit of Truth that Is Required for Fear of God and Love of Torah” (Hebrew), ibid., pp. 28–41; Marvin Fox, “Judaism, Secularism, and Textual Interpretation,” in Modern Jewish Ethics: Theory and Practice, ed. Marvin Fox (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1975), pp. 3–26. See also Hayyim Angel, “The Yeshivah and the Academy: How We Can Learn from One Another in Biblical Scholarship,” reprinted in this volume.

[9] Hitgalut ha-Sodot ve-Hofa’at ha-Me’orot, ed. Abraham S. Halkin (Jerusalem: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1964), pp. 493–495. In Hagigah 15b, God Himself initially refused to quote Rabbi Meir in the heavenly court since Rabbi Meir continued to learn from his teacher Elisha b. Avuyah, though the latter had become a heretic. However, Rabbah instantly rejected God’s policy, stressing that Rabbi Meir carefully sifted out the valuable teachings from the “peel.” Consequently, God reversed His policy and began quoting “His son” Rabbi Meir in the heavenly court.

[10] See further discussion in Hayyim Angel, “From Black Fire to White Fire: Conversations about Religious Tanakh Learning Methodology,” reprinted in this volume; Hayyim Angel, “The Literary-Theological Study of Tanakh,” afterword to Moshe Sokolow, Tanakh: An Owner’s Manual: Authorship, Canonization, Masoretic Text, Exegesis, Modern Scholarship and Pedagogy (Brooklyn, NY: Ktav, 2015), pp. 192–207; Hayyim Angel, “Faith and Scholarship Can Walk Together: Rabbi Amnon Bazak on the Challenges of Academic Bible Study in Traditional Learning,” Tradition 47:3 (Fall 2014), pp 78–88; Rabbi Shalom Carmy, “Always Connect,” Conversations 15 (Winter 2013), pp. 1–12; Rabbi Shalom Carmy, “A Room with a View, but a Room of Our Own,” in Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations, ed. Shalom Carmy (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1996), pp. 1–38.

[11] See, for example, Rabbi Amnon Bazak, Ad ha-Yom ha-Zeh: Until This Day: Fundamental Questions in Bible Teaching (Hebrew), ed. Yoshi Farajun (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 2013), pp. 432–470; Rabbi Shalom Carmy, “To Get the Better of Words: An Apology for Yir’at Shamayim in Academic Jewish Studies,” Torah U-Madda Journal 2 (1990), pp. 7–24; Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, “A Living Torah” (Hebrew), in Hi Sihati: Al Derekh Limmud ha-Tanakh, ed. Yehoshua Reiss (Jerusalem: Maggid, 2013), pp. 17–30; Rabbi Yaakov Medan, David u-Vat Sheva: Ha-Het, ha-Onesh, ve-ha-Tikkun (Hebrew) (Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2002), pp. 7–24; Rabbi Joel B. Wolowelsky, “Kibbud Av and Kibbud Avot: Moral Education and Patriarchal Critiques,” Tradition 33:4 (Summer 1999), pp. 35–44.

[12] See Marc B. Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004). Review Essay, Rabbi Yitzchak Blau, “Flexibility with a Firm Foundation: On Maintaining Jewish Dogma,” Torah U-Madda Journal 12 (2004), pp. 179–191.

[13] See Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, In His Image: The Image of God in Man (New Milford, CT: Maggid, 2015). 

[14] See especially Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (London: Continuum, 2002). See also Alan Brill, Judaism and Other Religions: Models of Understanding (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010); Alan Brill, Judaism and World Religions: Encountering Christianity, Islam, and Eastern Traditions (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012); Alan Brill, “Many Nations Under God: Judaism and Other Religions,” Conversations 2 (Autumn 2008), pp. 39–49.

[15] See Rabbi Marc D. Angel, “The Universalistic Vision of Judaism,” Conversations 12 (Winter 2012), pp. 95–100; Rabbi Marc D. Angel, Voices in Exile: A Study in Sephardic Intellectual History (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1991), pp. 197–207; Rabbi Marc D. Angel with Hayyim Angel, Rabbi Haim David Halevi: Gentle Scholar, Courageous Thinker (Jerusalem: Urim, 2006), pp. 189–198.

[16] See Hayyim Angel, “‘The Chosen People’: An Ethical Challenge,” reprinted in this volume.

Four Species that Once United a Nation

 

It is probably safe to say that the dominant symbol in contemporary Jewish life today is the Star of David. It appears on or in almost every synagogue worldwide, no matter what its affiliation, hangs around the necks of an untold number of individuals, and is the focal point of the flag of the State of Israel. However, the Star of David was not always a Jewish emblem, let alone the central symbol in Jewish life. Surviving mosaics floors from synagogues of the Roman-Byzantine Period, such as those in Beit Alfa and Sussia, often depict other symbols, including three ritual objects: the seven-branched candelabra (menorah), the ram’s horn (shofar), and the so-called four species that the Torah commands Jews to take on the Festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles, Lev. 23.40; see below). 

The menorah was a centerpiece of the Temple. Fashioned from gold and lit daily, it was such a well-known Jewish image that the Romans recognized it and placed it on the Arch of Titus without any explanatory caption to symbolize Titus’s victory over Judea. The shofar was connected to Rosh Hashanah but also played an essential role in the history of the Jewish People (e.g., the conquest of Jericho; see Josh. 6) and in public prayer in times of distress. However, the use of the four species seems to have been limited to the Festival of Sukkot. While it is often difficult to say why certain symbols are adopted, it is particularly strange that the four species attained such an important place in ancient Jewish self-consciousness, given their limited place in Jewish life. A fresh look at the character of the commandment may shed some light on why these plants assumed a place in Jewish self-identity that went far beyond the Festival of Sukkot.

Leviticus 23.40 commands, “And on the first day you should take the fruit of a beautiful tree, the branches of the palm, the bough of the thick tree, and willow of the brook and rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” Jewish tradition has understood this as an order to take an etrog (citrus medica), a palm branch (Heb., lulav), three myrtle branches (hadassim), and two willow branches (`aravot) and hold them together on the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month that is now called Tishrei. This and sitting in the sukkah (tabernacle, hut; see Lev. 23.42) have become the defining rituals of the festival. 

The Torah offers no reason for taking the four species, and this exegetical vacuum left the rabbis of the Midrash to suggest numerous possibilities for what underlies the precept. One explanation suggested that the four species represent the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph; another that they represent each of the Matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. One rabbi proposed that each of the variety of plants corresponds to parts of a human being that are central to the worship of God. According to this view, the lulav represents the spine, the hadassim, eyes, `aravot, the mouth, and the etrog, the human heart. Yet another approach focused on the taste and smell of each plant and used them as metaphors for different types of Jews. In the etrog, which has both taste and smell, the author of the midrash saw Jews who were knowledgeable in their traditions and did good deeds. Other Jews are like the lulav that has taste but no smell. Such Jews are familiar with the Torah, but it does not translate into good deeds. According to this midrash, the hadassim, which have a smell but no taste, represent Jews who do wonderful things but lack awareness of the Torah. Finally, Jews who are not knowledgeable and do not do things to help others are like the willow that has neither taste nor smell. 

These and other explanations enjoyed great popularity in Jewish homiletical literature, for they saw the four species as symbols of humanity, pivotal figures in the historical consciousness of the People of Israel, and reflections of the relationship between God and Israel. However, at least to the modern mind, they hardly explain the Torah’s rationale in creating this precept, let alone how the four species evolved into such an important symbol in Jewish life. Moreover, why these four plants?  There was undoubtedly other important flora in the biblical world. The Torah itself asserts that the Land of Israel is a land of seven species: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and fruit honey (generally interpreted by the Rabbis to be dates; Deut. 8.8). This characterization of the produce of the land, echoed in several biblical passages (e.g., Isa. 36.16–17), imbued these seven crops with a unique standing in Jewish tradition yet none of them was included in the precept of the four species. That four plants that otherwise have no place in Jewish ritual as outlined in the Torah came to be an integral aspect not only of the Festival of Sukkot but of Jewish self-definition in late antiquity demands some rethinking of the precept.  Instead of accentuating metaphors that extend beyond nature as the Midrash does, it may be productive to consider the four species simply for what they are: the flora of four distinct topographical regions of the Land of Israel. 

To people living in the agrarian society of biblical Israel, these plants represented different areas of their country. The palm tree grows in the relatively harsh desert zones of the south and the Judean desert. Jericho was famous for its palms and, in biblical times, was called “the city of palms” (Deut. 34.3). The moniker stuck for in 2 Chronicles 28.15 Jericho is again referred to as the “city of palms.”  Jericho was not the only place in the region known for its trees. Ein Gedi, about 30 kilometers south of Jericho on the eastern border of the Judean desert, also had a second name that was connected to what must have been one of its essential agricultural products: the palm (see 2 Chron. 20.2). When the prophet Ezekiel described the southern borders of the Land of Israel, he twice referred to a town in the Negev called “Tamar,” or palm (47.19, 48.28). Palms were, and still are, part and parcel of the arid regions of the Land of Israel. 

The Hebrew word “hadar” or beautiful, is used to describe the tree from which a fruit was to be taken and used as one of the four species. It is difficult to know what specific tree the Torah refers to, for there are many “beautiful” trees. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the “beauty [hadar] of the Carmel and the Sharon” (35.2), and when he warned of destruction, he said the Sharon would become like the Arava (barren land) and the Carmel would lose its fruit (33.9). The prophet did not use the word “Carmel” to refer to the mountainous area around Haifa as the word is used today, but rather to the region that is a choice place for fruit trees (see too, 2 Kgs. 19.23). To this day, the Sharon, or coastal plain, is famous for its agricultural produce. When Jeremiah wanted to speak of the bounty of fruit and goodness in the land the Israelites had entered, he described it as “the land of the Carmel” (2.7). The “beautiful” or hadar tree, whose fruit was to be used in the four species, likely came from the “beautiful” or hadar region of the Land of Israel, the fertile area along the coastal plain. 

Concerning the willow branches, Leviticus already makes clear that this species was to come from the “nahal” signifying a low area where water gathers to form a stream or a creek, even if only seasonal. In some ways, the “boughs of the thick trees,” or the fragrant myrtle branches, are the opposite of the willow. This variety of myrtle grows in high places, as the prophet Ezekiel alluded to when he complained that the House of Israel worshiped on every high hill they saw and at every `ez `avot (“thick tree,” 20.28). “Thick trees” were associated with high places and, indeed, when Ezra and Nehemiah told the people to go out to collect material for the building of sukkot (pl. of sukkah), they told them to go towards the mountain where they would find, among other trees, `ez `avot (Neh. 8.15), the tree also mentioned for use in the four species. To this day, choice myrtles used on the holiday come from the high regions of the land, such as Safed and the Golan Heights. Not surprisingly, one can infer from the words of Isaiah that the hadas could only flourish in the desert by a miracle (see Isa. 41.19). 

The topographical divisions that characterized the Land of Israel were part and parcel of biblical terminology. “The Land of the Negev” (Josh. 15.19) was the arid land of the Judean desert and the south. In Deuteronomy 8.7, the Land of Israel is specially referred to as a “land of streams of water” (nahaley mayyim), the very place where willows grow, and in Deuteronomy 11.11 Israel is called “a land of mountains,” precisely the place where the myrtle grows. As for the coastal plain, it was called the shefelah or “low land” (Josh. 10.40, 11.16). Thus, biblical terminology often reflects the varied nature of the place.

The four species represent the different regions of the land to which agrarian society was attuned. The etrog grows in fertile zones, the palm in arid regions, the willow in low areas of the nahal, and the myrtle in the high places. This is not to say that palms, for example, cannot grow in other locations, for they certainly can (see, for instance, Neh. 8.15). However, just as maple trees are native to Asia, Europe, and North America but have very much become associated with eastern Canada and New England, so too, as the above-noted citations from the Bible make clear, these four species were primarily related to specific topographical areas of the Land of Israel. 

The local nature of the four species may be precisely why the so-called “seven species” had no place here. Wheat and barley grow in many conditions, albeit with different levels of success, and fruit honey can come from any number of fruits. Grapes, figs, olives, and pomegranates can be seen in many places in Israel, from the north to the south. The prophet Amos, who was born in Judah but prophetized in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, spoke of peoples’ vineyards, figs, and olives (4.9), just as the prophet Haggai spoke of vines, figs, pomegranates, and olives to the people of Judah some centuries later (2.19). These were typical crops in the more temperate zones of the Land of Israel well before drip irrigation. In biblical times the seven species characterized the Land of Israel; the four species used on Sukkot were associated with specific regions.

 

Why was it so important to include the different topographical regions of the Land of Israel in a biblical commandment, and why was it so important for the Festival of Sukkot?  Sukkot was unique among the three pilgrimage holidays because Jews were commanded to spend the entire festival in Jerusalem. Deuteronomy 16.15 notes this holiday, “Seven days will you celebrate to the Lord your God in the place that the Lord will choose...” Indeed, King Solomon sent the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Sukkot in the Holy City back home after the entire holiday (1 Kgs. 8, cf., 2 Chron. 7.9–10). The Festival of Sukkot was significantly different from the other pilgrimage festivals. The Passover sacrifice had to be brought to Jerusalem at a specific time, but the Torah notes that one could go home after the paschal lamb was brought and consumed. “And in the morning,” after having brought the sacrifice, “you shall turn and go to your tent [i.e., home],” says the verse in Deuteronomy 16.7. The Festival of Passover lasted seven days, but one was only obligated to be in Jerusalem for the first night and no more. The holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost) was only one day, but on Sukkot, the Jewish People were commanded to remain in Jerusalem for the entire week. Herein lays one of the essential reasons for the building of sukkot, the temporary huts that are the source of the festival’s Hebrew name. “You must sit in sukkot for seven days; every full member of Israel shall live in sukkot” (Lev. 23.42). 

Sukkot were not used exclusively for the holiday. Quite the contrary. They were well known in the Bible and were most often used for non-ritual purposes. Isaiah speaks of a sukkah as being for shade (4.6). Jonah made himself a sukkah when he left the city to protect himself from the sun (4.5). They were also temporary shelters used by people on the move, such as in times of war (2 Sam. 11.11). During Sukkot, pilgrims who came to Jerusalem needed short term accommodation and they made sukkot as a place to stay during the holiday. With no modern hotel chains to billet everyone, where was everyone to stay in Jerusalem for seven days?  A sort of “hut city” sprouted up around the Holy City, likely on the Mount of Olives and the other hills surrounding the town, where pilgrims could quickly enter the city and participate in the festivities. Granted that the Levitical text makes the sukkah a mnemonic device with which to remember that the Israelites lived in sukkot when God took them out of Egypt (Lev. 23. 43); however, sitting in the huts during the seven days of the festival was first and foremost a practical matter.

Bringing a nation together for a week-long festival in Jerusalem was a challenge. Old rivalries would no doubt come to the fore, and new ones could certainly begin as people from across the country crowded into a city built for far fewer people than crammed its streets during the week-long festival. There was a need to unite the people who came together from disparate places, and the four species were an attempt to do so. Four very different regions were represented in this ritual, and each needed the other to perform the precept. Each group could take pride in its area’s contribution and recognize the importance of others to the whole. An agrarian society focused on what it knew best: agriculture. The four species symbolically linked the nation.

There is little doubt that other aspects of Israelite society were important in instilling a sense of national unity. The Temple service, the Kingship, and the belief in God were probably far more important than the four species. However, little things can also be important. On a holiday that brought much of the nation together for a week in one place, the four species let each group take pride in its region while giving the group a sense of cohesiveness. The central place given to the four species as a Jewish symbol in later times suggests that this message may ultimately have been internalized.

 

Listening: Thoughts for Parashat Ha'azinu

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Ha’azinu

By Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;
Let the earth hear the words I utter! (Devarim 32:1)

 

As Moses approached his death, he offered a final message to the Israelites. He called the heavens and earth as witnesses to indicate the eternal covenant between God and Israel. He underscored the importance of hearing, listening and internalizing.  There is a message here as we approach Rosh Hashana.

 

Suppose that two people were walking by a synagogue on Rosh Hashana just at the time when the shofar was being sounded. The synagogue windows were open so that both people outside heard the shofar. The first one thought: I wish to be included among those who are fulfilling the mitzvah of hearing the shofar. The second one simply kept walking, having heard the shofar but without paying any particular attention to the sounds. Did either, or both, or neither of them fulfill the mitzvah of shofar?

In fact, both of them heard the exact same sounds of the shofar. The only difference was in their intention. But the intention is exactly what determines that the first person fulfilled the mitzvah, while the second one did not. Both of them "heard" the shofar; but only one "listened" to the shofar.

This halakhic ruling underscores the role of proper intention in fulfilling the mitzvah. It is not enough just to hear the shofar as random sounds; rather, one must recognize--at least on some minimal level--that he/she is listening to the sounds of the shofar and thereby fulfilling the mitzvah.

Maimonides points out that the shofar is intended to awaken us from our spiritual slumber, to generate within us thoughts of repentance and personal renewal. For this message to reach us, we must be "listening". If people hear the shofar but do not tune in to its significance and its message, then they have missed the essential feature of this mitzvah.

There are those who attend synagogue services on Rosh Hashana and "hear" the shofar--but somehow the prayers and shofar and sermons don't stir up much spiritual energy for them. They are pretty much the same people after Rosh Hashana as they were before Rosh Hashana. There are others who are transformed by Rosh Hashana, who "listen" to the prayers, and the shofar and the sermons--and are genuinely moved. All these people may be sitting in the same synagogue, and yet the results are radically different. Some only "hear" the services; others actually "listen".

Whether or not we are spiritually energized by the High Holy Day season depends largely on ourselves. The more receptive we are to its powerful messages and the more we cultivate our own spirituality, the more we will experience religious meaning and spiritual transformation. Let us focus very carefully on our prayers, on the Torah readings, on the sounds of the shofar, on the sermons. Let us "listen" with great attentiveness. If we will "listen" and not simply "hear", we will not only find a key for greater fulfillment of the holidays but for greater fulfillment in our lives. Shana Tova, Tizku leShanim Rabbot.

 

 

The Israel Advocacy Force: Jewish, Muslim and Christian Voices for Israel

In today's global battle of narratives, advocating for Israel's right to exist and thrive is a task too crucial to be left solely to Israelis and Jews in the diaspora. As we navigate the complex and often hostile international landscape, it becomes increasingly clear that some of the most compelling voices in this struggle are those of non-Jews. Their involvement in advocating for Israel is not just beneficial—it is essential.

"In the face of extreme jihadism and the influence of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel's advocacy needs to transition from a defensive posture to an offensive strategy" says Adv. Ariel Averbuch, the Founder and Chairman of TIAF – "The Israel Advocacy Force", a unique project aimed at providing non-Israelis with the tools and means for an effective advocacy for Israel and the free world, especially in battling extreme jihadist ideology.

TIAF is not just another advocacy group; it is a pioneering initiative that seeks to fundamentally shift the way Israel's narrative is communicated on the global stage. TIAF was created to empower non-Jewish voices, particularly Muslims, in advocating for Israel. This approach not only broadens the base of support for Israel but also challenges the prevailing narratives that often pit Israel against the Muslim world.

The organization currently involves a diverse network of over 150 dedicated advocates from around the world, including influential Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and other non-Jewish supporters. These individuals are trained and equipped with the tools and resources necessary to effectively communicate Israel's story, counter misinformation, and promote a message of peace and coexistence. By focusing on non-Jewish advocates, TIAF taps into a powerful reservoir of voices that can resonate in communities and regions where traditional pro-Israel messaging may not have the same impact.

One of TIAF's key projects is the development of a specialized messaging toolkit that its advocates use to address various audiences. This toolkit is tailored to resonate with different cultural, religious, and social contexts, ensuring that our messages are not only heard but also understood and embraced. This strategic approach has already yielded significant results, with the advocates making inroads in regions traditionally hostile to Israel and successfully shifting public opinion in a more favorable direction.

TIAF's work is not without challenges, but the impact it's making is undeniable. By mobilizing non-Jewish voices, especially those of Muslims, TIAF is creating a ripple effect that has the potential to transform the global discourse on Israel. The success of TIAF lies in its ability to unite people of different faiths and backgrounds around a common cause—supporting Israel and standing against extremism.

TIAF is focused on showing that the battle against extreme jihadism is not just Israel's fight; it is a fight for all who value peace, tolerance, and coexistence. By empowering non-Jewish voices, especially Muslims and Christians, to take a leading role in this advocacy, we can create a broader, more inclusive movement that transcends national and religious boundaries.

For too long, Israel and its supporters have focused on countering accusations and justifying Israel's actions. This defensive stance, while necessary at times, is not sufficient to win the ideological battle against those who seek to delegitimize the Jewish state.

When Muslims speak out in favor of Israel, they challenge the prevailing narrative that pits Israel against the Muslim world. Their advocacy sends a powerful message: support for Israel is not a betrayal of Muslim identity, but rather an affirmation of shared values such as peace, coexistence, and the rejection of extremism.

"What the Arab world needs most right now are courageous local voices championing the cause of peace. In these challenging times, it's essential for these brave individuals to step forward and articulate the vital importance of peace within their communities. Their message has never been more crucial." says Bassam Aldoseri, a Muslim Bahraini activist and a team member in TIAF.

The influence of extreme jihadism and the Muslim Brotherhood has long been a source of tension between Israel and many Muslim communities. These groups have successfully propagated a narrative of enmity that has been difficult to counter. However, by elevating the voices of Muslims who reject this narrative, we can begin to dismantle the ideological foundation of jihadism. These advocates can expose the true nature of extremist ideologies—how they manipulate religious beliefs for political gain and spread hatred and division.

And not only Muslims are vital in this battle. From a Christian perspective, the involvement of Christians in advocating for Israel is equally significant. Christians share a deep historical and spiritual connection to the land of Israel. Their voices in support of Israel underscore the universal values of peace, religious freedom, and mutual respect. When Christians advocate for Israel, they reinforce the idea that Israel's right to exist is not merely a political issue but a moral one, deeply rooted in shared Abrahamic traditions.

"As a Christian, I believe our destiny is deeply intertwined with Israel and the Jewish people," says Bill Litster, founder of Better Biz Info and a dedicated member of TIAF. "We have a sacred obligation to stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel, who serve the same God as we do."

In conclusion, the future of Israel’s advocacy must go beyond merely defending the state against its detractors. It lies in actively promoting a proactive vision of peace and cooperation, drawing on the support of all people of goodwill, regardless of their background. By transitioning from defense to offense and by amplifying the non-Jewish voices, we can forge a new path forward—one where Israel's right to exist is not just defended, but celebrated by a diverse and united global community.

 

Remembering the Anonymous: Thoughts for Parashat Noah

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Noah

By Rabbi Marc D. Angel

 

Dr. Roger Mesznik, a longtime friend and member of our Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, recently gave me two books in which he traced his family’s genealogy—with both Sephardic and Ashkenazic roots. In the Prologue to his book on the Mesznik family, he notes that “in some cases we know more about their deaths than about their lives. History has conspired to leave more records about how and when they died than about who they were, what they dreamed of, and what they were about to become, or aspired to be.”

This profound observation is true of so many human beings who have lived and died, and who left only faint—if any—traces of who they actually were. Indeed, over the past thousands of years, billions of people have died and have sunk into eternal anonymity. 

And yet, all of these anonymous ancestors played their roles on the stage of human history. They had families and friends; they worked, played, dreamt, struggled, rejoiced, mourned, hoped. Although we have little trace of who they were, they impacted in some way on the progression of human history. 

This week’s Torah portion relates the story of Noah, the great flood, the survival of Noah’s family, the beginning of a new chapter of humanity. The Torah tells us that Noah took his wife, sons and daughters-in-law onto the ark with him. But it doesn’t give us the names of Mrs. Noah, Mrs. Shem, Mrs. Ham or Mrs. Yafeth. These women are left in anonymity. Yet, according to Biblical tradition, these women were the matriarchs of all later humanity, including us! Why don’t we know anything about them, even their names?

Tradition attempts to fill in historical vacuums so that the Midrash in Bereishith Rabba refers to Noah’s wife as Naamah. In the Dead Sea Scrolls her name is given as Emzara. Other sources have provided her with other names. These sources were uncomfortable leaving Mrs. Noah without a name of her own. Giving a name, even if fictitious, is an attempt to ascribe an identity to an otherwise anonymous individual.

Let us try to imagine something about the life of Noah’s wife. Her husband was righteous; he defied the immoral society in which his family lived. He must have been a social outcast, being viewed as a self-righteous trouble maker. He spent years building the ark and must have been subjected to scorn and abuse by the public. Noah obviously had moral strength but he must have been pained and isolated. It was his wife who stood by him and with him, who gave him the courage and confidence to persist. Without her support, Noah may well have failed in his mission. Mrs. Noah was a heroic person who shared the trials of her husband.

By omitting reference to Mrs. Noah’s name, perhaps the Torah is thereby imparting a vital lesson. Some of the most important people in history—and in our own times—are people who may be entirely unknown to us. Their behind the scenes sacrifices, courage and faith have helped shape and strengthen the moral fabric of society.  Thank you Mrs. Noah!

From Moshe’s Torah to Moshe’s Mishneh Torah: Maintaining the Integrity of Law in Exile

 

The process of law-making in any nation is a complex task. In most legal systems, the creation of law usually involves a structured process anchored in the nation’s foundational legal documents, or constitution. For example, in the United States, the process of lawmaking involves both the legislative[1] and judicial[2] branches of government, each playing distinct but complementary roles.[3] 

However, this process presupposes the physical and institutional integrity of a nation. For example, if we were to imagine a hypothetical scenario where a nation such as America is forced into exile with the doors of the Congress and Supreme Court shut, the standard legislative and judicial processes would be disrupted. Such a situation poses a significant question: How does a nation uphold the integrity of its legal system when the required mechanisms of law-making are rendered inoperative? The journey of the Nation of Israel through its period of exile offers a unique perspective on such a scenario.

In Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin functioned similarly to a combination of the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. As an assembly of Sages (comparable to Supreme Court judges), it interpreted the Torah (akin to the U.S. Constitution), shaping the laws and setting legal precedents. Members of the Sanhedrin were instrumental in transmitting and shaping the Oral Law. However, the destruction of the Second Temple marked a profound transition in Jewish history, leading eventually to the cessation of the Sanhedrin’s activities.[4] The Jewish community faced a crisis with this loss of this central institution.[5]

In response, the Bet Din HaGadol (Great Court)[6] was established in Yavne, functioning as a new type of Supreme Court. This period marked a significant shift from a Temple-centered worship to a rabbinic and textual tradition. This decentralization was a direct consequence of the Jewish people’s geographical dispersion and the ensuing fragmentation of their society, leading to the closure of the oral tradition. 

 

The Formulation of the Mishna

 

The monumental shift toward writing down the oral tradition[7] and publishing it in oral texts begins with the formulation of the Mishna, primarily spearheaded by Rabbi Aqiba, and completed by Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in the second century ce. This transformation was necessitated by the precarious situation of the Jewish people following the destruction of the Second Temple and subsequent Roman persecution. The dispersal of Jewish communities and the erosion of traditional learning centers heightened the risk of losing the rich oral traditions that had been meticulously preserved and transmitted through generations.

Recognizing the urgency to safeguard these traditions, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi embarked on the formidable task of compiling, editing, and organizing the Oral Law. This was not simply a work of transcription, but rather a selective process that involved synthesising various oral teachings, laws, debates, and interpretations that our Sages had been discussing for centuries. The Mishna emerged as a strategic effort to retain Jewish oral tradition captured across six orders (sedarim), and it laid the foundation for subsequent rabbinic discussions and commentaries, leading to the creation of the Talmud.

 

The Formulation of the Talmud

 

In the aftermath of the Mishna's completion around 200 ce, our Sages recognized the need for further elucidation. The Mishna was often succinct and enigmatic, calling for extensive interpretation and clarification. This necessity was heightened by the diverse living conditions and challenges faced by Jewish communities dispersed after the Second Temple's destruction, as well as the emergence of varied practices and interpretations within these dispersed communities.

Babylonia, now modern-day Iraq, emerged as a key center for Jewish learning. It was mainly here that the Jewish legal scholars of the era, known as the Amoraim, engaged in rigorous oral discussions and debates, delving into the Mishna.[8] As these oral deliberations evolved, they were gradually recorded, forming what is known as the Gemara. This crucial addition to the Mishna offered not only interpretations but also legal precedents, ethical teachings, and historical narratives. This period of intensive scholarship led to the creation of the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Babli),[9] which came to represent a significant link in the chain of nationally recognized rabbinic scholarship and authority.

 

The End of New Rulings

 

There are two key figures of this period that are traditionally credited with the final editing and organizing of the Talmud Babli: Ravina and Rav Ashi.[10] Their contributions to the compilation and codification of the Talmud were instrumental in preserving and transmitting our authorized legal tradition. This newly compiled Talmud thus came to represent a culmination of centuries of authoritative rabbinic scholarship, including decrees, customs, and judicial decisions derived through the application of authorized Torah exegesis. In other words, this Babylonian Talmud contained the last agreed-upon rulings of our last-sitting national and authorized legal bodies (the Sanhedrin and Bet Din HaGadol). The doors of Israel’s Supreme Court were now shut. With this compilation of Ravina and Rav Ashi, we arrive in the era of “sof hora’a” (end of ruling),[11] marking the end of new law creation.

 

Recommended or Binding?

 

Given the reality of an exilic existence without a Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol, our dispersed legal decisors (posekim) have since turned to the Babylonian Talmud in order to analyze and apply its laws in the context of new challenges arising in exile. However—and this is key—without a Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol, the posek’s role is limited to offering legal recommendations based on their analysis of talmudic law. These post-talmudic posekim lack the authority to create new laws or customs that are legally binding.[12] This remains a key point of contention between the Geonic-Sephardic tradition and the Ashkenazic-Tosafist tradition.[13]

Ultimately, this inability of post-talmudic posekim to establish new binding laws (or annul earlier ones) in the absence of the national and authorized legal processes and institutions ensures the very continuity and integrity of our legal system.[14] It underlines the need for a formal and national legal body to create binding laws, and such limitations serve as a motivation to rebuild our nation and our legal institutions. 

 

The Mishneh Torah: Restatement of National Law

 

With the lack of national and authoritative legal structures and the ensuing diasporic dispersion, the Jewish people encountered a void, necessitating a unifying judicial anchor. The Rambam’s Mishneh Torah emerged as this anchor, offering a comprehensive presentation of the entirety of talmudic law and, therefore, of the Oral Law. Rambam meticulously examined the Talmud and the juridical traditions of the Geonim (who were both the students of the Talmud and the predecessors to the Sephardic tradition[15]). His work not only collated the legal rulings of Talmud, it also engaged in a critical analysis, addressing the gaps and ambiguities left by its dialectical style and the whimsical alterations introduced by generations of scribes.[16] 

Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his Kesef Mishneh, notes that “Rambam’s practice is known, in that he simply records the law as it emerges from the Talmud.”[17] Therefore, the Mishneh Torah is essentially the restatement of the Law of Israel. No other project of such magnitude existed then or now. This body of work remains our prime portal to access an unadulterated and concise version of our people’s National Law.[18] Further, its accessibility in Hebrew, as opposed to the Aramaic of the Talmud, democratised legal knowledge for Jews around the world. 

However, the Mishneh Torah, with its exceptional clarity and transparency of Israel’s national law, was bound to challenge entrenched customs and opinions formed in exile. Indeed, many in the Ashkenazic community, which constituted merely ~10 percent of the global Jewish population at the time, viewed the Mishneh Torah as a potential disruption to their worldview. In the words Rabbi Ratson Arussi, the foremost rabbinic authority of the Yemenite Jewish community today:

 

Opponents rose up against the Mishneh Torah, whether against his teachings or against Rambam himself. Amongst the circles of Ashkenaz…there were those who perceived his halakhic writings as challenging their world of Torah. For their world of Torah was characterized by pilpulic talmudic study, digging deep, inquiring—[but] not halakhic. The legal component was very heavy among Ashkenaz Jewry. It rested upon customs (minhagim). It rested upon various approaches. It rested upon stringencies (humrot). For this reason, when they saw Rambam’s halakhic work [Mishneh Torah], first they were worried that his work may shove aside their halakhic tradition. For this reason, from the Bet Midrash of MaHaRa”M of Rottenburg, who is one of the great early scholars of Ashkenaz, one of his students, Hagahot Maimoniyyot, immediately wrote an amendatory commentary to Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, i.e. to indicate the positions of the sages of Ashkenaz and the customs (minhagim) of Ashkenaz, in order to show, “we are on the map!”[19]

 

A How-To Guide to Post-Talmudic Opinions

 

Thus far, we have presented the following chain of logic: the Sanhedrin/Bet Din HaGadol shaped the Oral Law, and the primary method of preserving and transmitting their rulings was through oral tradition. This body of knowledge was eventually compiled into a structured written form known as the Mishna. The Talmud subsequently emerged as a detailed analysis and expansion of the Mishna. The Mishneh Torah, produced by Rambam, distills the Talmud's broad discussions into clear conclusions and practical applications, thereby serving as a concise restatement of the Oral Law.

So, what are we missing? After all, when we have clear guidance from the Mishneh Torah on a particular law, managing our diasporic existence seems feasible. But what happens when new questions arise that the Talmud (and therefore the Mishneh Torah) did not specifically address, and there is no Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol around for us to call upon?

The answer lies in a pivotal talmudic rule,[20] incorporated into the Mishneh Torah.[21] It dictates that where the law is uncertain in Scriptural Law (de’oraita) matters, we should adhere to the more stringent post-talmudic view. On the other hand, where the law is uncertain for Rabbinic Law (derabbanan) issues, the more lenient post-talmudic stance is advisable. This approach implies that in the post-talmudic era, decision-making is not as straightforward as simply siding with the majority or minority opinion. After all, the principle of “majority rule” is legally relevant only in the context of judges sitting on an authoritative legal body, such as a Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol.[22]

 

Deviating from Due Legal Process

 

The principle of updating and adapting Jewish law to contemporary life is not just a desirable goal but a biblically mandated one, as evidenced in Deuteronomy 17:9: “And you shall come to the Kohanim, the Levi’im, and to the Judge that will be in those days.” This verse highlights the necessity of seeking guidance from the legally authorized representatives of our era, emphasising the interpretation of God’s law in a manner relevant to the current context. The evolution and application of God’s eternal law, adapted to contemporary life, is the very essence of the Oral Law and the Rabbinic enterprise.

Therefore, the problem with various reformist Jewish movements that emerged during exile is not their intention to evolve and update talmudic law. Rather, the issue lies in their approach to it, which attempts to implement changes without the rigorous legal scholarship and national authoritative bodies like a Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol.[23]

Indeed, the absence of authoritative institutions in our times makes many of our talmudic laws appear outdated or less relevant.[24] Just imagine living in the United States in the year 2024 and adhering to legal rulings from a Supreme Court that last convened in the year 1924…let alone following rulings from the year 500 in exile! Yet, our commitment to the Talmud—our most recent nationally recognized legal rulebook—has been crucial in preserving the integrity of our legal system across generations. Ultimately, however, this unmoving commitment represents more than just legal adherence. It symbolizes an aspiration to rebuild our land, reconvene our assembly of Sages, and govern according to our days, in Covenant with God. 

May we witness this realisation in our times.


 


* I would like to thank Freddie Grunsfeld, Eli Shaubi, and Vedat Levi for their assistance and advice.

[1] The legislative branch of a government is responsible for making laws, often consisting of elected representatives who debate and vote on new laws and policies.

[2] The judicial branch interprets and applies the law, handling disputes and ensuring justice is served according to the constitution of the nation.

[3] For an overview of the various legal systems around the world, see Legal Rules in Practice by Max Travers. 

[4] For a detailed presentation of these developments in the Jewish legal tradition, see Rabbi Dr. Jose Faur’s, Horizontal Society. 

[5] For a traditional presentation of these events, see Introduction, Mishneh Torah.

[6] The Bet Din HaGadol, established by Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai in circa 70 ce, filled the judicial gap left by the Sanhedrin’s dissolution post-Temple destruction. The Bet Din HaGadol continued the judicial and legislative functions of the Sanhedrin, playing a critical role in the preservation and interpretation of Jewish law. The Bet Din HaGadol was intertwined with the Yeshibot, more accurately “plenary sessions” rather than mere “academies.” These sessions, presided over by the ‘Nasi’ (Prince), were unique in structure, and engaged the general public in legal and theological discourse. The Yeshiba’s role as a national institution was crucial in collecting, authenticating, and cataloguing Jewish tradition. For a detailed analysis of this, see Section IV of Rabbi Dr. Jose Faur’s Horizontal Society.

[7] There were always written notes and archives of the oral tradition, but they were not published officially until the compilation of the Mishna. In the words of Rabbi Dr. Jose Faur, “Originally, the doctrines and minutes of the Supreme Court of Israel, beginning with Moses, were not published. Although basic legal instruction was offered to all, the archival material of the Court was unavailable to the general public” (Horizontal Society, p. 262).

[8] This scholarly endeavour also took place in the Land of Israel, where the local Amoraim were also delving into and expanding the Mishna. This ultimately led to the formulation of the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi).

[9]The Talmud Babli emerged not merely as a book but as a virtual society, encapsulating the collective wisdom and deliberations of a multitude of Jewish scholars in Babylonia. It was during the Kalla gatherings in Babylonia that the Talmud was meticulously compiled. These assemblies, where sages and disciples came together, were pivotal in studying, finalising, and revising the Talmud’s content. The authority of the Babylonian Talmud derived from the fact that it was crafted and approved by a broad consensus of the nation’s sages, making it an essential and binding legal framework for Jewish communities around the world. For a detailed analysis of this, see Section IV of Rabbi Dr. Jose Faur’s Horizontal Society.

[10] See Introduction, Mishneh Torah.

[11] Baba Metzia 86a.

[12] Further evidenced by the fact that there is not a single unified legal code (or its accompanying gloss) that is followed by all practicing Jews.

[13] In the post-talmudic era, divergent approaches emerged regarding the role and authority of legal decisors (posekim). The Sephardic approach, as exemplified by Rambam and Rif as a continuation of the Geonic tradition, posited that post-talmudic rabbis should primarily clarify and restate the conclusions of the Talmud, leaving limited scope for Rabbinic authority and novel rulings. In contrast, the later Ashkenazic-Tosafist approach granted decisors greater autonomy, allowing for creative interpretations of talmudic passages in response to evolving social and religious contexts. This led to a transformation in the concept of binding legal authority and precedent, with the Tosafist era seeing legal decisors increasingly regarding themselves as “bound by Rishonim,” effectively conferring a new form of legal authority akin to that of the Sanhedrin. The codification of rulings, notably in the Tur and Shulhan Arukh, further cemented this authoritative status of medieval scholars. Culturally, this divergence manifested in different practices between Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities, with Ashkenazim showing a greater tendency to revere medieval Rabbinic customs/minhagim as legally binding, a trend less pronounced among Sephardaim. This period also marked an increased role of creativity and novel solutions in legal rulings, particularly under the Ashkenazic/Tosafist approach, contrasting with the Sephardic framework’s emphasis on adherence to talmudic conclusions. For more on this often-overlooked area, see Talmud Reclaimed by Rabbi Shmuel Phillips.

[14] However, beyond a National Bet Din, a Local Bet Din can also possess its own power to implement gezerot (decrees), takanot (enactments), and establish minhagim (customs). The jurisdiction and authority of a Local Bet Din are confined to its specific geographical location. The legitimacy and authorisation of a Local Bet Din are derived from its recognition and acceptance by the community within its locale. However, the primary function of a Local Bet Din is to adjudicate civil or criminal cases.

[15] The Talmud Babli was compiled in the halls of the Babylonian Yeshibot of the Geonim. The deep connections between these academies of the Geonim in Babylonia and the academies of the Sepharadim in southern Spain/Andalusia (and the resultant conveyance of tradition and methodology between them) has been examined and established in numerous places. For a foundational presentation of this topic, see Sefer HaQabbala by Abraham ibn Daud. For a more recent and general presentation, see Chapter 6 of Talmud Reclaimed by Rabbi Shmuel Phillips. For an Ashkenazic perspective on this, we can turn to Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv), who notes that the Rambam followed the Geonic methodology for determining law from the Talmud. He goes on to state that the Tosafists lacked this Geonic tradition, and therefore had to fill resultant gaps in tradition with “analogies, reconciliations, and logical deductions.” (Hakdamot Kidmat Ha’Emek 1:12–16).

[16] As an example, see Hilkhot Gerushin, Mishneh Torah, 9:31: 

 

When [a man] tells two [colleagues]: "Write [a get], sign it and give it to so and so to bring to my wife," or "...give it to [my] agent to bring to her," one of them should write it, and they should both sign it and give it to the agent. If they bring it to the woman themselves, the divorce is not effective, for they were not appointed as agents to effect the divorce. What should they do [if in error they gave it to the woman]? They should take it back from her and give it to the agent, who should in turn give it back to the woman in their presence or in the presence of other [witnesses]. My teachers issued a ruling with regard to such a get that does not appear to be appropriate, because of a flaw that existed in the versions [of the Talmud] that they possessed.

[17] Hilkhot Keriat Shema 4:7

[18] Or as close as we can get to such a place, given (1) the shared methodology of Rambam and the students of the Talmud (the Geonim), and (2) that all other legal compilations contain many post-talmudic influences and opinions.

[19] English translation of a Hebrew clip from Rabbi Ratson Arussi’s class to TheHabura.com, available in full on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/RdrBK45raaE?si=w6S9mrl3Twbaj8MZ.

[20] Betzah 3b.

[21] Hilkhot Mamrim, Mishneh Torah, Chapter 4.

[22] For a thorough analysis of the legal parameters of “following the majority”, see Freddie Grunsfeld’s essay in Shabuot: Insights from the Past, Present, and Future, published by TheHabura.com

[23] For the laws relating to the scope, limitations, and processes of developing Jewish law, see Hilkhot Mamrim, Mishneh Torah.

[24] We can take a moment to explore an example, such as the observance of a second day of Yom Tov. This practice was initially instituted by our Sages due to uncertainties in calendar calculations in ancient times. While this observance has been maintained in the Diaspora, it raises questions about its relevance in the modern era, where calendar precision is no longer a concern. However, this issue cannot be addressed without a legal authoritative body (i.e., Sanhedrin or Bet Din HaGadol) to re-evaluate and potentially update such laws. This is, unfortunately, a reality of an exile that our people were warned about repeatedly and brought upon ourselves. In the wise words of an early Duke of Norfolk, “a man cannot have his cake and eat it too.”