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The Hand of My Brother

2 minute read
Straightforward

When Yakov impersonated Esau to take his blessing, his place at home was untenable, and he had to run away. After twenty years apart, their paths crossed once more, and Yakov was afraid of what Esau might do to him or his family, and he prayed for God’s help:

הַצִּילֵנִי נָא מִיַּד אָחִי מִיַּד עֵשָׂו כִּי־יָרֵא אָנֹכִי אֹתוֹ פֶּן־יָבוֹא וְהִכַּנִי אֵם עַל־בָּנִים – Save me, please! From the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, I’m scared he might come and strike me down, mothers and children alike. (32:12)

R’ Shamshon Raphael Hirsch notes that it was easier for Yakov to endure 20 years of injustice under a deceptive crook like Lavan than face Esau, the man Yakov had wronged, for just one moment.

The Beis Halevi highlights that Yakov was afraid of two aspects – the hand of his brother, and the hand of Esau – מִיַּד אָחִי מִיַּד עֵשָׂו. We know all too well about Esau’s destructive capacity for violence – מִיַּד עֵשָׂו, but Yakov knows that Esau’s warm embrace of brotherhood is no less of a threat – מִיַּד אָחִי.

For everyone who died in pogroms, Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Holocaust, there are so many memorials and prayers, so much history, so many resolutions of “Never Again.” But, in the words of R’ Noach Weinberg, there is a spiritual Holocaust taking place as we speak. How many souls do we lose to assimilation, to a friendly society that opens its arms to us and beckons to us so invitingly? What are we doing with our unprecedented freedom, information, and resources?

We may not live in a time of physical danger, but the spiritual danger is no less catastrophic, and for all the wonderful accomplishments of outreach organizations today, we still lose more than we save.

We like to think that if we were around then, we would have done all we could, and hopefully, that’s even true. Today, the cries are a lot more subtle, but the opportunity is there just the same – מִיַּד אָחִי.

R’ Chaim Shmulevitz would tell the Mir Yeshiva to cry for the assimilating Jews in Russia and the United States; that the students should not dare to ask for God’s compassion when they could not move themselves to show compassion for others.

Pharaoh had three advisors concerning his slavery and genocide program – Bilam advocated for it and is a villain; Yisro was against it, was forced to flee, and is a hero; and Iyov stayed neutral and said nothing and suffered immensely afterward. The Brisker Rav noted that Iyov’s suffering was because he became an accomplice by remaining silent in the face of such cruelty.

As R’ Noach Weinberg says, if a boy was drowning, you could ask his father for some rope to save him and be very sure he’d give you all the rope he had! We all encounter the unaffiliated from time to time – and if not, perhaps you should start there?

Yakov recognized the threat and asked for help.

If you recognize the threat, are you doing all you can?

Good Fortune

3 minute read
Straightforward

We spend most of the Seder night talking about the Exodus story. But right towards the beginning of the Haggadah, we say something that almost casually dismisses the central theme of the night, the Exodus:

צֵא וּלְמַד מַה בִּקֵּשׁ לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי לַעֲשׂוֹת לְיַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ: שֶׁפַּרְעֹה לֹא גָזַר אֶלָּא עַל הַזְּכָרִים, וְלָבָן בִּקֵּשׁ לַעֲקֹר אֶת־הַכֹּל – Go learn what Lavan from Aramean sought to do to our father Yakov; Pharaoh only oppressed the males, whereas Lavan tried to destroy it all!

But it doesn’t quite resonate.

Pharaoh was a genocidal despot who cruelly enslaved an entire race and murdered children indiscriminately – לֹא גָזַר אֶלָּא עַל הַזְּכָרִים. He ticks every box on the villain archetype bingo card, which is, in large part, why the Exodus was such a big deal.

Our ancestor Lavan is characterized as a tricky swindler who provides refuge and safe harbor when Yakov is on the run with nowhere to go. Over time, Lavan gives him his family, a home, and tremendous wealth and resources.

In what universe can we plausibly say that Lavan was worse than Pharaoh? Moreover, doesn’t that undermine Pharaoh’s atrocities and perhaps the entire Seder?

R’ Jonathan Sacks suggests that the Haggadah reminds us of Lavan as a warning that threats don’t always look like the atrocities of Pharaoh; sometimes, they appear in the form of the kind person who took you in and gave you so much. 

Nothing is surprising about our response to imminent danger. When calamity strikes in the form of a Pharaoh-type villain, we know what to do; across the ages, in the face of adversity, Jews have been resilient, doubling down on study, prayer, repentance, and enhanced observance – וְכַאֲשֶׁר יְעַנּוּ אֹתוֹ כֵּן יִרְבֶּה וְכֵן יִפְרֹץ. 

The danger Lavan poses is far more insidious. Lavan doesn’t hurt Yakov in the physical world; he hurts Yakov in the world of spirit, making Yakov forget who he was – לַעֲקֹר אֶת־הַכֹּל. Affluence, no less than genocide or slavery, threatens Jewish continuity by making us forget who we are.

For the many souls lost to pogroms, Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Holocaust, there are memorials and prayers, history books, and proclamations of “Never Again.” But, in the words of R’ Noach Weinberg, there is a spiritual Holocaust with no memorials or monuments; how many souls have been lost, assimilated to an open society that so warmly invites us in?

Before Moshe’s death, he warned of precisely this pitfall because humans are consistently prone to falling in:

הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ, פֶּן-תִּשְׁכַּח אֶת-ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ, לְבִלְתִּי שְׁמֹר מִצְותָיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו וְחֻקֹּתָיו, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם. פֶּן-תֹּאכַל, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ; וּבָתִּים טֹבִים תִּבְנֶה, וְיָשָׁבְתָּ.וּבְקָרְךָ וְצֹאנְךָ יִרְבְּיֻן, וְכֶסֶף וְזָהָב יִרְבֶּה-לָּךְ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-לְךָ, יִרְבֶּה.וְרָם, לְבָבֶךָ; וְשָׁכַחְתָּ אֶת-ה’ אֱלֹקיךָ, הַמּוֹצִיאֲךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים – Take care that you don’t forget the Lord your God and fail to keep His commandments, rules, and laws, which I instruct you today: when you have eaten, and you are satisfied and built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, be careful that your heart does not grow haughty and you forget the Lord your God—who freed you from the land of Egypt, home of slaves… (8:10-14)

The Beis Halevi highlights that Yakov prayed for God to save him from the hand of his brother, the hand of Esau – מִיַּד אָחִי מִיַּד עֵשָׂו – because each strategy requires different treatment – the destructive capacity for violence – מִיַּד עֵשָׂו – but also the warm embrace of brotherhood that is no less of a threat – מִיַּד אָחִי.

Perhaps that’s why the Haggadah reminds us that Lavan might be worse than Pharaoh. Faced with Lavan, people are oblivious to the threat, invisibly slipping away, silent, and without putting up a fight.

It is one thing to believe in God when you need His help. It is another thing entirely when you have already received it and are in a comfortable position.

The Haggadah and the Seder provide us the antidote – צֵא וּלְמַד. Hold on to your identity, your history, and where you come from.

When you know who you are, it’s harder to get lost.

The Covenant of Perfection

2 minute read
Straightforward

Covenants feature prominently in the Torah and Judaism. A covenant is the highest form of contractual agreement, a binding promise of far-reaching importance in the relations between parties, with legal, religious, and social ramifications.

In addition to the agreement itself, covenants typically have a physical and public display of the sign or symbol to remember the promise, such as how the Torah deems rainbows to signify God’s promise not to flood the world again.

Judaism can directly trace its roots to God’s covenant with Avraham, the first Patriarch, and the initiation into the religion for Jewish males is called the Bris, literally, “covenant.”

As the exclusive rite of passage for formal admission into Judaism, it’s hard to overstate the central importance of Bris, so it’s worth understanding the covenant it invokes.

When God engaged Avraham to enter the covenant, God mapped out a vision for humanity, blessing Avraham’s descendants with greatness and the land of Israel. They just had to do one thing:

וַיֵּרָא ה אֶל-אַבְרָם, וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי-אֵל שַׁדַּי–הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי, וֶהְיֵה תָמִים – Hashem appeared to Avraham, and said to him; “I am The Omnipotent…. Walk before me, and be perfect ”. (17:1)

Like it’s no big deal, the covenant requires us to be perfect. It doesn’t take much trying before you quickly realize that perfection is impossible. While perfection is a worthy objective, it is an inherently unattainable one, and any who claim to have found it are deluding themselves.

How can God ask us to do the impossible?

The question betrays the kind of defeatist thinking we are all prone to at times. Perfectionism can be paralyzing – if we can’t do it perfectly, then why try at all?

We should be very clear nothing and no one has ever been, currently is, nor will ever be perfect. Idealism can serve as a north star for direction, meaning, and purpose, but idealism alone is not an effective strategy for navigating day-to-day living, which necessitates some degree of flexibility and pragmatism.

We need to orient ourselves towards the process of perfecting, not the outcome of perfection, on the journey, not the destination. The Beis Halevi teaches that when we do our best, striving for better and more, we will find ourselves becoming more perfect over time – הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי / וֶהְיֵה תָמִים

The Gemara teaches that the name Hashem introduced Himself with, אֵל שַׁדַּי, expresses the concept that the Creator withdrew from creating so that life had space to be and grow – שאמר לעולמו די.

The Kedushas Levi notes that God forms this space for us to have any input by necessity because that input is precisely what God desires from us.

Rabbi Akiva taught that in the same way we consider a loaf of bread an improvement from raw stalks of wheat, humans can and must improve the world around us.

The Malbim explains that our active participation is the essential theme of the covenant. Circumcision is not just an extrinsic sign on our bodies; Judaism’s initiation for men symbolizes the action we are called upon to take to enhance our world, a living articulation of the covenant itself.

The symbolism of modifying our bodies as soon as we are born is a powerful visual metaphor we carry with us, teaching us that our everyday lives can elevate, refine, and improve the world around us.

You will never be perfect.

But the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Ill-Gotten Gains

3 minute read
Straightforward

While still reeling from the extraordinary events at Sinai, the Jewish People started building the Mishkan that would be the focal point of religious life for many generations. While still at the mountain, God instructs the people to build altars for their sacrifices.

Most of the rest of the book of Exodus deals with the construction and assembly of the Mishkan, but with a material interruption for the civil law; the laws of a thief who cannot pay restitution and so must work off his debt, the laws of charity, and the laws of damages and duties of care, among others.

But if the narrative has turned towards the Mishkan, why interrupt it with civil laws?

The Beis Halevi explains that the Torah’s prerequisite to constructing the Mishkan is that the people building it and using it live with kindness, charity, and social responsibility. People can pledge all the money in the world to worthy causes, but the contributors and contributions must be kosher, obtained ethically, and with regard to the well-being of others.

The Torah’s treatment of a Jew who steals and must work off his debt is illuminating. This Jewish man must be well-treated and cared for, and he is not the permanent property of his owner. But nor is he a fully-fledged Jew for the term of his slavery; his primary obligation is to his owner, and he relinquishes many obligations to observe the Torah as he once did. He is even permitted to marry a non-Jew in this state and start a family, but these children will not be Jewish and belong to his master. 

Perhaps we aren’t as sensitive to ill-gotten gains as we should be. This is the Torah’s first law after Sinai, telling an unfortunate soul how to navigate the way to mend the crime of theft. The Torah is quite clear that renouncing Judaism, marrying a non-Jew, and having a family of slave children are part of the rehabilitation from how wrong stealing is.

R’ Zalman Sorotzkin notes that the Torah has already opened the discussion about the Mishkan, specifically the altars of earth and stone. God initiates the Mishkan construction with materials that are freely available to everyone and of negligible value before asking the people to bring gold, silver, and precious gems. In so doing, the Torah openly states that holiness is universally accessible without glamour.

Before discussing valuable contributions, the Torah emphasizes the need to be scrupulously honest. Before God asks people what they have to offer, God lays out the consequences of theft, demanding that the contributors rightfully obtain their gifts.

Our sages have a broad and profound debate about good deeds that are the product of bad deeds – מצווה הבאה בעבירה. The parameters of what is disqualifying and how disqualifying it is are technical, but the concept is not. Isaiah unambiguously states that God loves justice, and hates human attempts at holiness with ill-gotten gains – כִּי אֲנִי ה’ אֹהֵב מִשְׁפָּט שֹׂנֵא גָזֵל בְּעוֹלָה.

A good deed is a good deed – Judaism is not all or nothing. If you need to improve at keeping Shabbos, you should still try to keep kosher! As the Baal Shem Tov teaches, the good deed of charity has a positive real-world impact regardless of intent or origin. But generosity with money dishonestly earned is missing something.

Business is tough; for some people, business is war! But how we put food on the table falls under the rubric of the Torah just as much as keeping Shabbos or kosher. While the specifics are complex and nuanced, the rules of thumb are not.

Follow through. Keep your word. Don’t step on people. Pay bills on time. Don’t retrade.

There is such a thing as human complexity; what were the terms? Was the service performed within the agreed scope of work? But there is no moral complexity.

The Mekor Baruch states that ill-gotten money is dirty money and dismisses crooks who attempt to launder their reputations with flashy donations. Do not be complicit in their attempts.

R’ Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld notes how Moshe needs to appoint truthful men who truly hate ill-gotten gains – אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת שֹׂנְאֵי בָצַע – and quips how they had to be truthful first, because money buys you anything; including men who hate money!

For better and for worse, our society is built around capital and access to it. Even if we sometimes ignore or forget, we should remind ourselves that even the most generous donations can’t straighten a crook.   

Because before you ever do the right thing with your money, it matters every bit as much that you obtained it in the right way.

Making Favorable Judgments

2 minute read
Straightforward

The Torah states in numerous places that upstanding societies are predicated on justice:

בְּצֶדֶק תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ – You shall judge your fellow with righteousness (19:15)

Rashi notes that this is not just the approach for formal legal systems and executors of justice; this is how people ought to conduct themselves on an individual level too. The Gemara in Shabbos states that הדן חבירו לכף זכות, דנין אותו לזכות – one who judges their fellow favorably is judged favorably in return.

The Ba’al Shem Tov teaches that when a person gets to Heaven, he is ushered into a courtroom, and is instructed to judge a case. The case is presented, the prosecution speaks, then the defense. The eager new-comer pounds the gavel and declares the defendant guilty. The angels pull him aside, and say, “Reb Yid, this case was actually about you. You are the defendant. Don’t you remember that time you…” He must then answer for all the times he was guilty.

R’ Yisroel Reisman points out that this is why we call this process דין וחשבן – a ruling and accounting. The ruling comes first.

R’ Reisman asks a poignant question – this mechanism will not work on people who already know this. When it is eventually and inescapably their turn to judge, will the people who know better declare everyone and everything innocent, and when informed that they are the defendants, will they feign surprise and be absolved?

The Beis HaLevi explains that the judgment in Heaven is not a new, independent decision.

The judgments we make in our lives will one day be applied to ourselves, and we will be held to the standards we expected of others. All a person truly is, is the decision they have made. Are we real? Do we match up to what we think we perceive to be in the mirror? When you judge another, you do not define them; you define yourself. If you are kind, you will be treated kindly. You project the values and beliefs you have, and one day, which will one day be shined on you.

בְּצֶדֶק תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ is not exclusively about a court system. It is a way of life; a mentality. It is the way to create a community of fair, decent, and good people. Don’t treat people well based on their respective merit, or otherwise. Treat people well purely because you are someone who treats all people well.

The Battle Of Opinions

3 minute read
Straightforward

The Gemara in Shabbos 21b teaches that the mitzva of lighting candles is to light them in the entrance of the house – in the doorway.

Rashi says that even in a house with a courtyard or driveway, one lights at the front door of his house, not the courtyard. Tosfos comments that a courtyard with two gates needs two menorahs. One at each gate – seemingly not at the ‘front doorway’ at all.

But the Gemara said ‘פתח’ – door, so although Tosfos say that the mitzva has nothing to do with a door, he also says that only in a house with no courtyard would one light at the door.

What’s is the basic logic that led Rashi and Tosfos to such opposite ideas?
They were arguing what the focal point of the statement in the Gemara was: Was it חוץ (outside), to accomplish the mitzvah of publicising the miracle as the key goal or בית (the house) to accomplish להדליק as the key goal.

So according to Rashi you should light inside a house as the primary mitzva, but lighting at the door satisfies the secondary mitzva of publicising the event.
Tosfos is of the opposite opinion in both aspects. The primary function of lighting a menora is to publicise the event – and as such Tosfos says that one should light as close to the public as possible, and the בית aspect is secondary.

The Beis Halevi asks: According to the respective views regarding the meaning of ‘פתח’ – do you light inside of door, or outside?
Again Rashi and Tosfos have opposite opinions:
Tosfos says that it means inside of the courtyard door while Rashi says it means outside of the front door.
Their reasoning being as follows:

Rashi says that lighting inside a house is not public at all, thereby serving a house’s primary function, but if so then there is no Pirsumei Nisa; to achieve this, lighting must be done outside.
Tosfos says that it needs to be inside the courtyard, as an outside courtyard is the public domain. It also needs to be connected in some way to the בית the Gemara referenced, and be lit on private property.

The Pri Chadash asks a new question: What if a house has a door and a window, and the house has no courtyard – where would one light their menora?
Yet again Rashi and Tosfos have converse opinions. According to Tosfos you do it at the window which is following the idea of Pirsumei Nisa as a window is more public than at the door. However, Rashi uses the idea of בית and says it should be by the door.

Next question: What would happen if one lit in the courtyard of their house? – Tosfos says that one has fulfilled the mitzva l’chatchila (the way it’s meant to be), whereas Rashi says one would not be fulfilling the mitzva at all.

There are 2 ברכות – להדליק נר (the Bracha on the mitzva to light), and שעשה ניסים לאבותינו (the Bracha commemorating the miracle).
In conclusion there are two concepts: First, lighting like they lit. With the lighting, we commemorate the chanukas habayis (re-inauguration event) of removing the impure foreign elements from the Beis Hamikdash, Second, is remembering the great miracle.
The miracle is a symbol of the Yom Tov’s historical re-inauguration event, but the main goal was lighting the Menora itself.

The question is asked: Was it, in fact, the lighting or was lighting the Menora special because of the miracle that occurred, demonstrating G-D’s valuation of our actions?

If we follow Rashi’s reasoning, the primary mitzva is commemorating the re-inauguration, and the main goal is ‘להדליק נר של חנוכה’ in your house and to light inside. Publicizing the miracle and the miracle itself is only a symbol of the main event of inauguration and as such Pirsumei Nisa is secondary to the mitzvah of actually lighting the Menorah.

If we follow Tosfos’s reasoning, the miracle was the main event of Chanuka – the re-inauguration – so publicising is essential, and done as closely as possible to the public domain. There was a secondary part that the miracle itself came about through the lighting of the menora, so we satisfy that aspect of it and light a menora too.

Dying Of Embarrassment

2 minute read
Straightforward

Yosef planted stolen property on Binyamin and imprisoned him to determine if his brothers had changed over the years.

Yehuda stepped forward to persuade their captor with a heart-rending plea on behalf of their elderly father; to return home without his youngest boy would be the death of him. Out of mercy for their elderly father, Yehuda begged Yosef to release Binyamin.

Seeing them stick up for each other, Yosef knew that they had changed, and this was the moment to reveal his identity:

וַיֹּאמֶר יוֹסֵף אֶל אֶחָיו אֲנִי יוֹסֵף הַעוֹד אָבִי חָי וְלֹא יָכְלוּ אֶחָיו לַעֲנוֹת אֹתוֹ כִּי נִבְהֲלוּ מִפָּנָיו – Yosef said to his brothers, “It is I, Yosef. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer because they were so shocked.

While the reveal stuns them into silence, Yosef’s question is a little strange. Yehuda has just been talking about their elderly father and his frail health as to why Yosef should let Binyamin go. Yosef already knows that Yakov is alive!

So why would he ask if his father was still alive?

The Beis Halevi explains that Yosef’s rhetoric isolates their concern for their father. They love their father. They worry for him and don’t want to trouble him. But, Yosef asks, what of my father, the father you put through years of inconsolable anguish and grief? Is he only alive to you now that you are the victims?

They were shocked into silence. Not just because of the surprise of Yosef’s reveal, but because he is transparently correct that they are hypocrites! The Midrash teaches that when our souls arrive in Heaven, we are put on trial to account for how we spent our lives, likening the experience to the mortifying and humiliating moment Yosef revealed himself to his brothers. It’s not about surprise; it’s about the ad hoc justifications and hypocrisy we regularly indulge in.

Yet what happens next shows the caliber of these great heroes. Having said his piece, and without a hint of malice, he simply embraces them.

It is worth noting that until he revealed himself, Yosef was a threat to them, but his brothers were dangerous too. Yehuda was known for his decisive albeit arguably rash actions, and Shimon and Levi were infamous and feared killers. But rather than humiliate his brothers in front of an audience, Yosef commands his guards and staff to leave, endangering himself and risking his life.

The story is a paradigm for how to mend a broken relationship. Yosef’s reproof is concise but comprehensive on delivery and accepted without dispute when received.

We all have relationship struggles over far less.

Which ones can you mend with a few well-chosen words?