These notes are unofficial and unedited. Any and all mistakes are mine.
A short note: Dr. Kugel has to be one of the sweetest, most even-tempered gentlemen I have ever met. He takes every question with perfect equanimity and is an extremely warm, kind person.
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Click here for information about TEIQU.
From the source packet Dr. Kugel handed out:
Source Sheet 1
Source Sheet 2
Source Sheet 3
Source Sheet 4
Gilah: Good evening, everyone. And welcome to a lecture with Dr. James Kugel, “Midrash Before Hazal: Why It’s Important For Orthodox Jews.” Before we begin, just a word about TEIQU, who we are and why we are here tonight. TEIQU is a new student organization that stands for a Torah Exploration of Ideas, Questions and Understanding- we had our inaugural event this past Tuesday and in case you did not see this morning’s New York Times, we were featured in it- four columns. It’s really been hard walking around the city today; everyone’s just asking for autographs. We hope everyone enjoyed the kugel. We asked Dr. Kugel whether he has ever spoken anywhere where they served Kugel.
Simcha: In my own home, Professor Kugel’s name and works occupy a fair amount of our conversations and shelf space. Even my little brother has asked to meet this Kugel guy we always speak it about. Professor of Hebrew at Harvard, enrolling over 900 students, published 11 books, edited 4 others, etc. I understand that there has been some buzz over Kugel’s works- from reading his texts, I have found that his views deepen my views, etc. His most recent book, “How To Read the Bible” received a lot of publicity but should not be allowed to eclipse his scholarship and research in many other studies. After Professor Kugel’s speech, we would like to open up the floor to questions, etc.
PROFESSOR KUGEL: Thank you so much for the lavish introduction. And thank you so much to all of you, especially Gilah, for having arranged this evening. And I suppose there’s no way I can possibly live up to this welcome. So many people come out in this terrible New York weather – it’s really – I can only say if you come to hear me in Jerusalem or even in Bar-Ilan, I promise the weather will be better.
My title is sort of provocative- Midrash Before Hazal, because I suppose the first reaction anyone might have is – is there such a thing? How could there be Midrash before Hazal? So I should perhaps explain that by Hazal- by the way, I have to say, for the purpose of this lecture I assume you know absolutely nothing- forgive me. This is the assumption I operated on for more than 20 years at Harvard and I was not disappointed. Hazal is an acronym for Hahameniu Zichronum L’vracha our sages of blessed memory- refers to a specific group of scholars- as scholars they had deep roots in Jewish history. Speaking about the rabbis mentioned in the Mishna, Talmud, we know something about their history- they basically can be located in- well, there are two groups- TAnnaim or teachers who are a group of teachers who lived in the first or second centuries in the common era. Again, they sort of go back early BC or BCE’s as we all like to say nowadays. I fluctuate between the two- I’ve always liked to recall in this circumstance a teacher I had who was otherwise impeccably Orthodox who used to say BC. He said BC stands for Before Christianity, that’s it. So I said what about AD? And he said “After dat.” [Laughter] I think it’s permitted but anyway, I will try to be careful.
Their intellectual roots go back into BCEs but they themselves function- the people who have the honorific title of Rabbi appear in the first century of the common era. Tannaim who continue to exist until the final editing of the Mishna which scholas believe took place in around 200. Followed by Amoraim, after 200 or so, and the literary products that they are associated with are principally the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections- today, for example, I’ll be talking about Breishit- and really the oldest rabbinic commentary belongs to the Amoraim- goes back to the fourth or fifth century of the common era. So what is before Hazal? If you really want to go back and try to figure out how people were thinking about the book of Genesis before Hazal, I guess you could look at the Aramaic Talmud. Many of you, I know, are familiar with Targum Onkeles, although frankly not so many people read it anymore- Onkeles goes back to 1st or 2nd century of before the common era. But even before them are texts that were written by Jews and talk about what the meaning of this or that story or even an individual verse in the Tanakh means and these texts are to begin with the Dead Sea Scrolls (a bunch of manuscripts that were found in the caves on the shores of the Dead Sea starting in 1947 and they turned out to be the library of somewhat crackpot Jews who lived there- but they were serious and had this library and it’s been preserved and you can see them without going too far) and if you want you can actually go to Israel and see where the scrolls were found and you can visit the caves. Frankly, as impressive as they are, it’s amazing that these manuscripts survived- they survived because that is the lowest and driest spot on earth; if they were stored anywhere else, they would have crumbled into dust by now. Because they were stored there, they were preserved up until our own time.
Interesting source of material, but really most of the midrash before hazel that we have is found in a collection of writings with a somewhat unwieldy title: The Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudagripha. And they are referred to somewhat loosely in modern Hebrew as the Outside Books – Sefarim Chitzonim because they were outside of the biblical canon. Traditionally, Jews have not studied this material; they survived mostly due to the Christians. At some point they determined that this is not what a good Jewish boy or girl should be reading and they stopped copying them but fortunately there was a small Christain sect at the time who didn’t have to listen to what Chazal were saying and they copied them over. Decision was made to allow non-Jews to join the Church and so eventually they and to translate these works from Hebrew and Aramaic into a language everyone knew, that is Greek, and from Greek it was translated into other languages, not just Latin but the old dialect of Ethianpic- it’s called Yez, my favorite language, old Church Slavonic- they have survived in these languages. While Chazal said you shouldn’t study them, then what is this fellow telling you you should study them?
I think the rabbis quite rightly decided it wasn’t a good idea for people to read these books, each book for its own reason. Sometimes the books did not end up getting studied for ___ reasons. We are not really sure which books our Rabbis banned. More complicated questions, it seems to most Israelis because in Israelis you can buy a collection called the Sefarim Chitzonim but that is really a much more complicated question and maybe we can talk about that later. But I can easily see Rabbi Akiva seeing th eBook of Jubilees and saying don’t read that because this guy has all kinds of wrong doctrines- one of the central tenets of the book is that the calendar that we use in Judaism is wrong, the kind of lunar-solar calendar. It wasn’t, according to the book of Jubilees, the calendar that underlies the stories of the Torah- instead they had a calendar which consisted of exactly 364 days; much more like the civil calendar now. And frankly, I’m sorry, the lunar calendar went out and had a lot to say for it. Our Rabbis saw fit to ban the book at least for that reason, and probably for some others. Some of tehse books were no doubt banned may be a little strong, but at least they were not to be studied because of the people who championed the books- it wasn’t so much their content but the company that they kept. Some of these books our Rabbis were quite crazy about- the Book of Ben-Sira because as I am sure some of you know, it is cited in the Talmud by name a number of times and cited anonymously more and it had clear influence on our prayers. But Ben-Sira couldn’t be part of the canonized scripture because he was too late and he was not a scribe, an inspired prophet- he was just Ben-Sira; if only he had had the sense to identify himself as King Solomon, there’s no doubt we would have him.
So this stuff has been neglected by Jews for many centuries and the question is why should we stop doing that now and one reason is because this stuff is early. If you think of the Mishna, it really inaugurates this period of rabbinic literature written by Chazal. These books were written 300 or 400 years before the Mishna and certainly 600 years or so before the great bulk of rabbinic writing- one reason it might be interesting to look at it – you can see our traditions as they are being written down/ formulated at an earlier period.
But tonight I wanted to explore two other reasons why it might be interesting to study- the first is that it sometimes helps us to understand things in our own cannon of rabbinic writings. There are things that are difficult to make sense of – one of the things it’s the very first passage. I wanted to start off with a Midrashic passage that I had to quote in Hebrew because it is still the subject of some debate- it is this passage on Page 1- from Breishit Rabbah which is our earliest commentary in rabbinic circles on the book of Genesis- and it’s talking about a verse that I’m sure some of you know well, God’s first words to Abraham- “And God said to Abraham; Depart from your homeland and kinsmen and go to the land which I will show you” and about this verse written Yitzchak – R’ Isaac said the following: “The case of Abraham might be compared to that of someone who was wandering from place to place and came upon a great Dirah-“ if you know in modern Hebrew that’s often a kind of capital, a capital city- but in Rabbinic language it means just a building, a castle- but it can also just be a kind of apartment building; that is how people lived even back then, four or five or ten families together. So this wayfarer sees a Dirah Achat Doleket- and people are not really sure about how to understand Doleket. It comes from the word “to burn.” So some people think it means this wayfarer came across a burning building- and others say no, it just means a building that is all lit up; lights burning inside. Both interpretations may be and have been defended. In any case, the traveler says: “Is it possible that a building like this could be without a- I guess what you say in New York is that the super was called a Manhig in Rabibnic times but he wasn’t a lowly super; he was usually the owner of the building and this is what he lived off of- so would you really suppose that such a building, either all lit up or all on fire, could exist without an owner? So the owner of the building looked out at him and said “I am the owner of the building.” Abraham similarly said, Would it be possible to think that the world is without a Manhig, one who directs it, and God looked out at him and said to him, “I am the Manhig of the Universe.”
So how are we to decide this question- is it a burning building or an illuminated building? I suppose we should take a poll- who would vote for burning building? And how about illuminated? Everybody else is for illuminated? And this is why I like reading these old sources- they are interested always in answering basic questions. Sometimes you are so familiar with the text that you don’t even remember what the basic questions are anymore. So I’ll try to walk you through them. It realy goes back to this passage in Genesis 12 that this comment is directed to- “Now the Lord said: Abram, Abram, go from your country and your kindred to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you…and anyone who curses you, I will curse and by you will all the families of the Earth be blessed.” Now what’s the question- I hope you don’t mind- if there’s a brave soul who can try to imagine- you’re reading this text for the first time and there’s something that bothers you and you are trying to find out the answer to these worlds.
“Why does it say go for yourself- just go?” Well, that’s such a rabbinic question. What happened, at least I hope to persuade you of this, is that the basic questions – so that our Rabbis began to focus on much more local questions” – so the question is: what had Abraham done to merit all these great promises? He just here is mentioned in Chapter 11 but just in passing but now all of a sudden, Hashem says this. So they looked at the passage and looked at it and looked at it and there was no apparent answer. So in trying to find an answer- because you have to remember in those days, people were not biblical commentaries in some lofty institution like YU- they and students who were young, impudent ten year olds and twelve year olds and they would ask: What’s so great about Abrhaam? So you had to come up with an answer and eventually somebody did- we don’t know who that somebody was but we know he must have lived at least as early of the 3rd century. I have to say in general we have a tradition of a Torah Shebaal Peh that goes way back to the time of Moses. And I certainly am a believer in that. I think that scholars have said very convincingly- at least to me- you could not possibly have a legal system such as that outlined in the Torah without an interpretive tradition. But I believe it was an interpretive tradition that grew. So I don’t see any traces of that here- I think this is at least where we can anchor it to begin with. So somebody I don’t know looked at another verse- in Joshua, Yehoshua- some of you know this pretty well because it’s in the Haggadah of Pesach- when you’re starving, this is what they say to you: “Joshua said to all the people: Thus says the Lord your God to all of Israel, long ago your ancestors Terah and Nahor lived on the other side of the Euphrates and worshipped other Gods. Then I took your father Abraham and took him and led him through all the land of Canaan.” So this doesn’t sound very god- about the worst thing you could do in biblical times is worship other gods- and yet that’s exactly what our ancestors did. So on the face of it, this wasn’t a very promising verse to support a positive interpretation of Abraham- but there was a kind of disconnect, a non-sequitur between this verse and the next one. The next one says: I took your ancestor Abraham- well if he was worshipping other gods, why would you take him? And if you were going to take him, why not take his father and brother along with him? So as this anonymous scholar contemplated the verse he said, that might be the whole secret- that Abraham really refused to worship other gods. At a certain point, anyway, he must have stopped worshipping other gods. And as a reward God takes him. So the non-sequitur is really not a non-sequitur and so you can understand Abraham’s great virutre was that he stopped worshipping other gods. This became one of the most famous and a very old tradition- earliest text I know of that specifically mentions it is in a book of the apocrypha that didn’t make it into the Jewish Apocrypha- it’s the Book of Judith. Judith is really a book that isn’t in biblical interpretation at all; it’s kind of an adventure story of a heroine who lops of Heliphornes’ head; favorite subject of Renaissance paintings. Beautiful woman holding a head…So Heliphornes is about to enter the land of Judah to conquer it and says- do any of you people know who these Jews are or where they come from? And this is the answer he gets- a foreign general explains: “This people the Jews is descended from the Chaldeans. At one point in time they lived in Mesopotamia because they would not follow the gods of their fathers who were in Chaldea.” Of course the author of Judith does not mention Abraham by name- he oughtn’t to know the particular name of the individual but this is an early statement- Book of Judith usually dated to the 3rd century- so early statement of what was to become an early midrash about Abraham, that he was the one who rejected idolatry and left early Chaldea.
Passage on the lower left is from the Book of Jubilees- basically the same motif. Here, it says “They worshipped other gods”- these ancient interpreters took that very seriously. So Terah became a worshipper of other gods. Abraham rebelled and rebelled against his father. So Terah is either the maker of idols or a keeper of idols. And Abraham one day says to him: O’ father, what advantage do we have in these idols to whom we bow down? And his father says to him- of course the author of Jubilees was a real Jewish patriot, couldn’t imagine that even Terah was a bad guy- so he says they make me do this; this is my job, and if I tell them it is nonsense, they will kill me and you oughtn’t to say anything because they’ll kill you. I threw in a passage on the right- Abraham and Farah (Terah in ___ same way Theodore becomes Fyodor in Slavonic)- and in the end I said to myself, what are tehse useless things my father is doing? Is he not rather a god to his gods, since it is by virtue of his sculpting and shaping by his skillfulness that they come into being? So sometimes a Midrashic motif generates a whole bunch of questions.
So the question is: how is it? What helped Abraham discover that the other gods were foolishness? Now, there was a detail, a scintillating detail, this place Ur of the Chaldeans. We actually know, probably better than our Rabbis did since it did not exist then, it has since been excavated- where it was located- we know where it is- a bustling metropolis of about 1000 ? people at the southern tip of Iraq. Much farther from the Gulf than it used to be. Was close to the Gulf and therefore an important commercial center- Ur and Chaldea as a whole had a particular reputation in ancient times and here I am really speaking from the standpoint of Hellenized Jews and other Greeks- the Greeks came and conquered the land of Israel- in land 332 before the common era. After that, our people learned how to speak Greek and so forth- and from their standpoint, the Greek civilization was the tops; the best philsophers, poets, mathematicians- the one thing they knew they weren’t the best at was astronomy. The greatest astronomers in the world were in Chaldea- and by astronomy we include astrology because the two go together.
Although astronomer is a greek word, in those days if you wanted to say astronomer, what people would say is “Chaldai,” Chaldean, and that was true of Hebrew? Aramaic? too. So maybe the fact that Abraham came from Chaldea, the astronomy land, had something to do with the discovery of his existence of that one true God. So here is what Philo says on page 2- Philo is – how can I describe him- he was a great Torah sage who proably didn’t know a word of Hebrew. He lived in Alexandria in Egypt and cited the bible in Greek- and it wasn’t just, at least Philo experts say, for the convenience of his Greek-speaking audience but because he had a very classical Greek education and sought to explain the Torah in sort of similar terms. He would like to read the text allegorically and that is what he says in this first sentence.
“The departing from one’s home as depicted by the literal text of Scripture was made by a certain wise man [Abraham]; but according ot the rules of allegory, [it is made] by the soul [of anyone] fond of virtue who is searching for the true God.”
So he says, yes, true, there was a guy named Abraham and he went to Haran- very far North on border of Syrian Turkey- but truly this is recounted in Scripture because Abraham represents the soul of anyone fond of virtue who is searching for the true God. And then explains that the Chaldeans exercised themselves most prominently with astronomy and everything governed by the stars- exalted the existence of what is visible and took no thought of what is perceivable to the mind and yet invisible. Basically what Philo says is that Abraham live din a time not too different from our own, which you know, science was reducing everything to numbers and formulas and the people of Chaldea therefore cared only for what is perceivable to the senses/ mind/ perceivable to the mind, yet invisible. He, Abraham, grew up with this idea and was a true astronomer for some time until opening up his eyes and saw what he had not seen before, one who guides and steers the world, presiding over it and – and that is why he has said to have emigrated from the land of Chaldea to Haran, whose name means “orifices,” a symbol for the seats of ours sense. So this is a very subtle peirsuh…
I see some of you are really hot; I’m sorry. You know he knows there is this word Haran and says that’s the world for Holes in Hebrew- horim as we would say in Modern Hebrew, and it’s no accident because the message Abraham gets from God is not to go immediately to the promised land but to go via this city whose name means orifices. Because in order to really ___ the soul at a certain point you have to see this light and understand the world does not consist simply by what is conceivable by the senses. Have to go behind those holes which are your eyes, ears, nose, mouth- it is a kind of great demonstration of two things- how this MIdrash started long before Philo gets reworked in his own extraordinary style and also something about him as an interpreter. How allegory was so central.
The last guy in connection with this Midrash is Josephus who lived a little bit later than Philo. Philo was probably born about 30 before the common era and died a little bit after 50- we’re not sure but- and Josephus is later, probably at the end of the first century.
“He [Abraham] thus became the first person to argue that there is a single God who is the creator of al things, and that whatever any of these other things contribute to the good of the world, they are enabled to do so at His command, and not by any inherent force of their own. He was able to figure this out by the changes which land and sea undergo, and those that are connected with the sun ad d the moon, and from all those occurring in the skies….etc”
This is a little hard to follow, especially in that elegant translation, but Josephus is arguing it is actually very simple. In his day, everyone knew that the solar year lasts 365 and ¼ days. So what he is saying is what an insulting number that is. If the sun were really in charge of the universe, wouldn’t it have arranged to go around the earth every 100 days or 1000 days but why would it go around 365 and ¼ days? Obviously this is a kind of tip to make us aware of the fact that the sun is not in control and nor is the moon which has 354 (364?) days- because if the moon was in charge, why didn’t it force the sun to go around- there’s a word for this in greek, toxis, which means regularly ordered and so it was all intended as a way of tipping of fthe general public that none of these heavenly bodies were in charge.
I want to go back to the question that I asked: What is a Dirah Doleket? Is there anyone wiling to change his vote from illuminated to on fire and if so, why? Well, the right answer is illuminated as most of you said, because it’s this basic analogy that we have been reading about- because Abraham the wayfarer comes across a dirah doleket, a building which is all illuminated and it is like Abraham looking up at the sky and sees all the stars there- and doesn’t say it must be the stars are in control but sees the stars are all lit up , there must be someone at home- so then God looks out and tells him who he is.
A side question: Where was Abraham when these words were uttered to him? It was a question of debate. You can see the problem on page 3- “Terah took Abrahm, his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson and Sar’ai his daughter-inlaw” etc and when they came to Haran they settled there. Now Chapter 12 begins to go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. So the question is: Where was Abraham when these words were uttered? Problem was if he was already in Haran, why would God say to him depart from your land- I love teaching this in Israel because everyone in Israel thinks Moledet means the place where you are born/ homeland but it actually doesn’t mean that in biblical Hebrew- it means your family, kindred. So its says leave your family/ kindred, but in the previous verse he had already done that! So there are two positions on this- indeed, he was already in Haran and God was referring to all Mesopatamia and others said it was a flashback, which sometimes happens in the Scripture- it is formulated as a rule that Ein Mukdam U’Meuchar B’Torah. The order is sometimes not chronological; it contains these flashbacks, etc- this people descended from the Chaldeans and one time they lived in Mesopatamia and then their God commanded them to leave a place where they were living and go to the land of Cannan So according to him, those words, Lech Lecha, were spoken in Haran. But others said no- Philo thought these words were spoken in Ur. The passage underneath that is actually from the New Testament and talks about how one of the early Christain martyrs did something bad and is taken out to be killed and they said do you have any last words- and he says, “The God of glory brought Abraham from Mesopatamia before Haran” and I really identify with this guy; they asked do you have any last words and he says, yeah, I want to clarify this problem in Genesis [laughter] and I never saw this ____ except in the Book of Jubilees. In the Book of Jubilees, Abraham prays a prayer- “Shall I return unto Ur of the Chaldees who seek my face so that I should return to them? Or shall I dwell here in this place? Make the straight path prosper before you in the hand of your servant that he might serve. And do not let me walk in the error of my heart, O my God.” So here Abraham prays and says I don’t know what to do- I’ve been living in Haran for 14 years and now the people of Ur say all is forgiven, you can come back to Ur and live here now. So they are earnestly/ beseeching me to come back. And the answer that he gets is the word of the Lord: “Come forth from your Land and from your kindred into your father’s house, into the land which I shall show you.” So that famous sentence now has a new meaning. Lech Lecha means don’t go back to Ur- depart forever from your kindred. But in fact, you should also depart from your father’s house right here in Haran and continue on to the land of Canaan- so I thought this was really fancy footwork for a second-century exegete.
The last thing I wanted to talk about and I’ll try to dot his quickly so that I leave some time for discussion- is the Book of Jubilees as it retells the story of Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son, Isaac. This is – when these people went about explaining a text, they didn’t do what Rashi does and later commentaries do where they bring a pasuk, phrase from a biblical verse and say this is what I think it means. That form of biblical commentary existed but it wasn’t very popular- the most popular was to retell the story and everybody knew the story by heart, really, but they also knew what the problems were so in your retelling of it you would insert the answers to the problems as best you saw them and people would understand you are departing from the text in order to explain what it means. Sometimes it would just be a difficult word people didn’t understand so in retelling it I would insert a word people did understand and that’s what happened here- the story of Abraham and his near-sacrifice of Isaac starts off at verse 15 on the left-hand side: “It came to pass in the seventh week, in its first year, in the first month, in the jubilee, on the twelfth of that month, that words came in heaven concerining Abraham that he was faithful in everything which was told him and he loved the Lord and was faithful in all affliction.” We- the narrator here is an angel. Now, Prince Mastema- Mastema is a fancy word for Loathing- Prince is not a good translation, sot he angel Mastema (so the Devil, Satan)- there is Satan in the Tanakh, I know you will tell me that, but not in the sense of the embodiment of all evil as he becomes in later commentaries/ centuries. He is called by various names- Satan, Satan-El, Gavriel? – angelic suffix- every angel has one, Refael, - so the Prince Mastema here comes and says “Behold, Abraham loves Isaac his son. And he is more pleased with him than everything. Tell him to offer him as a burn offering upon the altar. And you will see whether he will do this thing. And you will know whether he is faithful in everything in which you test him.” So very much as it appears in the book of Job, tell this Abraham guy to kill his son and then you’ll really know whether he is faithful.
So what sort of question does that answer? Maybe I should have begun with that. What is the basic question everyone asked about in the 2nd or 3rd century-
AUDIENCE: Because the text says that God said to test Abraham, people wanted to know why He wanted to test Abraham.
PROF KUGEL: Absolutely right- now why would anyone be bothered by that?
AUDIENCE: What did Yitzchak do?
PROF KUGEL: That is another question, and does become a question later on but not this early.
So the question is, Hashem knows everything; he knows how it will turn out, so why put this poor man through it? So the author of Jubilees says, of course Hashem knows how this will turn out but Satan comes and wants him to test him, so in order to show Satan how things really work, he puts Abraham to the test. Now, that is a nice invention but it is an invention- where did he/ how could he get away with this? It doesn’t’ mention that anywhere in the text.
AUDIENCE: Based on the same story of Iyov?
PROF KUGEL: Well, yes, but the thing about this author, who I know well and frankly it is true of everyone I know in this period, is that if you ask them a question like that, they always say an answer: you’re just not reading the text carefully enough- if you look deep enough, everything I am saying is implied in the text. In this case it is because the story starts off “Vayehi achar hadevarim ha’eilah”- IT came to pass after these things. So if you ask me, that is a fairly standard biblical sentence- but he’s cleverly transformed that and says “devarim”- it’s true, in biblical Hebrew, can mean words as well as things. So he says suppose it means words here- what words? But nothing is specified but since words exist you can suppose it meant, and here I am quoting from verse 15 that “words came in heaven concerning Abraham that he was faithful” and this provoked Satan who issued his challenge. So after these words- after this challenge in heaven.
And then the next paragraph goes on to say- And the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in all of his afflictions because he tested him with his land, and with famine. And he tested him with the wealth of kings, etc….and in everything which he tested him, he was found faithful.
Now, this is a tradition I hope some of you know: Abraham underwent 10 tests. Well, that is in the Mishna but here we are at least 400 years earlier and this author clearly knows this tradition- so these were all the divinely instigated tests. So certainly God- that account – that God knew the way the test was going to come out serves to reinforce the point of the first paragraph that it was not in order to find out how things would turn out that God accepted this challenge. Well, that’s very nice but again, we’d have to ask how do you know that there were these tests? I mean, they are not described as tests- the only thing that is described as a test is the last one. And I say, by the way, both these bits of Midrash are paralleled in rabbinic literature- it says the same thing in the Babylonian Talmud that Satan challenged God to have Abraham sacrifice his son and it also has this tradition not just in the Mishna but in later rabbinic texts- but how do you know that those were tests and again, if you ask the author of Jubilees, you’d get the same answer- it’s right there in the text! You’re just not really reading carefully enough. So where does it mention that Abraham underwent 10 or some number of tests? How do you derive that?
So the author of Jubilees would say:
AUDIENCE: VaHashem nisah et Abraham?
PROF KUGEL: Well, that simply says He tested him, so yes-
AUDIENCE: Doesn’t it say that now God knew that-
PROF KUGEL: Well, that is really at the end- I’m getting at the end of what I want to say so I don’t want to give you a chance to go say-
But actually it’s the same verse- forget what I said that devarim means words, now it means things. After these “things,” God tested Abraham…again! Those earlier things, you can understand as also being tests!
That’s fine- God certainly knew how the test was going to come out except for what it says at the end where the angel speaking on God’s behalf calls out to Abraham and says, “Atah yadati ki yarei Elohim ata”- now I know that you are one who fears God. NOW I know? Of course, the implication of now I know is that earlier I didn’t know. So you might think that would imply that we do not have a ___ of God. So it was very important for ancient interpreters to explain that now I know didn’t mean that. So this is where the author of Jubilees, certainly the best of all ancient interpreters deals with it:
“And I stood before him and before Prince Mastema. And the Lord said, “Speak to him. Do not let his hand descend upon the child. And do not let him do anything to him because I know that he is one who fears the Lord.” And I called out to him from heaven and I said to him, “Abraham, Abraham.” And he was terrified and said, “Here I am.” And I said to him, “Do not put forth your hand against the child and do not do anything to him because now I know that you are one who fears the Lord”- etc
How does this solve the problem?
AUDIENCE answers correctly.
Here God is not saying “atah,” now I know but rather I have always known! Rather, the angel is not omniscient. Nobody says angels are omniscient; he picks up on God’s instructions and inserts the word “now” which appears in the biblical texts. There were actually two solutions that were around- one was this one, which I think was probably created by the author of Jubilees; I didn’t see it anyplace else. But the other is very common and it is in Midrash Rabbah- when you write you don’t always fill in all the letters- now we have this wonderful system of Nekudot but it didn’t exist in the time of our Rabbis and certainly didn’t exist at the time of the giving of the Torah so when the angel says “Atah yadati” you could read it as “Atah yidati”- put a dot in the daled and suddenly “now I know” becomes “Now I have made known.” “Hodati” would be more common biblical form, but “yidati” certainly existed.
So if you look down at 16- and all of the nations will bless you – and I have made known to all that you are faithful. It says “to all” precisely because they did not have any dots or dashes- if you just wrote yud daled ayin tav nun- I hope that is a kind of representative sample of these ancient interpreters and how they operated. In a way this is a kind of infomercial of a book I am putting together with a former, now retired prorfessor of this institution, Lawrence Feldman and ___ Schiffman, compiling a compendium of these books to make them available- they are available but for a Jewish audience. So much so that it is being published by the Jewish Publication Society. So soon you should be able to hold in your hand- well, not exactly easy to hold in your hand, anyway, thank you very much. I’m eager to answer questions about this or anything else you might want to ask about.
~
QUESTION: What would Wellhausen say about tonight’s question?
PROF KUGEL: He said what would Louis Wellahusen, the great German biblical lecture say about tonight’s lecture- I’m sure he would say “This is interesting nonsense.” He had very little- he was very much a product of his time and his religion as I am, but his background religious orientation was such that he really had no patience for ancient biblical interpretation; he was really all out to undo it and read the whole Tanakh with fresh, unbiased eyes and the one thing I can – I mean, he was a great scholar- one positive thing I can say in connection with your question is that he himself has gotten the credit for having propounded the Documetnary Hypothesis- he really didn’t invent it. He srot of took the writings of other people and took them and put them into new and comprehensive form but having propounded that and a lot of other main features of modern biblical scholarship, he quit his job. He was working in a Protestant seminary and we still have his letter of resignation- it’s really rather moving. It says I went into this field beause I was interested in research- I was trying to figure out whatever we could figure out in this world of Bible and somehow lost sight of the fact that this is a theological faculty and my job is to tarin future Lutheran ministers and now that I have said all the things I’ve said, I realize I’m not really helping them and therefore I quit- I think he got another job but in any case it was a kind of frank admission that he was already well aware that modern biblical scholarship
QUESTION: Do you see yourself as somewhat of a Wellhausen in that regard?
PROF KUGEL: No. Do I see myself as a Wellhausen? Really not. What I have tried to do, is as a teacher and more as a writer is to try to situate modern biblical scholarship in its broader context. It’s kind of surprising but often eople who teach modern biblical scholarship are really uninformed about- now I am speaking again of Christian scholars mostly- what the bible looked like from the standpoint of – even just 100 years ago, not to speak of 1000- and I think that once you are aware of that context everything looks rather different. It is interesting; this last book in which I really did try to expand on that topic in some way- sort of like this evening- I guess I get attacked from all sides. You wouldn’t think this but I was just at the Society for Biblical Literature Convention about 5000 people who teach the Tanakh, Hebrew Bible in colleges and universities and seminaries and it’s a annual affair and it moves around the country because basically hotels don’t like this convention because most of these people don’t drink and it’s not a really ___ venture. So there are a lot of people there who are upset about my book because they find it “too Jewish” or it is “against what we do.” But on the other hand, I know that there are people- Jews who are troubled by my book- I don’t hear from too many of them, but I know they exist and say things like they’ll “Never daven in Teaneck again.” [Laughter] But I also have been surprised by how many people are really fond of this book and say I am also an Orthodox Jew and I’m really glad you wrote this and so I don’t know where that puts me, but I would resist any description of me as a Wellhausen-like figure; I am not really as smart as he was.
AUDIENCE: Do you have any problems from a religious perspective in your book- do you for yourself have problems printing Midrashim Chazal thought were not appropriate to canonize?
PROF KUGEL: The problem I have with this book is the problem I have lived with for most of my adult life. If you want an autobiographical answer, I didn’t really set out to get into this field. This is really all the fault of my late teacher. Professor Twersky- I went there to study Parshanut like a lot of you- Midieval Biblical Interpretation. And you know, he at one point suggested I might write a term paper on the subject of ideas about biblical poetry and medieval times and I read Abarbanel and thought it would be a good thing to do and I started writing the paper and figured I should find out what modern scholars say about how biblical poetry worked and so I started reading on that subject and os one thing led to the next and before I knew it I was up to my neck. I had always been very curious about biblical scholarship- I knew people who were studying this in Harvard and I knew they knew a lot less than I did- they? I? didn’t really know TAnakh very well but they knew about Wellahusen etc- but I can’t say I didn’t have misgivings about it from the beginning- it says in Tehillim that Seeif Daat, SEeif Machov- he who increases knowledge or learning increases pain. I guess I have made my peace with it but I am really not trying ot push people to study this stuff, certainly not Orthodox Jews- I think if you can live without it, well, that’s great. I couldn’t. I just felt I couldn’t and the people I hear from I know feel the same way. They just, you know, say I know this stuff exists- I actually once- excuse me for rambling on beyond this question- when I published this book the publisher insisted I have some website and I really wanted the website to be HowToReadTheBible.com but about two weeks before we registered that name someone else took it so unfortunately it had to be called JamesKugel.com and you can certainly write to me at that address- has an email associated with it. I get all kinds of email and one email I got was from someone- I don’t see her here but she might well be- I subsequently met her; I didn’t know her at the time- she teaches at a leading Orthodox Jewish high school in the greater metropolitan area and she said I am planning on using my book with my twelfth graders and what do you think about that? And I wrote back and said I think that is a terrible idea- why would you make twelfth graders study this stuff- maybe in a college course where people take this stuff? And she wrote back and basically said Aifo ata chai- what world do you live in? Everyone in this school has heard about the Documentary Hypothesis- they read articles in the New York Times about how archeologists say this or that couldn’t happen but I still don’t think I recommend teaching that in twelfth grade. But I do know there are a lot of people who are like me and feel like they want to find out about this stuff.
AUDIENCE: On your website, when people ask you about difference between Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy- do you believe that the five books of Moshe were given to him by Hashem?
PROF KUGEL: I don’t think I’ve given a talk in the last five years where people don’t ask that question. Really what people mean by that question, sometimes, is can I get you to say something that crosses the line and the answer is no, I’m really just like you except I have been studying
AUDIENCE: So you believe… [LAUGHTER]
PROF KUGEL: So I’m trying to answer…what I believe is tha Judaism is a very tradition-oriented religion and we like to look to our sages for guidance. I did say that in that same website answer, but you know, invariably, ineluctably, we live in the midst of history. And there’s really nothing altogether immutable when you live in – historical circumstances change. I’m very wary of invoking change as a motif in Judaism because again, I’m just like you- I want the same things to be true now that – do exactly the same thing we’ve done before- that is the essence of our halakhic system but things do, sometimes, something happens. I mean just to choose a totally inappropriate analogy but there was a point in Judaism where the very essence of Jewish piety involved bringing sacrifices to the Beit Hamikdash – Haavodah was the basic thing- and then that Temple was destroyed by the Romans and at the first people thought they would rebuild it but time went on and Judaism changed in consequence. The institution of the synagogue which had existed before became the central institution of Judaism which it wasn’t before- the prayers changed- now there is this things that has happened which is called modern biblical scholarship and my hunch is that not I, but someone down along the line, will help people to sort of accommodate this in a better way than it has been accommodated so far. I don’t feel great about just saying I know this stuff exists but I don’t want to hear about it- it doesn’t seem to me that has the power to be a longlasting answer. It would be nice to go back to the sages of the middle ages or even earlier but the problem is they didn’t have to recognize/ reckon with this new phenomena of modern biblical scholarship so one can try to be guided by their words but I’m not sure that one can find any solution, so all this is my way of saying I’m not here to proclaim this or that cherished Jewish doctrine is to be cast aside- I – there are few things that are more fundamental to Judasim than the notion of Torah M’Sinai and as I said in my answer not only on the website but in the book itself I said what you just repeated and I think that is true. The one subject on which biblical scholarship has nothing to say is the divine origin of Scripture- how can they possibly express an opinion on this part of the Torah being divine, this not- words don’t’ come with little flags that say- I am not troubled by that part of modern biblical scholarship but how Judaism comes to reckon with the things that scholars have found out about historical background- I think that is still an open subject- I don’t know where it is going to go but I doubt it is going to stay the same.
AUDIENCE: Paragraph on the first page in the passage on Judith- why is it talking about a bunch of people rather than Abraham?
KUGEL: I think it isn’t just that the author didn’t want to mention Abraham by name but these people wanted to account for the great nation that came and multiplied- so convenient way of accounting for them.
AUDIENCE: Is it denying the existence of Abraham or-
KUGEL: No, no!
AUDIENCE: Between Judith and Stevens, seems to be saying that Mesopotamia was ___ Haran and the other seems to say Mesopotamia is Haran.
KUGEL: What a learned observation that is. Mesopotamia was the land between the rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. But what that could refer to is I guess about is it covered a lot of territory- one uses it to refer to the southland and the other to Haran way, way in the north, so it is confusing, but it may be that the northern position is that it didn’t say Mesopotamia so much as Aram Naharaim, and that might be
AUDIENCE: In your opinion, why is it that Jubilees or other pre-Talmudic interpretations, why would it be put in the mouth of an angel?
KUGEL: That is something which is rather common in this period. We know about the Jews in these closing centuries before the common era; they lived in a reality of angels. Angels were everywhere. If you got sick, it was some kind of angel that got inside of you. If you got sick, you were possessed by bad angels. Here they become independent actors- good angels and back angels. ___ you would recite to protect yourself against these angels. So the idea of an angelic narrator – anyway, the – that certainly made it plausible- but I think it also- the author of Jubilees liked that because it gave great authority to his text. It was good to have the text handed to Moses- it says the angel – God says to the angel: Dictate to Moshe the following Book and so he does. So in a sense, it not only had the authority of Moshe Rabbeinu but also had the authority of this angel who was not just any angel, but kind of the top angel- there were two classes of angels in the world of Jubilees – Malachei HaKodesh, Angels of Holiness, because those were the angels Isaiah reports as saying Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh and then there were other angels called Malachei HaPanim- angesl of the presence because they actually appeared before Hashem. They were also highly exalted angels. I once gave a talk at YU, it must be about 10 years ago, about the function of this divison of angels. These two top angels actually get to rest on every Shabbat along with God. They don’t work but the other angels do- the lower classes do, because they really are that kind of heavenly Shabbos Goyim – [laughter] because they keep the world going on Shabbat- kind of a remarkable idea. But it was a question- if Hashem rests on Shabbat, who makes the world go/ wind go?
AUDIENCE: Talking about the tests- God testing- the first thing I don’t understand is why then add the tenth test, and my second question is that I don’t really understand the atah yadati case because it was a Malach anyway-
KUGEL: Let me take them in reverse order because the danger is that I’ll forget the second. The answer to the second is that yes, it does say Ata Yadati in the narrative, but I would have to say in most places in the Torah, maybe all of them, there’s really no firm distinction between the Malach- he’s just a spokesman for God. The normal assumption would be he is saying that – to show that really wasn’t so. The first question isn’t so much that he didn’t like the idea of tests; he didn’t like the idea of God having to test in order to find things out which is slightly different. But testing was – there’s a kind of dualism about this subject that we even to this day – we pray not to- lo lidei cheit v’lo lidei aveirah v’avon v’lo lidei nisayon- do not lead us into being tested. Famous prayer in New Testament which children in New York see as being “Lead me not into Penn Station” when really it is “Lead me not into Temptation” when really God is testing our mettle- I think that being the case, it wasn’t so terrible that there should be these multiple tests. The problematic part was the implication that God didn’t know.
AUDIENCE: Seems like the author saw fit to explain this test- but doesn’t explain tests elsewhere?
KUGEL: That’s true and I think the idea is that it was necessary to kind of sharpen Abraham and it was through adversity that his righteousness was really heightened. There was this famous pasuk- “tzaruf hashem” -I think that they probably read it not in passive form- “tzarufa” means it refines; it refines like fire- that is the whole thing about the Torah.
AUDIENCE: Well, in that case the only reason for this explanation is – because God now knew-
KUGEL: The other ones don’t involve divine omniscience- it isn’t that Abraham leaves Ur and now I know- the issue is not raised by those sort of tests- the assumption was as the bumper sticker has it, “Tests Happen” and you have just got to have
GILAH: The honking is actually the bus, which is waiting, so we should probably wrap up. Want to thank YSU and TAC for sponsoring the evening and obviously to thank Professor Kugel.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
My Moonlight
A story
Alena leans forward and adjusts a wisp of her silver hair, placing it behind her ear. My grandmother looks up at me, her eyes heartbreakingly beautiful, deep and brown and filled with meaning. She gazes at me imploringly, as she states the words, “Very pain,” in an exquisitely kind effort to communicate with a granddaughter who does not know her language. I do not let her see my tears; I blink them back quickly, and she continues to look at me with sad eyes, wishing for me to do something to make the pain go away.
Dear grandmother, my darling, exquisite, wonderful grandmother. You seem to me to be so breakable, fragile like a piece of crystal, exquisitely etched over with lines and designs. Or perhaps you are purer than that, a simple piece of glass, sparkling in the light of the sun. I look at you and I see elegance, dignity, enwrapped and enshrouded as you are in darkness. I wonder if there is any way to unloose the grip your disease has on you, to undo what is killing you. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a kindness to pray for you, and whether you would rather I prayed for your death.
The little apartment is decorated beautifully. There are many windows, and Lady Alena (I cannot but think of her as a Lady, so good and kind is she) has opened them in order to allow the light to flood in. They touch down on the hardwood floor, on your bed, covered as it is in warm blankets. I wonder if you can bear the touch of those soft blankets on your skin; if even they cover you in bruises. I step forward and hand you the drawings I hold in my hand.
In my effort to communicate with you, I have drawn pictures that I hope you will enjoy. You can still see the colors, the shapes, the forms my love takes. I have drawn you a picture of a girl, of a rose, of flowers. I am trying to draw my love, to take it down and transform it from words to something purer and more refined, to transform it for you into something tangible. I am so frustrated not to have the words. There are so many things I wish I could say. I want to tell you how incredibly impressive you are to me, the portrait that you paint in my mind. I want to tell you how sad I am that God has seen fit to give you this pain in the last years of your life. I want to paint you the world as I see it, a world you do not know anymore because you barely venture beyond your doorstep. I want my voice to paint for you the colors of that world, and the beauty it contains.
I want to do this, not to make you jealous, but to reveal to you everything that there is, so that you can see it through my eyes and feel it in my touch. When I hold your wrists and chafe them lightly, when I place your thin and brittle hands in mine, I find you birdlike, petite and silver. It is almost as though you will fly away and leave nothing in your place, and so I struggle to hold on to air. It is only now that I understood why my mother made me read The Joy Luck Club, always wanted me to understand Amy Tan’s works. My mother has been preparing me for this all my life. All the books I have read are yours, my grandmother. Everything has been for you.
What my mother would give could she see you healthy and whole! You do not know the way it eats at her, the way she struggles and how it pains her that she cannot be near you. I am near, and yet I cannot speak with you. My mother can speak to you in the lilting tone of her youth, words that drip from her mouth like honey, unless they are tinged with sharpness because her breath has been taken away by the sight of you in pain, the sight of you unhappy. How beautiful you are, my grandmother, and how beloved. I wish that we could take away your tears.
God has done things to you that seem cruel. I do not know why He has done them. You have only ever been pure, and all that you have done is pure. You supported an entire community, raised a family, were strong in a time when there was nothing to grant you strength. You succeeded in ensuring that everyone emigrated from Austria and came here to America. And now that you are here, what do you have? This little apartment, and a view that barely satisfies? And the disease that feeds off of your flesh and causes you pain, so that it catches in your eyes; there, a flicker; I can see it. And what can I do, my grandmother, except blink back the tears in my eyes as I struggle not to cry…
And then there is Alena. My Lady Alena, I call her in my mind, as she appears that way to me, with her grace and beauty. Once upon a time, she was an absolute queen, with long russet curls that reached her back and a smile that charmed and invited. Her teeth were white and straight, like little pearls glimmering in the light of a hidden moon, and her lips curved sensually. But all of this has been forgotten in her care for her mother. Alena has put aside her life, her work, and everything else that mattered to her in order to care for my grandmother. She prepares food for her, makes sure to give her her medication, to tend to her, to help her with everything she may need help with, such as bathing her, and throughout all of this, treats her with perfect dignity. Alena is human and there are moments where she snaps or wonders why this was destined to be her lot in life, why it was that she has been asked to give so much, and to sacrifice everything. She too is kept within this apartment as though it were her prison, as she cannot leave my grandmother alone lest she hurt herself. She may go out very briefly to purchase food and perhaps the newspaper, but in truth these four walls enclose her. And for such a one as Alena, that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all. Alena is consumed by an urge to seek beauty, to find it in all its many forms. She adores the sunlight, nature, the designs in Macy’s storefront, shows and musicals. If she were one who was inured to all this, hardened, it might be easier to bear. But she is a gentle soul, sweet and intelligent, and it is the fact that such a one has been made prisoner of her surroundings that is at times unbearable.
Alena has a strength which others do not grasp. Her strength has been tried and tested and still she has not abandoned her post; she retains the tenacity of a man at arms, a captain who refuses to leave his ship when she is in distress. Her face is careworn, her hair is badly cut. There are bags under her eyes; she has forgotten herself in her solicitude for her mother. She wears sensible shoes and clothes, black pants and sturdy shirts, and no longer dresses in the silks and frippery of her youth. The femininity that was emphasized in her every aspect, that dazzled her many admirers, is completely gone, consumed in the cares that she bears. Yet she bears it in silence; she bears it without complaint. Her complaints are infrequent. She has resigned herself to her fate; it belongs wholly to her. It is not the lot she would have chosen, but she is a true daughter. Americans would have placed their mother in a nursing home. Alena would never do that. A daughter serves the mother throughout her life, the mother who cared for her, granted her life, brought her into this world. One’s mother is owed a debt that can never fully be repaid.
And so here I sit at the table, having placed my sketches upon it, as my grandmother looks up at me with sad eyes and Alena works in the kitchen, busily preparing for me. She insists upon making everything into a feast so that whenever I come, I must eat chicken and pilaf and cakes and every manner of treat or delicacy. In the meantime, I try to talk without words, try to make myself understood to my grandmother. I place my hand against hers, note the contrast between our fingers. Look at my hand, so youthful. The skin is young, the flesh is firm; my nails are painted a brilliant red hue. Look at her hand, perfectly petite and small but covered over in flesh which is thin, delicate. Her nails are carefully trimmed and they are very clean; she is beautiful to me. This is what I see when I look at her, her effervescent beauty, which she emits like a candle giving off light. I look at her and I see the moonlight caught within her. Her soul sparkles like the moon in the sky; it is a light that is a reflection rather than the source itself. She reflects the light of my grandfather, who has left her to this.
He did not do it intentionally. Were he alive, he would fight the angels of hell to care for her, to place her little slipper on her feet. He was mad about her, loved her with a love so fierce that the angels do not speak of it, because it is reverenced, seen with an awe that has left our world. If he were alive, he would tend to her every need and make her understand the ways in which he cared for her. But he is not here, and what is left instead are her memories, both the bitter and the sweet. And I believe that most everything must be bitter for her now, tinged as they are with the sadness of their not actually taking place in the present, not being true in the here and now. My moonlit grandmother exudes a shining white light; it is utterly pure. But she shines within the confines of a dark world, a dark realm, a dark night.
I wish there were a way to show you how I love you, my grandmother. I wish there were a way to ease your pain. That is the only thing that occurs to me, and I do everything to please you, to bring you joy. I dance for you- do you remember? How I danced when I was little, my hair swirling as I turned! I would sing for you if the words would mean anything. Anything to drown out the sound of those two words, murmured in a quiet voice, but in such agony, in such darkness, “Very pain.” It is the fact that you say them so quietly that make them such a killing thing.
Where is your anger? Why do you not fight? It is because it is exhausting to do so, and you are so tired, my grandmother, that you cannot even if you wished to. How can you lift a finger in anger, when to lift that finger tires you so? This aside from the fact that you are a Jew in the way that no one has been a Jew since Abraham, who followed God on the strength of His word. You are a Jew who understands what it means to believe. You do not doubt and cannot doubt. Alena explained it to me once, the way in which your community was structured. “There was fear of God in those days,” she said to me, and looked at me with an intensity that burned, coming as it did from those weary eyes. “Do you know what it means to fear God?” And I have to admit that I do not, not in the way that they understood it, not in the way that they have learned that fear.
There is a fear of God that comes from true belief rather than words or texts. None of them were instructed in the laws and codices that comprise our religion today. None of them knew who Rashi was, the Ramban, Ibn Ezra, any of the commentators whom I take for granted as I peruse my books. No, that knowledge was reserved for the men, who were learned in these areas; the women were the ones who had practical knowledge of halakha and of God. The wisdom of the women, their lore and sayings, their folklore and their ideas; all this has been forgotten in pursuit of the new, the young, and the youthful, in pursuit of glittering tin and aluminum. America is a shiny place, a toy with its glittering youthful enthusiasm. Here, one may live forever, with their Botox treatments and cosmetic surgeries, their creams and lotions and unguents. Here, the young are respected and the old are placed in nursing homes that smell like antiseptic, put away like so much rubbish. To grow old with dignity has been forgotten. To die with dignity is unknown. But in my grandmother I see it, in her fragility and her beauty I know what it means again. And I am human, wholly human, and it is a raw feeling that sets my heart afire, because I know now, although it is only a fraction of what she knows, with a surety that I did not have before, what it means to know God.
Who is God to a community who does not know his texts? My grandmother cannot speak Hebrew; the words were never taught to her. My Lady Alena cannot speak it either. They were taught a mixture of stories and lore, words that dripped from my grandfather’s lips. He instructed them and they obeyed, understanding their task and not protesting it. They were wise in the ways of the women, knowledgeable in all things that had to do with the women. They understood what was necessary, and it was this that they acted upon. “But what about asking why?” I inquire. “What if you wanted to know why something was done?” I ask her about kashrut and keeping the laws of kashrut. “But why?” And my Lady Alena answers me by explaining that the way my grandmother explained it to her was that the soul of the animal resides in its blood and we are forbidden to eat the soul or the essence of a living thing. That is pure and belongs to God; it is not for us. And thus we must salt the meat and remove the blood from it so that we may benefit from it, and it may be permitted to us.
How I envy them, in my way! I live in a world where all may question, and there is much that is pure in the intent of those who question. But I live in a world which has also forgotten the meaning of fear, in the way that these women knew it, the meaning of respect and awe for God. I wonder what commitment they felt; they who knew nothing of the actual texts, they who spoke no Hebrew! They would gather in shul and observe the men, saying the prayers in the language they knew, a dialect of Farsi, Persian words that arose from their lips and rose before God, burning with a savage purity. How ugly must my words seem in comparison, who cannot pray as they did, and who does not know Him as they must have known Him! It is only in these moments, in these rare glimpses, when Lady Alena tells me, that I know Him a little.
There is the soul of the matter, the essence of a thing, something which penetrates beyond the externals, beyond the text, beyond the wrappings. This is something that they have and that I do not, much as I may strive for it. There is an authenticity in their beliefs that dwarfs me and humbles me; there is something holy in it, and it is the holiness that I strive to capture, but it is elusive, hiding from me. I want to put my hands around it and take a little of that light for myself, but I cannot. It too is hidden. It has been granted only to the holy ones, and that is not me. Alas that I do not fall into that category…but I know women who do.
These women are not learned; indeed, they know very little. What they can lay before God is their service, their devotion, their love and their awe. Their fear is tangible; their love is real. How I wish that I were so suffused with love, who looks upon them and wonders why God has seen fit to strike them with so much suffering? And yet, despite it all, they persist and continue in their way, simple people who know the true meaning of the term. There are many who claim to be simple Jews. My relatives make no such claim; they simply live it, act it, with their every breath, in their every move. It is reflected in their faces. There is a core to them that you cannot echo; it is the last song of a forgotten generation. And the song is of such haunting beauty that I cannot bear to let it go…instead I stand before it and beg it to cover me, surround me, encapsulate me, create me. Take me and make me pure, I beg, take me and let me understand. Let me see what you see; let me stand in your place. I want to know your God; I want your faith. Bless me that I should attain it.
But I do not say these things. I do not say these things because it is better that they not know how much they differ, the purity that is theirs. I let them live their lives as anyone else would, within the small apartment, going about their daily activities. I do not tell them of their praises because it is God who will reveal it to them, when they meet Him. When they encounter God, He shall smile at them and tell them, “Welcome, my children.” They will be His beloved ones, and sit at His feet, or by His throne, their eyes awed and expressive as they look at him. They have not lost the eyes of children, the sad, haunted eyes of children that truly comprehend the pain of a broken world. When I look at them, I see those eyes, and I wish with all my heart that I might be worthy of attaining that one day.
The only time I break this rule is to give comfort to Lady Alena. Alena struggles, this I know, and her struggle is one that would break many others. People speak of honoring their father and mother, but they do not know it until they have seen my Alena. She has truly given herself; she has offered her life upon an altar to God, exchanged it to care for her mother, to help her in every way. And so I try to offer sweet words to Alena, to explain to her how beautiful her actions are in the eyes of God. I hope she can hear me; I worry sometimes that she cannot. If I did not believe in God, I would have to, if only for the sake of Lady Alena. I believe she has castles in the sky dripping with gems and jewels, symphonies and orchestras and everything she does not have on earth. At the moment when she encounters God, I believe that he will pull aside a curtain, as it were, and introduce her to her domain. And there, she will be light and surefooted again; she will be beautiful and radiant, for all will be restored to her, and she will dance through meadows of neverending grass, delight in the rivers around her. I have imagined a Paradise for her so as to content me with the woman I see right now. I have never seen so pure a love as the love I see in her, the love of a daughter for a mother, in addition to duty, which enables her to do this, to give her life in place of her mother’s. It is easy to sacrifice one’s life once- kill me instead, we cry, and this is the cry we hear in the movies- but how many could live that sacrifice? Can you live each day and offer your life instead of your mother’s, offer your life instead of another’s whom you love? Only those of us who love most deeply and truly can do such a thing, and Alena is one of those rare few who has the ability to offer herself again and again, an Isaac on the altar every day.
What am I to do beyond bearing witness to this? I feel so inept, useless, incapable. My hands are small; they cannot stop the oppressive pain that weighs in on that house. My lips do not speak the words in the language that I wish. It is my look, then, on which I must rely; it is my aspect in which I must try to communicate. The look in my eye, my lips against my grandmother’s cheek, my hand caressing hers. This must be the means that I must use, poor tools indeed! I am like Edmund Dantes and his Abbe, trying to chisel my way through rock with makeshift tools. How frustrating it is, when there is so much I would say! Alena acts as my translator, but even through her, I cannot say all the things I wish I could. I cannot express my thoughts in a manner which is truthful, which conveys everything I wish I could say.
My beloved grandmother, how beautiful you are! They have shown me pictures of you, in silks and satins, decorated and dignified, always elegant, always exquisitely poised. Your scent is pure; when I lean down to kiss you, you smell of the wind, of the sky, of everything that is outdoor and open and free. I long so much to make you well. God has not given me the power, but I desire it, believe me that I do. Voiceless, dumb and mute, without a tongue to tell you how I love you, it is the heart that beats in my body, the blood that pulses through my veins, that sings for you to be well and healthy once more. I desire to soothe you, to calm you, to make you happy. I cannot bear your pain.
And yet who am I to flee your pain when Alena must live with it day by day, must watch her lovely mother degenerate before her eyes, suffering the double burden of caring for you and wishing that she had her life back, desiring to see you well and yet desiring to live? I wonder what thoughts flit through her mind, my Alena, and whether she ever reproaches herself for her desire to live differently. I imagine that she does. But I can vouch for her, my grandmother, that she loves you, too, with a deep and undying love, and those traitorous thoughts are there only for a moment. She dispels them as though she swept them away with a broom, tidying up the room and doing away with cobwebs.
Dear my grandmother, I wonder whether you can take joy in me, who is so foreign to you? Does my differentness alienate me from you, or does it make you see me more clearly? I wish I could set before you accomplishments that you could value, that were not written in words that you cannot understand. What does it mean to you that I write, who does not know this language? Can it mean anything at all? I wish you knew me, dear my grandmother, and what is more, I wish I knew you. I wish that the blood that sings in my veins, your blood, could connect me to you with bonds even stronger than the ones that are now forged. I want to sing you to sleep, comfort you, make you a lullaby that would magically help you. I want to take your pain away, and I want Alena’s strength, so that I could bear it. It is your eyes that make me hurt, my beloved grandmother, those sad eyes that are so beautifully human, that reveal your confusion and wonder and innocence in the face of this. Why has God done this to you, you must wonder? I do not know, and I wish I could answer.
To me you are the woman at moonlight, walking in the distance. I see your silver hair, and it is long, and flows around you; perhaps it even turns brown as you change back, shifting into your girlhood. You are in silks, adorned and beloved, and you are pure, so pure. There is a silver brooch with gemstone flowers that you wear on a necklace; you tell me that you will give it to me on my wedding day. You are wearing it now, my grandmother, and you are dancing, in the light of a moon that pours down on you, illuminating your every aspect, demonstrating your childlike grace. So delicate are you, so finely made, your every movement makes you seem more like a swan. The curve of your wrist, your finely wrought features, the delicacy inherent therein; all this shines beneath the moon. But what is more, you exude light, a silver light which depicts your essence. You are mine, my grandmother, mine to love forever, and your soul is made of quicksilver light that is sparkling and white and pure. You are my moonlight; in your path, may I walk.
~
Credits: Itzhak Perlman’s rendition of the Theme to Schindler’s List
Alena leans forward and adjusts a wisp of her silver hair, placing it behind her ear. My grandmother looks up at me, her eyes heartbreakingly beautiful, deep and brown and filled with meaning. She gazes at me imploringly, as she states the words, “Very pain,” in an exquisitely kind effort to communicate with a granddaughter who does not know her language. I do not let her see my tears; I blink them back quickly, and she continues to look at me with sad eyes, wishing for me to do something to make the pain go away.
Dear grandmother, my darling, exquisite, wonderful grandmother. You seem to me to be so breakable, fragile like a piece of crystal, exquisitely etched over with lines and designs. Or perhaps you are purer than that, a simple piece of glass, sparkling in the light of the sun. I look at you and I see elegance, dignity, enwrapped and enshrouded as you are in darkness. I wonder if there is any way to unloose the grip your disease has on you, to undo what is killing you. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a kindness to pray for you, and whether you would rather I prayed for your death.
The little apartment is decorated beautifully. There are many windows, and Lady Alena (I cannot but think of her as a Lady, so good and kind is she) has opened them in order to allow the light to flood in. They touch down on the hardwood floor, on your bed, covered as it is in warm blankets. I wonder if you can bear the touch of those soft blankets on your skin; if even they cover you in bruises. I step forward and hand you the drawings I hold in my hand.
In my effort to communicate with you, I have drawn pictures that I hope you will enjoy. You can still see the colors, the shapes, the forms my love takes. I have drawn you a picture of a girl, of a rose, of flowers. I am trying to draw my love, to take it down and transform it from words to something purer and more refined, to transform it for you into something tangible. I am so frustrated not to have the words. There are so many things I wish I could say. I want to tell you how incredibly impressive you are to me, the portrait that you paint in my mind. I want to tell you how sad I am that God has seen fit to give you this pain in the last years of your life. I want to paint you the world as I see it, a world you do not know anymore because you barely venture beyond your doorstep. I want my voice to paint for you the colors of that world, and the beauty it contains.
I want to do this, not to make you jealous, but to reveal to you everything that there is, so that you can see it through my eyes and feel it in my touch. When I hold your wrists and chafe them lightly, when I place your thin and brittle hands in mine, I find you birdlike, petite and silver. It is almost as though you will fly away and leave nothing in your place, and so I struggle to hold on to air. It is only now that I understood why my mother made me read The Joy Luck Club, always wanted me to understand Amy Tan’s works. My mother has been preparing me for this all my life. All the books I have read are yours, my grandmother. Everything has been for you.
What my mother would give could she see you healthy and whole! You do not know the way it eats at her, the way she struggles and how it pains her that she cannot be near you. I am near, and yet I cannot speak with you. My mother can speak to you in the lilting tone of her youth, words that drip from her mouth like honey, unless they are tinged with sharpness because her breath has been taken away by the sight of you in pain, the sight of you unhappy. How beautiful you are, my grandmother, and how beloved. I wish that we could take away your tears.
God has done things to you that seem cruel. I do not know why He has done them. You have only ever been pure, and all that you have done is pure. You supported an entire community, raised a family, were strong in a time when there was nothing to grant you strength. You succeeded in ensuring that everyone emigrated from Austria and came here to America. And now that you are here, what do you have? This little apartment, and a view that barely satisfies? And the disease that feeds off of your flesh and causes you pain, so that it catches in your eyes; there, a flicker; I can see it. And what can I do, my grandmother, except blink back the tears in my eyes as I struggle not to cry…
And then there is Alena. My Lady Alena, I call her in my mind, as she appears that way to me, with her grace and beauty. Once upon a time, she was an absolute queen, with long russet curls that reached her back and a smile that charmed and invited. Her teeth were white and straight, like little pearls glimmering in the light of a hidden moon, and her lips curved sensually. But all of this has been forgotten in her care for her mother. Alena has put aside her life, her work, and everything else that mattered to her in order to care for my grandmother. She prepares food for her, makes sure to give her her medication, to tend to her, to help her with everything she may need help with, such as bathing her, and throughout all of this, treats her with perfect dignity. Alena is human and there are moments where she snaps or wonders why this was destined to be her lot in life, why it was that she has been asked to give so much, and to sacrifice everything. She too is kept within this apartment as though it were her prison, as she cannot leave my grandmother alone lest she hurt herself. She may go out very briefly to purchase food and perhaps the newspaper, but in truth these four walls enclose her. And for such a one as Alena, that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all. Alena is consumed by an urge to seek beauty, to find it in all its many forms. She adores the sunlight, nature, the designs in Macy’s storefront, shows and musicals. If she were one who was inured to all this, hardened, it might be easier to bear. But she is a gentle soul, sweet and intelligent, and it is the fact that such a one has been made prisoner of her surroundings that is at times unbearable.
Alena has a strength which others do not grasp. Her strength has been tried and tested and still she has not abandoned her post; she retains the tenacity of a man at arms, a captain who refuses to leave his ship when she is in distress. Her face is careworn, her hair is badly cut. There are bags under her eyes; she has forgotten herself in her solicitude for her mother. She wears sensible shoes and clothes, black pants and sturdy shirts, and no longer dresses in the silks and frippery of her youth. The femininity that was emphasized in her every aspect, that dazzled her many admirers, is completely gone, consumed in the cares that she bears. Yet she bears it in silence; she bears it without complaint. Her complaints are infrequent. She has resigned herself to her fate; it belongs wholly to her. It is not the lot she would have chosen, but she is a true daughter. Americans would have placed their mother in a nursing home. Alena would never do that. A daughter serves the mother throughout her life, the mother who cared for her, granted her life, brought her into this world. One’s mother is owed a debt that can never fully be repaid.
And so here I sit at the table, having placed my sketches upon it, as my grandmother looks up at me with sad eyes and Alena works in the kitchen, busily preparing for me. She insists upon making everything into a feast so that whenever I come, I must eat chicken and pilaf and cakes and every manner of treat or delicacy. In the meantime, I try to talk without words, try to make myself understood to my grandmother. I place my hand against hers, note the contrast between our fingers. Look at my hand, so youthful. The skin is young, the flesh is firm; my nails are painted a brilliant red hue. Look at her hand, perfectly petite and small but covered over in flesh which is thin, delicate. Her nails are carefully trimmed and they are very clean; she is beautiful to me. This is what I see when I look at her, her effervescent beauty, which she emits like a candle giving off light. I look at her and I see the moonlight caught within her. Her soul sparkles like the moon in the sky; it is a light that is a reflection rather than the source itself. She reflects the light of my grandfather, who has left her to this.
He did not do it intentionally. Were he alive, he would fight the angels of hell to care for her, to place her little slipper on her feet. He was mad about her, loved her with a love so fierce that the angels do not speak of it, because it is reverenced, seen with an awe that has left our world. If he were alive, he would tend to her every need and make her understand the ways in which he cared for her. But he is not here, and what is left instead are her memories, both the bitter and the sweet. And I believe that most everything must be bitter for her now, tinged as they are with the sadness of their not actually taking place in the present, not being true in the here and now. My moonlit grandmother exudes a shining white light; it is utterly pure. But she shines within the confines of a dark world, a dark realm, a dark night.
I wish there were a way to show you how I love you, my grandmother. I wish there were a way to ease your pain. That is the only thing that occurs to me, and I do everything to please you, to bring you joy. I dance for you- do you remember? How I danced when I was little, my hair swirling as I turned! I would sing for you if the words would mean anything. Anything to drown out the sound of those two words, murmured in a quiet voice, but in such agony, in such darkness, “Very pain.” It is the fact that you say them so quietly that make them such a killing thing.
Where is your anger? Why do you not fight? It is because it is exhausting to do so, and you are so tired, my grandmother, that you cannot even if you wished to. How can you lift a finger in anger, when to lift that finger tires you so? This aside from the fact that you are a Jew in the way that no one has been a Jew since Abraham, who followed God on the strength of His word. You are a Jew who understands what it means to believe. You do not doubt and cannot doubt. Alena explained it to me once, the way in which your community was structured. “There was fear of God in those days,” she said to me, and looked at me with an intensity that burned, coming as it did from those weary eyes. “Do you know what it means to fear God?” And I have to admit that I do not, not in the way that they understood it, not in the way that they have learned that fear.
There is a fear of God that comes from true belief rather than words or texts. None of them were instructed in the laws and codices that comprise our religion today. None of them knew who Rashi was, the Ramban, Ibn Ezra, any of the commentators whom I take for granted as I peruse my books. No, that knowledge was reserved for the men, who were learned in these areas; the women were the ones who had practical knowledge of halakha and of God. The wisdom of the women, their lore and sayings, their folklore and their ideas; all this has been forgotten in pursuit of the new, the young, and the youthful, in pursuit of glittering tin and aluminum. America is a shiny place, a toy with its glittering youthful enthusiasm. Here, one may live forever, with their Botox treatments and cosmetic surgeries, their creams and lotions and unguents. Here, the young are respected and the old are placed in nursing homes that smell like antiseptic, put away like so much rubbish. To grow old with dignity has been forgotten. To die with dignity is unknown. But in my grandmother I see it, in her fragility and her beauty I know what it means again. And I am human, wholly human, and it is a raw feeling that sets my heart afire, because I know now, although it is only a fraction of what she knows, with a surety that I did not have before, what it means to know God.
Who is God to a community who does not know his texts? My grandmother cannot speak Hebrew; the words were never taught to her. My Lady Alena cannot speak it either. They were taught a mixture of stories and lore, words that dripped from my grandfather’s lips. He instructed them and they obeyed, understanding their task and not protesting it. They were wise in the ways of the women, knowledgeable in all things that had to do with the women. They understood what was necessary, and it was this that they acted upon. “But what about asking why?” I inquire. “What if you wanted to know why something was done?” I ask her about kashrut and keeping the laws of kashrut. “But why?” And my Lady Alena answers me by explaining that the way my grandmother explained it to her was that the soul of the animal resides in its blood and we are forbidden to eat the soul or the essence of a living thing. That is pure and belongs to God; it is not for us. And thus we must salt the meat and remove the blood from it so that we may benefit from it, and it may be permitted to us.
How I envy them, in my way! I live in a world where all may question, and there is much that is pure in the intent of those who question. But I live in a world which has also forgotten the meaning of fear, in the way that these women knew it, the meaning of respect and awe for God. I wonder what commitment they felt; they who knew nothing of the actual texts, they who spoke no Hebrew! They would gather in shul and observe the men, saying the prayers in the language they knew, a dialect of Farsi, Persian words that arose from their lips and rose before God, burning with a savage purity. How ugly must my words seem in comparison, who cannot pray as they did, and who does not know Him as they must have known Him! It is only in these moments, in these rare glimpses, when Lady Alena tells me, that I know Him a little.
There is the soul of the matter, the essence of a thing, something which penetrates beyond the externals, beyond the text, beyond the wrappings. This is something that they have and that I do not, much as I may strive for it. There is an authenticity in their beliefs that dwarfs me and humbles me; there is something holy in it, and it is the holiness that I strive to capture, but it is elusive, hiding from me. I want to put my hands around it and take a little of that light for myself, but I cannot. It too is hidden. It has been granted only to the holy ones, and that is not me. Alas that I do not fall into that category…but I know women who do.
These women are not learned; indeed, they know very little. What they can lay before God is their service, their devotion, their love and their awe. Their fear is tangible; their love is real. How I wish that I were so suffused with love, who looks upon them and wonders why God has seen fit to strike them with so much suffering? And yet, despite it all, they persist and continue in their way, simple people who know the true meaning of the term. There are many who claim to be simple Jews. My relatives make no such claim; they simply live it, act it, with their every breath, in their every move. It is reflected in their faces. There is a core to them that you cannot echo; it is the last song of a forgotten generation. And the song is of such haunting beauty that I cannot bear to let it go…instead I stand before it and beg it to cover me, surround me, encapsulate me, create me. Take me and make me pure, I beg, take me and let me understand. Let me see what you see; let me stand in your place. I want to know your God; I want your faith. Bless me that I should attain it.
But I do not say these things. I do not say these things because it is better that they not know how much they differ, the purity that is theirs. I let them live their lives as anyone else would, within the small apartment, going about their daily activities. I do not tell them of their praises because it is God who will reveal it to them, when they meet Him. When they encounter God, He shall smile at them and tell them, “Welcome, my children.” They will be His beloved ones, and sit at His feet, or by His throne, their eyes awed and expressive as they look at him. They have not lost the eyes of children, the sad, haunted eyes of children that truly comprehend the pain of a broken world. When I look at them, I see those eyes, and I wish with all my heart that I might be worthy of attaining that one day.
The only time I break this rule is to give comfort to Lady Alena. Alena struggles, this I know, and her struggle is one that would break many others. People speak of honoring their father and mother, but they do not know it until they have seen my Alena. She has truly given herself; she has offered her life upon an altar to God, exchanged it to care for her mother, to help her in every way. And so I try to offer sweet words to Alena, to explain to her how beautiful her actions are in the eyes of God. I hope she can hear me; I worry sometimes that she cannot. If I did not believe in God, I would have to, if only for the sake of Lady Alena. I believe she has castles in the sky dripping with gems and jewels, symphonies and orchestras and everything she does not have on earth. At the moment when she encounters God, I believe that he will pull aside a curtain, as it were, and introduce her to her domain. And there, she will be light and surefooted again; she will be beautiful and radiant, for all will be restored to her, and she will dance through meadows of neverending grass, delight in the rivers around her. I have imagined a Paradise for her so as to content me with the woman I see right now. I have never seen so pure a love as the love I see in her, the love of a daughter for a mother, in addition to duty, which enables her to do this, to give her life in place of her mother’s. It is easy to sacrifice one’s life once- kill me instead, we cry, and this is the cry we hear in the movies- but how many could live that sacrifice? Can you live each day and offer your life instead of your mother’s, offer your life instead of another’s whom you love? Only those of us who love most deeply and truly can do such a thing, and Alena is one of those rare few who has the ability to offer herself again and again, an Isaac on the altar every day.
What am I to do beyond bearing witness to this? I feel so inept, useless, incapable. My hands are small; they cannot stop the oppressive pain that weighs in on that house. My lips do not speak the words in the language that I wish. It is my look, then, on which I must rely; it is my aspect in which I must try to communicate. The look in my eye, my lips against my grandmother’s cheek, my hand caressing hers. This must be the means that I must use, poor tools indeed! I am like Edmund Dantes and his Abbe, trying to chisel my way through rock with makeshift tools. How frustrating it is, when there is so much I would say! Alena acts as my translator, but even through her, I cannot say all the things I wish I could. I cannot express my thoughts in a manner which is truthful, which conveys everything I wish I could say.
My beloved grandmother, how beautiful you are! They have shown me pictures of you, in silks and satins, decorated and dignified, always elegant, always exquisitely poised. Your scent is pure; when I lean down to kiss you, you smell of the wind, of the sky, of everything that is outdoor and open and free. I long so much to make you well. God has not given me the power, but I desire it, believe me that I do. Voiceless, dumb and mute, without a tongue to tell you how I love you, it is the heart that beats in my body, the blood that pulses through my veins, that sings for you to be well and healthy once more. I desire to soothe you, to calm you, to make you happy. I cannot bear your pain.
And yet who am I to flee your pain when Alena must live with it day by day, must watch her lovely mother degenerate before her eyes, suffering the double burden of caring for you and wishing that she had her life back, desiring to see you well and yet desiring to live? I wonder what thoughts flit through her mind, my Alena, and whether she ever reproaches herself for her desire to live differently. I imagine that she does. But I can vouch for her, my grandmother, that she loves you, too, with a deep and undying love, and those traitorous thoughts are there only for a moment. She dispels them as though she swept them away with a broom, tidying up the room and doing away with cobwebs.
Dear my grandmother, I wonder whether you can take joy in me, who is so foreign to you? Does my differentness alienate me from you, or does it make you see me more clearly? I wish I could set before you accomplishments that you could value, that were not written in words that you cannot understand. What does it mean to you that I write, who does not know this language? Can it mean anything at all? I wish you knew me, dear my grandmother, and what is more, I wish I knew you. I wish that the blood that sings in my veins, your blood, could connect me to you with bonds even stronger than the ones that are now forged. I want to sing you to sleep, comfort you, make you a lullaby that would magically help you. I want to take your pain away, and I want Alena’s strength, so that I could bear it. It is your eyes that make me hurt, my beloved grandmother, those sad eyes that are so beautifully human, that reveal your confusion and wonder and innocence in the face of this. Why has God done this to you, you must wonder? I do not know, and I wish I could answer.
To me you are the woman at moonlight, walking in the distance. I see your silver hair, and it is long, and flows around you; perhaps it even turns brown as you change back, shifting into your girlhood. You are in silks, adorned and beloved, and you are pure, so pure. There is a silver brooch with gemstone flowers that you wear on a necklace; you tell me that you will give it to me on my wedding day. You are wearing it now, my grandmother, and you are dancing, in the light of a moon that pours down on you, illuminating your every aspect, demonstrating your childlike grace. So delicate are you, so finely made, your every movement makes you seem more like a swan. The curve of your wrist, your finely wrought features, the delicacy inherent therein; all this shines beneath the moon. But what is more, you exude light, a silver light which depicts your essence. You are mine, my grandmother, mine to love forever, and your soul is made of quicksilver light that is sparkling and white and pure. You are my moonlight; in your path, may I walk.
~
Credits: Itzhak Perlman’s rendition of the Theme to Schindler’s List
The Kosher Quandary: Ethics and Kashrut
These notes are unofficial and unedited. Any and all mistakes are mine.
Welcome to the Kosher Quandary, Ethics & Kashrut. Before we begin the panel, we would like to introduce President Richard M. Joel to
PRESIDENT RICHARD JOEL: I thought there’d be food. You can’t find food on this campus anymore without paying. (That’s the quandary, someone calls out from the audience)- I just want to give you a yasher koach on your awareness, care and participation on who we are and what we need to be. I want to particularly extend my appreciation to Simcha and Gilah for seizing the opportunity to help make this evening happen. Tremendous hakaras hatov to the distinguished and caring leaders of our community who want to participate in this with you. It’s very important that they be here and that Yu is a place that provokes these kind of questions and inspires you to build answers on these questions. The nexus between Torah and social responsbilitily is a pivotal one and it has to be observed passionately- has to be understood and has to do that recognizing the seriousness and depths of the sea of Torah and what we can mine from that sea. It’s wonderful to see you. Thank you for your participation and
GILAH: This is not the first time in our history that the production of meat has grabbed the headlines and created a – in the desert, Jews demanded real meat instead of manna. The Hellenists forcefed pig meat, holiday of Chanukah. The Marranos struggled to ensure they ate kosher meat. My very own great grandfather was sentenced to ____ when getting kosher meat in Siberia. Now, in 2008, we have – a brief word about who we are anfd why we are here this evening. TEIQU(A Torah Exploration Of Ideas, Questions and Understanding) is a new student organization founded by Simcha Gross and Gilah Kletenik. (LAUGHTER) Tonight’s program is TEIQU’s inaugural event. TEIQU was founded for the mission of building opportunities __ in the realm of Jewish academics, faith and community. Part of the various councils of YC and SCW which are cosponsors this evening. We thank them for their support. The goal for this evening’s program is to facilitate the opportunity for dialogue and discourse surrounding a subject that has received considerable attention in our community. AGriprocessors in Postville, Iowa- reports of what happened there have brought the precarious relationship between ethics and kashrut to the fore. This interplay is the focus of this evening’s event. While we may not arrive at answers tonight, we certainly are asking the right questions. We are very enthused by tonight’s turnout. To note, this panel is being livestreamed and promoted on JTA’s network right now. To help us in asking the right questions, we are honored to have with us a most distinguished panel- in your programs, pleaes find their complete Bios.
R’ Menachem Genack- the OU is the largest and most widely recognized kosher supervision agency in the world. Rabbi Basil Herring is the Executive Vice President of the RCA – one of the largest organizations of Orthodox Jewish Rabbis. Rabbi Avi Shafran is the director of public affairs for Agudath Israel. R’ Shmuly Yanklowitz is the co-founder and director of Uri L’Tzedek, the ____ which offers programs and suchlike.
The panel will begin by addressing the following in their remarks:
1. What if any are the considerations upon which we do this _____?
2. Do circumstances outside of shechita jeopardize – business and priorities, chillul hashem, dina d’malchuta dina, etc
3. How should our community (specifically the student community) respond to the recent scandal in Rubashkin?
After the opening statements, Simcha and I will direct questions to the panelists. To the contrary, while Rubashkins will come and go, the halakhic and ethical matters discussed here tonight are timeless.
On your programs, please see a brief accounting of what has happened at Agriprocessors.
RABBI AVI SHAFRAN: Let me begin with a heartfelt thank you to Gilah and to Simcha for arranging this. I know that I am speaking on behalf of our fellow panelists and everyone here at this wonderful turnout. I have particular thanks to give because I think perhaps what I have to say may prove not as popular as those after me, and I appreciate the opportunity to air a point of view that has not always been given the proper airing in the general/ Jewish media. I would like to speak clearly, but nothing that I say should be construed by anyone as impugning the intentions or good will of anyone. I might feel that certain decisions or opportunities were misguided but only
Searching for the right metaphor between ethics and kashrut, I say it’s the same as personal hygiene to poetry. A great poet might opt to not shower, but that bad habit does not necessarily affect the quality of his writing. His poetry has to be judged separately from his hygiene. So while kosher food producers are certainly required without any doubt by halakha to act ethically in every aspect of their , any lapses on that score have no effect, I repeat, no effect, on the kashrut of the food they produce. The same applies to societal laws (labor laws that go beyond the letter of what the halakha may require)- all those things may indeed be mandates on a Jew, if nothing else, because of dina d’malchuta dina, but they are independent, once again, from kashrut. This is eminently clear from the Talmud and halakhic codes. And that is part of the objection I and others have to the heksher concepts- it confuses different Jewish concepts (and conflates them.)
That begs the larger question and more important question about whether Jewish producers should be held accountable for non-ethical behavior. Of course they should. Accountable, yes. But more accountable than merchants of Judaica, booksellers, educational institutions, ____ manufacturers? No. They are no more accountable. Each of us, no matter our profession, are accountable. The fact that what has been proposed is limited to food producers is baffling or perhaps telling. Jewish ethics is a meta-concept and not limited to kashrut.
Further adding to the objections I have to heksher tzedek is the fact that the plan was conceived in sin. Not a word I use lightly or often. The sin I am referring to is the sin of jumping to negative judgements of others. The impetus was the controversy of the company called Agriprocessors. Let me say right away that I don’t know them, have no connection to them and would not know a Rubashkin from a Rubik’s Cube. Therefore I do not know why/ I don’t know if they mistreated animals as PETA says- I don’t know; I don’t know if they ran meth amphetamine lab as a government affidavit said, I don’t know if they harassed employees, I don’t know if they hired underage employees, I don’t know. Neither do I. Neither does anyone, no matter what anyone thinks. What I do know and what all of us should know is that it is Jewishly wrong to assume guilt on the basis of accusations. It is, to put it clearly and simple, unethical- Jewishly unethical. And to create and to herald a new effort as a result of the accuasations against people disregards a clear Torah law called hotzaas sheim rah.
But let’s pretend that the heksher tzedek was conceived of out of the blue. Would that not be sufficient reason to create a mechanism so that the industry would better adhere to this? Yes, it would, and indeed in Jewish history, there are histories of Gedolei HaDor who instituted price controls, threatened recalcitrant merchants- the object in those cases is that those decisions are not decisions that any of us is necessarily qualified to make. If the term Orthodox Judaism has any meaning, it lies in reverence for the past and those who lie closer to the past than we. The proper way to explore whether a communal mechanism is warranted is to bring it to the attention of the elders of the community. Tehre are of course different subcommunities in the Orthodox world which I don’t think I hav eto tell anyone here- but each has its elders. I don’t expect a Conservative Rabbi to acknowledge that fact- as non-Orthodox rabbis are based on progression, not on Mesorah and not on respect for elders. But those of us who calls ourselves Orthodox have to know on whose shoulders we stand and who the Torah teaches us to see as being the perceptive- thank you for listening.
RABBI MENACHEM GENACK: I’m going to try to follow ___ Neshuma’s admonition- every speaker should follow the three Ts- Truthful, Brief and Seated. It’s interesting to note that the Rambam puts the laws of kashrus in his volume “Kedusha.” And included in that is also issurei biah (forbidden sexual relationships) because we believe that through observing the ritual of kashrus and all the other laws related to it, we attain a certain level of kedusha, and that’s a function of discipline and purpose. The Torah tells us kedoshim tihiyu and the Rambam says that is an overarching principle that even things that are permitted by the Torah that are socially unacceptable says- otherwise one could be a Menuval B’Rshus HaTorah, an abhoreent person within the sanction of the Torah. So the kedusha and kedoshim tihiyu can’t be severed. That’s not to say that these are the same- they are not. One can compromise law in one area and not ____ another area. Experts in this who have told you otherwise who have argued this case over and over like at Agri that the kashrus has been compromised- simply inaccurate. But that’s not to say we are not concerned about these issues; we have to be very concerned.
We have to copy Hashem and follow in his ways. There is another reason why this is important- we have to be concerned with the perception of Kosher to the world and not just kosher- the other reason is we’re concerned with perception of Kosher and how Jews appear because we don’t want to create a chillul hashem. And also, we’re concerned about how our fellow Jewish brethren view this because we want to reach outto them. All of those things are issues we have to be concerned with and find balance and it’s not always so obvious how to find balance- a conundrum, only way it’s unresolved. I think what you’re learning here at Yeshiva is that these issues are not obvious sometimes. It’s nuance that is required and judgement calls. Not always obvious what direction they should go especially when balancing all these concerns- we sometimes have to live with the tension of TEIQU- not knowing the exact answer.
Heksher Tzedek- I myself have issues with heksher tzedek and I will tell you what they are; I met with Rabbi Lois Segal and Rabbi Alleck? about them. My concern is that I feel that these issues are more appropriately handled by federal agents- FDA, EPA that deal with these issues. And they have that mandate and I don’t think we can do it as well or as appropriately as them. And I would have told the people in heksher tzedek that I think the definition of the standards they are trying to reach will be difficult to concretize them. I told this to Rabbi Segal. The very first one he told me is that they will only give their stamp to a company that pays its workers at least the median wage in that industry. Which means by definition ½ of the companies in the United States are now not under their approval. Having said that, I think of Heksher Tzedek in terms of an initiative – somewhat different from Rabbi Shafran in that I think it’s something positive in this respect. I think we must work to balance people’s perspective on kosher- what defines a Jewish home for generations was that people kept kosher and when I was growing up as a boy, I remember my friends, who weren’t Orthodox; they were Conservative Jews; who had kosher homes but had two sets of dishes- they didn’t keep kosher out of the home necessarily but they did in the home, and that enhanced their sense of Jewish identity. The erosion of people’s perception of kosher almost willy-nilly will affect their identity as Jews. The average American Jew, not the Observant Jew- what was his perception in terms of his identity with Judaism. Heksher Tzedek in that sense- the intiative itself I think is meant on their part to try to bring their own constitutency back to kosher. There are such very beginnings of such notions in the Conservative and Reform movement and that is something we should applaud and we should encourage. I usually- when I – I always think to myself what would the Rav have done. And it’s interesting that the Rav was engaged in this very issue- he was concerned about the standards of kashrut in Boston and also the treatment of shochtim, abusive hours and he took a stand about it and it cost him enormously. There were different forces in Boston, I have to say nefarious forces, that made claims about him, false claims- at the end of the investigation what was discovered was the Rav was paying out of his pocket- I think the attorney general said he was the most honest man he ever met- he
The other thing about the Rav was about the creation of _____ and
RABBI BASIL HERRING: I too want to echo Rabbi Shafran’s thanks to the organizers and particularly to you, Gilah, for your persistence. Want to say that much of what I already wanted to say has already been said, so I am going to __ my comments at the risk of being too short or too brief- want to focus on the third and fourth questions that were put to us.
We cannot underestimate the importance in its own right and in terms of perception of ethical behavior on the part of any and every Jew. Derech Eretz Kadmah L’Torah- we are placed in this world as the Children of Avraham Avinu to bring Tzedek and Mishpat into this world, to reflect it existentially 24/7 365. And anything which diminishes that message and that calling is a shame not just in terms of how it is perceived and in terms of what God wants from us. The Rambam, where he says that the ultimate goal and purpose of intellectual perfection is ethical behavior.
The question I was posed is how on a practical level, how ought kosher agencies supervise their agencies, corporations where they are present. We at the RCA are currently, together with our partners at OU, formulating specific Jewish principles, ethical guidelines to be implemented across the board, not just the kosher industry but beginning with the kosher industry and in so doing, we find it and consider it to be mandatory- we are working with other kosher agencies besides the OU to put into their contracts with those businesses that there are specific expectations of how they are to treat their workers, tzaar baalei chayim; these must be part and parcel of what the kosher agencies respect- HOWEVER, we delude ourselves and we mislead the public if we think that the agencies themselves can in any way be responsible for enforcing in the sense of monitoring, investigating and coming up with reliable findings- of the thousands upon thousands of kosher-producing businesses- something beyond what anybody can reasonably expect. A single case with a single Rabbi at the RCA we can spend years, and that’s relatively simple! Any allegation made by one or hurdnreds of thousands of employees who may be working there is simply beyond what can be realistically expected. Left to governmental authorities, certainly we would want and expect that a kosher agency should not be “mitchaber l’rasha.” If such allegations have bene proven then the kosher agency should either disassociate or put in place certain penalties depending on what has been found/ documented and in that way to take a moral position.
Finally, question of how ought our community, particularly college students and consumers respond to this? Atzmecha- instead of pointing one’s fingers at others, to take a look inside oneself. I started out thinking I would change the world and instead decided to change ourselves. I think that if within our own lives we strive, in light of whatever is coming out there, to be more ethical, to practice more sensitivity outside of the Torah- scandal such as the one we have been hearing about. Indeed, every individual has the right to take personal action in the private realm up to and possibly including not being part of or not purchasing and not supporting such businesses even though one feels that this may not have bene proven- that is one’s right. One can say: I don’t have to support it until such time as the allegations have been proven to be true. In so doing, one also has t confront the very real questions of what are te larger ramifications of boycott- bringing about the demise of what might in the end be an innocent party. One has to consider the larger picture, not just to respond at the battle and say, I am going to do this; consequences be damned or damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. And so in complex situation slike this, we have to act with due consideration; we have always to put the ethical and moral at the top of our agenda but to do so in a way that brings about rather than defeats the goals that we need to achieve- all of us, together. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform- and god willing, we will all come out as one.
(from our vantage point, moving right to left- humor)
R’ SHMULY YANKLOWITZ: It’s really such a great honor to be with you all tonight. I would like to thank Gilah Kletenik and Simcha Gross- really exciting to see how much they have accomplished, passionate students at this Yeshiva and University. It’s also great to see President Joel and Rabbi Blau and put Rav Nati Helfgot in my semicha training. R’ Genack who demanded that Agriprocessors change its leadership, R’ Herring who developed these businesses and ethical practices and R’ Shafran who has been articulate about all this.
Personal journey- I arrived in Ghana, Africa a few years ago to work in a village. He noticed that I was carrying bags of food that I had brought from overseas and the chief of the tribe inquired why I had brought my own food and I explained that I was a Jew. And African tribe chief- it clicked for me that the world looks to Jews to represent an elevated and moral standard. When the nation sees a heksher and when the world says kosher laws, they think it’s a higher ethical standard. I left Ghana feeling inspired by the mission of Klal Yisrael. And this is why I was so hurt when I visited Postville just a few months ago- I saw workers who had experienced deep suffering. Maria from Guatemala- nasty, hot, bloody and slave-like conditions, 7-10:30 with only a 10 minute lunch-break with less than minimum wage.
Uri L’Tzedek- when we met with them and requested transparency- consumer trust had been broken. These are the men and women who have made our meat for our Shabbos tables- who will stand up and take up for them. I realized that social justice was not some concept- people’s lives are at stake. Literally thousands of Jews have emailed us with questions and asking us to defend these people. Paying below minimum wage which many thought was a lie but the company was fined $10 million dollars. Nezek, Tzaar, damages paid in unemployment, medical issues, unemployment- is this the Ohr LaGoyim? Are we really willing to argue it’s only anti-semitism when others look to us- is it not hypocritical when we say we want to have a higher ethical paradigm?
Focusing exclusively on kashrut and not paying attention to ethics makes halakha morally irrelevant, chas v’shalom. The Boston Beis Din assured grapes due to the extremely low – chashash for the issur d’oraisa of choshek- where is our moral courage? This is why R’ Israel Salanter said he refused to certify the Matzah factories as kosher because the women’s blood was as good as mixed with the matzot. Courage is found with person in Miami Beach who refused to do this (purchase Rubashkin meat after the initial raid.) Courage is found with the man whose factory burned down and still managed to pay all his workers.
In Kiddushin nun-vav amud beis, we learn that the consumer of goods produced culpably, and also Gemara Nedarim chaf-beis amud aleph, and the Rambam in Hilchos Geneiva paskened we don’t buy goods that are prepared unethically. The Gra in Choshen Mishpat learns from this Gemara nd R’ Schechter quotes the Rav in his article on Dina d’Malchusa Dina- as saying you cannot _____. Even if ethics and kashrut are not connected, they are connected in people’s minds- sitting back and enjoying one’s kosher sandwich, especially if it was produced in this way (oshek, etc)- is forbidden.
The Rav taught us that halakha was a floor, not a ceiling- it’s there to inspire much higher levels of ______.
Ramban- If one has kept perfectly kosher but has _____ - naval b’rshus haTorah. R’ Soloveitchik said on this point that “It is the Choshen Mishpat that represents the ___ of the Jewish nations’s greatness.” This is why the Rav fought desperately that the butchers _____, why when there was a yeshiva that could not pay its taxes, he said it had to close down. Tzitz Eliezer, R’ Moshe Feinstein, etc argued for _______
New paradigms for our leadership- we have found right here that there is a tremendous amount of exploitation, at times suffering from abuses, and the government is failing to address this. The attacks on the Orthodox and Kashrus will – we may not see these standards enforced. Agri is now behind us, but we need leadership- Uri L’Tzedek and the student community have a very important part of this. Uri L’Tzedek is launching an ethical seal for restaurants to show that in addition to the food, their workers are treated ethically behind the counters. Take responsibility for ourselves without the government interference- modeled off the Ktav ____ in Israel which has been tremendously successful. That has been backed by R’ Aaron Lichtenstein- something similar has been launched in Los Angeles. This is happening now – we must have the moral courage to tackle this crisis head-on. Uri L’Tzedek website to have the Ketav HaYosher.
The next time you are in a restaurant, take three seconds and see the infinite human dignity in their face. Friends, dream with me- imagine the day we could rise and see that Judaism was truly moral. Friends, dream with me that Maria can buy her 7-month-year-old baby boy formula after creating our kosher meat.
Now, it might seem that we are only fighting for non-Jewish lives here, but we are also fighting for the soul of the Jewish people. I close with the words of the Rav in "Confrontation:" “We are called upon to tell the community not only the story it already knows - that we are human beings, committed to the general welfare and progress of mankind, that we are interested in combating disease, in alleviating human suffering, in protecting man's rights, in helping the needy, et cetera - but also what is still unknown to it, namely, our otherness as a metaphysical covenantal community." Friends, that Other is the African Chief, Maria at Agri, Jose serving our falafel. We have been confronted.
[I didn't get most of that speech, mostly because the man was busy speaking too fast/ animatedly.]
GILAH: All right, that was pretty intense. (LAUGHTER)- We’re now up for questions.
SIMCHA: Due to technical difficulties, we – Rabbi Shafran, in your comments, you said that the kashrut status of a food is not affected by/ should it affect its kashrut certification?
It can be something more and it should be something more- exactly what more it should be is something that I think has to go to the Einei Ha’Eidah. Kashrut certifier is certifying not only the kashrut of the item but also other aspects.
GILAH: Do any of the panelists want to respond to that/ plow ahead to the next question?
Could Rabbi Genack give us a concrete example of how the OU balances?
GILAH: So I see this is very interactive.
R’ GENACK: We view giving certification as a seal of approval, not only that it’s kosher but also that it meets certain standards in terms of people’s perception as well. Recently there was a company in India- child labor there, we didn’t grant the supervision. I wanted to respond to something that was mentioned before in terms of the Rubashkin case; I think one of the things you asked is how do we respond to a scandal and so on. I followed this story very closely for the past four years and I don’t think anyone thinks I am an apologist for the Rubashkins; I know the Rubashkins don’t think I am (those that still talk to me.) But I think that the story in the press was really unbalanced- that’s not to say I don’t think they hired illegal immigrants or bank fraud, etc, but having said that- the picture that this plant was the den of iniquity is just not true. The OU has 8000 plants on supervision. Slaughterhouses are ___ prices. To the untrained eye, it seems like something horrendous is happening and PETA plays on that. And the story in terms of the Postville plant I think requires more balance- the notion that there was a meth factory in the middle of this plant; there was no meth factory in the middle of this plant. I was actually very disappointed in the way the state of Iowa handled the case. $10 million dollar fine for what they subtracted for the use of a smock- $10 million dollars is what happens in Russia, Putin- not what should happen in the United States. 9000 counts- 32 kids were underage; was that an appropriate response? I think they probably knew about the illegal aliens, but 32 kids? How do students respond to a scandal? I think the story is much more nuanced and requires more – Bill Sullivan, Deputy General of Illinois who is representing some of these workers and a lot of them told them they were grateful to the Rubashkins that they gave them a job, but don’t think this is so unique- that’s not to say giving the illegal aliens a job is appropriate; it’s not appropriate. Some of them are working in restaurants in New York and some of them working in your homes- I didn’t think it was there; that’s not to say I think the Rubashkins handled it well. I was furious with them because I thought that the image of a Jew was being – I think fundamentally they are good people but they broke the law, and there are consequences for breaking the law. They didn’t have the professionalism to survive, small business, they are paying- maybe properly- a very heavy price for it. Looking inside, it should give you some pause to be very skeptical about things assorted as absolute facts- did they have vested interest- did they skew the story a little bit? They were sort of swept up in the vortex – of course you can count on the Bush administration to smooth things up (CLAPPING)- absolutely outrageous, taking the workers and putting them in jail, no due process; they barely know what’s happening. Exacerbated by poor management in the factory by the family but a lot of that was workers/ supervisors, some of them, on the floor- might have been abusive- but the notion that this is sort of like a Goulag – it wasn’t- and I don’t think it was standard practice that they were paid below minimum wage. That’s not the charge they were accused of- they were charged with two things: 1) Hiring illegal aliens and 2) Bank fraud.
GILAH: What we’re wondering is- many have discussed a lot of what’s happened reportedly at Rubashkins are accusations and there hasn’t been a day in court yet. What if somebody is convicted (tried and convicted and found to have done illegal things- clearly they are over on dina d’malchuta dina)- what then? When an organization is convicted by dina d’malchuta dina, how does a kosher certification react?
R’ BASIL HERRING: First of all, I think you should know that Rabbi Genack is a very humble man and I am going to speak for him- the OU has in its contracts worth- the businesses that it supervises that if there are ethical lapses that are documented, that that will result in the removal of the hashgacha. The OU is not just a processor of kosher requirements; there is a moral conscience there. We commend the OU for that. I spoke on this topic- theme of the day- they were all in agreement that something has to be done, all in agreement that this must be a concern of major national kosher agencies. The question is realistically, what can be done. The answer, in short, is who is guilty- was it management, ownership; was it done on a consistent basis; were there warnings issues; was there disregard for those warnings- all of these things have to be factored into the equation and the appropriate response forthcoming. One thing that cannot be allowed to happen is business as usual- given the outrage and the outcries we have heard here and over the months past, even if you wanted to ignore it, you couldn’t, and the Rabbis certainly feel the pain and the pressure from within and from the communities to know that these are the things that must change. Without being overly simplistic, certainly we must respond, but it must be a response which is also _____.
SHMULY: The Kuzari says the Jews are like a symphony, that we don’t daven tefillah b’yachid, why? Because all our weaknesses are exposed- that’s why we need everybody invested in this issue, the Agudah, the RCA, the OU, Yeshiva University, Uri L’Tzedek- on this question of what to do when they are violating. Ktav Yosher is modeled off of being a partnership- we don’t want to do this. Anyone who does not protest a wrong is punished for the transgressions of the entire world- or by the Bar Kamtza story, Jerusalem was destroyed because – until the humans employed in your industry are treated as Tzelem Elokim.
GILAH: The leadership of Rubashkin stepped down- seems to indicate some sort of connection between ethics and kashrut.
R’ GENACK: The OU’s conviction was that there has to be some level of due process. America’s the greatest enterprise in the history of the world for good and part of that is due process. They haven’t been convicted yet, but what we did is that if they are indicted and they were indicted at least for misdemeanors in Iowa, we said that unless they change their management, we won’t continue to supervise them. ____ long before that. We’re concerned about the perception in general, as I mentioned before. Things are not so obvious what the response should be- we’re balancing a stream of kosher food. The Heksher Tzedek- they didn’t call for a boycott of the product, although it goes without saying they were upset about that- in a lot of towns there was no alterantive for the kosher meat- that’s the sole supplier. If they were running a concentration camp, there’d be no choice, but that wasn’t the case. In this case, we thought that the violations that were claimed- ADM is one of the most important suppliers of raw material oils, flour, etc- the CEO of ADM- Andreas was charged and then convicted with conspiracy to raise prices. Everything ultimately runs on corn. Does that mean we should automatically remove supervision from ADM? The answer, I thought, was no. Compliance with the law no is really- depends on a lot of different factors- where we think they are going- where are they going in the future. Are there attempts to remedy the problem but the answer is not a simple answer of you violate this, we cut you off- we are here to promote kosher and to try to make it available inexpensively. R’ Soloveitchik said to my predecessor that whenever you see an OU symbol on the product, speaks to vitatily of the American Jew.
GILAH: Ask R’ Shafran to respond but also to respond to the idea of Gedolim playing a role- who exactly are these Gedolim (LAUGHTER) and what are we expecting them to do?
R’ SHAFRAN: Particularly R’ Herring, said it very well. Obviously difficult questions- I think in terms of a driving violation, moving violation- someone drives in an irresponsible fashion, point at which he gets a ticket, perhaps his license gets taken away. Point of view where he’s taken to prison because of his disregard. These are questions that can’t be answered- not the answer to questions that require a certain amount of deliberation, deep thought, consultation with rabbinical authorities. I cannot list the names of Gedolim because I would leave someone out and offend somebody- we’re all Rabbis, perhaps, rabbinical students, which is just as good, but we’re not, I think, what we would purport to call halakhic authorities on the level of the posek. And then there’s a level beyond a posek- a Gadol. Different Orthodox communities look to different Orthodox authorities and far be it from me to impugn the right of any Jew to look to his authority- but he has to look to his authorities. That Rabbinical authority has to be consulted about what the proper response would be and there is no one size fits all in such things.
SIMCHA: Shmuly, your organization, Uri L’Tzedek has created the seal Ktav HaYosher. Your organization sounds very similar to Heksher Tzedek- are they the same or are they different and what do you like or not like about Heksher Tzedek?
SHMULY: I generally prefer to only say what I like but that’s not the purpose of the panel tonight, so I guess I’ll just lay out a couple differences. One is that they call it heksher- might be conflating kashrut with ethics. I think they also want to charge money for their heksher; ketav would be totally free. Also I think their standards are striving for ideals while we are trying to go for realities (I mean, we were wondering- what about environmental aspects, fair trade, etc) but we are really modeled off what is in Israel.
SIMCHA: R’ Genack, in a recent article and in your comments, both you and R’ Herring agreed that : all those issues are under the _____ - problem where secular society defines our standards- we don’t define our school dress codes by those standards-
R’ GENACK: There’s a presumption here that somehow the federal standards are lower than the halakhic standards. That is probably, in most cases, not the case- they are usually more stringent. I would think that those standards that the government sets are the standards that motivate- should the OU be the one to determine how much arsenic there is in the water? Do we have expertise in that? We don’t. Their standards are much higher than halakhic standards that are required- these principles that we’ve relegated so-to-speak; these are all principles that are Torah principles, that Torah taught the world. To be concerned about the environment- Baal Tashchis- these principles, broad principles are Torah principles- obviously federal agencies can do a much more effective job with these than we- but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t take action if we could. We have to understand one other thing- supervise 80 countries around the globe. There are 8000 factories around the globe- kosher food available for the American Jew- we just don’t have the resources- to try to set arbitrary standards on our own. People call me all the time and say how do you give supervision on this or that candy- it’s going to kill you. I’ve grown up on Hersheys Chocolate Bars; I know you can at least survive to a certain age. And we say that is a determination we are going to leave to the FDA.
R” BASIL HERRING: I’ll be quite frank- within our ___ - the principles that we hope will be adopted, we have struggled mightily with many of these questions- the relationship of dina d’malchuta dina to what might be a higher ethical standard that halakha might require- it’s a huge problem- R’ Genack mentioned 80 countries around the year. Dina d’Malchuta Dina in Thailand or India- who are we to dictate or demand of a farmer in Thailand that his 14 year old cannot work when it may make the difference between life or death. It’s very easy for us to sit here in our ivory towers, armchair philosophizing, what is the position in third-world countries. What is absolutely required, what is the tradeoff with these standards- we are struggling with it right now; hopefully we will come to some kind of resolution but it is not a simple matter whatsoever.
GILAH: There’s been a lot of talk about dina d’malchuta dina. Is it only dina d’malchuta dina- there are certainly more halakhot that deal with this- it seems that the Torah has pretty straightforward clear guidelines about how to act – so we are addressing this to all the panelists minus Shmuly.
RABBI SHAFRAN: The Torah- the key word is what Gilah mentioned, guidelines. I don’t think that there are specifics in halakha that address issues like child labor, minimum wage- so I would question the premise that beyond dina d’malchusa dina, in this realm at least, that halakha has a specific standard that are beyond those of our society. We live in an extremely socially conscious society- the very fact that we have social justice laws- the fact that there is an OSHA which can be a very onerous organization, environmental concerns, child labor laws, etc- all sorts of law about government-employee relations goes beyond the letter of the law. Doesn’t make it bad, makes it even better- lifnei m’shuras ha’din. That’s the essence of dina d’malchusa did. There is a Magen Avraham, I think- I didn’t come as prepared as R’ Shmuly did- the decorum that is normative in a non-Jewish house of worship is the decorum required in a Jewish place- has bearing on what we have here. Something is considered unacceptable because it’s not sufficiently respectful of the house of worship- becomes a requirement in the Jewish house of worship. It’s not a minor thing- it’s a major thing and needless to say, we are all obligated to keep to that din.
Briefly to something I think R’ Herring said, maybe R’ Shmuly- I think that the Baalei Musasr are very clear about the fact that when something takes place in larger society or larger Jewish society that has a negative impact on us, it is fed by a lot of little actions that we either take or don’t take. I would like to suggest that – and I am speaking to myself and you can listen to in- each of us in our personal lives have to see whether we perhaps were not sufficiently careful, that perhaps we fed into something that has become a national scandal- we should leave with at the very least that.
GILAH: You noted how Torah does not have specific laws pertaining to child labor, and concluded by encouraging us to look inwards- I was always under the impression that the Torah is really a beacon of light of how to treat other people in this world and why the Torah may not have a specific prohibition against child labor laws against Guatemalan workers- if we’re looking inwards, how are we supposed to act and respond to these social justice concerns?
R' SHAFRAN: I don’t see the contradiction there. I would never hesitate to ask my child to clean his room or mow his lawn- it’s child labor, but child labor is only wrong when it reaches a certain age- the Torah would definitely forbid any dangerous or onerous work – it’s a fact that there is no across-the-board age limit on doing work. What I was talking about when I mentioned looking inward, there is out there and in here a perception that Judaism is not sufficiently concerned with Kavod HaBriot and the wellbeing of other people. Each of us in every day of our lives comes up against a minor reflection of that sort of oppression. It can be in terms of how we speak to someone- causing pain with words, so what I meant to suggest that if one turns to one’s spouse and says something mean- insulting becomes the coin of the realm; if we resist that influence and make an effort to treat one another – full respect of humanity, I think that will have a trickle-up effect and might prevent the next scandal.
R’ BASIL HERRING: Just wanted to read a couple of sentences from a famous statement of the Maggid Mishna- what he says there is that the Torah has laid down general principles concerning the development of one’s character in the world- meaning one’s interpersonal conduct should be just. Would the Torah’s commands apply in all times, every period, when man’s characteristics vary according to the time- some they made absolute as Din and others only L’Chatchila and Chassidut- all ordained by them. Use your seichel and apply it, whether you are consulting with the Gadol Sheb’dor. In light of the prism which the Torah gives us- Torah she’bikhtav and Torah she’baal peh.
ME: [barefoot, but at least my nails are painted!] I think R’ Shafran made a point no one has adequately answered- why just this? Why stop here? Why kosher? Because of the PERCEPTION? What about unpleasant things like Eved Knaani or selling your daughter into slavery? My father used to joke, before I turned twelve, that he would sell me…Where do our ethics derive from- the Torah or outside of the Torah? What about my Nike sweatshop sneakers- are you going to stop buying them? Downloading music and stealing from people? Will we create an organization to stop those?
SHMULY: So why kashrut- that’s a fantastic question- there’s a couple answers- that’s where the allegations are right now- at least that’s what is being highlighted- the world associates kashrut with ethics. That’s more than our gym shoes- I think they are quite different than our kashrut and our ethics. How kashrut is connected to kedusha- I think that halakha is driving us to create a moral and spiritual consciousness- every time we eat something and make a bracha- kashrut has a very special place for us- we could care about our sneakers- but just because we could do everything, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. Let’s start somewhere and then let’s go to our sneakers.
The other point that is asked here is where ethics derive- there’s a pluralism of ethics from the Torah- some comes from our mentors and Rabbeim- I think one of the most important parts and one missing from the Orthodox community is from encounter. Not just to read the newspaper- there’s been trips here through YU which are fantastic- we have to understand the narratives of other humans- have to see the neshama- I care about you.
RABBI GENACK: Rabbi Shafran said he thinks we should start at the bottom with Nike shoes.
[I don’t think these answer my question….]
STEVEN: Rabbi Genack, you had mentioned that we should leave the decisions to the government authorities- yet the first time this came up, when do we trust them/ when don’t we trust them (the government) and how does that play into how the OU interacts with these organizations?
RABBI GENACK: My point was not that everything the government does was absolutely correct- my point was in terms of expertise, etc, to handle these issues- there are agencies set up and equipped to do it- if we know that something is a violation of ethics and law- appropriate authority- but you know is ask a kashrus agency to determine what is the standard. I mean, who sets that standard- we’re not scientists; we don’t have the authority- is dumping salt into the (water?) It’s not that we are not concerned with those issues- it’s that we should be more humble in terms of what we could do and what’s appropriate for us to do. System set up is an appropriate one and that’s why I think it’s more meaningful to rely on them- don’t have the expertise to measure too much cholesterol, too little cholesterol- we look to the FDA for that- people talk about what was happening to the Rubashkin plant- so obvious that anybody could notice them- I didn’t mean to set up the government as the ultimate authority in terms of ethical behavior- if we live in a country, certainly in the USA- where we can rely on expertise, their sense of purpose- and they do it frankly better than us. And if we try to do what we can’t do, we will fail in terms of our basic issue.
GILAH: Been a very intense and enlightening evening- we placed ourselves firmly in the Mesorah of Jewish history and asking questions and struggling for answers. Like to thank all of our panelists (APPLAUSE)- in addition we would like to thank the undergraduate counsels. Finally, we would like to thank each and every one of you for coming and being a part of Jewish history tonight.
R’ GENACK: There is a story that I did want to tell- what always struck me about the story about Rubashkin- in terms of getting into this mess- [I missed the story because I was on the phone] maybe it was a little less, it wasn’t remarkably different except for the alleged violations of law- what got them in trouble initially was the story of PETA (is that what he said?). Once the issue of PETA was raised- the Rav could see 50 years ahead- he took the initiative to take research about kosher slaughter and how humane it is and how to make the process- some of the issues were raised; this wasn’t the Rav’s normal career path but you know, he sometimes would go out of that path because he thought there was something – challenge to the Jewish community- did it later on in terms of this issue. It’s an interesting issue to look into- you should look into that book- it teaches us in terms of real leadership.
Welcome to the Kosher Quandary, Ethics & Kashrut. Before we begin the panel, we would like to introduce President Richard M. Joel to
PRESIDENT RICHARD JOEL: I thought there’d be food. You can’t find food on this campus anymore without paying. (That’s the quandary, someone calls out from the audience)- I just want to give you a yasher koach on your awareness, care and participation on who we are and what we need to be. I want to particularly extend my appreciation to Simcha and Gilah for seizing the opportunity to help make this evening happen. Tremendous hakaras hatov to the distinguished and caring leaders of our community who want to participate in this with you. It’s very important that they be here and that Yu is a place that provokes these kind of questions and inspires you to build answers on these questions. The nexus between Torah and social responsbilitily is a pivotal one and it has to be observed passionately- has to be understood and has to do that recognizing the seriousness and depths of the sea of Torah and what we can mine from that sea. It’s wonderful to see you. Thank you for your participation and
GILAH: This is not the first time in our history that the production of meat has grabbed the headlines and created a – in the desert, Jews demanded real meat instead of manna. The Hellenists forcefed pig meat, holiday of Chanukah. The Marranos struggled to ensure they ate kosher meat. My very own great grandfather was sentenced to ____ when getting kosher meat in Siberia. Now, in 2008, we have – a brief word about who we are anfd why we are here this evening. TEIQU(A Torah Exploration Of Ideas, Questions and Understanding) is a new student organization founded by Simcha Gross and Gilah Kletenik. (LAUGHTER) Tonight’s program is TEIQU’s inaugural event. TEIQU was founded for the mission of building opportunities __ in the realm of Jewish academics, faith and community. Part of the various councils of YC and SCW which are cosponsors this evening. We thank them for their support. The goal for this evening’s program is to facilitate the opportunity for dialogue and discourse surrounding a subject that has received considerable attention in our community. AGriprocessors in Postville, Iowa- reports of what happened there have brought the precarious relationship between ethics and kashrut to the fore. This interplay is the focus of this evening’s event. While we may not arrive at answers tonight, we certainly are asking the right questions. We are very enthused by tonight’s turnout. To note, this panel is being livestreamed and promoted on JTA’s network right now. To help us in asking the right questions, we are honored to have with us a most distinguished panel- in your programs, pleaes find their complete Bios.
R’ Menachem Genack- the OU is the largest and most widely recognized kosher supervision agency in the world. Rabbi Basil Herring is the Executive Vice President of the RCA – one of the largest organizations of Orthodox Jewish Rabbis. Rabbi Avi Shafran is the director of public affairs for Agudath Israel. R’ Shmuly Yanklowitz is the co-founder and director of Uri L’Tzedek, the ____ which offers programs and suchlike.
The panel will begin by addressing the following in their remarks:
1. What if any are the considerations upon which we do this _____?
2. Do circumstances outside of shechita jeopardize – business and priorities, chillul hashem, dina d’malchuta dina, etc
3. How should our community (specifically the student community) respond to the recent scandal in Rubashkin?
After the opening statements, Simcha and I will direct questions to the panelists. To the contrary, while Rubashkins will come and go, the halakhic and ethical matters discussed here tonight are timeless.
On your programs, please see a brief accounting of what has happened at Agriprocessors.
RABBI AVI SHAFRAN: Let me begin with a heartfelt thank you to Gilah and to Simcha for arranging this. I know that I am speaking on behalf of our fellow panelists and everyone here at this wonderful turnout. I have particular thanks to give because I think perhaps what I have to say may prove not as popular as those after me, and I appreciate the opportunity to air a point of view that has not always been given the proper airing in the general/ Jewish media. I would like to speak clearly, but nothing that I say should be construed by anyone as impugning the intentions or good will of anyone. I might feel that certain decisions or opportunities were misguided but only
Searching for the right metaphor between ethics and kashrut, I say it’s the same as personal hygiene to poetry. A great poet might opt to not shower, but that bad habit does not necessarily affect the quality of his writing. His poetry has to be judged separately from his hygiene. So while kosher food producers are certainly required without any doubt by halakha to act ethically in every aspect of their , any lapses on that score have no effect, I repeat, no effect, on the kashrut of the food they produce. The same applies to societal laws (labor laws that go beyond the letter of what the halakha may require)- all those things may indeed be mandates on a Jew, if nothing else, because of dina d’malchuta dina, but they are independent, once again, from kashrut. This is eminently clear from the Talmud and halakhic codes. And that is part of the objection I and others have to the heksher concepts- it confuses different Jewish concepts (and conflates them.)
That begs the larger question and more important question about whether Jewish producers should be held accountable for non-ethical behavior. Of course they should. Accountable, yes. But more accountable than merchants of Judaica, booksellers, educational institutions, ____ manufacturers? No. They are no more accountable. Each of us, no matter our profession, are accountable. The fact that what has been proposed is limited to food producers is baffling or perhaps telling. Jewish ethics is a meta-concept and not limited to kashrut.
Further adding to the objections I have to heksher tzedek is the fact that the plan was conceived in sin. Not a word I use lightly or often. The sin I am referring to is the sin of jumping to negative judgements of others. The impetus was the controversy of the company called Agriprocessors. Let me say right away that I don’t know them, have no connection to them and would not know a Rubashkin from a Rubik’s Cube. Therefore I do not know why/ I don’t know if they mistreated animals as PETA says- I don’t know; I don’t know if they ran meth amphetamine lab as a government affidavit said, I don’t know if they harassed employees, I don’t know if they hired underage employees, I don’t know. Neither do I. Neither does anyone, no matter what anyone thinks. What I do know and what all of us should know is that it is Jewishly wrong to assume guilt on the basis of accusations. It is, to put it clearly and simple, unethical- Jewishly unethical. And to create and to herald a new effort as a result of the accuasations against people disregards a clear Torah law called hotzaas sheim rah.
But let’s pretend that the heksher tzedek was conceived of out of the blue. Would that not be sufficient reason to create a mechanism so that the industry would better adhere to this? Yes, it would, and indeed in Jewish history, there are histories of Gedolei HaDor who instituted price controls, threatened recalcitrant merchants- the object in those cases is that those decisions are not decisions that any of us is necessarily qualified to make. If the term Orthodox Judaism has any meaning, it lies in reverence for the past and those who lie closer to the past than we. The proper way to explore whether a communal mechanism is warranted is to bring it to the attention of the elders of the community. Tehre are of course different subcommunities in the Orthodox world which I don’t think I hav eto tell anyone here- but each has its elders. I don’t expect a Conservative Rabbi to acknowledge that fact- as non-Orthodox rabbis are based on progression, not on Mesorah and not on respect for elders. But those of us who calls ourselves Orthodox have to know on whose shoulders we stand and who the Torah teaches us to see as being the perceptive- thank you for listening.
RABBI MENACHEM GENACK: I’m going to try to follow ___ Neshuma’s admonition- every speaker should follow the three Ts- Truthful, Brief and Seated. It’s interesting to note that the Rambam puts the laws of kashrus in his volume “Kedusha.” And included in that is also issurei biah (forbidden sexual relationships) because we believe that through observing the ritual of kashrus and all the other laws related to it, we attain a certain level of kedusha, and that’s a function of discipline and purpose. The Torah tells us kedoshim tihiyu and the Rambam says that is an overarching principle that even things that are permitted by the Torah that are socially unacceptable says- otherwise one could be a Menuval B’Rshus HaTorah, an abhoreent person within the sanction of the Torah. So the kedusha and kedoshim tihiyu can’t be severed. That’s not to say that these are the same- they are not. One can compromise law in one area and not ____ another area. Experts in this who have told you otherwise who have argued this case over and over like at Agri that the kashrus has been compromised- simply inaccurate. But that’s not to say we are not concerned about these issues; we have to be very concerned.
We have to copy Hashem and follow in his ways. There is another reason why this is important- we have to be concerned with the perception of Kosher to the world and not just kosher- the other reason is we’re concerned with perception of Kosher and how Jews appear because we don’t want to create a chillul hashem. And also, we’re concerned about how our fellow Jewish brethren view this because we want to reach outto them. All of those things are issues we have to be concerned with and find balance and it’s not always so obvious how to find balance- a conundrum, only way it’s unresolved. I think what you’re learning here at Yeshiva is that these issues are not obvious sometimes. It’s nuance that is required and judgement calls. Not always obvious what direction they should go especially when balancing all these concerns- we sometimes have to live with the tension of TEIQU- not knowing the exact answer.
Heksher Tzedek- I myself have issues with heksher tzedek and I will tell you what they are; I met with Rabbi Lois Segal and Rabbi Alleck? about them. My concern is that I feel that these issues are more appropriately handled by federal agents- FDA, EPA that deal with these issues. And they have that mandate and I don’t think we can do it as well or as appropriately as them. And I would have told the people in heksher tzedek that I think the definition of the standards they are trying to reach will be difficult to concretize them. I told this to Rabbi Segal. The very first one he told me is that they will only give their stamp to a company that pays its workers at least the median wage in that industry. Which means by definition ½ of the companies in the United States are now not under their approval. Having said that, I think of Heksher Tzedek in terms of an initiative – somewhat different from Rabbi Shafran in that I think it’s something positive in this respect. I think we must work to balance people’s perspective on kosher- what defines a Jewish home for generations was that people kept kosher and when I was growing up as a boy, I remember my friends, who weren’t Orthodox; they were Conservative Jews; who had kosher homes but had two sets of dishes- they didn’t keep kosher out of the home necessarily but they did in the home, and that enhanced their sense of Jewish identity. The erosion of people’s perception of kosher almost willy-nilly will affect their identity as Jews. The average American Jew, not the Observant Jew- what was his perception in terms of his identity with Judaism. Heksher Tzedek in that sense- the intiative itself I think is meant on their part to try to bring their own constitutency back to kosher. There are such very beginnings of such notions in the Conservative and Reform movement and that is something we should applaud and we should encourage. I usually- when I – I always think to myself what would the Rav have done. And it’s interesting that the Rav was engaged in this very issue- he was concerned about the standards of kashrut in Boston and also the treatment of shochtim, abusive hours and he took a stand about it and it cost him enormously. There were different forces in Boston, I have to say nefarious forces, that made claims about him, false claims- at the end of the investigation what was discovered was the Rav was paying out of his pocket- I think the attorney general said he was the most honest man he ever met- he
The other thing about the Rav was about the creation of _____ and
RABBI BASIL HERRING: I too want to echo Rabbi Shafran’s thanks to the organizers and particularly to you, Gilah, for your persistence. Want to say that much of what I already wanted to say has already been said, so I am going to __ my comments at the risk of being too short or too brief- want to focus on the third and fourth questions that were put to us.
We cannot underestimate the importance in its own right and in terms of perception of ethical behavior on the part of any and every Jew. Derech Eretz Kadmah L’Torah- we are placed in this world as the Children of Avraham Avinu to bring Tzedek and Mishpat into this world, to reflect it existentially 24/7 365. And anything which diminishes that message and that calling is a shame not just in terms of how it is perceived and in terms of what God wants from us. The Rambam, where he says that the ultimate goal and purpose of intellectual perfection is ethical behavior.
The question I was posed is how on a practical level, how ought kosher agencies supervise their agencies, corporations where they are present. We at the RCA are currently, together with our partners at OU, formulating specific Jewish principles, ethical guidelines to be implemented across the board, not just the kosher industry but beginning with the kosher industry and in so doing, we find it and consider it to be mandatory- we are working with other kosher agencies besides the OU to put into their contracts with those businesses that there are specific expectations of how they are to treat their workers, tzaar baalei chayim; these must be part and parcel of what the kosher agencies respect- HOWEVER, we delude ourselves and we mislead the public if we think that the agencies themselves can in any way be responsible for enforcing in the sense of monitoring, investigating and coming up with reliable findings- of the thousands upon thousands of kosher-producing businesses- something beyond what anybody can reasonably expect. A single case with a single Rabbi at the RCA we can spend years, and that’s relatively simple! Any allegation made by one or hurdnreds of thousands of employees who may be working there is simply beyond what can be realistically expected. Left to governmental authorities, certainly we would want and expect that a kosher agency should not be “mitchaber l’rasha.” If such allegations have bene proven then the kosher agency should either disassociate or put in place certain penalties depending on what has been found/ documented and in that way to take a moral position.
Finally, question of how ought our community, particularly college students and consumers respond to this? Atzmecha- instead of pointing one’s fingers at others, to take a look inside oneself. I started out thinking I would change the world and instead decided to change ourselves. I think that if within our own lives we strive, in light of whatever is coming out there, to be more ethical, to practice more sensitivity outside of the Torah- scandal such as the one we have been hearing about. Indeed, every individual has the right to take personal action in the private realm up to and possibly including not being part of or not purchasing and not supporting such businesses even though one feels that this may not have bene proven- that is one’s right. One can say: I don’t have to support it until such time as the allegations have been proven to be true. In so doing, one also has t confront the very real questions of what are te larger ramifications of boycott- bringing about the demise of what might in the end be an innocent party. One has to consider the larger picture, not just to respond at the battle and say, I am going to do this; consequences be damned or damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. And so in complex situation slike this, we have to act with due consideration; we have always to put the ethical and moral at the top of our agenda but to do so in a way that brings about rather than defeats the goals that we need to achieve- all of us, together. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform- and god willing, we will all come out as one.
(from our vantage point, moving right to left- humor)
R’ SHMULY YANKLOWITZ: It’s really such a great honor to be with you all tonight. I would like to thank Gilah Kletenik and Simcha Gross- really exciting to see how much they have accomplished, passionate students at this Yeshiva and University. It’s also great to see President Joel and Rabbi Blau and put Rav Nati Helfgot in my semicha training. R’ Genack who demanded that Agriprocessors change its leadership, R’ Herring who developed these businesses and ethical practices and R’ Shafran who has been articulate about all this.
Personal journey- I arrived in Ghana, Africa a few years ago to work in a village. He noticed that I was carrying bags of food that I had brought from overseas and the chief of the tribe inquired why I had brought my own food and I explained that I was a Jew. And African tribe chief- it clicked for me that the world looks to Jews to represent an elevated and moral standard. When the nation sees a heksher and when the world says kosher laws, they think it’s a higher ethical standard. I left Ghana feeling inspired by the mission of Klal Yisrael. And this is why I was so hurt when I visited Postville just a few months ago- I saw workers who had experienced deep suffering. Maria from Guatemala- nasty, hot, bloody and slave-like conditions, 7-10:30 with only a 10 minute lunch-break with less than minimum wage.
Uri L’Tzedek- when we met with them and requested transparency- consumer trust had been broken. These are the men and women who have made our meat for our Shabbos tables- who will stand up and take up for them. I realized that social justice was not some concept- people’s lives are at stake. Literally thousands of Jews have emailed us with questions and asking us to defend these people. Paying below minimum wage which many thought was a lie but the company was fined $10 million dollars. Nezek, Tzaar, damages paid in unemployment, medical issues, unemployment- is this the Ohr LaGoyim? Are we really willing to argue it’s only anti-semitism when others look to us- is it not hypocritical when we say we want to have a higher ethical paradigm?
Focusing exclusively on kashrut and not paying attention to ethics makes halakha morally irrelevant, chas v’shalom. The Boston Beis Din assured grapes due to the extremely low – chashash for the issur d’oraisa of choshek- where is our moral courage? This is why R’ Israel Salanter said he refused to certify the Matzah factories as kosher because the women’s blood was as good as mixed with the matzot. Courage is found with person in Miami Beach who refused to do this (purchase Rubashkin meat after the initial raid.) Courage is found with the man whose factory burned down and still managed to pay all his workers.
In Kiddushin nun-vav amud beis, we learn that the consumer of goods produced culpably, and also Gemara Nedarim chaf-beis amud aleph, and the Rambam in Hilchos Geneiva paskened we don’t buy goods that are prepared unethically. The Gra in Choshen Mishpat learns from this Gemara nd R’ Schechter quotes the Rav in his article on Dina d’Malchusa Dina- as saying you cannot _____. Even if ethics and kashrut are not connected, they are connected in people’s minds- sitting back and enjoying one’s kosher sandwich, especially if it was produced in this way (oshek, etc)- is forbidden.
The Rav taught us that halakha was a floor, not a ceiling- it’s there to inspire much higher levels of ______.
Ramban- If one has kept perfectly kosher but has _____ - naval b’rshus haTorah. R’ Soloveitchik said on this point that “It is the Choshen Mishpat that represents the ___ of the Jewish nations’s greatness.” This is why the Rav fought desperately that the butchers _____, why when there was a yeshiva that could not pay its taxes, he said it had to close down. Tzitz Eliezer, R’ Moshe Feinstein, etc argued for _______
New paradigms for our leadership- we have found right here that there is a tremendous amount of exploitation, at times suffering from abuses, and the government is failing to address this. The attacks on the Orthodox and Kashrus will – we may not see these standards enforced. Agri is now behind us, but we need leadership- Uri L’Tzedek and the student community have a very important part of this. Uri L’Tzedek is launching an ethical seal for restaurants to show that in addition to the food, their workers are treated ethically behind the counters. Take responsibility for ourselves without the government interference- modeled off the Ktav ____ in Israel which has been tremendously successful. That has been backed by R’ Aaron Lichtenstein- something similar has been launched in Los Angeles. This is happening now – we must have the moral courage to tackle this crisis head-on. Uri L’Tzedek website to have the Ketav HaYosher.
The next time you are in a restaurant, take three seconds and see the infinite human dignity in their face. Friends, dream with me- imagine the day we could rise and see that Judaism was truly moral. Friends, dream with me that Maria can buy her 7-month-year-old baby boy formula after creating our kosher meat.
Now, it might seem that we are only fighting for non-Jewish lives here, but we are also fighting for the soul of the Jewish people. I close with the words of the Rav in "Confrontation:" “We are called upon to tell the community not only the story it already knows - that we are human beings, committed to the general welfare and progress of mankind, that we are interested in combating disease, in alleviating human suffering, in protecting man's rights, in helping the needy, et cetera - but also what is still unknown to it, namely, our otherness as a metaphysical covenantal community." Friends, that Other is the African Chief, Maria at Agri, Jose serving our falafel. We have been confronted.
[I didn't get most of that speech, mostly because the man was busy speaking too fast/ animatedly.]
GILAH: All right, that was pretty intense. (LAUGHTER)- We’re now up for questions.
SIMCHA: Due to technical difficulties, we – Rabbi Shafran, in your comments, you said that the kashrut status of a food is not affected by/ should it affect its kashrut certification?
It can be something more and it should be something more- exactly what more it should be is something that I think has to go to the Einei Ha’Eidah. Kashrut certifier is certifying not only the kashrut of the item but also other aspects.
GILAH: Do any of the panelists want to respond to that/ plow ahead to the next question?
Could Rabbi Genack give us a concrete example of how the OU balances?
GILAH: So I see this is very interactive.
R’ GENACK: We view giving certification as a seal of approval, not only that it’s kosher but also that it meets certain standards in terms of people’s perception as well. Recently there was a company in India- child labor there, we didn’t grant the supervision. I wanted to respond to something that was mentioned before in terms of the Rubashkin case; I think one of the things you asked is how do we respond to a scandal and so on. I followed this story very closely for the past four years and I don’t think anyone thinks I am an apologist for the Rubashkins; I know the Rubashkins don’t think I am (those that still talk to me.) But I think that the story in the press was really unbalanced- that’s not to say I don’t think they hired illegal immigrants or bank fraud, etc, but having said that- the picture that this plant was the den of iniquity is just not true. The OU has 8000 plants on supervision. Slaughterhouses are ___ prices. To the untrained eye, it seems like something horrendous is happening and PETA plays on that. And the story in terms of the Postville plant I think requires more balance- the notion that there was a meth factory in the middle of this plant; there was no meth factory in the middle of this plant. I was actually very disappointed in the way the state of Iowa handled the case. $10 million dollar fine for what they subtracted for the use of a smock- $10 million dollars is what happens in Russia, Putin- not what should happen in the United States. 9000 counts- 32 kids were underage; was that an appropriate response? I think they probably knew about the illegal aliens, but 32 kids? How do students respond to a scandal? I think the story is much more nuanced and requires more – Bill Sullivan, Deputy General of Illinois who is representing some of these workers and a lot of them told them they were grateful to the Rubashkins that they gave them a job, but don’t think this is so unique- that’s not to say giving the illegal aliens a job is appropriate; it’s not appropriate. Some of them are working in restaurants in New York and some of them working in your homes- I didn’t think it was there; that’s not to say I think the Rubashkins handled it well. I was furious with them because I thought that the image of a Jew was being – I think fundamentally they are good people but they broke the law, and there are consequences for breaking the law. They didn’t have the professionalism to survive, small business, they are paying- maybe properly- a very heavy price for it. Looking inside, it should give you some pause to be very skeptical about things assorted as absolute facts- did they have vested interest- did they skew the story a little bit? They were sort of swept up in the vortex – of course you can count on the Bush administration to smooth things up (CLAPPING)- absolutely outrageous, taking the workers and putting them in jail, no due process; they barely know what’s happening. Exacerbated by poor management in the factory by the family but a lot of that was workers/ supervisors, some of them, on the floor- might have been abusive- but the notion that this is sort of like a Goulag – it wasn’t- and I don’t think it was standard practice that they were paid below minimum wage. That’s not the charge they were accused of- they were charged with two things: 1) Hiring illegal aliens and 2) Bank fraud.
GILAH: What we’re wondering is- many have discussed a lot of what’s happened reportedly at Rubashkins are accusations and there hasn’t been a day in court yet. What if somebody is convicted (tried and convicted and found to have done illegal things- clearly they are over on dina d’malchuta dina)- what then? When an organization is convicted by dina d’malchuta dina, how does a kosher certification react?
R’ BASIL HERRING: First of all, I think you should know that Rabbi Genack is a very humble man and I am going to speak for him- the OU has in its contracts worth- the businesses that it supervises that if there are ethical lapses that are documented, that that will result in the removal of the hashgacha. The OU is not just a processor of kosher requirements; there is a moral conscience there. We commend the OU for that. I spoke on this topic- theme of the day- they were all in agreement that something has to be done, all in agreement that this must be a concern of major national kosher agencies. The question is realistically, what can be done. The answer, in short, is who is guilty- was it management, ownership; was it done on a consistent basis; were there warnings issues; was there disregard for those warnings- all of these things have to be factored into the equation and the appropriate response forthcoming. One thing that cannot be allowed to happen is business as usual- given the outrage and the outcries we have heard here and over the months past, even if you wanted to ignore it, you couldn’t, and the Rabbis certainly feel the pain and the pressure from within and from the communities to know that these are the things that must change. Without being overly simplistic, certainly we must respond, but it must be a response which is also _____.
SHMULY: The Kuzari says the Jews are like a symphony, that we don’t daven tefillah b’yachid, why? Because all our weaknesses are exposed- that’s why we need everybody invested in this issue, the Agudah, the RCA, the OU, Yeshiva University, Uri L’Tzedek- on this question of what to do when they are violating. Ktav Yosher is modeled off of being a partnership- we don’t want to do this. Anyone who does not protest a wrong is punished for the transgressions of the entire world- or by the Bar Kamtza story, Jerusalem was destroyed because – until the humans employed in your industry are treated as Tzelem Elokim.
GILAH: The leadership of Rubashkin stepped down- seems to indicate some sort of connection between ethics and kashrut.
R’ GENACK: The OU’s conviction was that there has to be some level of due process. America’s the greatest enterprise in the history of the world for good and part of that is due process. They haven’t been convicted yet, but what we did is that if they are indicted and they were indicted at least for misdemeanors in Iowa, we said that unless they change their management, we won’t continue to supervise them. ____ long before that. We’re concerned about the perception in general, as I mentioned before. Things are not so obvious what the response should be- we’re balancing a stream of kosher food. The Heksher Tzedek- they didn’t call for a boycott of the product, although it goes without saying they were upset about that- in a lot of towns there was no alterantive for the kosher meat- that’s the sole supplier. If they were running a concentration camp, there’d be no choice, but that wasn’t the case. In this case, we thought that the violations that were claimed- ADM is one of the most important suppliers of raw material oils, flour, etc- the CEO of ADM- Andreas was charged and then convicted with conspiracy to raise prices. Everything ultimately runs on corn. Does that mean we should automatically remove supervision from ADM? The answer, I thought, was no. Compliance with the law no is really- depends on a lot of different factors- where we think they are going- where are they going in the future. Are there attempts to remedy the problem but the answer is not a simple answer of you violate this, we cut you off- we are here to promote kosher and to try to make it available inexpensively. R’ Soloveitchik said to my predecessor that whenever you see an OU symbol on the product, speaks to vitatily of the American Jew.
GILAH: Ask R’ Shafran to respond but also to respond to the idea of Gedolim playing a role- who exactly are these Gedolim (LAUGHTER) and what are we expecting them to do?
R’ SHAFRAN: Particularly R’ Herring, said it very well. Obviously difficult questions- I think in terms of a driving violation, moving violation- someone drives in an irresponsible fashion, point at which he gets a ticket, perhaps his license gets taken away. Point of view where he’s taken to prison because of his disregard. These are questions that can’t be answered- not the answer to questions that require a certain amount of deliberation, deep thought, consultation with rabbinical authorities. I cannot list the names of Gedolim because I would leave someone out and offend somebody- we’re all Rabbis, perhaps, rabbinical students, which is just as good, but we’re not, I think, what we would purport to call halakhic authorities on the level of the posek. And then there’s a level beyond a posek- a Gadol. Different Orthodox communities look to different Orthodox authorities and far be it from me to impugn the right of any Jew to look to his authority- but he has to look to his authorities. That Rabbinical authority has to be consulted about what the proper response would be and there is no one size fits all in such things.
SIMCHA: Shmuly, your organization, Uri L’Tzedek has created the seal Ktav HaYosher. Your organization sounds very similar to Heksher Tzedek- are they the same or are they different and what do you like or not like about Heksher Tzedek?
SHMULY: I generally prefer to only say what I like but that’s not the purpose of the panel tonight, so I guess I’ll just lay out a couple differences. One is that they call it heksher- might be conflating kashrut with ethics. I think they also want to charge money for their heksher; ketav would be totally free. Also I think their standards are striving for ideals while we are trying to go for realities (I mean, we were wondering- what about environmental aspects, fair trade, etc) but we are really modeled off what is in Israel.
SIMCHA: R’ Genack, in a recent article and in your comments, both you and R’ Herring agreed that : all those issues are under the _____ - problem where secular society defines our standards- we don’t define our school dress codes by those standards-
R’ GENACK: There’s a presumption here that somehow the federal standards are lower than the halakhic standards. That is probably, in most cases, not the case- they are usually more stringent. I would think that those standards that the government sets are the standards that motivate- should the OU be the one to determine how much arsenic there is in the water? Do we have expertise in that? We don’t. Their standards are much higher than halakhic standards that are required- these principles that we’ve relegated so-to-speak; these are all principles that are Torah principles, that Torah taught the world. To be concerned about the environment- Baal Tashchis- these principles, broad principles are Torah principles- obviously federal agencies can do a much more effective job with these than we- but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t take action if we could. We have to understand one other thing- supervise 80 countries around the globe. There are 8000 factories around the globe- kosher food available for the American Jew- we just don’t have the resources- to try to set arbitrary standards on our own. People call me all the time and say how do you give supervision on this or that candy- it’s going to kill you. I’ve grown up on Hersheys Chocolate Bars; I know you can at least survive to a certain age. And we say that is a determination we are going to leave to the FDA.
R” BASIL HERRING: I’ll be quite frank- within our ___ - the principles that we hope will be adopted, we have struggled mightily with many of these questions- the relationship of dina d’malchuta dina to what might be a higher ethical standard that halakha might require- it’s a huge problem- R’ Genack mentioned 80 countries around the year. Dina d’Malchuta Dina in Thailand or India- who are we to dictate or demand of a farmer in Thailand that his 14 year old cannot work when it may make the difference between life or death. It’s very easy for us to sit here in our ivory towers, armchair philosophizing, what is the position in third-world countries. What is absolutely required, what is the tradeoff with these standards- we are struggling with it right now; hopefully we will come to some kind of resolution but it is not a simple matter whatsoever.
GILAH: There’s been a lot of talk about dina d’malchuta dina. Is it only dina d’malchuta dina- there are certainly more halakhot that deal with this- it seems that the Torah has pretty straightforward clear guidelines about how to act – so we are addressing this to all the panelists minus Shmuly.
RABBI SHAFRAN: The Torah- the key word is what Gilah mentioned, guidelines. I don’t think that there are specifics in halakha that address issues like child labor, minimum wage- so I would question the premise that beyond dina d’malchusa dina, in this realm at least, that halakha has a specific standard that are beyond those of our society. We live in an extremely socially conscious society- the very fact that we have social justice laws- the fact that there is an OSHA which can be a very onerous organization, environmental concerns, child labor laws, etc- all sorts of law about government-employee relations goes beyond the letter of the law. Doesn’t make it bad, makes it even better- lifnei m’shuras ha’din. That’s the essence of dina d’malchusa did. There is a Magen Avraham, I think- I didn’t come as prepared as R’ Shmuly did- the decorum that is normative in a non-Jewish house of worship is the decorum required in a Jewish place- has bearing on what we have here. Something is considered unacceptable because it’s not sufficiently respectful of the house of worship- becomes a requirement in the Jewish house of worship. It’s not a minor thing- it’s a major thing and needless to say, we are all obligated to keep to that din.
Briefly to something I think R’ Herring said, maybe R’ Shmuly- I think that the Baalei Musasr are very clear about the fact that when something takes place in larger society or larger Jewish society that has a negative impact on us, it is fed by a lot of little actions that we either take or don’t take. I would like to suggest that – and I am speaking to myself and you can listen to in- each of us in our personal lives have to see whether we perhaps were not sufficiently careful, that perhaps we fed into something that has become a national scandal- we should leave with at the very least that.
GILAH: You noted how Torah does not have specific laws pertaining to child labor, and concluded by encouraging us to look inwards- I was always under the impression that the Torah is really a beacon of light of how to treat other people in this world and why the Torah may not have a specific prohibition against child labor laws against Guatemalan workers- if we’re looking inwards, how are we supposed to act and respond to these social justice concerns?
R' SHAFRAN: I don’t see the contradiction there. I would never hesitate to ask my child to clean his room or mow his lawn- it’s child labor, but child labor is only wrong when it reaches a certain age- the Torah would definitely forbid any dangerous or onerous work – it’s a fact that there is no across-the-board age limit on doing work. What I was talking about when I mentioned looking inward, there is out there and in here a perception that Judaism is not sufficiently concerned with Kavod HaBriot and the wellbeing of other people. Each of us in every day of our lives comes up against a minor reflection of that sort of oppression. It can be in terms of how we speak to someone- causing pain with words, so what I meant to suggest that if one turns to one’s spouse and says something mean- insulting becomes the coin of the realm; if we resist that influence and make an effort to treat one another – full respect of humanity, I think that will have a trickle-up effect and might prevent the next scandal.
R’ BASIL HERRING: Just wanted to read a couple of sentences from a famous statement of the Maggid Mishna- what he says there is that the Torah has laid down general principles concerning the development of one’s character in the world- meaning one’s interpersonal conduct should be just. Would the Torah’s commands apply in all times, every period, when man’s characteristics vary according to the time- some they made absolute as Din and others only L’Chatchila and Chassidut- all ordained by them. Use your seichel and apply it, whether you are consulting with the Gadol Sheb’dor. In light of the prism which the Torah gives us- Torah she’bikhtav and Torah she’baal peh.
ME: [barefoot, but at least my nails are painted!] I think R’ Shafran made a point no one has adequately answered- why just this? Why stop here? Why kosher? Because of the PERCEPTION? What about unpleasant things like Eved Knaani or selling your daughter into slavery? My father used to joke, before I turned twelve, that he would sell me…Where do our ethics derive from- the Torah or outside of the Torah? What about my Nike sweatshop sneakers- are you going to stop buying them? Downloading music and stealing from people? Will we create an organization to stop those?
SHMULY: So why kashrut- that’s a fantastic question- there’s a couple answers- that’s where the allegations are right now- at least that’s what is being highlighted- the world associates kashrut with ethics. That’s more than our gym shoes- I think they are quite different than our kashrut and our ethics. How kashrut is connected to kedusha- I think that halakha is driving us to create a moral and spiritual consciousness- every time we eat something and make a bracha- kashrut has a very special place for us- we could care about our sneakers- but just because we could do everything, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. Let’s start somewhere and then let’s go to our sneakers.
The other point that is asked here is where ethics derive- there’s a pluralism of ethics from the Torah- some comes from our mentors and Rabbeim- I think one of the most important parts and one missing from the Orthodox community is from encounter. Not just to read the newspaper- there’s been trips here through YU which are fantastic- we have to understand the narratives of other humans- have to see the neshama- I care about you.
RABBI GENACK: Rabbi Shafran said he thinks we should start at the bottom with Nike shoes.
[I don’t think these answer my question….]
STEVEN: Rabbi Genack, you had mentioned that we should leave the decisions to the government authorities- yet the first time this came up, when do we trust them/ when don’t we trust them (the government) and how does that play into how the OU interacts with these organizations?
RABBI GENACK: My point was not that everything the government does was absolutely correct- my point was in terms of expertise, etc, to handle these issues- there are agencies set up and equipped to do it- if we know that something is a violation of ethics and law- appropriate authority- but you know is ask a kashrus agency to determine what is the standard. I mean, who sets that standard- we’re not scientists; we don’t have the authority- is dumping salt into the (water?) It’s not that we are not concerned with those issues- it’s that we should be more humble in terms of what we could do and what’s appropriate for us to do. System set up is an appropriate one and that’s why I think it’s more meaningful to rely on them- don’t have the expertise to measure too much cholesterol, too little cholesterol- we look to the FDA for that- people talk about what was happening to the Rubashkin plant- so obvious that anybody could notice them- I didn’t mean to set up the government as the ultimate authority in terms of ethical behavior- if we live in a country, certainly in the USA- where we can rely on expertise, their sense of purpose- and they do it frankly better than us. And if we try to do what we can’t do, we will fail in terms of our basic issue.
GILAH: Been a very intense and enlightening evening- we placed ourselves firmly in the Mesorah of Jewish history and asking questions and struggling for answers. Like to thank all of our panelists (APPLAUSE)- in addition we would like to thank the undergraduate counsels. Finally, we would like to thank each and every one of you for coming and being a part of Jewish history tonight.
R’ GENACK: There is a story that I did want to tell- what always struck me about the story about Rubashkin- in terms of getting into this mess- [I missed the story because I was on the phone] maybe it was a little less, it wasn’t remarkably different except for the alleged violations of law- what got them in trouble initially was the story of PETA (is that what he said?). Once the issue of PETA was raised- the Rav could see 50 years ahead- he took the initiative to take research about kosher slaughter and how humane it is and how to make the process- some of the issues were raised; this wasn’t the Rav’s normal career path but you know, he sometimes would go out of that path because he thought there was something – challenge to the Jewish community- did it later on in terms of this issue. It’s an interesting issue to look into- you should look into that book- it teaches us in terms of real leadership.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
letters
Brass petals fall in a liquid cavalcade
and the masked man smiles.
Debonair, dashing; he holds a pistol
to your eye, hands you a solitary
flower.
He won my life at cards and now
he will eliminate it. A ripple,
like the water, curving, sweet;
the taste of mango rests on the tongue.
The world rests. Water drips,
forming a tattoo upon the inside of my
wrist. Silver droplets that spatter
the skin that hides the vein. Blue
pulses within, turned red upon
exposure to the nicotine air.
Copper flares like fire; my eyes
are golden still. I will not fear.
Forgotten angels flare to life,
so subtle, he cannot hear them.
Whispers borne on prayers,
sinful letters rising from the ground.
Tormented, contorted, crouched
upon the earth, blackened, distorted,
they plead for mercy. Letters that
left my lips, how harmed, how fallen;
the black encroaches, torments; they scream.
Melting, the flesh evolves. Sloughing off
the skin, there is no body. It lies upon
the ground, dark, a shadow. My true self
springs to life, mercury. Poison to the living,
beauty for the dead. A flower wreath
placed on my head, roses red as the
breathless lips.
Still they scream. The letters tear at
my spirit-flesh. I am tattooed, imprinted
with the marks of words I did not mean;
I burn with them upon my body.
I lost my life at cards; the letters
claim their vengeance.
and the masked man smiles.
Debonair, dashing; he holds a pistol
to your eye, hands you a solitary
flower.
He won my life at cards and now
he will eliminate it. A ripple,
like the water, curving, sweet;
the taste of mango rests on the tongue.
The world rests. Water drips,
forming a tattoo upon the inside of my
wrist. Silver droplets that spatter
the skin that hides the vein. Blue
pulses within, turned red upon
exposure to the nicotine air.
Copper flares like fire; my eyes
are golden still. I will not fear.
Forgotten angels flare to life,
so subtle, he cannot hear them.
Whispers borne on prayers,
sinful letters rising from the ground.
Tormented, contorted, crouched
upon the earth, blackened, distorted,
they plead for mercy. Letters that
left my lips, how harmed, how fallen;
the black encroaches, torments; they scream.
Melting, the flesh evolves. Sloughing off
the skin, there is no body. It lies upon
the ground, dark, a shadow. My true self
springs to life, mercury. Poison to the living,
beauty for the dead. A flower wreath
placed on my head, roses red as the
breathless lips.
Still they scream. The letters tear at
my spirit-flesh. I am tattooed, imprinted
with the marks of words I did not mean;
I burn with them upon my body.
I lost my life at cards; the letters
claim their vengeance.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Rethinking Our Tactics
יב וְיֹתֵר מֵהֵמָּה, בְּנִי הִזָּהֵר: עֲשׂוֹת סְפָרִים הַרְבֵּה אֵין קֵץ, וְלַהַג הַרְבֵּה יְגִעַת בָּשָׂר. 12
And furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
~
I do not understand our priorities.
We have taught our youth that one ought to be ashamed of reading Artscroll, and we mockingly deride and laugh at it, so that the youth immediately thinks himself above these books, as they are only for the simple-minded. At the same time, we do not instruct our youth, but allow him to fend for himself, trying to figure out which books to read, which people to follow, whom to accredit, and whom not to listen to (of his own initiative.) This, of course, ends up confusing him (and how couldn't it? His instructors themselves don't know what they are teaching!)
We have simultaneously created a culture where it is what one produces that is valued, and a prolific producer is suddenly thought more intelligent. Our culture is such that we even demand our professors at our universities to produce, else they may fall under our censure. And while it is true that in certain areas there are clear areas of study to go forward in and improve upon, there are others where this simply lends itself to foolishness and the creation of more foolishness.
We have many religious journals and publications so that our youth can write- and what are their credentials, that enable them to write for all these publications? The youth who has bypassed Artscroll and is struggling to figure out his way in the thorny world of Judaism, he is the one who ought to write? And why the need for so many publications? We create publication upon publication, journal after journal, and there are people who know nothing of their Judaism, but we are busy with our lofty discussions (and honestly, while there are some people who are truly advancing something radical, novel and new in their pieces, most others are only attempting to do so. Although there is a place for those who take complicated concepts and lay them out in a clear way in these essays.)
At one point in time there was an idea: Say something when you have something to say, and otherwise, keep quiet! One did not simply publish for the sake of publishing.
It occurs to me we would do well to implement that practice today.
And furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
~
I do not understand our priorities.
We have taught our youth that one ought to be ashamed of reading Artscroll, and we mockingly deride and laugh at it, so that the youth immediately thinks himself above these books, as they are only for the simple-minded. At the same time, we do not instruct our youth, but allow him to fend for himself, trying to figure out which books to read, which people to follow, whom to accredit, and whom not to listen to (of his own initiative.) This, of course, ends up confusing him (and how couldn't it? His instructors themselves don't know what they are teaching!)
We have simultaneously created a culture where it is what one produces that is valued, and a prolific producer is suddenly thought more intelligent. Our culture is such that we even demand our professors at our universities to produce, else they may fall under our censure. And while it is true that in certain areas there are clear areas of study to go forward in and improve upon, there are others where this simply lends itself to foolishness and the creation of more foolishness.
We have many religious journals and publications so that our youth can write- and what are their credentials, that enable them to write for all these publications? The youth who has bypassed Artscroll and is struggling to figure out his way in the thorny world of Judaism, he is the one who ought to write? And why the need for so many publications? We create publication upon publication, journal after journal, and there are people who know nothing of their Judaism, but we are busy with our lofty discussions (and honestly, while there are some people who are truly advancing something radical, novel and new in their pieces, most others are only attempting to do so. Although there is a place for those who take complicated concepts and lay them out in a clear way in these essays.)
At one point in time there was an idea: Say something when you have something to say, and otherwise, keep quiet! One did not simply publish for the sake of publishing.
It occurs to me we would do well to implement that practice today.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Tarry Not
In Tanakh, when someone commands you to stay behind, you should not. It is invariably a test, and those who persist will be rewarded.
We see this in the case of Elisha. Elijah asks him to "tarry here" three times, and Elisha always replies in the same way, "As the lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee."
Here is one example:
Something similar occurs with Ruth and Naomi, where Naomi very eloquently attempts to tell Orpah and Ruth to remain at home, and while Orpah returns, Ruth states that:
Similarly, when it comes to the situation of the pilegesh b'Givah, staying behind is what gets the man and his concubine into the subsequent debacle. Although, of course, he does not tarry there that particular evening, it is the fact that he tarried there the nights before that prevents him from leaving when he should have, and making it all the way home in time.
I'm sure this appears in the Motif Index somewhere, but I do not know the number of the classification.
We see this in the case of Elisha. Elijah asks him to "tarry here" three times, and Elisha always replies in the same way, "As the lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee."
Here is one example:
- ו וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אֵלִיָּהוּ שֵׁב-נָא פֹה, כִּי יְהוָה שְׁלָחַנִי הַיַּרְדֵּנָה, וַיֹּאמֶר, חַי-יְהוָה וְחֵי-נַפְשְׁךָ אִם-אֶעֶזְבֶךָּ; וַיֵּלְכוּ, שְׁנֵיהֶם.
6 And Elijah said unto him: 'Tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to the Jordan.' And he said: 'As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.' And they two went on.
~Kings II 2: 6
Something similar occurs with Ruth and Naomi, where Naomi very eloquently attempts to tell Orpah and Ruth to remain at home, and while Orpah returns, Ruth states that:
- טז וַתֹּאמֶר רוּת אַל-תִּפְגְּעִי-בִי, לְעָזְבֵךְ לָשׁוּב מֵאַחֲרָיִךְ: כִּי אֶל-אֲשֶׁר תֵּלְכִי אֵלֵךְ, וּבַאֲשֶׁר תָּלִינִי אָלִין--עַמֵּךְ עַמִּי, וֵאלֹהַיִךְ אֱלֹהָי.
16 And Ruth said: 'Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;
יז בַּאֲשֶׁר תָּמוּתִי אָמוּת, וְשָׁם אֶקָּבֵר; כֹּה יַעֲשֶׂה יְהוָה לִי, וְכֹה יוֹסִיף--כִּי הַמָּוֶת, יַפְרִיד בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵךְ.
17 where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the LORD do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.'
~Ruth 1: 16-17
- ה וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָהָם אֶל-נְעָרָיו, שְׁבוּ-לָכֶם פֹּה עִם-הַחֲמוֹר, וַאֲנִי וְהַנַּעַר, נֵלְכָה עַד-כֹּה; וְנִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה, וְנָשׁוּבָה אֲלֵיכֶם.
5 And Abraham said unto his young men: 'Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship, and come back to you.'
~Genesis 22:5
Similarly, when it comes to the situation of the pilegesh b'Givah, staying behind is what gets the man and his concubine into the subsequent debacle. Although, of course, he does not tarry there that particular evening, it is the fact that he tarried there the nights before that prevents him from leaving when he should have, and making it all the way home in time.
- ח וַיַּשְׁכֵּם בַּבֹּקֶר בַּיּוֹם הַחֲמִישִׁי, לָלֶכֶת, וַיֹּאמֶר אֲבִי הַנַּעֲרָה סְעָד-נָא לְבָבְךָ, וְהִתְמַהְמְהוּ עַד-נְטוֹת הַיּוֹם; וַיֹּאכְלוּ, שְׁנֵיהֶם.
8 And he arose early in the morning on the fifth day to depart; and the damsel's father said: 'Stay thy heart, I pray thee, and tarry ye until the day declineth'; and they did eat, both of them.
ט וַיָּקָם הָאִישׁ לָלֶכֶת, הוּא וּפִילַגְשׁוֹ וְנַעֲרוֹ; וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ חֹתְנוֹ אֲבִי הַנַּעֲרָה הִנֵּה נָא רָפָה הַיּוֹם לַעֲרוֹב, לִינוּ-נָא הִנֵּה חֲנוֹת הַיּוֹם לִין פֹּה וְיִיטַב לְבָבֶךָ, וְהִשְׁכַּמְתֶּם מָחָר לְדַרְכְּכֶם, וְהָלַכְתָּ לְאֹהָלֶךָ.
9 And when the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father-in-law, the damsel's father, said unto him: 'Behold, now the day draweth toward evening; tarry, I pray you, all night; behold, the day groweth to an end; lodge here, that thy heart may be merry; and to-morrow get you early on your way, that thou mayest go home.'
~Judges 19: 8-9
- נה וַיֹּאמֶר אָחִיהָ וְאִמָּהּ, תֵּשֵׁב הַנַּעֲרָ אִתָּנוּ יָמִים אוֹ עָשׂוֹר; אַחַר, תֵּלֵךְ.
55 And her brother and her mother said: 'Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go.'
נו וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם אַל-תְּאַחֲרוּ אֹתִי, וַיהוָה הִצְלִיחַ דַּרְכִּי; שַׁלְּחוּנִי, וְאֵלְכָה לַאדֹנִי.
56 And he said unto them: 'Delay me not, seeing the LORD hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master.'
~Genesis 24: 55-56
I'm sure this appears in the Motif Index somewhere, but I do not know the number of the classification.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Just One Shabbos by Mordechai Ben-David
My favorite song of all time (and it has been since the time I was very little, and I danced to it in my house) is Mordechai Ben-David's "Just One Shabbos."
LYRICS:
The Western Wall on Friday night
His first time ever there
Strapped into his knapsack
With his long and curly hair
He stood there for a while,
Broke out with a smile
Emotion overwhelming joy with tears
The men were dancing there
Their hearts so full of love
They sang such happy tunes
To thank the One Above
For showing them the way
For giving them a day
To rest rejoice with peace of mind to pray
Just one Shabbos and we’ll all be free
Just one Shabbos come and join with me
We’ll sing and dance to the sky
With our spirits so high
We’ll show them all it’s true
Let them come and join us too
I said hello my friend
You seem to be amused
He said much more than that
I am a bit confused
I know I am a Jew
I was bar mitzvahed too
But Shabbos in our home who ever knew
He asked to join with us
To understand and see
He spent some time with us
In total ecstasy
Next Shabbos came along
His feelings grew so strong
He first began to feel that he belonged
He found this treasure
Made some changes in his life
A brand new family his children and his wife
They learn new things each day
To live the Torah way
The message of the Shabbos they will relay
Now every Friday night they go down to the Wall
Invite some people home and they will tell them all
We’ll teach you this new song
So join and sing along
And soon we’ll all be free it won’t be long
I cannot wait till this day comes.
LYRICS:
The Western Wall on Friday night
His first time ever there
Strapped into his knapsack
With his long and curly hair
He stood there for a while,
Broke out with a smile
Emotion overwhelming joy with tears
The men were dancing there
Their hearts so full of love
They sang such happy tunes
To thank the One Above
For showing them the way
For giving them a day
To rest rejoice with peace of mind to pray
Just one Shabbos and we’ll all be free
Just one Shabbos come and join with me
We’ll sing and dance to the sky
With our spirits so high
We’ll show them all it’s true
Let them come and join us too
I said hello my friend
You seem to be amused
He said much more than that
I am a bit confused
I know I am a Jew
I was bar mitzvahed too
But Shabbos in our home who ever knew
He asked to join with us
To understand and see
He spent some time with us
In total ecstasy
Next Shabbos came along
His feelings grew so strong
He first began to feel that he belonged
He found this treasure
Made some changes in his life
A brand new family his children and his wife
They learn new things each day
To live the Torah way
The message of the Shabbos they will relay
Now every Friday night they go down to the Wall
Invite some people home and they will tell them all
We’ll teach you this new song
So join and sing along
And soon we’ll all be free it won’t be long
I cannot wait till this day comes.
To Laugh
The most important time to dance with joy is when you are suffused in sadness. There is no better time to affirm life and to declare that life has meaning and one must yet live. That is the challenge and the passion of every Jewish soul, to bear the light and give it meaning. It is within us to choose to respond to the darkness that surrounds us, and though it encroaches on every corner, we must not forget to respond with joy. And the wonderful thing about joy is how it touches and multiplies. Joy is like light; it shines and shimmers and sparkles. Everything must be replete with joy, with the passion of renewal and the ability to change and continue.
Sometimes we become so sad after we look at all our many flaws, and when we encounter the pain of others, that we completely succumb to that darkness. We forget the light; we forget to laugh. But it is the laughter that shatters the dark and causes it to flare into sparklets of light, far-reaching, touching so very many. And this is a power we all have, the power to laugh, to reaffirm life, to continue onward, to prove ourselves stronger than everything which hovers and tries to destroy.
With laughter we chase away the dark, and we let the light fill us...and so we must laugh, and laugh and laugh, the pure and honest laughter of children. There is nothing that makes me too black before God, and He knows I search for Him honestly, and so, I shall be as a child before Him, and I shall reaffirm and I shall laugh...first come tears, then laughter, and it is the laughter that shall resound.
Sometimes we become so sad after we look at all our many flaws, and when we encounter the pain of others, that we completely succumb to that darkness. We forget the light; we forget to laugh. But it is the laughter that shatters the dark and causes it to flare into sparklets of light, far-reaching, touching so very many. And this is a power we all have, the power to laugh, to reaffirm life, to continue onward, to prove ourselves stronger than everything which hovers and tries to destroy.
With laughter we chase away the dark, and we let the light fill us...and so we must laugh, and laugh and laugh, the pure and honest laughter of children. There is nothing that makes me too black before God, and He knows I search for Him honestly, and so, I shall be as a child before Him, and I shall reaffirm and I shall laugh...first come tears, then laughter, and it is the laughter that shall resound.
To Bear The Light
Grandfather's voice was quiet but strong. "Empty yourself, Vicky. You're all replete with very thee."
No, no. Not with me. With darkness.
Grandfather reprimanded. "You have to give the darkness permission. It cannot take you over otherwise."
But I hadn't given it permission. It had come, as suddenly and unexpectedly as death had come and taken the child in my arms.
"Vicky, do not add to the darkness."
I stood at the hospital bed, still alien in Grandfather's study, and looked at him, thin and translucent as an El Greco-
Where had I thought that before?
At Commander Rodney's funeral.
I heard him and I did not hear him.
"Vicky, this is my charge to you. You are to be a lightbearer. You are to choose the light."
"I can't..." I whispered.
"You already have. I know that from your poems. But it is a choice which you must renew now."
I couldn't speak.
He reached out and drew me to him, kissing me gently on the forehead. "I will say it for you. You will bear the light." He kissed me again. "Now go." He lowered the bed and closed his eyes.
~A Ring of Endless Light, pages 325-326
No, no. Not with me. With darkness.
Grandfather reprimanded. "You have to give the darkness permission. It cannot take you over otherwise."
But I hadn't given it permission. It had come, as suddenly and unexpectedly as death had come and taken the child in my arms.
"Vicky, do not add to the darkness."
I stood at the hospital bed, still alien in Grandfather's study, and looked at him, thin and translucent as an El Greco-
Where had I thought that before?
At Commander Rodney's funeral.
I heard him and I did not hear him.
"Vicky, this is my charge to you. You are to be a lightbearer. You are to choose the light."
"I can't..." I whispered.
"You already have. I know that from your poems. But it is a choice which you must renew now."
I couldn't speak.
He reached out and drew me to him, kissing me gently on the forehead. "I will say it for you. You will bear the light." He kissed me again. "Now go." He lowered the bed and closed his eyes.
~A Ring of Endless Light, pages 325-326
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
I Believe You Do It So That People Will Love You
The beautiful film "The Duchess" has one wonderful scene that struck me as being incredibly true.
Watch minutes 56-58 of the film. I have transcribed them below, but it happens to be a beautiful scene as well.
GRAY: Did you tell the Duke who you were meeting?
GEORGIANA: No.
GRAY: Did he even ask?
GEORGIANA: No, he has other things on his mind.
GRAY: As do you.
[GEORGIANA smiles.]
GRAY: Would it help to unburden yourself?
GEORGIANA: It’s nothing I can discuss with you. Besides, it would only bore.
GRAY: You don’t have to please others all the time.
GEORGIANA: It’s what I’ve been brought up to do. Difficult lesson to unlearn.
GRAY: Would you permit me an observation?
[GEORGIANA looks at him; there is pain in her eyes.]
GRAY: I believe you do it so that people will love you.
GEORGIANA: What makes you say that?
GRAY: From what I’ve seen. With your husband, your friends, especially Lady Bess. Even the public.
GEORGIANA: I never thought of it that way before. [angrily, walking away hurriedly, breathing harshly] You make me sound so pitiful.
GRAY: Georgiana! I’ve gone beyond my brief. I apologize. Please believe it was only for your sake that I spoke. [earnestly] Please, tell me what is wrong.
GEORGIANA: [quietly] I fear I’ve done some things in life too late, and others too early.
GRAY: [steps forward] No, you haven’t. [kisses her]
~
When watching this scene in the theater, I thought, "That line has to be in the trailer." And yet, oddly, it wasn't. I found this strange because of how much it resonated with me, this one line,"I believe you do it so that people will love you." I think that is so true. Beautiful and talented and effectively queen of her society, Georgiana is nevertheless vulnerable, unhappy, and attempts to please others in her efforts to find someone who will love her. And of course, the ironic part is that ideally, a person should not love you due to your efforts to please him, but for the essence of who and what you are. But Georgiana does not know that, and no one was there to teach her it was so, and so it makes sense she remains in this way...searching, yearning, trying to be flawless, and yet deeply unhappy.
Watch minutes 56-58 of the film. I have transcribed them below, but it happens to be a beautiful scene as well.
GRAY: Did you tell the Duke who you were meeting?
GEORGIANA: No.
GRAY: Did he even ask?
GEORGIANA: No, he has other things on his mind.
GRAY: As do you.
[GEORGIANA smiles.]
GRAY: Would it help to unburden yourself?
GEORGIANA: It’s nothing I can discuss with you. Besides, it would only bore.
GRAY: You don’t have to please others all the time.
GEORGIANA: It’s what I’ve been brought up to do. Difficult lesson to unlearn.
GRAY: Would you permit me an observation?
[GEORGIANA looks at him; there is pain in her eyes.]
GRAY: I believe you do it so that people will love you.
GEORGIANA: What makes you say that?
GRAY: From what I’ve seen. With your husband, your friends, especially Lady Bess. Even the public.
GEORGIANA: I never thought of it that way before. [angrily, walking away hurriedly, breathing harshly] You make me sound so pitiful.
GRAY: Georgiana! I’ve gone beyond my brief. I apologize. Please believe it was only for your sake that I spoke. [earnestly] Please, tell me what is wrong.
GEORGIANA: [quietly] I fear I’ve done some things in life too late, and others too early.
GRAY: [steps forward] No, you haven’t. [kisses her]
~
When watching this scene in the theater, I thought, "That line has to be in the trailer." And yet, oddly, it wasn't. I found this strange because of how much it resonated with me, this one line,"I believe you do it so that people will love you." I think that is so true. Beautiful and talented and effectively queen of her society, Georgiana is nevertheless vulnerable, unhappy, and attempts to please others in her efforts to find someone who will love her. And of course, the ironic part is that ideally, a person should not love you due to your efforts to please him, but for the essence of who and what you are. But Georgiana does not know that, and no one was there to teach her it was so, and so it makes sense she remains in this way...searching, yearning, trying to be flawless, and yet deeply unhappy.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Samael= Satan?
I need a source for where Samael and Satan are identified as being the same angel (and I need it to be a medieval/ Midrashic/ Judaic source, preferably one that I can go look up, not folklore or fiction.)
Any takers? Thanks so much.
Any takers? Thanks so much.
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