National Scholar Updates

David Weinberg, a writer for the Jerusalem Post, has recommended his top 25 Jewish books from 2022-2023. Rabbi Hayyim Angel's recent Psalms Companion is on the list, as are several other excellent reads.

See his article here.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-735237

Wrestling with the God of Revelation: Preserving Moral Necessity in the Face of Divine Text and Divine Encounter^[1]

by Jonathan Arking

The Problem with Fundamentalism

In his wonderful new book, To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, Rabbi Eugene Korn sets out to examine and explain the relationship between the ethical/moral values and Jewish tradition.^[2] In his chapter entitled “Moralization in Jewish Law: Divine Commands, Rabbinic Reasoning and Waging a Just War,” Rabbi Korn proposes four potential lines of reasoning in the face of a morally challenging divine command (such as perpetrating a genocide and mass slaughter of non-combatants during war).^[3] The first two options are The Kierkegaardian Argument—in which one recognizes the tension between divine command and morality but suspends their moral judgment in favor of the divine command—and the Divine Command Morality Argument—in which divine commands are asserted to be constitutive of, or at least perfectly exemplary of, true morality. As Rabbi Korn articulates, neither option has backing in traditional rabbinic tradition. Further, both fail to satisfy the biblical reader concerned with the notion of moral necessity, the prioritization of acting morally as a necessary prerequisite for any action taken. The Kierkegaardian argument simply cedes the argument and admits that if one follows it, one will act immorally. The Divine Command Morality Argument at least makes the claim that one who follows it will always act in a morally perfect way, but is implausible in the face of epistemological concerns about both any specific reading of a sacred text, and contention over which texts are sacred. There is widespread argument over how to read nearly every passage in the Bible, and according to Jewish tradition, the text itself is multivocal and cannot be confined to one “correct reading.” This implies that were one to try to act morally only on the basis of strict hermeneutical interpretation, it would be impossible to act in a perfectly moral way because one could never attain, or at least never be sure they had attained, the true “objective” reading of the text.

Further, there is intense contestation as to what scriptures are divine and could serve as the basis for this type of fundamentalism; a Jew who reads their own scripture in a fundamentalist way is nonetheless likely to condemn a member of another religion who commits violence in the name of a fundamentalist reading of their own scripture and vice versa. One may try to argue that if they could establish the truth of their revelation (e.g., this text, not those other ones, was revealed by God), this worry of epistemology could be ignored. I think this is dubious given the assumptions one would need for such a claim to hold including not only that this text and not those others were the result of revelation, but also that the revelation was given by a morally perfect God. This is of course unprovable. There is no method of distinguishing between the revelation of a morally perfect God and, say, a non-physical entity capable of transmitting information that is not perfectly moral, without actually just morally investigating the divinely revealed text. Further, the worry about correct interpretation remains, as well as concerns of perfect transmission of the revelatory message. My point here is not that any given scripture is not morally perfect, only that a claim to its sanctity does not establish that on its own, as there are many scriptures that nonetheless seem to have competing moral visions, at least at times. It seems, then, that the moral perfection of a given text could not be known to the reader a priori and could only be the case upon investigation and subjecting the text to some external criterion, namely their own moral judgment. This, however, is exactly what Divine Command Morality is trying to object to.

There is a further moral problem with the Divine Command Morality Argument in that its method seems to itself call its morality into question; to determine whether or not to massacre innocent civilians, including children, on the basis of a reading of a verse rather than based on the atrocity such an act would be relative to the people it would affect seems seriously misguided. Morality, one might think, ought to be a response to the needs and situations of those whom we affect with our actions, not simply a hermeneutical game to be figured out regardless of how that may literally destroy the lives of many. The “necessity” of moral necessity is thus non-existent in Divine Command Morality, as actions are contingent on subjective readings of texts that are themselves contested as valid sources of fundamentalist morality, instead of responses to the real lives of real people in front of us.

In Defense of the Heretical Argument

The latter two options that Rabbi Korn presents are what he terms the Heretical Argument and the Casuistic Argument. Both arguments accept at least the prima facie moral incorrectness of the divine command, but while the former concludes that the moral imperative must therefore override the divine command, the latter attempts to harmonize the command and morality by introducing extenuating factors or new features to the command. While the casuistic argument is clearly the favored method of rabbinic tradition, as Rabbi Korn details, it does not succeed in truly resolving the tension between the divine command and morality. Simply put, the casuistic approach is methodologically, and not fundamentally distinct from the heretical approach. Rabbi Korn dismisses the heretical approach outright because “no religious tradition can use this argument and retain its theological coherence or moral authority.” The idea here is that once one accepts that morality ought to override an explicit command, any reason to follow any commands at all falls away. The text becomes nothing more than something to be shunned or accepted based on the subjective human reader. But is this less true for the casuistic approach? Is the decision to read a verse against its plain meaning, or to introduce contingencies found nowhere in the text, or to read a commandment entirely out of existence (as in the case of the wayward son) not a subjective human decision to reject the text in front of oneself? Additionally, it challenges the notion of approaching sacred text with integrity; it asks us to read a text against what we see with our own eyes, and then claim that the reading we are imposing onto the text is how the text actually ought to be read! Finally, the Casuistic Argument shares a deficiency with Divine Command Morality in that it emphasizes technicality rather than humanity, making moral action rely on stretched hermeneutics rather than on the actual “moral patients” from whom moral reality arises.

I thus want to return to the heretical argument and work out some of the implications of what it would mean to adopt it, from the perspective of both hermeneutics and theology. This project stems from a desire to engage with all of the options at our disposal, even if the theological implications of doing so are challenging or beyond contemporary traditional norms. It also aims to preserve the integrity of reading sacred text as it is, even if that sometimes conflicts with how we think it ought to be. It should also be noted that in opposition to Rabbi Korn’s statement that one who adopts the heretical approach loses all moral authority, I contend that the so-called heretical approach may be the only path to preserve moral necessity—and thus any possible claim to moral authority. Even if one does opt for the casuistic approach, I believe the following analysis remains quite relevant, as the method of prioritizing one’s morality over the plain meaning of a sacred text is less relevant than its occurrence in terms of both hermeneutical and theological ramifications. Thus, for the remainder of this article we will be trying to think about the question: What does it mean to engage with a text as truly divinely inspired while also asserting that one will not act in accordance with that text if they believe it to be morally problematic?

Learning Normative Action through Imitating God

One of the primary themes of right action in our tradition is that of imitating God, the basic assumption being that if one imitates God, one will be acting correctly. This notion of imitatio dei appears a number of times throughout the Jewish tradition, as, for example, it does in Leviticus, when God proclaims, “You shall be holy, for I, your God Hashem, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). In the rabbinic tradition, there are a few explicit statements telling the reader to either act in certain ways or have dispositions in imitation of God:

And Rabbi Ḥama, son of Rabbi Ḥanina, says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “After the Lord your God shall you walk, and Him shall you fear, and His commandments shall you keep, and unto His voice shall you hearken, and Him shall you serve, and unto Him shall you cleave” (Deuteronomy 13:5)? But is it actually possible for a person to follow the Divine Presence? But hasn’t it already been stated: “For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24), and one cannot approach fire.

He explains: Rather, the meaning is that one should follow the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed be He. He provides several examples. Just as He clothes the naked, as it is written: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21), so too, should you clothe the naked. He, visits the sick…so too, should you visit the sick. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, consoles mourners… so too, should you console mourners. Just as the Holy One, Blessed be He, buried the dead… so too, should you bury the dead.^[4] (Translation from Sefaria.org. Bold is from Sefaria and indicates literal translation, while non-bolded words are added to provide grammatical cohesiveness to the passage.)

Within this passage, we can see a number of important aspects of this rabbinic conception of imitating God. First, the very notion of “being like God” is taken as a biblical command. Secondly, it is immediately pointed out that it is impossible to truly imitate the rabbis’ conception of God. This may be for two reasons. First, this may be thought of as a literal impossibility. The God of the rabbis is a generally incorporeal, mighty to incredibly superhuman levels, the creator of the universe; God is a “devouring fire,” a being whose nature is radically unlike that of any person. But it seems that, in context, Rabbi Hama is making a moral claim: God is “a devouring fire, a jealous God.” The phrase “a jealous God” is absent in the Hebrew quotation in the Gemara. It is only implied and left for the reader to fill in on their own, as if acknowledging that God could not be imitated because God had bad moral qualities could not be stated outright. But this is exactly what Rabbi Hama seems to be insinuating when he responds to his own questions by asserting the proper moral virtues of God to be imitated, rather than any abstract characteristics of divine nature to which we ought to aspire.

            This notion of imitating God insofar as God “clothes the naked,” “visits the sick,” “comforts the mourners,” and “buries the dead,” but not God’s jealousy, is a fascinating theological statement by Rabbi Hama. Throughout the Bible we read of God’s care and love for the downtrodden, but also that “Hashem is a man of war.”^[5] The multiplicity of God’s portrayals throughout the Bible allows, and maybe even forces, the rabbis to make specific decisions as to which aspects of God are to be imitated. As Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, an influential theologian and legal scholar within Orthodox Judaism in the twentieth century, writes, “The rabbis in the Talmud were guided by the insight: God forbid there should be anything in the application of the Tora to the actual life situation that is contrary to the principles of ethics.”^[6] The ethics of imitatio dei are thus shaped by the moral sentiments of the reader; God can no longer be invoked as an excuse to act immorally because God is only to be imitated only insofar as we, the moral reader, deem it so. In order to preserve moral action, selective reading is necessary.

The Godwrestling Model of Navigating Morality and Integrity in Reading Sacred Text

However, within this rabbinic model of imitation of God, we of course run into the problem of demystifying our sacred texts and making ourselves into the arbiters of their worth. What is the purpose of Scripture if it cannot teach us how to live, but is merely a mirror off of which we reflect our own values? And does this model not ask us to ignore real literary evidence we may find in the text and ask us to claim that the text asserts something that we think it does not? This would seem to be both epistemically and psychologically untenable. I propose that we turn back to the talmudic passage to begin to formulate an approach to the dilemma. Interestingly, Rabbi Hama does not immediately answer his initial question of how to walk in the ways of God with his selectively picked examples that focus on God caring for the downtrodden. Instead, he first raises the stakes of the question by pointing out the potentially problematic nature of God as found in the biblical text. There is no attempt to read out of existence God’s jealousy even while there is a deliberate choice to see it as non-normative.^[7] The text leaves open the question of how to theologically deal with the fact of a God (or portrayal of God) who is not worth emulating in all ways, but implies that it is a question that, while real and challenging, ought not to come in the way of acting morally. There is thus a two-tiered approach to the reading of biblical text. To preserve its authenticity, we ought to engage with it as we truly find it, reckoning with a portrayal of a jealous and violent God. But at the same time, the religious person needs to interact with it as a reader who locates their way of life in the biblical text. This requires not just that we read the Bible, but that we read a moral Bible, a Bible that preaches love and obligation and care for those who are in need. This is also consonant with a rigorous oral tradition that is not in fact committed to applying literal understandings of the Torah, but is already in the market, so to speak, of creative normative applications of divine texts. This overall process could lead to a Rawlsian-type “reflective equilibrium” in which the reader has both principles that ought to be expressed in the text, but also reads the text honestly in hope of informing and challenging those principles.^[8]

            This dual approach to scripture finds a prominent voice in the work of Judith Plaskow, the author of the first book of Jewish feminist theology, Standing Again at Sinai.^[9] As a feminist grappling with the absence of women in both the biblical and rabbinic traditions, Plaskow sees herself as both within the tradition, working to make true the conviction that Berkovits attributes to the rabbis, and as an outsider, seriously challenging the foundations and authority of the Jewish tradition:

I pronounce the Bible patriarchal; but in taking the time to explore it, I claim it as a text that matters to me. This double relation is not unthinking. It stems from my belief that the Jewish feminist must embrace with equal passion (at least) two different attitudes to Jewish sources.^[10]

One could assert that the Bible is not patriarchal by misreading it, or one could embrace patriarchy because it is asserted in the Bible. To the moral and honest reader of the Bible, neither of these views is possible. Integrity demands that we not simply read our own values back into the text and that we do our best to understand the Bible on its own terms. But this cannot, according to Plaskow, lead us to either abandon the tradition or to accept it as it is.^[11] Instead, it forces us into a space of grappling, or what Plaskow calls “Godwrestling.” Godwrestling is for Plaskow what occurs after moments of encounter with God, which “would need to be interpreted and applied, wrestled with and puzzled over, passed down and lived out before they came to us as the Torah of God.”^[12] When one sees their own encounter with the biblical text as one of encounter with God, they too then must undergo Godwrestling, struggling over how to interpret and apply, wrestle with and puzzle over, that which they have encountered. This allows for an encounter with a biblical text that does not automatically happen to align with one’s values. But it also recognizes and accepts the necessarily subjective matter of grappling with and applying the biblical texts to our lives. This model thus preserves the necessarily dual natured encounter with the biblical text, the integrity based attempt to engage with what is written, and the subjective lens through which we read the Bible as in accordance with moral principles. It does so by embracing the complexity of engaging with God, a moment that requires us to challenge ourselves and our assumptions, and God as well.

Theological Responses to the Godwrestling Approach

            However, what might it mean that encounter with God requires us to rethink our conception of God? And, further, what does it mean that God’s revelation requires subjective mediation to preserve its prompting of morally perfect action?^[13] This takes us to the brink of (if not over and into) the discussion of theodicy, and how to understand a God that seemingly acts unjustly. God’s moral imperfection is challenging both in its incarnation in God’s messages and revealed nature (as described in scripture), as well as its effects on the world as it relates to the suffering of the innocent. I see three main potential responses (although there certainly are more) to the challenge of how to understand God in light of a world and a model of reading sacred texts that denies God’s moral perfection: 1) God simply is not morally perfect. Moral mistakes arise in God’s revealed word and works because God does not have access to true morality; 2) God intentionally commands and acts in ways that call on humans to respond with protest against God. This serves as a means of moral education or test and helps improve the overall state of morality in the world. This approach could also include an appeal to moral progress and divine commands given as a concession to historical context that God wants us to overcome; 3) There is a distinction between God as an infinite, morally perfect being, and (the) God of history and revelation with whom humans interact. In the remainder of this article, I will try to present a view that makes sense of and incorporates all three responses. It is worth noting that there is no logical necessity in incorporating the different approaches, and one may find one sufficiently compelling or choose to join some together in different ways. Nonetheless, I intend for the process of incorporating these approaches to serve as a model of the type of thinking around this issue I personally find compelling. I will argue that a conception of God who has a highest order desire to be morally good but is limited in knowledge of moral perfection gives rise to human interaction with a God calling on humans to partner with God in bettering the world and God Godself. I present this view by rooting it in biblical and traditional Jewish texts. I do this not to prove its correctness within a biblical or rabbinic framework, but to convey my thoughts in a way that demonstrates their relation to the theological dialogue that has influenced me. I believe the content of the view stands on its own, but is best presented as continuous with and arising from the content it is commenting on.

Response 1: God Is Morally Limited

The question of theodicy, or justifying God, has been answered by one strain of Jewish thought by rejecting the project altogether; there is evil in the world that cannot be justified, therefore justification for God is impossible. In recent times, this has been notably presented in Elie Wisel’s The Trial of God, in which God is placed on trial for the suffering of God’s people and found guilty.^[14] Similarly, in his paper “Judging God: Learning from the Jewish Tradition,” Episcopol Priest Daniel London relates the story of Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, who, on behalf of his people who are suffering, challenges God. London writes that through “his bold prayers of protest, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak acts as though he has the power and authority to kick God off His throne for not taking care of His people.” Thus, God is not justified at all, but condemned. According to London, “Levi Yitzhak offers no theology to reconcile the dissonance between the deified Torah and the God who fails to follow it. Instead he brings the dissonance to God in prayer and offers prayers of intercession for Israel.”^[15] Theology cannot do the work to justify God because the distance between a morally perfect God and the reality we inhabit is simply too large. Instead, it must be conceded that God is morally limited; the world God has created and the scripture God has given are reflections of God, but this says more about the moral character of God than the works, which have already been judged as deficient. This notion of God’s moral limitation can be seen in the Torah in the case of God's desire to wipe out Israel after the sin of the calf. Nonetheless, Moses confronts God and convinces God not to destroy the people (Exodus 32). Further, God is seemingly bound by the limitations on God’s knowledge within the biblical narrative, including when God “regrets” that God had created humankind upon seeing the depths of their sin (implying God had not known this would occur). Michael Carasik further writes that “the unspoken assumption that implicitly underlies this repeated focus on God's testing the heart^[16] is that when God wants to know what is in a particular human being's mind, God cannot sense it, but must deduce it.”^[17] Given God’s failure to create a moral world, it seems plausible to accept these limitations on God’s knowledge, and given the moral imperfections of God’s teaching, plausible to accept the limitations on God’s moral knowledge, especially when this lack of knowledge is reinforced by the presumably sacred text itself.

Response 2: God Desires Our Protest

            Once we have posited God as limited, though, how should we interact with God and God’s lackings? Alternatively, we may ask, could we understand what we see as moral imperfections as consistent with a morally good or perfect God? Both questions lead us to the notion of protesting God in God’s name. The first instance of protest against God’s injustice in the bible occurs in Genesis 18, when Abraham is informed that God is planning on destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham responds by challenging God, “Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”^[18] Clearly, Abraham is holding God up to a standard external to God. But this is occurring not just as a chance encounter, but following the Bible’s telling of God’s internal dialogue in which God relates that God “singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of The Lord by doing what is just and right, in order that The Lord may bring about for Abraham what has been promised him.”^[19] Thus, seemingly, God is aware of the potential for injustice in God’s plan and welcomes Abraham’s challenge to God’s decision. In this model of Abraham, faith in God is in God’s goodness, not as an acceptance of what is as a manifestation thereof, but in God’s desire to be called to the good. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks comments that “Abraham was the first person in recorded history to protest the injustice of the world in the name of God, rather than accept it in the name of God.”^[20] God is, in this model, a call to morality, a call to hold others, even God, accountable. Abraham is just the first of a long list of prophets who act as intermediaries not just from God to the people, but from the people to God. As Yochanan Muffs, in his analysis of prophets interceding with God on behalf of the people, entitled “Who Will Stand in the Breach?: A Study of Prophetic Intercession,” details,

The prophet… is also an independent advocate to the heavenly court who attempts to rescind the evil decree by means of the only instruments at his disposal, prayer and intercession. He is first the messenger of the divine court to the defendant, but his mission boomerangs back to the sender. Now, he is no longer the messenger of the court; he becomes the agent of the defendant, attempting to mitigate the severity of the decree.^[21]

To engage with God in the face of injustice is an act not of rebellion but the ultimate prophetic act of creating intimacy with God.

What is important about this approach is not just that it can be rooted back in the biblical text and thus adopted comfortably by the religious person, but that it presents a model of interaction with God that can make some sense of our challenge. In this model, what it means to interact with God has been radically transformed. The prophet, the person who is most intimately in communion with God, is not a passive recipient of the divine word, but a partner in a dialogue, engaging in reciprocal conversation to figure out the good. What it means to encounter God is to engage in Godwrestling, to bring oneself, with all one’s convictions and beliefs, into the space of the encounter. This therefore represents a nuancing of our treatment of Plaskow’s notion of Godwrestling, in which the encounter with the divine occurs for the human as an overwhelming passive experience that later gets forced into subjectivity so that it can be made sense of. Instead, here, encounter with God has a similar structure, but allows for a bringing of the subjective into the initial objective encounter; to encounter God in this way is to open oneself to being an active interlocutor with God, a partner God seeks and calls for.

In this vein is also the notion of divinely intended moral progress, or the notion that what we encounter as immoral was merely a concession to historical contingency that God would not want us to adhere to today. Slavery, for example, can be understood as something that the Torah thought ought not to be practiced, but that for historical reasons it could not abolished. Proponents of this view might then point to the reality of today in which slavery is not practiced and argue that this serves as evidence that this is what was truly intended by the divine.  Nonetheless, this view seems to give little guidance in regard to when we should invoke this notion and if it should be invoked proactively at all. Still, it presents a model of how to understand changes in practice against divine revelation as in line with what God truly wants of us.

Response 3: Protest Improves God

The third potential response to our dilemma I wish to consider is that protesting God is a means of improving God. This model appears, I believe, when we consider the conclusion of the book of Job. Throughout the book, we read of the unjust punishment of Job and Job’s argument with his interlocutors. The dialogue builds throughout, with Job calling out God Godself to be held to account for Job’s fortune. When, at the end of the book of Job, God reveals Godself from out of the whirlwind, we, the readers, expect some justification for Job’s mistreatment at the hands of God. Instead, we read as God overpowers Job by telling Job of God’s might in a thoroughly unsatisfying response; power is simply no excuse to not act well. Tellingly, after Job responds to God for a second time, acknowledging God’s might and therefore recanting, God no longer speaks to Job. It is as if God has destroyed Job’s faith in a God who cares for justice, and Job now recognizes the futility of arguing against a being who is unaccountable, and the Job-God relationship is therefore undone. Nonetheless, Job turns to God in the interest of those in need to conclude the book, praying on behalf of his interlocutors. There is thus little joy in the relationship Job has uncovered with God, but a hope, a refusal to let go of a conception of God that can help those in need. This then introduces a hopeful conclusion, one in which the reality of the dissonance between the world and God’s justice is acknowledged, but taken not as inevitable, and instead as a current reality we ought to work to repair. To continue one’s relationship with God in the face of God’s injustice is done not by recognizing that God could be better, that we could form a relationship in which it is we who hold God accountable. Even in the depths of the failure of God to justify Godself, Job turns to God because God is needed by those who are suffering, and God needs a prompting, a call of justice from God’s prophets in order to engage morally with the world.

By distinguishing between God as God wants to be and God as God is (at least when related to human action), we can conceive of this call to engage in moral improvement of a limited God as itself a Godly act. In Lurianic Kabbalah, a school of Jewish mystical thought that arises in Safed in the mid-sixteenth century,^[22] creation occurs only via tzimtzum, or contraction. Tzimtzum occurred when the infinite God, the ein sof, contracted Godself in order to “make room” for the world. However, this forced the infinite God to limit Godself in vessels, which then broke because they could not contain God’s infinitude. In this model, God as Hashem or Elohim is simply the incarnation of the truly infinite ein sof that is necessarily broken because only a confined (and therefore incomplete) God could interact with the world without overwhelming it.^[23] This then gives rise to the notion of tikkun, of fixing, which is the basis of the kabbalistic worldview, that when one acts well, one is literally repairing both the world and God. While he does not present as ontologically real kabbalistic metaphysics,^[24] Jonathan Sacks appeals to a similar notion in his book To Heal a Fractured World, when he writes, “God, by entering the human situation, enters time, and thus uncertainty and risk.”^[25] While I too am not inclined to take as literally true the kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum, the notion that God as God interacts with the world as necessarily constricted seems useful for our project. Specifically, it gives us the context in which we can talk about God having a higher form, or truer self, that we are trying to bring out when we engage in protest against the divine. When God acts unjustly, to argue with God is not just to refuse to release one’s moral commitments, but it is an act of divine tikkun, of bringing God’s actuality closer to alignment with God’s potentiality and God’s higher order will. In order to make sense of God’s limitedness and God’s moral imperfection in the context of a God who is nonetheless worth engaging with, we presume that God not only can be better, but fundamentally desires to be better and to be bettered by us, the reader of scripture and participant in the divine encounter. God is thus not fixed as a morally imperfect being, doomed to continue acting and revealing Godself in morally problematic ways, but instead can, just like ourselves, be redeemed by the power of human action.

Conclusion

In this article, I have asserted that in order to preserve the morality of one’s biblically rooted actions, one ought to subjectively read the bible through the lens of morality. Nonetheless, I maintained that one must concurrently affirm the text as they find it and acknowledge its problematic or immoral teachings. In order to make theological sense of this model of reading sacred text, I argued that one can accept God as morally limited while also desiring us to improve God through engagement with God. Thus, the act of subjectively reading normatively authoritative text ought to be understood as just such an engagement and thus an act desired by God Godself. It is an act of improving God and God’s message on earth, an act of tikkun that will bring about a better God and a better world.

While I have attempted to engage seriously with sources and scholarship, throughout the writing process it has been clear to me that this piece of writing is at least intending to follow the method that it sets out. Sources were appealed to not as authoritative but as explanatory, and I presented worldviews rather than arguments. By doing so, I hope to have given a glimpse into my own Godwrestling that comes out of my encounters with the text I take to be sacred, and thus shed light on the content of this article through its form. Whether or not I am entirely correct in my reading of scripture, or if I am in fact wrong about the nature of God, is less vital to the project than the genuine desire to make sense of the tension between moral necessity and the presumed reality and objectivity of the divine encounter.

Works Cited

Arking, Jonathan. “Halakhic Response to Meta-Halakhic Values,” Conversations issue 39, Spring 2022 pp. 76–89.

Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah, 14a. Sefaria.org.

Bamidbar Rabbah 13:16.

Berkovits, Eliezer. “The Nature and Function of Jewish Law.” Not in Heaven, Shalem Press,

2010, pp. 3–70.

Carasik, Michael. “The Limits of Omniscience.” Journal of Biblical Literature 119, no. 2 (2000):

221–32.

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis

Books, 1987.

“Isaac ben Solomon Luria.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-ben-Solomon-Luria.

Korn, Eugene. To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values. Urim Publications, 2021.

Lamm, Norman. “Amalek and the Seven Nations.”  In Faith and Doubt: Studies in Traditional

Jewish Thought. Jersey City: KTAV Pub. House, Inc., 2007.

London, Daniel DeForest. “Judging God: Learning from the Jewish Tradition of Protest against

God.” Journal of Comparative Theology. Harvard Divinity School, June 2, 2016.

“Lurianic Kabbala.” Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lurianic-Kabbala.

Magid, Shaul. From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture

in Lurianic Kabbala. Indiana University Press, 2008.

Muffs, Yochanan. “Who Will Stand in the Breach?: A Study of Prophetic Intercession.” In Love

& Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel, 9–48. New York, NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992.

Plaskow, Judith. Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. San Francisco,

CA: Harper & Row, 1990.

Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1971.

Sacks, Jonathan. “Covenant & Conversation: Lech Lecha: A Palace in Flames.” Rabbi Sacks,

February 9, 2022.

Sacks, Jonathan. To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility. Bloomsbury, 2013.

Sobrino, Jon. Jesus the Liberator. Burns and O., 1993.

Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text.

Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.

Wiesel, Elie. The Trial of God. New York: Random House, 1979.

               In this article I present and analyze concepts of Galut and of the modern Return to Zion found in a seminal responsum composed by Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Toledano (1880–1960).[1] Born in Tiberias, scion of an illustrious Sephardic family in Meknès, Rabbi Toledano served as a rabbi in Corsica, Tangier, Cairo, and Alexandria, subsequently returning to Eretz Israel and serving as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv from 1942 until his death. For a brief period toward the end of his life he also served as minister of religious affairs of Israel’s government.[2] In his creativity and career, he may be seen as reflecting attitudes and values common to a significant but insufficiently studied group, rabbinic scholars and lay leaders of the “Old Sephardic Yishuv,” whose members held Zionist ideals in high regard while remaining loyal to their traditional heritage.[3]

            Rabbi Toledano’s central halakhic publication was a collection of responsa entitled Yam HaGadol.[4] Several of these responsa express his deep identification with the Zionist Yishuv and his belief that halakha entailed supporting the Yishuv in various ways. Thus, he takes up the question whether halakha requires a Jew in Eretz Israel to employ only Jews and to buy only Jewish produce even if non-Jewish labor or produce is cheaper—and answers in the affirmative. Moreover, he stresses that this halakhic determination applies also with regard to the labor and produce of nonobservant Jews.[5] 

In another responsum, he determines that under current conditions, halakha forbids the sale of weapons to non-Jews, especially in Eretz Israel. Only when a state of true peace prevails between Jews and Gentiles can such sales be permitted.[6] 

In a third decision, Rabbi Toledano discusses the possibility of restoring a Sanhedrin-type institution. Coming out in favor of the position typical of the more radical wing of religious Zionism, he advocates the establishment in Jerusalem of a (halakhic) High Court for the Jewish people; a court which would also, if possible, restore semikha.[7]

However, it is yet another of Rabbi Toledano’s responsa that I wish to analyze here. In August 1929, there occurred a wave of Arab violence against the Jewish population in many places throughout Eretz Israel. Especially murderous were a pogrom in the old Jewish quarter of Hebron on August 24, in which 67 Jews were massacred, and a pogrom in the old Jewish quarter of Safed in which 18 Jews were murdered.[8] In neither of these cities was there even the semblance of a Jewish self-defense framework. In Yam HaGadol, published soon afterward, the following question is posed:

Does the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Israel apply in our times in a manner that obligates all Jews to obtain possession of the Land by all possible means? And, is it not halachically forbidden to teach the sons of Israel military tactics and methods of defense, so that they might fight and defend themselves against their enemies, should the necessity arise?[9]

A close reading of the question reveals an important conceptual differentiation that is further explicated in Rabbi Toledano’s response. Two very distinct questions are being asked. Only one of these questions, concerning the parameters of Jewish settling of Eretz Israel, is presented as relating specifically to current reality. The second question, regarding halakha’s view of the correct self-defense posture Jews should adopt, is understood to be one of basic principle, not contingent upon time or place; it is precisely because of this that Rabbi Toledano’s position on the matter is so striking. 

            Attitudes toward self-defense stem, in his analysis, not from the way Jews conceive of settlement of Eretz Israel but rather from their conception of Galut. An understanding of Galut was fundamentally mistaken, theologically and morally, had come to prevail in rabbinic circles; in consequence, many rabbis preached that Judaism advocated a passive-submissive response to persecution. The traditionalist Jewish masses in the Diaspora and in Eretz Israel had followed the teachings of these rabbis, reacting to attacks not by defending themselves, but by allowing themselves and their families to be slaughtered “for the sanctification of the Divine Name.” Rabbi Toledano wrote while it is not an easy thing to say, the truth must be stated outright: Rabbis who furthered (or continue to further) this attitude bear direct and unequivocal responsibility for Jewish blood that was unnecessarily spilled due to their misguidance. Here is the relevant paragraph, in full:

Many of our great rabbis, both in former generations and in current times, erred—and misguided the simple masses of our people—in the belief that as long as we are in this hard exile, we are forbidden to lift up our heads. Rather, we are commanded to bow ourselves down before every tyrant and ruler, and to give our backs to the smiters and our cheeks to them that pluck our hair (cf. Isa. 50:6); as if the blood of Israel had been forfeited, and as if He, blessed is He, had decreed that Jacob be given for a spoil and Israel to the robber (cf. Isa. 47:24). They thought that the [Divine] decree of [Israel’s] exile and servitude to the nations included slavery and lowliness, and that, as a matter of sanctifying the Name even at the price of one’s life, a Jew must forfeit his life and surrender himself like a slave or a prisoner of war to Israel’s enemies, even in a situation in which it would have been possible to resist them and retaliate in kind.

            Let me, then, state outright that—begging their pardon—they have caused the loss of individual lives and of entire communities of the Jewish people, who in many instances might have saved themselves from death and destruction, had the leaders and rabbis of that generation instructed them that they were obligated to defend themselves against aggressors, according to the rule “If a person comes to murder you, kill him first” (Sanhedrin 72a). 

Further reading of the responsum clarifies Rabbi Toledano’s understanding of the nature of the exile ordained by God. Galut, he explains, is a political category; that is, God decreed that the Jewish people be deprived of sovereignty and live as subjects of Gentile sovereigns in the various lands in which they lived. To be the subject of a state, says Toledano, entails that one obeys the duly enacted laws promulgated but the authorities, pay taxes, and the like; not that one be the object of insult and torture, and even less that one willingly acquiesces in such a role.

            Rabbi Toledano states that such a conception of Galut as deprivation of political sovereignty—but not including divine requirement of acquiescence to insult and torture—is the one borne out by classic Jewish sources. What exile, he writes, was more directly and specifically ordained than that of the children of Israel in Egypt? Abraham was clearly informed that the divine plan was for his descendants to be enslaved and afflicted by the Egyptians for 400 years (Gen. 15:13). Yet when Moses saw an Egyptian attacking an Israelite, he struck the Egyptian down (Exodus 2:11–12), for he realized that such an attack could not possibly have been ordained as part of Israelite bondage. So, too, Esther and Mordecai regarded it as completely legitimate that the Jews (living in exile in the Persian Empire) not only be saved from Haman’s genocidal plan, but also seek to retaliate against those who had planned to destroy them (Esther 8:11, 9:1–5).

            In addition to biblical instances, Rabbi Toledano cites two other types of sources. One is Sephardic folk tradition, according to which on the eve of the 1492 expulsion Don Isaac Abarbanel and other leaders of Spanish Jewry planned together to organize their communities to confront their enemies and fight against them (a plan foiled by a treacherous converso who revealed it to the authorities).[10] The other comprises descriptions by historians of the Jewish uprisings against Rome outside of Eretz Israel, during the first decades of the period after the destruction of the Second Temple. It is worthy of note that most of the events to which he refers in this context (i.e., the uprisings in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Cyrenaica) could not have been known to Rabbi Toledano from traditional Jewish historiography. Clearly, Rabbi Toledano’s halakhic methodology enabled him to attribute normative halakhic significance to non-canonical sources.[11]

If an uncowed defensive posture was the original and correct orientation advocated by Judaic tradition and practiced by Jews in biblical and post biblical times, how does Rabbi Toledano explain the contemporary gulf between that original view and current rabbinic attitudes? He explains that deviation originated within a specific historical-geographical framework: “It was only in France, Ashkenaz, and Russia that they demeaned themselves, and they never attempted to resist and defend themselves.” In recent generations, he adds, this attitude spread to many Sephardic communities, including Morocco, Persia, and Turkey. In other words, the ideology of submissiveness, widely regarded in traditional rabbinic circles as the authentic religious norm ordained by God for Jews living in a pre-messianic reality, is in fact (Toledano explains) an Ashkenazic heresy that subsequently corrupted many Sephardic Jews, whose own ancestors never stooped to such levels. Interestingly, Gershom Cohen similarly wrote that Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenazic Jewry advocated passivity as a religious value and idealized martyrdom, while Sephardic Jewry was active and dynamic.[12] Elisheva Carlebach critiqued this dichotomy as incompatible with historical fact. However, she concluded that while historically inaccurate, the dichotomy did reflect a clear historiographical difference: Traditional Ashkenazic historiography idealized passivity and martyrdom as religious ideals, while traditional Sephardic historiography idealized activism.[13]

In its fully developed form, writes Toledano, the religious glorification of this perverted notion of Galut had turned back even against the heroes of the pre-exilic era (who ostensibly should not have been bound by ideals of passivity) and attempted to modify their images in consonance with the supposedly eternal values exemplified in the figure of the submissive Jew:

When one reads works of homilies and musar composed by several recent rabbis, one finds that they believe Jews are religiously obligated to submit to all forms of suffering, insult, and physical degradation. They thought that this followed from [the ideal of] Galut or humility. As a result, some of them regarded as problematic the attitude of the patriarch Jacob, who said, “With my sword and bow,” and of Caleb, who said, “As was my strength then, so is it even now,” and they asked: “How could such saintly men boast of physical prowess?!”

Toledano refers the reader to the source of this critique of the plain meaning of Caleb’s words: Rabbi Haim Aryeh Leib Fenster’s introduction to Parashat Ki Tetze.[14] He adds that similar views can be found with ease in recent Ashkenazic rabbinical works. A reading in Mendel Piekarz’s impressive work on Polish Hassidic thought provides striking examples illustrating the Ashkenazic ideal of submissiveness in Galut as a religious virtue. Thus, Piekarz cites an 1880 homily by Rabbi Yehezkel Halberstam (1813–1899), who wrote that when faced with a threat a Jew should act with submissiveness, humility, and a broken heart—and flee.[15] So too, Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain (1855–1926) the second Rebbe of Sochatchov, wrote that Jews should maintain an inner sense of superiority over the Gentiles, but simultaneously act with humility and submissiveness as proper to the state of Exile, as the biblical author of Lamentations (3:30) instructed: “He should offer his cheek to he who strikes him.” Rabbi Bornstein explicitly contrasted this with “the attitude of the well-known sect [= the Zionists] who are unable to bear the submissiveness and the suffering of Galut.”[16] It is thus clear that Rabbi Toledano was not inventing a straw man but criticizing a major trend in Ashkenazic Hareidi thought of his time.

In characterizing this attitude, Rabbi Toledano employs a literary allusion of extreme force that could not fail to evoke a powerful reaction on the part of readers acquainted with classic talmudic culture. This posture, he says, calls forth the rabbis’ devastating critique of Zechariah ben Avkolas: “The piety of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkolas destroyed our temple, etc.” Toledano alludes, of course, to the well-known talmudic story (Gittin 55b–56a) describing a chain of events that led to the destruction of the second Temple. Perhaps best-known today is the first part of the tale, often referred to as “Kamzah and Bar-Kamzah,” which illustrates the moral and social callousness of Jerusalem’s Jewish elite on the eve of the First Revolt. In the second part of the story, the offended Bar-Kamzah maneuvers the Roman emperor into sending an imperial sacrificial offering to the temple of Jerusalem—an offering that Bar-Kamzah secretly blemishes in a manner rendering it unfit for a sacrifice according to Temple norms. 

            It is the third part of the story, however, to which Toledano alludes. Having received the animal sent by the emperor, the rabbis of Jerusalem convene to decide upon a course of action. Most, realizing the disastrous consequences of noncompliance, favor having the animal offered up on the Temple altar despite its minor blemish. But Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkolas speaks out in a different vein: Sacrosanct rules should not be set aside because of an imperial whim, lest a precedent be set. The rabbis give in to Zechariah, but are now faced with another quandary: If Bar-Kamzah reports to the emperor that the sacrifice was not accepted, this will be construed as an act of rebellion by the Jews—with dire consequences. The rabbis therefore conclude that the only way out is for Bar-Kamzah to be put to death. But Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkolas again rebukes them: This might lead people to incorrectly think that he who brings a blemished sacrifice is liable to the death penalty. Abashed by his devoutness and principled consistency, the other rabbis swing around to Zechariah’s position—and Jerusalem’s fate is sealed.

            In the talmudic story, Zechariah appears as the advocate of a principled policy, with the other rabbis tending toward a weaker line of “adaptation to circumstance.” In what sense, then, can Toledano, who supports a bold defensive posture vis-à-vis enemies of the Jews, identify his opponents, who preach adaptation to circumstance, as analogous to Zechariah? The answer lies not in the similarity of their specific proposals, but rather in their concept of value and norm; both first-century Zechariah and contemporary Ashkenazic rabbis identify true devoutness with unswerving commitment to set patterns of behavior, without the broader consequences of such behavior being recognized as a prime consideration in the decision-making process. In both cases, this narrow sense of what commitment to Torah entails leads to terrible loss of Jewish life. As Toledano puts it, with regard to the “Ashkenazic” glorification of submissiveness: 

This faulty humility, which rabbinical leaders instilled in the hearts of the multitude, caused an intensification of Galut, and postponed its end. And, alas for our sins, we recently saw this with our own eyes here in the Holy Land; for in the riots and disturbances which occurred in the year 5689 [1929], the number of deaths was especially great among our brethren who were yeshiva students or of the simple folk, who were educated to agree to suffer insult, to be dragged about, and to be victimized.

Misguided religious attitudes toward Galut thus affect mass behavior and contribute in no small measure to the perpetuation of the exile. Rabbi Toledano’s conclusion is clear:

Regarding the second question, then, “Is it not halakhically forbidden to teach the sons of Israel military tactics and methods of defense, etc.?” Why, according to the above, not only is it not halakhically forbidden, but it is a mitzvah and an obligation incumbent upon the rabbis and leaders of Israel, to institute mandatory daily lessons in these matters in all the talmudei torah and yeshivot, so that the students and youth be prepared to fight, in case an hour of need arises.

According to Toledano, then, renewed acknowledgment of Torah’s positive attitude toward self-defense must lead to a revised notion of Torah study; the curriculum of Torah institutions should reflect the role which their students are expected to fulfill as defenders of Jewish lives. As he noted previously, however, this was not at all the actual praxis of these institutions; yeshiva students—and, of course, their teachers—were far from exemplifying the values of Judaic tradition in this crucial matter.

            Until this point, Rabbi Toledano’s analysis and rhetoric have unfolded purely as a discourse on Galut. His critique of the “Ashkenazic” sanctification of Israel’s suffering in exile derives from the self-evident nature of the imperative of self-defense, and is supported by citation of scriptural and historical sources. His conclusion is that self-defense is “a mitzvah and an obligation” incumbent upon all Jews, wherever they reside. In other words, there is no inherent connection between the mitzvah of self-defense and any geographical locus, e.g., Eretz Israel. 

            Eretz Israel, however, is squarely on the agenda of Toledano’s responsum. The first question posed by the inquirer was, we recall, whether the mitzvah of settling in Eretz Israel applies in our times in a matter which obligates all Jews to obtain possession of the Land by all possible means. Accordingly, in the second part of his responsum, Toledano proceeds to discuss halakhic perspectives on the conquest and settlement of Eretz Israel. In a lengthy, detailed, and technical analysis he relates primarily to the opinions of medieval halakhists. His conclusion is that the two leading halakhic authorities who each developed a detailed position on this matter, Maimonides and Nahmanides, both agree that all Jews are at all times obligated in principle by Torah to do what they can to develop the potential of Eretz Israel, settle there, and gain possession of the Land. However, to be obligated in principle does not always entail obligation in practice. With regard to Eretz Israel, a specific question obtained: according to a midrashic tradition cited in the Talmud (Ketubot 111a), three vows limiting initiatives to gain control of Eretz Israel were divinely ordained in conjunction with the exile:

• Lo la’alot ka-homah: Forbidding the Jewish people to initiate a collective campaign to regain sovereignty in Eretz Israel against the will of the nations of the world.
• Lo limrod be-umot ha-olam: Forbidding Jews to revolt against sovereign powers in the lands of exile.
• Lo lehisht’abed be-yisrael yoter midai: Forbidding the nations of the world to overly oppress the Jews.

To what extent does the first of these vows suspend or curtail the mitzvah of settling Eretz Israel, under the conditions prevailing in 1929?

            Rabbi Toledano argues that under contemporary conditions, the first vow cannot be construed as applying to the Zionist project, for two reasons:

1. It is quite probable that the limitations originally imposed by the three vows should be understood as mutually contingent. Thus, should the nations not fulfill their obligation under the third vow to limit the oppression of the Jews (and they have not done so, notes Toledano), Jews would be freed from their limitations under the first two vows, and might try to regain Eretz Israel even in the face of Gentile opposition.
2. The preceding claim, regarding the reciprocity of the vows’ validity, is (while correct) unnecessary for halakhic justification of the contemporary Zionist enterprise. The vow Lo la’alot ka-homah relates to a collective Jewish move opposed by the nations of the world, whereas in the twentieth century the nations have endorsed political Zionism through the Balfour Declaration and the mandate of the League of Nations. 

Strikingly noteworthy in Toledano’s position is the absence of messianism from his presentation of Zionism. His halakhic rationale for Zionism is not based on the claim that current events with regard to Eretz Israel represent a new historical phase or mode, or a materialization of prophetic promises of Israel’s restoration to Zion. In an important sense, Toledano’s understanding of Zionism stems from his understanding of Galut: Galut was not a divine decree obligating Jews to deny their group’s dignity, or forbidding them to affirm that dignity through forceful reaction to persecution. Even in the depths of Galut, Jews were always expected to regard themselves as a nation, in the most conventional, political sense of the term. Galut simply meant that the Jewish nation might not unilaterally attempt to avail itself of the usual instrument for safeguarding a polity, i.e., sovereignty.

Given such a notion of Galut, it follows that political Zionism does not involve or require any redefining or rethinking of previously held concepts regarding the place and role in history of the Jewish people. Rather, Zionism requires only that Jews realize that the political limitations imposed by Galut, expressed in the three vows, are not valid in contemporary reality. No longer constrained by these limitations, Jews can legitimately (as far as halakha and the Torah are concerned) attempt to achieve the ultimate political expression of nationality, i.e., sovereignty, to which they had always inspired. In and of itself, there’s nothing miraculous in the shift and ebb of international political constellations; thus, there is nothing in the emergence of a political moment favorable to Zionism which requires explanation or justification in terms of messianism or of divine intervention in the course of history. Religiously, one need not hold that Zionism’s validity is contingent upon current events being understood as reishit tzemihat geulatenu, the inception of eschatological reality. 

Yet Rabbi Toledano does allude to an aspect of recent developments as reflecting divine involvement—not directly in history, but in the realm of the psyche: God has inspired certain Jews to free themselves from the false consciousness of Galut propounded by contemporary rabbis and thus to reappropriate the authentic Judaic posture of self-defense and assertiveness. This psychological shift has enabled those Jews to seize the opportunity, provided by the international politics, for the Jewish people to regain sovereignty in Eretz Israel. As Rabbi Toledano puts it:

Let me praise the flowers of this new generation[17] who “awoke and wakened”[18] to revive oppressed hearts,[19] to engirdle themselves with a courageous spirit, and to restore the crown of Israel’s honor to its pristine glory. Indeed, it is with regard to this that the Bible says: “And I will give you a new heart and instill in you a new spirit.”[20]

There is a two-pronged irony here—both prongs directed at the conventional rabbinic establishment. On the one hand, God’s involvement serves precisely to eliminate the passive-submissive psychological attitude explicitly extolled by rabbis as the essence of correct Jewish conduct vs. Gentile persecution. On the other hand, God’s involvement is manifest specifically within the hearts and minds of the secular halutzim of the New Yishuv. Paradoxically, it is those whom those rabbis identify as the furthest from Torah, whose hearts and spirits reflect God’s concern for Israel. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways unacknowledged by the rabbinic “establishment.”

Some questions for further thought

Rabbi Toledano’s understanding of Galut, self-defense, and Zionism are fascinating in their own right. In addition, several significant directions for additional reflection and thought emanate from his responsum. These include:

Analysis of his halakhic methodology

Toledano integrates biblical, rabbinic, and historiographical sources in his discussion, and makes extensive use of reasoned arguments (s’vara) that are not contingent upon proof-texts. It would be of great interest to flush out the underlying methodological and conceptual assumptions that make possible such halakhic writing, and to explicitly develop their philosophical and religious implications.

Authority, commitment, and critique

Rabbi Toledano is writing within the classical genre of halakhic responsa, which is based upon the acceptance of tradition and recognition of the authority of earlier scholars who created within that framework. Yet Toledano directs a powerful attack upon what had become a pillar of convention in the rabbinic community, and, indeed, in the traditional Jewish community at large: the understanding of the Divine decree of Galut as requiring submissiveness and as justifying suffering at the hands of the nations. Obviously, then, Toledano does not hold, that to be within the halakhic tradition means to accept as binding everything that has been justified by halakhic masters of the past, or to refrain from explicit criticism of generally accepted opinions. How, then, does he understand the relationship between halakhic authority and halakhic independence, between working within a tradition and subjecting it to a direct critique?

Continuity and change

Toledano’s claims that his perception of Galut harks back to a classic tradition that was accepted by Jews up to the expulsion from Spain. Are there real grounds for this claim? If so, what are they, and why and how were they subsequently supplemented by “Ashkenazic” submissive attitudes? If not so, then, what does Toledano’s adoption of a novel understanding of Galut indicate regarding the integrative and transformative capacity of the halakhic system vis-à-vis cultural and social change?

Notes

Preface

There are numerous ways in which a person can stand up for a principle. It can be through action or inaction, speech or silence, song or march, it can be overt or even an internal stand known only to the principled actor.

In our history, there is one character-type whose job is fundamentally to stand on principle, to “speak truth to power” (to use a tired and grossly misused current cliché) and to be ready to declare God’s Truth to an unwilling and resistant audience. That is the “prophet,” the Navi who is God’s agent, sent with a message that no one ever wants to hear. There is no better place to find example after example of principled stands than in the books of our Nevi’im, books that have inspired generations of people to right wrongs, to insist on justice and to refuse to back down in the face of tyranny. I give you…Amos of Tekoa.

Introduction

The 14 books of literary prophecy (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 11 of the “Trei Asar”[1]), in spite of their heavy emphasis on oratory, include numerous (auto)biographical narratives. While these are chiefly found in the three independent books, there are also mini narratives in a number of the smaller volumes included in Trei Asar. The nine-verse interaction between the prophet from Judean Tekoa’ and Amaziah, the high priest of the royal sanctuary at northern (Samarian) Beit-El, makes up the one such passage in Amos.

Before tackling the text, it is important to note that this interaction at Beit-El bears some significant parallels with another interaction at Beit-El. Amos’s adversarial dialogue is with a “Kohen” at the bama in Beit-El, and the king who is the focal point of Amos’s diatribe is Jeroboam ben Joash. But we have previously encountered a similar prophetic interaction. Just after Jeroboam ben Nebat establishes his two “alternate” worship sites at Dan and Beit-El to serve as a local and more convenient substitute for Jerusalem, an enigmatic visitor arrives there:

And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of Hashem to Beit-El; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to offer. And he cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said: “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon you he will slaughter the priests of the high places that offer upon you, and men's bones shall they burn upon you” (I Kings 13:1–2).

Note the parallels—a “man of God” (i.e., a prophet) from Judea comes to the altar at Beit-El and prophesies destruction of the site. Jeroboam is seen as the direct target of the prophecy, and the priests of the high places (“kohanei bamot”) are explicitly identified as targets of God’s anger.

Is it possible that Amos deliberately chose Beit-El in order to reenact that earlier anonymous Judean prophet’s appearance there? Is it significant that the king in Amos’s time is the only one in the numerous dynasties that ruled Shomron to carry the pioneering king’s name? Perhaps. In our study of this confrontation, we will see even more parallels that draw these two meetings together.

The Text

Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: “Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, And Israel shall surely be led away captive put of his land.” Also Amaziah said unto Amos: “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there; but prophesy not again any more at Beth-el, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a royal house.” Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah: “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees; and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said unto me: Go, prophesy unto My people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest: Prophesy not against Israel, And preach not against the house of Isaac; Therefore thus saith the Lord: Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, And thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, And thy land shall be divided by line; And thou thyself shalt die in an unclean land, And Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.” (Amos 7:10–17)

Then Amazia the priest of Beth-El sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Jeroboam appointed non-Levites to act as his priests.[2]

We have no idea if the “priesthood” that Jeroboam established became dynastic, such that only the sons of his appointees could take over the position, or if it remained non-tribal. Although Jeroboam I established the sanctuaries as oriented to worship of Hashem, within a hundred years or so (Ahab’s time), those same sanctuaries may have been devoted to Ba’al worship. That is why the Rishonim here, without identifying Amazia’s tribal background, mark him as an idolatrous priest. If that is the case, then the priests would have been a whole new crop of devotees to Ba’al. Alternatively, with each change of dynasty (Jeroboam, Baasha, Omri, Yehu), there may have been a change in “religious leadership.”

Note that the end of the third vision (verse 9) and the first two verses of this narrative are the only places where Jeroboam is mentioned by name in the book.

Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel: Amazia sees Amos as more than a troublesome prophet from the south; he perceives him as a rabble-rouser, whose rebukes and visions of doom have the potential to generate a popular rebellion against the crown.

The message here is odd, considering the content of the book until this point. Nearly all of Amos’s oratory is aimed at the aristocracy, the corrupt judiciary, and the royal house—hardly “in the midst of the House of Israel.” We must consider the possibility that Amazia sees Amos as a personal threat. Remember that Amos already warned the people not to go to Beit-El (or Gilgal or Beer-Sheva) to worship. If the leadership heeds him, the populace is likely to follow suit. That may be a threat to (at least) the livelihood of the priests at Beit-El. Perhaps the message that Amazia sent to the king, tinged with some hysteria, was intended to spur the king to action against Amos and was itself an exaggeration.

It is also possible that Amos was delivering some of these prophecies—notably, the visions in this section—in Beit-El, at the site of the royal sanctuary. Amazia’s words in the next few verses seem to support this back story. If so, celebrants and onlookers would have also heard him, and even if Amos did not intend his prophecies to speak directly to the people, they would have heard and been potentially inspired to rebel.

The word kesher, which appears approximately 20 times in the monarchic history,[3] appears only twice (with the meaning of “conspiracy”) in the words of the literary prophets.[4] In other words, although it is a somewhat regular feature of the narrative, describing the fate of dynasties, it was not often used in rhetoric.[5]

The land is not able to bear all his words: The image of the land having to “bear” words is a curious one. Radak reads “the land” as meaning “the people of the land,” and he explains that the people (who are presumably loyal to the crown) cannot bear to hear so many bad things about their own nation. Hakham, on the other hand, sees the phrase lo tukhal ha-aretz le-hakhil et kol devarav as a metaphor. His words are like bubbling wine, which, when put into a barrel, will burst the barrel. In the same way, his words are likely to generate a rebellion among the people.[6] Abravanel, without resorting to the metaphor-explanation, sees it the same way—as a warning against the potential of Amos’s words inciting rebellion against the king.

This approach presumes a significantly lowered sense of loyalty among the people. Their first response would not be to despise the “southern man of God” who threatens the king, but rather to side with him!

It is significant to note that there is a history, specifically in the north, of prophets identifying and anointing kings (such as Elisha in the case of Hazael and Jehu, and Ahija in the case of Jeroboam ben Nevat). It is not unreasonable to think that Amazia saw Amos as yet another prophet aiming to unseat Jeroboam and the house of Yehu and replace him with another king (who might be, in their eyes, a Judean vassal).

Paul points to the alliteration in this phrase—tukhal le-hakhil kol. A subliminal message of this alliterative scheme would be okhel ha-kol—that his words will lead to (or prophesy) everything in the north being devoured.[7]

For thus said Amos: This short phrase is heavy with implication. The priest uses the same familiar introductory “messenger formula” with which Amos himself had delivered the first series of oracles. Remember that this formula is used when relaying or delivering the words of a liege to a vassal. Thus, “Ko amar Balak,” “Ko amar Par’oh,” and “Ko amar Yosef.” The understated power of “Ko amar Amos” as a message to the king is clear—Amos presumes himself to be the lord over Jeroboam, his servant. That is, of course, not Amos’s position, but that is how Amazia wants to portray the Judean prophet to his king.

Secondly, and of no less significance, is the very phrase ko amar Amos. Amos would not have said ko omar (“thus say I”), but rather ko amar Hashem. This central and determinant piece of Amos’s prophecies is omitted. The conclusion that Jeroboam is intended to reach is that these are Amos’s words—not God’s! As such, corralling Amos as a rabble-rousing orator from the south is the right move—just as Jeroboam I sought to do to the anonymous Judean prophet at Beit El, two hundred years earlier (yet another parallel).

Jeroboam shall die by the sword: This paraphrased quote from Amos’s last vision is inexactly presented. Amos had reported in God’s name that the meaning of the anakh vision was

the high places of Yishak will be made desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel will be destroyed, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam by the sword.

In other words, the threat of the sword hung over the “house of Jeroboam”—i.e., his children. Indeed, Jeroboam’s son, Zachariah, was assassinated and killed by the sword. Amazia’s deliberate blurring of the message was intended to spur immediate and drastic action on the part of the royal house against the Tekoite interloper.

And Israel shall surely be led away captive put of his land: When we look back to Amazia’s first warning—“the land will not be able to tolerate/contain all of his words”—we observe a nearly polar divide among the commentators as to the intent of the phrase. Some, such as ibn Ezra and R. Eliezer of Beaugency, understood that the people naturally sided with their king, and they would not tolerate the threats uttered by Amos. However, we also saw the comments of others, notably Abravanel, who included the phrase as part of the threat. In other words, Amos is riling “the whole land” against the king. It is difficult to sustain this interpretation considering Amazia’s brief message, however. The first half—that Jeroboam will die by the sword—fits this read comfortably. But the second half—that Israel will surely be exiled—does not comport, prima facie, with this interpretation. For if the threat is against all of the people of the Northern Kingdom, why would this lead to a rebellion? It would more likely lead to a popular lynching of Amos!

There is a way to salvage Abravanel’s approach, and it may be contextually (and textually) appealing. If the message that Amos is broadcasting is specifically anti-Jeroboam and his intent (per Amazia’s reporting) is to provoke a popular rebellion, then the second part of the message should be understood with a bit more nuance. Instead of reading the two clauses as sequential—first the king will be killed and then Israel will be exiled—read it as conditional. To wit—Jeroboam must die by the sword or else Israel will be exiled. These two verses comprise Amazia’s excited and near-hysterical message to the court. The next few verses are the direct dialogue between “priest” and prophet.

Then Amatzia said to Amos: Are we to understand that Amos was privy to Amatzia’s message to the king? Did Amatzia state it aloud, or was it sent as a private message to the court? Nothing in the verses above provides any guidance, but this verse may be indicative. If we interpret va-yomer here as, “Also, Amatzia said,” as numerous translations render it (KJV, JPS), then this would seem to be the second overt and public statement made by Amatzia. First he turned to a messenger, in the presence of those gathered as well as Amos, and sent his urgent message to the court. He then turned to Amos to confront him directly.

On the other hand, if we interpret va-yomer here as, “then Amatzia said” (as we have it here, per NET, CSB and numerous other translations), these may very well be the first words that Amos (or anyone else present) heard.

Seer! Go, flee yourself away to the land of Judah: Amazia uses a seemingly archaic term for a prophet—hozeh, literally “seer.” We will revisit this and the implication of Amos’s response below, where he references the term navi.

And there eat bread, and prophesy there: This is a most curious send-off. What does Amazia mean here? Why would Amos be eating bread “there” or “here”? Amazia sees Amos as an unwelcome southerner, out of his element and without the right to orate in the north.[8]

But prophesy not again any more at Beit-El: This phrase gives us the impression that Amos may have been at Beit-El for a while, presenting his prophecies. Why would he choose this location? Several answers come to mind. First of all, it was a royal sanctuary (mikdash melekh), where the king may have himself have come to participate in the cult practices. It was also a popular pilgrimage site.[9] In addition, it was originally chosen by Jeroboam (in addition to its storied past beginning with Yaakov) due to its proximity to Judah. It was, for a time, the southernmost city in the Israelite kingdom. This may have made it a “safer” place for Amos to preach, given that it was also quite a distance from the capitol in Shomron.  

For it is the king's sanctuary: Is the proper translation “it is the king’s sanctuary” or “it is a royal sanctuary”? The distinction makes quite a difference. In the first read, Amatzia is telling Amos to leave because this is the “property” of Jeroboam, and the king himself is liable to return at any point. In the second read (which I admit to favoring), it raises Amos’s effrontery to an insult to the crown—coming into a royal sanctuary and preaching against the king.

The phrase mikdash melekh (which we know from a more positive context, as R. Shlomo Alkabetz integrated it into Lekha Dodi) appears only once in Tanakh. Indeed, the notion of a mikdash melekh is familiar to us, but from foreign, pagan nations, where the divinity and the royal house sit at proximate corners of a blurry divide. In a sense, Amazia’s clumsy description of the altar at Beit-El says more than Amos could, although this is not a point that Amos ever directly attacks. The establishment of Beit-El was occasioned by Jeroboam’s fear that the people’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem would lead them to revert their allegiance to Rehoboam, and Jeroboam’s kingdom (or his life) would not last long. Beit-El (and Dan) were set up to provide a “local and convenient” place to worship Hashem. Yet it wasn’t long before Jeroboam turned the “off-site” sanctuary to God into a royal sanctuary, which it remained for at least two hundred years.

And it is a royal house: The concluding phrase here seals the point made above. The sanctuary is not a guarded place, off-limits to impurity and outsiders due to its connection with the divine. It is, instead, a royal precinct and, as such, someone coming with a message of doom against the kingdom is a true trespasser.

Then Amos answered, and said to Amazia: Again, we will assume that this interaction is public and that Amos is aiming his response at the assemblage, far more than at Amazia himself.

I am not a prophet, nor am I a prophet's son: At this point, we may note that Amos’s claim is that he is not part of a professional guild of prophets, nor is he a prophet by vocation. Rather, he is…

For I am a herdsman: Amos is a rancher, who herds animals. In other words, he is not part of the scholastic or ascetic class, but rather a “regular person.”

And a dresser of sycamore trees: The word boleis is a hapax legomenon (word unique in Tanakh), but the best hypothesis as to its meaning is the puncturing of sycamore figs; evidently this practice, which is still done in Egypt today, hastens the ripening of the fruit without exposing the fruit to worm infestation. This was only done during a short part of the season therefore it was possible for Amos to be both herder as well as a “sycamore dresser.”

And the Lord took me from behind the flock: This description is evocative, in no uncertain terms, of God’s words to David.[10] The notion is that, like David, Amos was not someone who sought this office, nor did he relish the awesome responsibility that comes with it. He was tending his flock, dressing his sycamores, when God plucked him up and sent him on his mission for the benefit of the entire nation.

And Hashem said to me: Although this is a necessary cog in the oratory, it does seem to underscore that which Amazia deliberately omitted. The words that Amos is delivering are not his own; they are God’s words and a divine message, ignored at one’s own peril.

Go, prophesy unto My people Israel: This completes the picture. Amos was sent; he did not “go.” When Amazia tells him to “go and flee yourself,” he expresses an assumption that Amos chose to come and may now choose to go. This is not the case, as Amos spells out for him.

Before moving on, I’d like to address two oddities in Amazia’s words. The priest speaks directly to Amos. Even though he referred to him by name in his message to the court, here he calls him hozeh—literally “visionary” or “seer.” What does this term mean?

This question becomes either clarified or intensified when we see that he tells Amos—seemingly in a derisive manner—sham tinavei, using the popular root for “prophecy” (from which navi derives). If we assume that the two words are synonymous and interchangeable—i.e., hozeh=navi—then the phrase is straightforward, and the differentiation in terms used is intended for rhetorical variety. If, on the other hand, the two words are distinct in meaning, then our question becomes exponentially more complex. Why did the priest call him by the unusual sobriquet hozeh and then tell him to no longer tinavei? This interpretive fork widens with Amos’s answer in which he avers that he is neither a navi nor a ben-navi, avoiding the term hozeh altogether. This does not augur well for those who would read hozeh as equivalent in meaning to navi. For purposes of their dispute, it would have been more impactful for Amos to deny his prophetic vocation by responding to the word hozeh and say, lo hozeh anokhi ve-lo ben hozeh. That is, of course, not the case.

A brief but vital tangent is in place here. We have only one character in Tanakh who is identified as a hozeh. That is Gad ha-Hozeh, who operates as David’s “court prophet” as early as his time on the run from Saul[11] and is most well-known for his role in the census punishment.[12] It is helpful to note that when he is first referenced in that story, the text uses seemingly redundant terms: “…and the word of Hashem was given to Gad the prophet (ha-navi), the seer (hozeh) of David, saying.”

Note that the term navi remains independent, but the hozeh belongs to David—hozeh David. Gad is also noted as one of the three authors of the chronicles of David’s life:

Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the words of Shemuel the seer (ro’eh), and in the words of Natan the prophet (navi), and in the words of Gad the seer (hozeh).[13]

Other than the references to Gad, hozeh as a generic title is used disparagingly. When Ezekiel describes the false prophets,[14] he consistently returns to the word hozim and juxtaposes them with kosmim (wizards) several times. Indeed, the most famous kosem in Tanakh (Bilam) refers to himself as one who mahazeh Shadai yehezeh (“sees the visions of Shadai”)—but never calls himself a navi.

The evidence here points to an essential difference between a hozeh and a navi. The hozeh is a court prophet, who works in the employ of the king and serves as his royal oracle. Gad is first introduced this way; his first “visionary act” is to direct David where to move in his wanderings, and his most famous prophetic task is to lead David in response to God’s anger over the ill-conceived census and to identify the location of the altar. The court hozim referenced by Ezekiel would present prognostications favorable to the king. This is not to say that the members of such a group are never called nevi’im,[15] but overall the terms have an underlying difference.

Whereas a hozeh works for the king, the navi works for God; he brings God’s word to the court, the leaders, and the people. (Some have suggested that the root of navi is havei, bringer, i.e., of the Word.)

All of which means that Amazia assumes that Amos works in the employ of the Judean king. He has been sent to Beit-El, goes the thinking, in order to stir up the local populace against their king and to potentially restore sovereignty of the north to the House of David.

Regarding Amazia’s other odd phrase—“eat bread there,” this seems to point to the crucial difference highlighted above. Is the prophet in the hire of the court—does he “eat bread at the king’s table”? Or is he an independent person, carrying the unpolluted word of God?[16]

When Amos responds that he is not a navi, it is clear that he means that this vocation is not one he chose for himself. Ben-navi is a different story. We meet the benei ha-nevi’im in several contexts in Tanakh, chiefly in the company of Shemuel[17] and in the Elijah-Elisha circles.[18] They are a guild of students who, at least in Elisha’s times, had adopted a life of penury in their quest to “study” prophecy. It appears that they had guided meditation-type experiences in which they became more sensitized to receiving prophetic inspiration. Amos is claiming that he not only is not a navi by vocation, but he was never in the navi-school; he never studied for it.

He is, rather, a “regular” person, fully occupied by his chosen vocations. Having a mission to speak to God’s people was never his choice.

He is not a professional navi who “belongs” to a court; he represents one thing and one thing only—God’s word to God’s people. He is not about to return to Judea and eat bread there, for although he comes from there, he is not supported there. He is not in the employ of the southern king. It is possible that Amazia was not even aware of any other type of prophet, and Amos’s words bring home the point of the type of agent that he truly is.

And Hashem took me from behind the flock and the Lord said to me: Go, prophesy unto My people Israel: With this short phrase, Amos makes it clear that he was “plucked” from a hard-working but serene and pastoral life and thrown directly into the crucible of conflict with kings, priests, and judges.

Now therefore hear the word of the Lord: The causal ve-ata appears over 250 times in Tanakh, with 55 appearances in the literary prophetic canon, but it only appears this one time in Amos. The meaning—“and now”—is always presented as the back half of a causal relationship and is usually found in the middle of a passage.[19] In other words, “such-and-such has happened” or “God has done such-and-such for you,” ve-ata here is the appropriate response.

Amos’s use of ve-ata here is a bit curious. We would expect it to follow a rebuke or detailing of the crimes of the kingdom (or judiciary or aristocracy). Instead, it follows Amos’s autobiographic sketch of his call to divine agency.

Paul understands that ve-ata indicates a transition. Amos has concluded justifying his agency and now shifts (ve-ata) to the pronouncement. Hakham, on the other hand, interprets the use of ve-ata as causal: “Now that I’ve been tapped as a prophet, I have prophecy regarding you, Amazia…” This seems to be the most likely meaning of ve-ata, as it fits the usual usage in Tanakh.

What is unusual about this opening clause is that Amos punctuates his prophecy with the words “hear the word of Hashem”—but then, before actually stating the prophecy of impending doom, he recalls Amazia’s call for Amos to cease prophesizing to Israel. We would have expected the line shema devar Hashem to follow his repeat of Amazia’s attempt to throw him out, as follows:

Ve-ata ata omer lo tinavei al Israel, ve-lo tatif al beit Yishak

Lakhen ko amar…

In other words, the clause shema devar Hashem appears to be superfluous and somewhat clumsy.

We apparently must conclude that the line ata omer…Yishak is part of the words of Hashem. In other words, Amos is not speaking on his own behalf when he rebuffs Amazia’s attempt to have him silenced.

Ve-ata—and now, here is the prophecy that God has sent me to deliver: “You tell me (or Me) not to deliver prophecy against Israel and not to rebuke the house of Yishak. Therefore, this is what Hashem says…”

Amos’s paraphrase of Amazia’s words are not his own personal response; they are prophetic and part of God’s response to the attempt to silence God’s words at Beit-El.

You say: Prophesy not against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Yishak: Note that Amos uses tinavei in parallel with tatif.  The root natof means “drip,” as it is used in most of its infrequent appearances in Tanakh (there are 18 in total). For instance, in the opening lines of Devora’s song, poetically describing the cosmological reaction to God’s appearance at Sinai.[20]

This original meaning is then borrowed to describe, metaphorically, prophetic words of rebuke, which “drop down” from heaven.[21]This root is used with this meaning in Micah[22] and Job.[23]

The only other time that Amos uses the root natof is at the restoration prophecy of consolation at the epilogue of the book. There it takes the original meaning of “dropping” and inheres great blessing and grace. Why does Amos, whose prophecies are filled with rebuke, choose to use this word so sparingly and only here?

Keep in mind that Amos is standing at Beit-El, looking, as it were, “up” to the priest who is officiating at the altar. The difference between their perspectives on the prophet’s words could not be more diametric, as outlined above. The application of natof to prophecy implies a directional orientation—the words are coming down like dew (if comforting) or like harsh rain or hail (if threatening). It is specifically here, where Amos’s role and agency is directly challenged, that he stresses that his words are coming “down,” i.e., from above.

The alignment of hinavei with “Israel” and tatif with “Beit Yishak” is deliberate and elegant. The classic and familiar word navi is associated with Israel, beginning from the promise of prophetic continuation of Moshe’s leadership.[24] On the other hand, the “put-down” implied by tatif specifically targets “Beit Yishak.” The one other mention of “Yishak” in Amos’s prophecies, delivered just before Amazia’s angry reaction, made mention of bamot Yishak—the “high places” of Yishak.[25] As we discussed in analyzing this uncommon spelling in the prophecy of the anakh, this was a deliberate play on the name Yishak, turning it from a name of divine favor and joy to a name of licentiousness and frivolity. For Amos’s words to “drop down” on the “high places,” it would have to be a word that emanates from on high—exactly the point of Amos’s response to Amazia throughout.

Therefore thus says Hashem: Amos is already delivering God’s words. Why add this introductory phrase?

One possible explanation is that Amos’s words are made up of two segments. The first one, introduced with ve-ata shema devar Hashem, is God’s response to Amazia’s attempts to silence God’s prophet. The second is the prophecy that had already been given to Amos and for which he was sent to Beit-El in the first place.

This is a bit difficult, however. Amos reported three visions and, in the case of two, his own attempts at intercession. These presentations were presumably made at Beit-El, before being stopped by the priest. He continues with a fourth vision and it is commonly assumed that this takes place at the same setting of the first three—at Beit-El. In other words, the fourth vision was the final intended prophecy for Beit-El—not the harsh five-fold curse here.

Holding onto the notion that Amos’s words are to be understood as segmented into two, we might propose that they are both divine responses to Amazia. The first is a strong-arm rebuff of Amazia’s attempts to silence God’s prophet. The second is the concomitant punishment that will now befall Amazia and, presumably, his sovereign due to their attempts to silence Amos.[26]

In what may be an ironic twist, it is possible that this harsh pronouncement was originally intended for the king only. This is implied in the denouement of the curse—that Israel will be exiled. Perhaps since the priest tried to prevent the prophet from announcing God’s words to the king, these words now also apply to his minion at Beit-El.

As pointed out above, this curse has five prongs to it. This is a rhetorical pattern that Amos has used several times. There are five instances of punishment listed in 4:6–11, each of which concludes with “and still you have not returned to Me.” There is also the list of five cosmic wonders in chapter 4:13, as well as the curse of Amazia and/or Jeroboam in our verse.

Your wife will act the harlot in the city: R. Eliezer of Beaugency understands that this means that his (whose? Amazia’s? Jeroboam’s?) wife will voluntarily go out into the city and commit harlotry/adultery. The excess here is that, as he points out, a person violating a marital bond will typically do so discreetly, whereas, to heighten the shame, she will do so publicly.

Paul suggests that this is directed exclusively at Amatzia and that it is his wife who will act the harlot, heightening the shame (as it will be public knowledge), as the real Kohanim were banned from marrying a zona.[27]

Both of these commentators, one medieval and the other modern, assume that the act of tizneh is voluntary and brazen. This does not, however, fit the context. The rest of the curse is about an enemy conquering the land, killing their children, dividing up the land, and exiling the people.

I believe that the wife in question (again, whose wife? Perhaps everyone’s?) will be so desperate for food that she will turn to whoring. She will do so in the city, publicly, as she will be so far gone in her tragic circumstances that she will just focus on finding sustenance for herself and her family.[28]

This interpretation also fits the form of the verse. This is not a simple curse of five horrible things. It is a sequence, concluding (as these sequences often do) with exile. First, there will be such dire hunger that women (including wives of previously notable people) will offer their sexual favors for food. This suggests a siege—something that the people in Samaria were all too familiar with from their own history.[29] This is followed by an incursion in which the young people (fighters?) will be slaughtered, after which the land of the vanquished will be divided up by the victors. This progresses to the exile of the leaders, who have seen their own wives, children, and land taken from them. Now they will be led away from Israel to die “on impure land.” The curse concludes with and a complete exile of the people.

And your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword: Admittedly, the mention of daughters here seems to belie the proposal above that these are soldiers. There are two possibilities here. It is possible that the enemy referenced here is excessively brutal (and operating against their own long-range interests to boot), and they massacre everyone. But if that is the case, then why stop at the children? Why exile the leaders instead of killing them? We would expect the leaders to be killed first.

The other possibility—which is, I believe, more likely here—is that even in biblical times, young women would join young men at war when every person was needed. This is evidenced—again in Yoel—when he describes, yeitzei chatan mei-chedro ve-kalla mi-chuppata, “let the bridegroom go out from his room and the bride from her wedding canopy.”[30] Even though contextually this seems to be about joining the community in prayer during times of plague, Hazal read it as a call to conscription.[31]

And your land will be divided by the surveyor’s rope: The image of the conquering enemy dividing the spoils of the vanquished is fairly common in Tanakh.[32]

And you yourself will die in an impure land:  Is this “impure land” implying that all lands outside of Eretz Israel are impure? Or does it reflect specifically on dying in the land of the enemy? Prima facie, we would assume the former.[33] Yet, from the perspective of Israelite sovereignty and a recognition that conquest and exile represent an essential breach in the covenant, one might argue that it is specifically dying in the captor’s land as an eternal exile that constitutes the impurity.

And Israel will surely be led away captive out of his land: This is where all biblical downward spirals end—in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and throughout prophetic literature. The end of the relationship that the Torah confirms, and that Jewish history consistently reaffirms is shattered with exile.

Afterword

We have explored one of numerous interactions between prophet and politician, the one representing the eternal voice of God and the other—the established aristocracy’s mewling for the status quo. Generations of students of the Tanakh, from all walks and across cultural borders, have drawn inspiration from the prophetic oratory of Amos and his colleagues; yet the words deserve—nay, they demand—much more attention than use as convenient slogans. If we are to take Amos seriously, we ought to take every word seriously and constantly deepen our connection with the text to discern ever greater depths to the eternal messages his words convey.

Notes

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Bemidbar

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt…” (Bemidbar 1:1).

The Torah refers often to the “tent of meeting” (ohel mo’ed) as the place where God communicates with Moses. But where exactly was this tent located?

It seems that the ohel mo’ed was another name for the mishkan—the sanctuary that was constructed in the center of the Israelite encampments while in the wilderness. The Torah goes to great length describing the exact measurements and materials in the construction of the mishkan. It specifies the clothing that the cohanim must wear, and the details of what kind of offerings are to be sacrificed. The ohel mo’ed/mishkan was the physical and spiritual center of the Israelites.

But Shemot 33:7, in a scene prior to the construction of the mishkan, informs us that Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, “far off from the camp; and he called it the tent of meeting, that was outside the camp.”

Commentators and scholars offer various suggestions attempting to understand these two frameworks for the ohel mo’ed—one at the center of the camp and one outside the camp.  Perhaps the Torah is teaching us something essential about the proper functioning of religious life…and of civilization in general.

The ohel mo’ed at the center of the camp represents orderliness, organizational integrity, ritual propriety. All the tribes of Israel were arranged around the ohel mo’ed. This reminded the Israelites that their physical and spiritual core was God-centered. The ohel mo’ed symbolized a structured pattern of religious and communal life.

The ohel mo’ed outside the camp was a counter-force. If the tent at the center of the camp represented orderliness and organization, the tent outside the camp represented an unpredictable source of divine truth. It was a challenge and corrective to the central tent. Yes, religion and civilization require a structured central framework…but they also need an outside voice that doesn’t allow them to become complacent. Orderliness and ritual—while vital to society’s wellbeing—cannot be allowed to become stultified. An outside prophetic voice must constantly inject new insights and new approaches; it must inspire the central tent to stay alive and receptive to the needs of the people. Spiritual friction—while not always welcome or appreciated—is vital to the overall wellbeing of society.

In his novel, The Lost World, Michael Crichton offers a wise observation. “Complex systems tend to locate themselves at a place we call ‘the edge of chaos.’ We imagine the edge of chaos as a place where there is enough innovation to keep a living system vibrant, and enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy….Too much change is as destructive as too little. Only at the edge of chaos can complex systems flourish.”

The two tents of meeting were, in a sense, keeping the community at the “edge of chaos,” a spiritual condition that required balancing stability and innovation, orderliness and spontaneity. “Organized religion” provides vital structure. But the voice from outside the camp prods innovation, creativity, re-evaluation. It challenges stagnation.

We need a strong and stable spiritual center. And we also need prophetic voices from outside the camp. The “edge of chaos” keeps religion alive and awake. It is challenging to stay on balance…but very dangerous to slip off the edge into chaos.

Different Responses to New Realities

Beginning in the nineteenth century, cataclysmic changes affected Jewish communal life. Secularization, the separation of Church and State, emancipation, and the institution of civil marriage undermined the authority of Jewish communal leadership and led to a shift from a generally traditional society to one where the majority of Jews no longer observed all of halakhah and many chose social assimilation and (increasingly) intermarriage. The latter phenomenon gave rise to the following question: If a Jew has chosen to marry (or to live with) a non-Jewish partner, and that partner applies to convert, what is the proper rabbinic response? While there is a wide range of opinions among rabbis responding to this question, they can be divided broadly into a more lenient position and a more restrictive position. This chapter will explore the central arguments of each side.

The basic issues on which the two sides disagree are as follows:

1. If the non-Jewish partner of a Jew applies to convert, is her motivation for the sake of marriage (rather than sincere religious motivation)? If so, are we required to reject this application out of hand?
2. If we agree to accept such spouses for conversion, are we not thereby implicitly condoning and even encouraging intermarriage?
3. If a Jew has chosen a non-Jewish spouse, this frequently reflects that he or she herself holds a cavalier attitude toward observance of mitzvot. It stands to reason that we can expect no more from the prospective convert. If so, then:
   
   1. Should we agree to accept a convert who likely will not be religiously observant?
   2. If halakhah regards “acceptance of the commandments” as a crucial part of the conversion ceremony, can such a candidate fulfill that requirement? If not, then even if we want to accept such a person it is a waste of time, for without acceptance of the commandments conversion can never be valid.

Several German rabbis, including Yaakov Ettlinger, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Azriel Hildesheimer, opposed performing conversions in cases of intermarriage. They maintained that in the era when Rambam permitted such a conversion (see previous chapter), the Jewish community was generally observant. Back then, conversion to Judaism necessarily meant entry into an observant Jewish community. However, one no longer could presume that a convert would join an observant community, since the majority of born Jews no longer fully observe halakhah. These rabbis maintained that it is contrary to Torah to accept a convert who will be non-observant. Therefore, Rambam’s ruling is not relevant as a precedent in the modern era.

Similarly, some rabbis ruled that a mohel should not circumcise a boy born from a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, since there was little likelihood that the child would grow up in an observant Jewish home. Thus, even if the child were later to complete the conversion process by immersion in a mikvah, he would at most become a non-observant Jew, whom (as noted above) Torah does not want as a convert. In addition to their halakhic analysis, this group of rabbis believed that a strict policy against conversion and circumcision of sons born through intermarriage would deter others from intermarrying.[1]

            Other rabbis disagreed with this analysis. They believed that a Bet Din is obligated to do whatever it can to avoid an intermarriage and that this can be achieved by converting the non-Jewish partner. Moreover, the Bet Din also has a responsibility to ensure a Jewish future for the children of intermarried couples. Rabbis Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Marcus Horowitz insisted that a mohel should circumcise a boy born from a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, since he is still of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael. The Bet Din has a responsibility to keep such children closer to Judaism and the observant community, and perhaps one day they would come to accept Judaism more fully. These rabbis maintained that a Bet Din should view a father’s desire to circumcise his son as an act of sincere commitment, since he did not have to request this circumcision at all.

            In this spirit, Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann ruled that if a couple is civilly married and the non-Jewish spouse comes to a Bet Din to convert, this should not be considered a conversion “for the sake of marriage” since they already live as a married couple and therefore have no ulterior motive for conversion. Aside from the responsibility to do everything it can to prevent intermarriage, the Bet Din also has a responsibility to the children of these couples, and can help in their religious development by giving them two Jewish parents.

Rabbi Hoffmann understood that this situation was not ideal, but considered performing the conversion as the lesser of two problems. Rabbi Hoffmann also wanted prospective converts to avoid going to Reform rabbis, as the converts (and many others) would mistakenly think that they are Jewish even while not having undergone a halakhic conversion. Within his permissive ruling, Rabbi Hoffmann maintained that the non-Jewish partner must commit to three pillars of mitzvah observance: Shabbat, kashrut, and the laws of family purity.[2]

One of the central debates between the two positions revolved around the requirement of conversion “for the sake of Heaven” (Gerim 1:3). The permissive side maintained that any choice made by the prospective convert not for personal gain should be considered “for the sake of Heaven.” A civilly married couple, then, could be considered sincere since they did not need to come to a Bet Din in order to be married. Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg agreed with Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, that if a couple already lives together, a Bet Din may view their voluntarily coming to the Bet Din to mean that the conversion was not for ulterior motives. Others, including Rabbi Shlomo Kluger and Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, maintained this view, as well.[3]

Additionally, many who permitted such conversions did so in order to avoid the greater problem of intermarriage. A lenient interpretation of the rules of conversion was the preferable choice. Finally, the permissive side insisted that a Bet Din has a responsibility to work proactively to help people avoid living in sinful relationships.

The restrictive side disagreed. True, such a conversion may not be for the sake of marriage, but it also is not a sincere conversion for the sake of heaven. The Jewish partner, for example, may want his or her non-Jewish spouse to convert for social and communal acceptance. The restrictive side also maintained that it is not the responsibility of a Bet Din to proactively bend the rules of conversion to help sinners. Additionally, they argued, of what benefit would it be to convert a non-Jewish spouse if the couple likely will remain non-observant? Similarly, of what benefit would it be to the child of an intermarriage, who was unlikely to grow up observant? Such individuals are better off as non-Jews, since they will not be culpable for violating the Torah. Better remain a Gentile than become a non-observant Jew![4]

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, some rabbis pushed the restrictive position further and maintained that absent a fully sincere and heartfelt commitment to observing all of the mitzvot at the time of conversion, conversions are not valid even after the fact, even if performed by an Orthodox Bet Din. Professors Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar maintain that Rabbi Yitzhak Schmelkes was the first to state and defend this position (in 1876).[5] Two leading exponents of this position were Rabbis Mordechai Yaakov Breisch and Moshe Feinstein.[6]

One of the leading exponents of the permissive position in the twentieth century was Rabbi Benzion Uziel, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel at the time of the founding of the State. Rabbi Uziel maintained that many mixed couples exist, whether just living together or married under civil law, and the Bet Din has a responsibility to change this situation for the better if it is able to do so. He therefore ruled that if a couple already is civilly married, or they are certainly going to get civilly married, a Bet Din should perform the conversion to create a marriage in which both partners are Jewish.

Rabbi Uziel understood the obligation of a Bet Din to inform a prospective convert of some mitzvot prior to conversion (Yevamot 47a–b) to mean that the convert is required to be informed that a central aspect of Judaism is commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and that Jews are held responsible by God to observe them. However, the halakhah does not demand that a convert commit to observing all of the mitzvot, but rather only to understand that he or she is responsible to observe the mitzvot.

            Rabbi Uziel also invoked Rambam’s responsum (#211, discussed in the previous chapter), where he permitted the less-than-ideal conversion of a Christian maid who had an affair with a Jewish man so that they could get married. Similarly, argued Rabbi Uziel, many circumstances in the modern period fit this less-than-ideal status, where a Bet Din must choose the lesser of the two evils.

            Rabbi Uziel also insisted that the Bet Din has a responsibility to the children of intermarried couples. If the father but not the mother is Jewish then the child is of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael, and should be converted so as to become halakhically Jewish. If the mother is Jewish, then the child is Jewish. If that child’s non-Jewish father wants to convert, the Bet Din should accept him so that the child grows up in a unified Jewish home with two Jewish parents.

Not only is the Bet Din permitted to do such a conversion, but it is obligated to do so in order to progress from a situation of intermarriage to one in which the entire family is Jewish. Rabbi Uziel stressed that the Bet Din first must attempt to break up such an intermarriage, but if it could not dissuade the couple, the conversion should take place.[7]

A prolific contemporary writer on conversion, Rabbi Chaim Amsellem, maintains that there are particular halakhic grounds for leniency where a prospective convert is of Jewish stock, zera Yisrael. He maintains that some actual religious commitment is required of a convert, but that is not tantamount to an acceptance to observe the entire Torah. Rather, commitment to have some semblance of a Shabbat and holidays, as well as a belief in one God and an abandonment of previous religious affiliations, is sufficient.[8]

Current Realities

With the creation of the State of Israel, a new identity was possible as people living in Israel could cast their lot with the fate of the Jewish people, without adopting any meaningful religious lifestyle.[9] Ashkenazic Chief Rabbis Yitzhak Herzog and Isser Zalman Unterman both maintained stringent policies for conversions that occur outside of Israel. However, they believed that if an intermarried couple wanted to convert to make aliyah under the Law of Return, and it was safe to live in the country where they currently resided (so that they did not have the ulterior motive of converting to attain physical safety by moving to Israel), then their adoption of the Zionist dream is to be considered casting their lot with the Jewish people.[10]

With hundreds of thousands of people from the former Soviet Union living in Israel today who are not halakhically Jewish, several religious Zionist rabbis maintain that a lenient policy is required. Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun has argued that there should be a mass conversion ceremony. Rabbi Yigal Ariel similarly maintains that their living in Israel fulfills the halakhic requirement to accept Jewish peoplehood.[11]

Similarly, the rampant rate of intermarriage throughout the Diaspora has led several rabbis to adopt the lenient ruling on conversion so that they can prevent as many instances of intermarriage as possible. These rabbis also attempt to convert the children of mixed marriages when possible.

In contrast, the restrictive position maintains that every convert must be judged on a case-by-case basis as an individual, and each one must demonstrate a full and sincere personal commitment to halakhah and Jewish belief. Without such commitment at the time of the conversion, the conversion is invalid even post-facto.

Rabbis who espouse the restrictive position maintain that a Bet Din should welcome anyone who fully accepts the Torah’s religious standards, and everyone else is better off remaining non-Jewish. People who sin through intermarriage and assimilation are not the responsibility of a Bet Din, since they brought these problems onto themselves by making sinful choices.

Summary of the Major Issues

            There is a wide range of definitions assigned to “acceptance of mitzvot,” including the following: (1) The convert agrees to fulfill the ritual of conversion, circumcision, and mikvah (Ramban, Tosafot).[12] (2) The convert must give verbal assent to observe the mitzvot (Rabbis Hayyim Ozer Grodzinski, Abraham Isaac Kook). (3) The convert needs to understand that a central aspect of Judaism is commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and Jews are held responsible by God to observe them (Rabbis Raphael Aharon ben Shimon, Benzion Uziel). (4) The convert must commit to observe all mitzvot. If, at the time of the conversion, the convert said untruthfully that he or she was committed, then the conversion is invalid even post-facto (Rabbis Yitzhak Schmelkes, Mordechai Breisch, Moshe Feinstein).[13]

            There also is debate over the meaning of conversion “for the sake of heaven”: (1) As long as there is no tangible benefit for the convert, a conversion can be considered to be for the sake of heaven. Therefore, an intermarried couple that approaches a Bet Din so that the non-Jewish partner can convert is accepted, since they already are living as a married couple. (2) Some concede that such conversions are less than ideal, but it remains good policy for the Bet Din to accept such converts to avoid the greater evils of intermarriage, mixed-religion households, and to keep the children of intermarriages closer to the Torah. (3) Conversion for the sake of Heaven requires a full and sincere commitment to God, the Torah, and mitzvah observance.[14]

            There is a fundamental debate regarding the obligation of a Bet Din toward sinners: If the more lenient positions are a compromise with pure halakhah (which they may not be, as we have seen), is it the obligation of the Bet Din to bend the rules to accept the lesser of two evils, or does the Bet Din have no obligation to compromise?

            Intertwined with the purely halakhic debates is a disagreement over the best public policy. Granting that there are strong halakhic opinions on both sides of this debate, what policy best serves the Jewish people? Do hundreds of thousands of people of Jewish stock from the former Soviet Union living in Israel who fight in the Israeli armed forces and marry other born Jews; or the countless couples who either are intermarried or will intermarry, and the children of intermarriages, require the Bet Din to be proactive and as inclusive as possible? Or is it preferable for a Bet Din to be as restrictive as possible toward those who do not fully adopt the ideal beliefs and observant lifestyle of the Torah?

            To summarize, the permissive side has two dimensions: (1) The classical halakhic sources support the permissive side. (2) The classical halakhic sources may not fully support the permissive side at the level of ideal halakhah, but we live in an age where halakhic compromise is preferable to the greater problems that arise by not performing the conversions. The restrictive side, in contrast, insists that the classical halakhic sources do not support the permissive side, and that a Bet Din should not bend any rules to help sinners.

Tragic Recent Development: The Possibility of Annulling a Conversion

Toward the end of the twentieth century, a radical new development took place, as several rabbis began to insist that a conversion can be revoked at any time if the convert demonstrates a lack of halakhic observance.[15] This innovative ruling led to a series of truly dreadful events. In 2006, then Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar declared that he rejected most Orthodox conversions from abroad. In 2008, Rabbi Avraham Sherman of Israel’s Rabbinical High Court cast doubt on thousands of conversions performed by Rabbi Haim Drukman, who had been the head of the State Conversion Authority in Israel. He also declared Rabbi Drukman to be invalid to serve as a rabbinical judge since Rabbi Drukman disagreed with what Rabbi Sherman maintained was the accepted position in halakhah. In 2009, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger supported Rabbi Sherman, and insisted that Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has the power to annul any conversion.[16]

The besmirching of the good names of righteous judges who performed the conversions, and the horrific anguish brought upon halakhic converts and their children who are fully and irrevocably Jewish, are absolutely unacceptable. The Talmud debates whether one who oppresses the convert violates 3, 36, or 46 Torah laws (Bava Metzia 59b). Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon condemns Rabbi Sherman’s sinful conduct of disqualifying Rabbi Drukman and his court:

Rabbi Haim Drukman is a God-fearing and righteous man. Disagreeing with his judgment is one thing; disqualifying him from being a judge—or even a good Jew, since conversion overseen by three observant Jews is valid—is intolerable. Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein…intimated that Rabbi Sherman’s comments about Rabbi Drukman is a transgression of Torah prohibitions relating to bein adam l’haveiro [interpersonal relationships], which disqualifies him from testifying or serving as a dayan [rabbinical judge].[17]

Returning to the genuine principled debate, rabbis who insist on the restrictive position recognize that many leading halakhists maintain positions against their own.[18] Therefore, they should grant legitimacy post-facto to conversions performed by Orthodox Batei Din who follow the permissive opinions. All converts need to know that once they convert through an Orthodox Bet Din, they are irreversibly Jewish and nobody ever can take that Jewishness away from them or from their children.[19]

The religious establishment is obligated to address cases of intermarriage, children of intermarriages, and people of Jewish ancestry. While halakhists must determine the proper halakhic ruling and policy, it is clear that both sides have great halakhic decisors and strong arguments to support them. The key to Jewish unity, then, is for Batei Din to recognize the rulings of others who follow different halakhic opinions, even when they vigorously disagree with their positions.

            There are fewer people more courageous and beloved than adult converts, who enter under the wings of the Shekhinah, transforming their identity, and identifying with the Jewish people.[20]

            One Midrash states this point beautifully:

God greatly loves the proselytes. To what may this be compared? To a king who had a flock [of sheep and goats].... Once, a deer came in with the flock. He associated with the goats and grazed with them…. The king was told: “A certain deer has joined the flock, and is grazing with them every day.” The king loved him. When he went out into the field, the king gave orders: “Let him have good pasture as he likes; no man shall beat him; take care of him!”… They said to him: “Master! You have so many rams, so many sheep, so many kids—and you say nothing to us about them; but with regard to this deer you instruct us every day!” The king said to them: “The sheep, whether they want to or not, such is their way: to graze in the field all day…. The deer sleep in the desert, and it is not their way to enter into human settlements. Should we not be grateful to this one, who abandoned all the great wide desert where all the animals live, and came to be in our yard?” Similarly, should we not be grateful to the proselyte, who abandoned his family and father’s home and left his people and all peoples of the world, and came to be with us? (Numbers Rabbah 8:2)

Is it appropriate for just anyone to get drunk on Purim?

The Talmud (Megillah 7b) quotes Rava’s opinion that one must become drunk on Purim so as to be unable to tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai.” But the same passage goes on to report that Rabba and Rav Zeira became so drunk on Purim that Rabba slaughtered Rav Zeira with a knife. The latter was revived only by a miracle. When Rabba invited Rav Zeira to a Purim celebration the following year, Rav Zeira wisely declined.

Some people read this passage but stop right after Rava’s opinion that one must become drunk on Purim. Others correctly read the entire passage and recognize that the anecdote is a blatant refutation of Rava. The Talmud’s lesson is: don’t get drunk; terrible things can happen if you become intoxicated.

Drunkenness is a shameful state. Maimonides (Hilkhot De’ot 5:3) states: “One who becomes intoxicated is a sinner and is despicable, and loses his wisdom. If he [a wise person] becomes drunk in the presence of common folk, he has thereby desecrated the Name.” In his section on the Laws of Holiday Rest (6:20), Maimonides rules: “When one eats, drinks and celebrates on a festival, he should not allow himself to become overly drawn to drinking wine, amusement and silliness…for drunkenness and excessive amusement and silliness are not rejoicing; they are frivolity and foolishness.”

Not only does drunkenness impair one’s judgment, it demeans a person in the eyes of others and in the eyes of God. Drunkenness is an affront to one’s own dignity and an affront to the ideals of Torah.

Is Torah-true Judaism inherently aligned with conservative politics, liberal politics, a combination, or neither -- or is this the wrong way to think about the Torah? 

Torah-true Judaism is inherently aligned with policies that foster love of God, respect for fellow human beings, and the wellbeing of society as a whole. We strive for a world of honesty, justice, peace, a world in which the ideals of our prophets can be realized.

Rabbi Benzion Uziel (1880-1953), late Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote of our responsibility for yishuvo shel olam, the proper functioning of a moral society. Judaism demands that its adherents live ethical and upright lives. Religious Jews must feel troubled by any injustice in society and must strive to defend and protect the oppressed. Striving to create a harmonious society is not merely a reflection of social idealism; it is a religious mandate.

Sometimes Torah values are more aligned with conservative politics, and sometimes they are more aligned with liberal politics. Our real concern isn’t with political labels, but with the over-arching values that conduce to a more righteous society.

Although our concerns need to relate to society in general, we can’t ignore issues that specifically impinge on Jewish life and on the State of Israel. If conservatives or liberals promote policies that are detrimental to our physical and spiritual welfare, we obviously must oppose them. If they advance bills that weaken or endanger Israel, we have the right and responsibility to object. Our universal commitment to society does not negate our particular commitment to our own wellbeing.

In spite of the many problems Torah-true Jews face, we are optimists.  We believe, with the prophet Amos (8:11), that righteousness will prevail: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine in the land; not a famine for food nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.” Amen, Kein Yehi Ratson!!

Is it proper to eat kosher l'Pesach rolls, pasta, cakes, pizza and "bread" on Pesach?

It’s best to leave it up to people to decide for themselves what they do or don’t want to eat on Pessah, as long as all the ingredients are kasher for Pessah. For those who want to add stringencies to the already stringent rules of Pessah, that’s their business. But no one should stand in judgment of others who choose not to add unnecessary stringencies. We should each worry about what’s on our own plates, not on what’s on the plates of others.

Moadim leSimha.

Is it proper to listen to a cappella music during Sefiras Ha'Omer?

The real question is: why would it not be proper to listen to such music during the Sefirah period? Although the Talmud (Yevamot 62b) reports a tradition that 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva died between Pessah and Lag L’Omer, no formal mourning prohibitions are indicated for this period. Sefirah mourning practices are first reported in a Gaonic collection, Sha’arei Teshuva 278. The Shulhan Arukh (O.H. 493: 1-2) refers to the customs of restricting weddings and haircuts, but mentions no prohibition relating to music.

It seems that restrictions relating to music only developed in the Middle Ages, and not consistently throughout the Jewish world. In recent centuries, various stringencies have been added including the limitation of dancing, music, and even recorded music. Some now also wish to prohibit a cappella music. These prohibitions do not go back to the Talmud, Rambam or Shulhan Arukh. If people wish to adopt these stringencies, or if they are part of communities that consider these stringencies as obligatory minhagim, then that is their right.

But there is no fundamental halakhic prohibition to listening to music, let alone a cappella music, unless one has adopted this stringency as a minhag; or unless one follows posekim who rule stringently on this.

In her landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan asserted that “American women no longer know who they are. They are sorely in need of a new image to help them find their identity.” Originally published in 1963, her book became a rallying cry for the feminist movement. Friedan lamented the fact that women were expected (and expected themselves) to model themselves after the stereotypical image of mother and home-maker; that their self-image was vastly influenced by images of women in glossy magazines and the movies.

Friedan argued that woman needed to become equal partners in society—socially, politically and economically. “There is only one way for women to reach full human potential—by participating in the mainstream of society, by exercising their own voice in all the decisions shaping that society. For women to have full identity and freedom, they must have economic independence….Equality and human dignity are not possible for women if they are not able to earn.”

The Feminine Mystique played an important role in triggering a re-evaluation of the role of women in society. The feminist movement has achieved monumental changes since 1963. When the book was reprinted in the 1990s, Friedan wrote an epilogue in which she rejoiced over past progress, and foresaw an era of true equality. “We may now begin to glimpse the new human possibilities when women and men are finally free to be themselves, know each other for who they really are, and define the terms and measures of success, failure, joy, triumph, power, and the common good, together” (from her epilogue, written April 1997).

Friedan’s hopes are reminiscent of Martin Buber’s philosophy of “I and Thou.” Ideally, people should relate to each other as full, dignified human beings. Relationships between an I and a Thou are characterized by respect, sympathy, sensitivity. When relationships operate on an I-It level, the “It” is reduced to an object, someone whose full humanity is not encountered.

When it comes to relationships between men and women, things can become complicated. Regardless of the ideals of human equality and mutual respect, we also have to deal with the reality of sexuality. Human beings are not pure spiritual beings; physical appearance and sexual drives must be taken into account.

Some communities/societies attempt to curtail male/female relationships so as to avoid sexual improprieties and abuses. The most extreme example of this is in Muslim societies where women are expected to stay out of the public domain to the extent possible, and only to appear in public while totally covered from head to toe, including the face (except for the eyes). Less extreme examples can be found in other communities—including the so-called ultra-Orthodox Jewish community—where women are restricted to wearing clothing deemed to be modest by their rabbinic leaders and are limited in their social interactions with men. The goal is not to foster equal and dignified relationships between men and women, but to keep the genders as separated as possible for fear of falling into temptation and sin.

On the other extreme are societies that foster sexual promiscuity, where women and men interact according to their own feelings rather than by norms of religious modesty. While such societies ostensibly foster equality between men and women, the ubiquitous sexual component can tend to foster relationships of the I-It mode, rather than the I-Thou ideal. Since the bars of religious or cultural morality have been dropped, men and women may see each other as potential objects of sexual pleasure rather than as dignified human beings.

Betty Friedan believed that our society was beginning “to glimpse the new human possibilities when women and men are finally free to be themselves, know each other for who they really are.”  But is this really so? With all the permissiveness and freedom in our society, have relationships between men and women actually become I-Thou?

Although it is argued (correctly) that women should be viewed as human beings rather than as objects, in fact much of our popular culture promotes women as objects of sexual attraction. Female models, movie stars, and television personalities often are dressed in highly provocative clothing. Even women reporters on local television news programs wear sleeveless, or low-neckline, or overly tight clothing. Whether they are required to dress in this fashion, or whether they do so on their own, the fact is that women present themselves in immodest dress (or undress!).  The goal—stated or unstated—seems to be: I need to be sexually attractive.

Popular women’s fashions promote the view of women as objects. Women’s clothing is often too revealing or too tightly fit to be classified as modest. Why do women wear such clothes? Why do designers keep designing such clothes, unless there is a market for them?

For men and women to operate on an I-Thou basis rather than an I-It basis, we need to avoid the extremes of prudery and promiscuity. We need to focus on the nature of modesty--tseniut.

Tseniut is not simply a system of prevention from sin. Rather, it encompasses a positive philosophy relating to the nature of human beings. While acknowledging the power of human sexuality, tseniut teaches that human beings are more than mere sexual beings.  By insisting on modest dress and behavior, tseniut promotes a framework for human relationships that transcends the physical/sexual aspects.

Non-tseniut behavior signals a person’s desire to be seen as an object of sexual attraction. When people dress provocatively, what they are communicating is: notice me, I crave your attention, please don’t ignore me. Underlying this non-vocalized plea is the feeling that one will not be noticed unless prepared to become an object of attention or unless one conforms to the prevailing fashions, even if those fashions violate one’s sense of decency and propriety.

It is normal and natural for people to want to appear pleasing to others. That is why they spend so much time and money on clothing and grooming. Dressing nicely, neatly, and modestly is a sign of self-respect as well as respect for others. If, though, one specifically dresses or behaves in a manner that is aimed at arousing sexual attention, this crosses into the non-tseniut mode. One has chosen to be an It rather than a Thou.

Human beings all have feelings of insecurity; we need to be needed, appreciated, and loved. Although these tendencies are often exacerbated in teenagers, they continue to exist throughout adult life. Exhibitionism is a short-cut to gaining the attention—and hopefully the affection—of others. Yet, underneath the veneer of showiness is a layer of essential insecurity, loneliness, and dissatisfaction with self. Exhibitionism may gain the attention of others, but it does not gain their respect and love.

Tseniut should be understood as a framework for maintaining our human dignity. It teaches us to treat ourselves and others as valuable human beings, not as objects. Non-tseniut behavior and dress serve to diminish our full humanity, reducing us to the level of objects of sexuality. Tseniut is a manifestation of holiness. Exhibitionism is a manifestation of crudeness and feelings of insecurity.

Genuine modesty avoids the extremes of prudery or promiscuity. It fosters self-respect and respect for others. In a real sense, tseniut is not “old fashioned;” it is the avant garde of those who wish to live as dignified human beings.

(For a fuller discussion of tseniut, please see my article, “A Modesty Proposal: Rethinking Tseniut,” on the website of jewishideas.org   The direct link is: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/modesty-proposal-rethinking-tseniut)

Angel For Shabbat, Parashat Vayikra

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

“One who transgresses any positive or negative commandment of the Torah, whether intentionally or unwittingly, must confess before God when repenting and turning from sin” (Laws of Repentance 1:1). In this statement, Maimonides echoes the passage in this week’s Parasha calling for confession of sins by those who bring sin offerings.

But why is confession so important? Why not allow the penitent to atone silently without actually verbalizing the sins?

Oral confession compels one to actually articulate the sins. Until one is able to state things specifically, it is likely that the atonement will remain vague. To say something aloud requires forethought.

But there can be (and often is) a gap between our words and what’s in our hearts. We may say “I’m sorry,” but not really feel sorry inside ourselves. For confession to be real, it has to be honest.

Confession isn’t intended primarily to make us feel guilty for our shortcomings. Rather, it is intended to help us face up to personal responsibility. God doesn’t need our confession: we do! Among the most difficult statements to make are: I erred. I sinned. I should have done better. It’s my fault.

Human beings tend to excuse themselves for their shortcomings. I failed because others caused me to fail; I fell short because the system is unfair. It’s someone else’s fault that I didn’t do well.

Not only do individuals transfer responsibility to others, but communities tend to do so also. If our group isn’t doing as well as others, it must be because of discrimination, racism, or systemic injustice. It’s not our fault: it’s yours, it’s theirs; we aren’t responsible. But such an attitude is self-defeating. Instead of blaming outside sources for our problems, we first need to evaluate our own deficits and how we can improve our own situation.

The first step for real advancement—personal and communal—is to confess our own shortcomings. Until we come to grips with our attitudes and behaviors, we cannot be spiritually healthy human beings. Yes, there are others who may contribute to our personal failures; but ultimately it is our responsibility to do our best to be our best.

Maimonides points out that confession is not only an expression of regret for past sins. It also entails a commitment to do better in the future. Confession is intended to be a moral “cleanser”: it is to be an honest evaluation of where we’ve strayed and how we can move forward in a constructive, healthy way.

Honest confession is not a simple matter. But without it, we undermine our own spiritual and ethical development.