Tisha B'Av Letter

The following is a letter I wrote to my congregation in anticipation of Tisha B'av this coming Sunday. I thought I would share it with the readership of this blog as well:

Dear Friends,

As you all know, Tisha B’av will be observed this year beginning Saturday evening at sunset and concluding Sunday night. Of all the dates marked on the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’av is certainly the most bitter and painful, as it commemorates all of the tragedies that have befallen our people over the past 3000 years. We mourn and fast on Tisha B’av each year to recall the horrific persecution and unspeakable suffering that we have endured since we were first exiled from the Land of Israel in Biblical times.

To be as direct and to the point as possible, I am asking you to fast on Tisha B’av this year.

If you cannot fast for health reasons, please make an effort to take the day seriously. Join us for the prayers in the evening, morning and afternoon. R ead Tisha B’av related materials in whatever language you understand.

Tisha B’av is one of the most important days on the Jewish calendar. The Rabbis compare the stringency of the Ninth of A v to the stringency of Yom Kippur. We are taught that anyone who keeps Tisha B’av properly will merit to see the ultimate redemption, and that, in fact, the observance of Tisha B’av is itself the first step toward that redemption.

I have always felt that, more than any other holiday, Tisha B’av observance expresses genuine commitment to Jewish tradition and nationhood. It is not difficult to entice people to participate in festivities and celebrations. It is not even too hard to convince people to fast on Yom Kippur with the promise that their sins will be atoned for thereby.

But it is quite challenging to try and persuade modern Jews to weep for the destruction of the Temple , to abstain from eating, drinking and enjoying themselves for twenty-five hours and take time to reflect upon the darkest chapters of Jewish history. To do this, you must feel a profound connection to your Jewish past, present and future. You must be willing to be a Jew through thick and thin, during good times and bad times, on days of joy and on days of mourning.

The story is told that Napoleon Bonaparte was walking through the streets of Paris one Tisha B' A v night.

As his entourage passed a synagogue he heard wailing and crying coming from within; he sent an aide to inquire as to what had happened.

The aide returned and told Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their Temple .

Napoleon was indignant! "How come I wasn't informed? When did this happen? Which Temple ?"

The aide responded, "They lost their Temple in Jerusalem on this date 1,700 years ago."

Napoleon stood in silence and then said, "Certainly a people which has mourned the loss of their Temple for so long will survive to see it rebuilt!"

Napoleon’s insight resonates powerfully with a generation that has witnessed the rebirth of Israel and its transformation from an arid and abandoned desert into a vivaciously blossoming Jewish homeland. Granted, much spiritual work is left to be done, but there is no question that the ancient memories kept alive by Tisha B’av fueled the flames of passion that inspired the pioneers who established the Modern state of Israel.

Had the Jewish people lacked a keen sense of their tragic and painful history, had they not heard the piercing cries of desperation, humiliation and loss ringing eternally in their ears, had they not smelled the ashes of charred human remains wafting up from the destruction of the Jewish communities of Europe in the aftermath of World War II, had they not felt the weight of centuries of constant exile, expulsion and persecution upon their hearts, then we would not be where we are today as a nation. Their awareness of the past paved the way to a brighter future for us all.

Unfortunately, quite the opposite attitude seems to be prevalent in our times. Most of us don’t want to think about the terrible events of the recent past – the expulsion of Jews from Arab Lands, the Holocaust, or the Soviet persecutions – let alone those of the distant past.

We don’t want to hear about Hamas and Hizbollah threatening us anymore.

We don’t want to read about suicide bombers spilling the blood of innocent children in pizza shops anymore.

We don’t want to picture vicious terrorists ambushing the vehicles of young parents whose only crime was trying to take Jewish kids to school.

We don’t want to imagine ruthless killers murdering pregnant mothers whose only crime was trying to bring Jewish children into the world.

Indeed, we would prefer to downplay the significance of the dangerous and inflammatory anti-Semitic rhetoric that is rearing its ugly head and spreading quickly throughout Europe and the Middle East as we speak. In this sense we are no different than our ancestors in Biblical and Modern Times who chose to ignore the lessons of history and were thus doomed to repeat it.

So, this year on Tisha B’av, let us abstain from eating and drinking in memory of our fellow Jews – men, women and little children – who were starved to death at the hands of wicked persecutors. It is well known that the Nazis, who deprived their victims in the concentration camps of even the most minimal luxuries, would offer them a sumptuous meal on Tisha B’av every year, just to mock them. In recognition of their heroism in not partaking of those meals, please avoid food and drink on Tisha B’av.

This Tisha B’av, let us refrain from washing our bodies or applying creams and oils to our skin. Who can forget how our persecutors were so careful about their own hygiene and cleanliness while they forced us to live in filth and squalor, transporting us in cattle cars filled with excrement and denying us the most basic human dignity? How can we pamper ourselves when we think of how our innocent brethren were treated?

This Tisha B’av, let us avoid wearing leather shoes to remind ourselves of the long marches that our barely clothed, emaciated, barefoot and shivering brothers and sisters were forced to make through snow and ice in the dead of winter. Feeling the ground under our feet helps us recall just how many comforts we take for granted today.

Observing the restrictions of Tisha B’av brings the deprivation and suffering endured by our brethren into clear relief for us. Over the centuries, our ancestors went through hell on Earth in Israel , Spain , Greece, Portugal , England , France , Morocco, Iraq , Iran , Egypt , Germany , and countless other places. For them, there was no telling when the suffering would end. There was no telling when it might intensify. There was no choice whether or not to be subjected to it.

We, on the other hand, are a generation accustomed to privilege, luxury and comfort. We “choose” whether or not to observe Tisha B’av properly. But don’t we have a moral duty to recognize and mourn the losses our predecessors suffered?

Is it asking too much for us to set aside one day to fast and reflect upon the sacrifices they made and the pain they experienced for the sake of their Judaism?

Does the burden we bear for one day even come close to the ones they were forced to carry for their entire lifetimes?

Most importantly, we must recognize that it is through our acknowledgment of the horrors of our past that we gain a clearer perspective on our future. Mourning the destruction of our Temple and the constant persecutions directed against our communities should remind us of our ultimate priorities in life. It should pull us away from our obsession with imitating or winning the favor of our Gentile neighbors. It should move us to return to God and rededicate ourselves to His service. It should make us pray ever more fervently and work ever more intensively to perfect ourselves and our world.

This year, allow the message of Tisha B’av to make its way into your heart. Open your mind to the possibility of more Torah study and mitzvah performance. Don’t allow the sacrifices made by generations of Jews – men and women, mothers and fathers, adults and children, rabbis and laypersons – to be forgotten. Don’t allow their tears to have been in vain.

It is up to all of us to make sure that the memories of our dark history are perpetuated and that we internalize the lessons these memories are supposed to teach us.

Please join me in mourning for our glorious Temple , for our beautiful Torah, for the trampled dignity of our rabbis and elders and for the precious breath that was stolen from the lungs of our little babies. Don’t let them be overlooked or disregarded. Don’t allow them to be called irrelevant or obsolete.

I hope to see you on Saturday Night at 9:30PM for the Tisha B’av service, and then again on Sunday at 8:30 A M for Shaharit. I strongly encourage you to attend the Holocaust Museum Tour with us at 11:30 A M on Sunday after morning services.

I will also be delivering a class entitled “Is it Possible to Make Sense out of All of our Suffering?”, Sunday afternoon at 6:45PM at Magen David Sephardic Congregation, followed by Minha at 7:30PM.

May this Tisha B’av be a source of genuine intellectual and spiritual growth for us all, so that we can see the words of the prophet Zechariah fulfilled, “The fast of the Fourth Month (Tammuz) and the Fast of the Fifth ( A v) and the Fast of the Seventh (Tishrei) and the Fast of the Tenth(Tevet) shall be for the house of Judah for joy, gladness and cheerful feasts.” A men.

Sincerely Yours,

Rabbi Joshua Maroof

Nehamat Yaaqov 5768

I am proud to once again present "Nehamat Yaaqov", a compendium of the essential laws of the Three Weeks and Tisha B'av. Many thanks to those who provided feedback that was helpful in revising and otherwise improving the work. You can download a PDF version of Nehamat Yaaqov by clicking here. I will also attempt to post the full text on my other blog.

Fasting and Mourning

From the perspective of halakha and also of experience, fasting and mourning share a great deal in common. On a basic level, both involve a somber attitude, a withdrawal from creature comforts, and a tendency to introspection. In terms of observance, there is a significant amount of overlap between the two domains. On major fasts (i.e., Tisha B'av and Yom Kippur) we observe prohibitions on sexual relations, the donning of leather footwear, washing and anointing, and all of these restrictions also apply (although in the case of washing, somewhat less stringently) to an individual who is sitting Shiva for a close relative.

That being said, the halakhic differences between mourning and fasting are equally noteworthy. One is not expected to fast during the period of Shiva - on the contrary, meals are regularly provided to the mourners. On the other hand, additional restrictions on mourners, such as the prohibitions to study Torah or to greet friends, for example, have no parallel whatsoever on Yom Kippur, the most intense fast day of the Jewish calendar. It goes without saying that no tragic occurrence is necessary to precipitate a fast - Yom Kippur is observed even during the best of times and has nothing to do with misfortune.

The fast of Tisha B'av illustrates the mourning-fasting dichotomy nicely, inasmuch as it is a hybrid of the two. On Tisha B'av - and, to a lesser extent, on all of the Rabbinical fasts - we are engaged in mourning the destruction of the Temple. From what we know of the laws of mourning, it would have been at least theoretically possible for the Prophets to institute a day of mourning for the Destruction without incorporating the element of fasting as well. However, for some reason they saw fit to merge fasting and mourning together in the observance of Tisha B'av. The halakhot of the Fast, some of which are derived from Yom Kippur and others from the laws of Shiva, bear witness to the dual nature of Tisha B'av.

So what is it exactly that creates the affinity between mourning and fasting? Why do they share common aspects while differing from one another in several key respects?

Mourning is a natural response to tragedy. When calamity strikes an individual, a family or a community, it tends to place the everyday pleasures we relish in a totally new perspective. We all remember how jarred we were in the aftermath of September 11th, how people (briefly) exhibited a diminished interest in the pursuit of physical and egoistic gratification. Indeed, we would have looked upon anyone preoccupied with his own agenda at that time as callous and arrogant - how could someone be so utterly insensitive to the import of what had befallen us, and simply go about life or business as usual?

This is the sense in which the laws of mourning mandate a withdrawal from physical pleasure. Proper deference to the significance of a loss, whether it be personal or national, is expressed in diminished pleasure-seeking. One who appreciates the seriousness of such a tragedy cannot possibly pursue enjoyments with the same zeal that he did previously. The trivial gratifications that used to draw him seem petty and meaningless when he is faced with the reality of his own mortality and vulnerability. The "finer things in life" do not possess the same allure to a broken soul, now bereft of a precious loved one.

A person who persists in his selfishness despite the endurance of calamity is viewed as morally reprehensible because he is deaf to the lessons that we expect such events to teach him. His enslavement to dreams of power and pleasure makes him utterly insensitive to the precariousness of his own existence and blinds him to the value of the existence of others. Just think of those who, in the wake of 9-11, immediately saw it as an opportunity to scam people in distress and to profit from their misfortune rather than an opportunity to reconsider what is truly important in life.

The mourning we observe on Tisha B'av, and the supreme importance attributed to it in our tradition, is consistent with these ideas. Being sensitive to the distance between the Jewish Nation and God, and focusing our minds on the horrific events that have befallen us in our Exile, must reduce the bounce in our step at least somewhat. Certainly the process should inspire us to withdraw a bit from the comforts and gratifications that usually beckon to us - whether they be physical or intellectual (as in the case of Torah study) - and to give serious thought to the Divine message that is embodied in our history and its implications for us.

One who views the solemn prayers and devotions of Tisha B'av as an unnecessary interference with his lifestyle that cannot be countenanced is surely insensitive to the tragedies that have scarred the Jewish nation over many centuries of exile. He is more interested in the potential for enjoyment in the here-and-now than in reflecting upon the vulnerability and persecution of the Jewish people witnessed to us by history. Why weaken his zest for life by reminding him of these harsh, depressing and possibly even frightening realities?

At the same time, however, Tisha B'av is not only a day of mourning - it is also a Taanit, a day of affliction and fasting. Whereas in mourning we withdraw from the pleasures of this world because their appeal naturally seems to fade in the face of tragedy, in fasting we deliberately detach ourselves from the pursuit of pleasure in order to harness our energies for more transcendent objectives.

A fast need not be connected to any depressing event. It can be a self-imposed regimen for the purpose of individual spiritual development or a nationally observed holiday like Yom Kippur. The purpose of a fast is to enable us to rise above the overwhelming pull of our instincts and to subject them, and our personalities as a whole, to serious analysis and correction. In this way our minds reassert themselves as the governing agents of our action, and our bodily desires are put firmly in check as we evaluate our lives without the comforting distraction of food and drink.

It is now clear why both mourning and fasting involve diminished physical gratification. In the case of mourning, this is a healthy reaction to tragedy and loss. Mourning would not typically lead us to neglect basic necessities like eating and drinking, since even an emotionally bruised psyche requires nourishment.

On the other hand, in the case of fasting, we are engaged in a conscious "affliction" of ourselves. We are actively attempting to remove distractions that might interfere with our process of repentance by sapping our psychological energy or dulling the clarity of our thought. Unlike the in the case of mourning where the change in our relationship with pleasures is a byproduct of our preoccupation with something more important, on a fast day the state of physical deprivation is part of our goal - it is a preparation and a springboard for meaningful introspection and personal transformation. Hence, even eating, drinking and other relatively harmless forms of pleasure are strictly prohibited on major fasts.

In light of this analysis, we have a clearer grasp of the structure and themes of Tisha B'av. The objective of reflection upon the tragic chapters of our history engenders sincere mourning. This, however, is insufficient. Preoccupation with tragedy, however intense, is always short-lived. People devastated by loss can, with the passage of time, get over it and return to life with the same zest for enjoyment they previously possessed. Once the proverbial storm has passed and its effects begin to wear off, such individuals can and do emerge from the experience of loss fundamentally unchanged.

For this reason, Tisha B'av requires not only mourning, but also Taanit - affliction and fasting. This ensures that our meditation on the tragic elements of Jewish history has an impact on our lives and is not in vain.

By linking the mourning of Tisha B'av with fasting, our Sages taught us that the destruction of the Temple and our turbulent existence in Exile are not just depressing realities we are compelled to live with, discuss endlessly and cry about helplessly each year. On the contrary, our acknowledgment of the significance of these episodes in our past should move us to reconsider the direction of our lives and to commit ourselves more sincerely and earnestly to fulfilling our covenant with Hashem. In this way our observance of Tisha B'av will serve to bring us one step closer to the ultimate redemption for which we pray.

I Haven't Forgotten

I know that several members of the readership are anxious for me to embark upon the project I detailed in my previous post.

While I am fully prepared to begin writing on the themes I promised to address, my schedule and the exigencies of life over the past two weeks have interfered with my plans.

I wanted to post this brief message to reassure you that the new posts will start appearing, G-d willing, next week at the latest.

Shabbat Shalom!

Coming Up

Blogging has been a bit slow lately due to time constraints, so for the benefit of those members of the readership anxious to know what the future holds, I thought it might be a good idea to create a brief post detailing the topics I intend to touch upon over the next several weeks.

1. Prophecy and Torah Misinai.

This is an interesting subject in its own right, and one I plan to explore during Tikkun Leil Shavuot in my synagogue this year, but it is even more poignant in light of recent discussions on the comment threads here. In the process of approaching this topic, I will also complete my analysis of Spinoza vs. Maimonides on the prophecy question, a series I started but neglected to finish last year.

2. Understanding the Written Torah

I will be publishing my usual posts, dedicated to specific problems/questions/ideas that confront us in our study of Tanach, although not necessarily always Parashat Hashavua. I will be making a concerted effort to take up thorny and difficult texts, especially those that have been widely misunderstood or misrepresented.

3. The Oral Torah and Its Relationship to the Written

This is a subject that requires a tremendous amount of attention because it is frequently misconstrued, even by religious and knowledgeable Jews. I will attempt to bring examples that best highlight the need for and function of the Oral Torah in elucidating and clarifying Scripture. For instance, I will work on debunking the myth that the Oral tradition either "adds to", "diminishes" or "fixes" the Sacred Texts, and I will hopefully demonstrate that it in fact serves to bring out their deeper meaning. The methodology and spirit of halakha will also be discussed, so that questions about its ethical character may be put to rest.

4. Jewish Philosophy

A vigorous effort to present and substantiate what I believe to be an authentic, compelling and rational vision of Judaism. Skeptical objections will be dealt with and important distinctions and arguments clarified. Questions like whether the Torah is unique, whether science and Torah conflict, whether God's existence can be proven, and whether there is a difference between belief in the magical and belief in the miraculous will be explored.

5. General Potpourri

I plan to include some isolated posts devoted to other intellectual interests of mine (you may be surprised by some of these) that I think are germane to, and perhaps shed light on, the Torah and its philosophical underpinnings.

I look forward to embarking upon this project over the next several days and weeks.

Shabbat Shalom.

In The Beginning

Much of the recent discussion in the comment threads has revolved around the nature of the Genesis narratives and their purpose. In this admittedly off-the-cuff post, I would like to clarify my own take on this crucial issue.

The instructional objective of the Torah is essentially twofold. First and foremost, the Torah provides us with a worldview, an outlook on the Universe, the human condition, and the values that should guide our lives. In his commentary on the Humash, the famous Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno refers to this aspect of the Torah's teaching as "heleq haiyuni", the intellectual component.

Second, the Torah offers a program of mitsvot, the observance of which is based upon that worldview and the goal of which is to implement the values that derive from that worldview. The Seforno calls this the "heleq hamaasi", or practical component.

When it comes to the intellectual component of the Torah's instruction, the vehicle of choice is the story. Stories are inherently engaging and are accessible to human beings at pretty much any level of cognitive and moral development. We often revisit literature later in life and discover dimensions of depth and nuance we never noticed when we studied it in our youth. Moreover, not infrequently, aspects of the plot, drama or message of a story that appeared most significant to us previously may, upon a fresh reading, fade in comparison to other elements that capture our more mature attention.

The Torah opens with a series of stories that present us with four processes of tremendous importance to its purpose: The Creation of the Universe, the Creation/Emergence of Man, the Creation of Society and the Creation of Israel.

The creation of the Universe is described in order to establish that the Universe is a lawful, harmonious product of the will of a transcendent God who put it into motion.

The creation of Man is explored in order to enlighten us as to the peculiarities of the human condition - being a part of the natural world yet capable of transcending our natural drives, possessing biological instincts as well as an intellect, struggling both with our environments and within ourselves. Unlike the elegance and harmony reflected in the cosmos, the human realm is messily complicated, and the challenges that face Man, with his unique combination of heavenly and earthly characteristics, are daunting.

Individual human beings living in isolation from one another, each man fending for himself, is a chaotic state of existence. Indeed, this circumstance eventually spirals out of control and leads to the Mabul, or Flood, which yields a new kind of "Adam" in the person of Noah. Without entering into the details of Noah's life, what follows from him is a new phenomenon altogether - society - replete with kings, cultures, languages, etc. Society and its lawfulness are necessary to keep the pre-Flood anarchy from rearing its ugly head once again.

Hence, the "new order" - human beings living not as individuals but as members of a state or community - preserves the essential civilization of humanity and prevents it from sinking so low as to lose all sense of conscience or morality. Seventy nations, each with its own identity, coalesce and become established.

Nevertheless, the compromise inherent in societal structure has its downsides as well. Being part of a community means sacrificing a measure of intellectual freedom and independence, and makes one vulnerable to "groupthink". The story of the Tower of Bavel teaches us that a united humanity is a dangerous thing for this very reason.

Having a multiplicity of languages and cultures is a benefit because it does not allow any one human vision of life to dominate all others and achieve "absolute" status. The mere fact that we know our culture is Western culture, for example, as opposed to Eastern, means that we recognize that many of our judgments, opinions, attitudes and mores are conditioned by our participation in a specific human community and are not universal or inviolable. This keeps our minds open to new ideas and fresh possibilities at all times.

This very flexibility is what leads to the next "development" in Genesis - the emergence of Avraham. Avraham comes on the scene in a world very different from the one observed by Adam or even Noah - a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural human world with a proliferation of customs, languages and gods.

Ironically, society, which serves an important global function of maintaining lawfulness and keeping civilization afloat, is an impediment to Avraham's development as an individual. In order to actualize his potential, Avraham must break away from the very structure of human community that Noah initiated for the good of mankind and that took so many years to become fully established.

The difference in the case of Avraham, however, is his purpose. He separates in order to unify, he tears away in order to build. An Adam-like figure in many respects, Avraham is fiercely independent intellectually, and single-handedly rose above the influences of his parents and peers to discover Monotheism in all of its glory.

On the other hand, Avraham is the successor of Noah - he is a builder who intends not to live apart from society but to establish a new and unique kind of society. Unlike the society of Noah, however, which was founded on the expediency of cooperative living, Avraham's community would be a covenantal community, a nation founded on its relationship with and responsibility to the Creator.

Just as Noah's labor led to his descendants' creation of seventy nations, so too Avraham's vision and self-sacrifice were the unifying force that made a nation out of his seventy descendants. Just as the seventy nations of Noah provided a model of unity in diversity - their common human needs bound them together even as cultural differences distinguished between them - so too did the seventy descendants of Avraham, each with his own unique character and personality, bind themselves to one another through their common understanding of God and sense of purpose.

In short, the emergence of the Jewish nation is Hashem's "third try" at bringing humanity into line with His plan. First Adam, the individual qua individual, failed because of his susceptibility to egoistic and hedonistic temptations.

Secondly Noah, the community man par excellence, failed because the seventy communities he spawned became instruments of human power rather than vessels dedicated to the service of God.

Finally, Avraham the individual community-builder, begat seventy individuals dedicated to God, each of whom played a part in the formation of a remarkable nation that was chosen to be a source of wisdom and guidance to all other nations on Earth.

As we can see, then, the narrative structure of the beginning of Genesis - sketched very briefly here - is the platform upon which the entire Torah rests. Obviously, each component here could be the subject of dozens of posts fleshing out its details and the richness of its nuance, but I felt it was important to lay out the basic framework for us to consider moving forward.

Introduction to Rambam - Continued!

I am proud to announce that I have finally posted the fourth installment of the "Introduction to Rambam's Mishneh Torah" series that began last summer. I thank all members of the readership who encouraged me to continue.

You are all welcome to check out the latest post here.

If you are unfamiliar with the first three posts that form the basis of the current post, you can read or review them here.

Premarital Interpretations

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to the first half of a debate on God's existence between the Conservative Rabbi David Wolpe and outspoken author Sam Harris. I will not discuss the specifics of their arguments in this post, although I reserve the right to do so in the future. For the time being, I would like to address the interpretation of a passage that Sam Harris cited during his attack on Biblical morality. I found it mildly but not altogether surprising that Wolpe failed to challenge Harris' take on these verses, inasmuch as Harris' description of their content did not accord with the traditional understanding at all. (I suppose, as a Conservative Rabbi, it could be that Wolpe himself does not accept the rabbinic interpretation of these verses.)

DISCLAIMER: In this post, I do not plan on dealing with moral issues related to the death penalty in general, nor do I plan on addressing the propriety of punishing adulterers with execution. This are interesting subjects for future posts.

In an attempt to criticize the moral principles of the Bible, Harris referred to the following passage in Deuteronomy:

When a man takes a wife, lives with her and comes to hate her; and he makes false accusations against her, ruining her reputation, and he says, "I married this woman and came close to her, and did not find her to be a virgin"...And if the matter is true - the young woman was not a virgin - then they shall take the young woman out to the door of her father's house. The people of her ciity shall stone her with stones till she dies, for she committed a despicable act in Israel, to behave immorally in the house of her father; and you shall eliminate the evil from your midst.

Harris did not quote these verses; instead, he cited Deuteronomy as teaching that premarital sex should be punished by death.

First of all, we should note that this is NOT the traditional interpretation or application of this passage. Let us clarify the Rabbinic conception of this law before proceeding to analyze the text more carefully.


I. The Traditional View

In Biblical - and subsequently, Talmudic - times, marriage was conducted in two stages, known as erusin or qiddushin and nissuin, respectively. Erusin, sometimes loosely translated as "betrothal", was a state of full marriage in every sense, except that the partners did not yet live together in one household. The transition to cohabitation as a married couple was marked with nissuin, the truly festive celebration now associated with standing under the huppah, the recitation of the seven marital blessings and the eventual consummation of the relationship.

According to the Rabbis, the Book of Deuteronomy quoted above is speaking of a case in which a woman is suspected of having committed adultery during the "erusin" period, while she was legally married but still dwelling in the house of her father. Premarital sexual relations, on the other hand, are not viewed by Jewish law as a capital crime.

Furthermore, the Oral Tradition teaches that the penalty mentioned at the conclusion of the passage in Deuteronomy would only be applied if two bona fide witnesses testified to the fact that a married woman indeed had relations with a man other than her husband. Circumstantial evidence related to her lack of the biological signs of virginity would never be a valid basis for punishment, because such evidence is never admissible in Jewish courts.

(Interestingly, Alexander Rofe, in his book on Deuteronomy, discusses this problem at length, commenting on how the simple meaning of this passages stands in obvious contradiction to several principles of law and morality expressed elsewhere in the Bible. He notes that the distinction between "betrothed" and "married" invoked by the Torah was widely recognized in the Ancient Near East, and discusses the Rabbinical approach to the difficulty we are discussing in this post. His book also - unintentionally and unfortunately - is an excellent example of how superficial, arbitrary and capricious the arguments of academic biblical scholars can be. His rush to attribute consecutive passages in a single text to multiple authors based on the slightest real or imagined stylistic discrepancy between them is noteworthy. So is the nonchalant manner in which he 'emends' texts whenever they conflict with his theory. But he provides nice resources in any case.)

So there are two key differences between Harris' caricature of the Torah's teaching and the traditional interpretation:

1) According to Harris, the Torah speaks of a woman who had premarital sexual relations, whereas according to the Oral Law it is speaking of a woman who was legally married and committed adultery.

2) According to Harris' reading, we mete out the death penalty based solely on the woman's lack of a hymen. However, the Rabbis insist that such a punishment can only be implemented when the testimony of two witnesses indicts the accused. Mere discovery that a woman is not a virgin is of no significance to us whatsoever.

A survey of some non-traditional commentaries reveals that they are divided in their interpretations of the exact "offense" being punished in the text. (Please note I do not have the JPS Commentary on Deuteronomy at my disposal, so I was not able to consult with it for this post).


II. Alter and Harris' View

Robert Alter seems to agree with Harris' hyperliteral approach that premarital sex is being condemned here. However, there are two serious problems with this explanation.

The first is that, if simply not being a virgin is worthy of the death penalty, then the husband who falsely accuses his wife of this "crime" should receive the selfsame punishment. This would be consistent with the general Biblical principle, established in Deuteronomy itself, that one who testifies falsely against another should be made to suffer the same consequence he tried to inflict upon his victim. Yet we see that, in fact, the husband is merely lashed and forced to offer financial compensation to the disgraced family. This suggests that his accusation, had it been confirmed, would not have led to anything more than financial consequences for the girl - which is exactly what we would have expected based on the Torah's treatment of similar cases in Deuteronomy and elsewhere. (Rofe takes note of this point in his book.)

The second and more fundamental problem with this is that we have clear sources in the Torah that demonstrate that premarital relations are not punishable by death. The most obvious is found in the Book of Exodus, where we read as follows:

When a man seduces a virgin girl who is not 'betrothed' and has relations with her; he shall pay the bride-price* and make her his wife. If the father of the girl refuses, then [the seducer] shall pay him silver according to the bride-price of a virgin.

* It was customary in the Ancient Near East that a groom would pay the father of his bride a fixed sum of money as 'compensation' for the loss the father sustained when his daughter left the household. This is called "mohar", loosely translated as "bride price".

We see that the one-night stand between the paramours in the verse is treated as a financial issue more than any kind of moral transgression (not that it is encouraged, but it certainly isn't seriously condemned either.) So the view that premarital relations alone would make a woman liable for the death penalty is not tenable.


III. Plaut's View

Another explanation is put forth in Gunther Plaut's commentary to the Torah. He argues that it is not the woman's lack of virginity that makes her worthy of death, but her misrepresentation of herself as a virgin that is seen as a heinous crime.

Aside from the moral difficulty involved in the notion that telling a rather trivial lie should make one worthy of death, there is a technical problem with this interpretation - it contradicts the verse itself:

For she committed a despicable act in Israel, to behave immorally in the house of her father.

Hence, the implication is that we are punishing this young woman not for the false advertising, but for the behavior she engaged in while in the house of her father. Whatever penalty she receives is due to immoral conduct that took place before the wedding and not to what she claimed or didn't claim to be when she consented to marriage.

Upon closer inspection, this verse raises many questions. First of all, how do we know she engaged in illicit relations in the house of her father? Simply finding that she is not a virgin might give us pause but does not prove this conclusively. And, as a rule, the Torah demands solid evidence in capital cases.

Moreover, why is the girl's activity in her father's house offered as the basis for her punishment? The husband is concerned with her lack of virginity, and apparently wants to divorce her without financial consequences because he was duped into wedding a non-virgin. The notion that the woman was living immorally in her father's home isn't even alluded to in the husband's speech. It is not a part of his "case".


IV. Substantiating the Rabbinical View

For these reasons, I believe the traditional interpretation is most compelling, even on the level of peshat (simple reading).

The woman in question was already an "arusah", betrothed, in her father's house, and when the man married her he discovered she was not a virgin. This created grounds for suspicion, and perhaps an investigation ensued.

It was subsequently determined, through the testimony of two witnesses, that she had been intimate with another man during the period of time when she was already legally wedded to her husband but was still living at home - i.e., that she had committed a despicable act in Israel, to behave immorally in the house of her father. And it was this fact, and not the claim of the husband per se, that causes her to receive capital punishment.

In fact, the term "liznot bet aviha", which we have translated "to act immorally in the house of her father), is reminiscent of the description of Tamar's behavior when her pregnancy is discovered.

As you may recall, the Book of Genesis recounts that Yehuda's son Er married Tamar, but died without children. In keeping with ancient custom of levirate marriage, Er's brother Onan married Tamar after his brother's death; however, he too died without any children. Tamar was promised as a wife to the third brother, Shelah, who would naturally assume the obligation to marry his childless brother's widow just as Onan did. Yehuda, though, fearing for the life of his youngest son, delays the union as long as he possibly can.

After a while, Tamar, living in her father's house awaiting another levirate marriage, becomes impatient and decides to take matters into her own hands. Her father-in-law, Yehuda, is in town, just now recovering emotionally from the recent death of his wife. (Keep in mind that before the giving of the Torah, the custom of levirate marriage was not restricted to brothers of the deceased husband; the husband's father could also stand in.)

Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and waits by the roadside. Not recognizing her as his daughter-in-law, Yehuda propositions her and she accepts. Tamar, now pregnant from her secret encounter with Yehuda, returns to her father's home to bide her time. As her pregnancy progresses, it becomes noticeable to others and they inform Yehuda as follows:

"...Behold, your daughter-in-law Tamar acted immorally (zantah), and now she is pregnant as a result of her indiscretions (zenunim)."

(A more precise rendition of "zantah", "liznot", etc., would probably be "to stray", but it is quite often used in a sexual context so I am taking liberty with the translation to fit the context more smoothly.)

Because of the institution of levirate marriage, Tamar was already considered "betrothed" and was expected to remain faithful to her intended husband for as long as was necessary. She was accused of committing the legal equivalent of adultery in her father's house. And here too, the death penalty was recommended only until it was discovered that her affair was with Yehudah himself, making the union a fulfillment, rather than a violation, of her obligation.

Indeed, from this story it is obvious that premarital relations are not a death penalty offense in the Torah's eyes. If they were, then the fact that Tamar wound up with Yehuda should not have been a mitigating factor - after all, the bottom line is that they were not married at the time of their encounter, and they had relations and conceived children out of wedlock!

This proves, contra Sam Harris, that premarital intercourse is not, in and of itself, treated as a capital offense in the Bible. The presumed guilt of Tamar and her initial condemnation were based on her status as a "married woman in her father's house" who committed adultery, and had nothing to do with promiscuity per se. The same goes for the newly married woman in Deuteronomy.

Third Installment of Rambam on Hametz

...At Resheet Daat.

Moadim Lesimha to all!

An Interesting Fallacy

Biblical critics and adherents of the Documentary Hypothesis (especially outspoken ones in the Blogosphere) often argue along these lines:

It is true that believers can offer convincing responses to some of the problems raised by Biblical Criticism. Use of literary and other innovative approaches to textual analysis may indeed remove some of the difficulties that academics have found with the Torah. However, while traditional scholars need to develop new responses for every one of challenges with which they are confronted, the superiority of the Documentary Hypothesis lies in the fact that it provides a single answer (i.e., multiple authorship) that accounts for all of the questions at once. In other words, Occham's Razor supports the Critical Theory.

The fallacy of this approach should seemingly be obvious but is often overlooked. Occham's Razor is a methodological principle that teaches that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon or set of phenomena is always the preferred one. The reason we prefer simplicity is because more complex explanations require us to posit the existence of additional factors or entities that are superfluous under the circumstances.

Let us take an imaginary example to illustrate this point. When a ball is released midair, it falls to the ground. The same thing happens when an apple, a tire, a kerchief, or a stone is dropped. A scientist will infer that there is a single physical force at work, called gravity, which is responsible for the observed attraction between all material bodies and the Earth.

If another investigator were to come along and suggest an alternative approach to the problem - ex., that one invisible angel carries balls downward, an invisible demon carries apples downward, an invisible fairy carries kerchiefs downward and an invisible troll carries stones downward - we would hesitate to accept it. This is because, whereas the scientist's explanation involves only two basic entities (the Earth and the object) the alternative explanation requires us to introduce additional, unnecessary forces or entities (the various supernatural beings) to account for the same set of phenomena. Only when a simpler explanatory model fails would we be pressed to assume that there are more entities at work than meet the eye.

Academics try to draw an analogy between the aforementioned case and that of traditional scholars' responses to skeptical questions. They believe that the fact that the traditionalists must offer new and innovative analyses and readings to deal with each difficulty they raise is akin to the activity of the alternative "scientist" who invokes a different metaphysical being to account for each instance of falling objects.

The fallacy of Biblical Critics who try to utilize Occham in support of their views is that they confuse the complexity of an explanatory model with the number of problems that require resolution. In other words, let us assume that academics raised 500 difficulties with the Torah's text, and that, for each one of these difficulties, a cogent answer was offered. Again, the temptation is to equate this with a laboratory setting in which 500 observed falling objects are accounted for with 500 different explanations rather than a single, unified, elegant one.

However, in every case regarding the Bible, the erroneous premise of a question, or the clarification of the meaning of a passage in the text, is presented in response to the Critic's challenge. It is quite possible - and in my opinion, quite likely - that each one of the challenges thus deflated was simply ill conceived, superficially based or otherwise flawed from the outset, and that further investigation just served to reveal what was already the case. Nothing new is actually introduced at any point in the process of clarification.

The 500 answers brought to resolve the 500 problems do not require us to invoke the existence of hundreds of newfound entities or causal factors to function as part of a cumbersome explanatory model. That would indeed be a gross violation of Occham's Razor. On the contrary, the premise of the answers is that the problems are merely imaginary, and that a more lucid reading of the text, or a correction of shabby thinking, can eliminate them systematically.

Unlike falling objects - multiple phenomena that should rightly be accounted for with one theory and attributed to a single cause - the traditionalists attempt to show that the questions of the skeptics never were real 'phenomena' to begin with! The believing scholars are not introducing new factors to explain something, because a difficulty is not itself a "something". Rather, they are delving into the text to expose the shaky foundations of the academics' challenges and, as a result, the problems dissipate of their own accord.

In summary, problems are not phenomena, they represent a lack of understanding in need of correction. So it should come as no surprise that multiple answers are offered for multiple problems, since each difficulty may need to be addressed and disposed of separately. Occham's Razor, on the other hand, states that we should posit the smallest number of really existing causal factors to account for the greatest number of really existing observed phenomena possible, thus minimizing the assumptions we make in our explanatory models. This has no relevance whatsoever to the literary and/or logical rejoinders offered by traditionalists to counter the claims of skeptics and Biblical Critics.

On the other hand, taking a single, unified text, accepted and understood as such for millenia, and attributing it to multiple authors with multiple motivations at different periods of time, whose work was subsequently covered up by anonymous redactors and priests who then presented it in its current form to a gullible population long after it was purported to have been written - now that sounds like a violation of Occham's Razor if I've ever heard one....

Rambam on Hametz II

...Has just been posted on Resheet Daat. Enjoy, and please leave feedback, comments, criticism, etc.!

Rambam on Hametz

Please take a moment to read the first installment of a new mini-series of Pesah-themed posts at Resheet Daat, in which I lay out several difficulties with the first chapter of the Rambam's Laws of Hametz and Matzah.

The difficulties identified there will serve as the point of departure for an in-depth analysis of Maimonides' remarkable approach to the prohibition of hametz on Passover. I hope to have the first follow-up post completed either later today or by tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates and additions on all three of my blogs!

Off The Topic

A classic question that can be asked regarding the Haggada is as follows:

The text relates that even outstanding scholars are obligated to retell the story of the Exodus on the first night of Passover. The Haggada then describes the famous "Bnei Beraq" Seder, in which rabbinic luminaries engage in a discussion about the mitsvah of recalling the Exodus on a daily basis. Specifically, they debate whether or not this mitsvah must be fulfilled at nighttime or only during the day.

The difficulty is that the discussion of the Rabbis, albeit tangentially related to the Exodus, has nothing to do with Passover at all. Their focus is on a commandment that applies 365 days a year, and is not specifically related to Pesah. Why would Rabbis who are supposed to be exploring the depth of the Exodus narrative, or the intricacies of the laws of Passover, instead delve into laws about mentioning the Exodus in the context of an ordinary, daily prayer service? It is especially surprising that this apparently off-topic conversation is included in the Haggada itself, as a "paradigm" example of how scholars should conduct themselves at the Seder!

I believe that the answer to this question lies in a deeper appreciation of the pivotal role that the Exodus plays in our knowledge of and relationship to Hashem. The foundation of the Jewish people's recognition of God was established through the experience of the Exodus, and is perpetuated from generation to generation at the Seder. The primary objective of the enslavement, plagues and eventual liberation from Egypt was to educate and enlighten the Jewish people, providing them with clear evidence of the existence and providence of the Creator. This newfound understanding was intended to serve as a basis for their acceptance and observance of the Torah and its commandments moving forward.

Since our knowledge of Hashem is rooted in our grasp of the lessons of Yetsiat Mitsrayim, the more profoundly we understand the narrative and its implications, the more meaningful our relationship with God and His Torah should become. Thus, the Seder night - a time consecrated for the purpose of reviewing, refining and advancing our comprehension of the Exodus - enables us to rededicate ourselves to the observance of Torah and to further develop and deepen the intellectual foundations of our belief and practice.

Each time we make reference to the Exodus during the coming year - whether in prayer, on holidays or in other mitsvah contexts - we will be, in effect, hearkening back to the results of our "research" on the Seder night. And, truth be told, the extent to which we advance our understanding of Yetsiat Mitsrayim during this Pesah holiday is most likely where it will remain until next Pesah.

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that the conversation of our Sages at their Seder revolved around ways in which their level of understanding of the Exodus would impact their intellectual and religious experience even after Passover. They scholars of Israel perceived the exploration of the meaning of the Exodus as a process that would set the tone for their qabbalat ol malchut shamayim - acceptance of Hashem's kingship - all year round. Thus, the logical focus of their discussion was the mitsvah to remember Yetsiat Mitsrayim on a daily basis, a mitsvah that is incorporated into the Shema - our declaration of God's sovereignty - each and every day and night.

This interpretation is bolstered by the "postscript" to the story. The Rabbis' students arrive to inform their teachers that the time for the morning Shema has come and they must leave the Seder table to pray the morning service. Most people assume that this addendum to the tale is included just to show us that the Rabbis stayed up all night because of the intensity of their study.

However, based upon this post, I would suggest that there is a deeper concept implied in this addition to the narrative. The Rabbis went directly from their Seder to the recitation of the morning Shema. They spent all night establishing a renewed foundation for their understanding of God, and this process culminated in the use of that foundation as a platform for the affirmation of Hashem's sovereignty the next morning. Their physical behavior - linking Seder to Shema - serves as a dramatic metaphor for the intellectual link between the level of insight into the Exodus they acquired at the Seder and the quality of their knowledge of Hashem and observance of His mitsvot afterward.

May we all merit to make substantial breakthroughs in our understanding and service of Hashem this Passover. Amen.

Guide to the Laws of Pesah

Please feel free to download the newly updated version for 5768.

Pesah Review

Please allow me to review some of the material I have presented regarding Pesah thus far. I am doing this in part to refresh my own memory and in part to remind myself where I "left off" in discussing these subjects so that I can identify an ideal point of departure for a new post.

Some posts from last year on the subject of Passover:

The Relationship Between Pesah and Matsah
This post explores the 14th and 15th of Nisan, respectively, and how they each reflect one of the two dimensions of the Exodus experience that are commemorated on Passover and are "integrated" on the Seder night.

Pesah and Matsah and Maror - But Why?
This post discusses the reason why explaining the mitsvot observed on Pesah is considered to be the most fundamental component of retelling the story of the Exodus.

This post, and (more importantly) its follow-up post here, also elucidate themes that are highly relevant to Pesah, despite the fact that their primary focus is on Sukkot.

I'm Back!!!

I have been planning to return to blogging for quite a while; in the meantime, a good seven months managed to slip through my fingers!

At some point, the very fact that I had been out of the game for so long - the awkwardness of simply posting new material without offering an extensive explanation for my absence - became, in and of itself, a cause for hesitation on my part.

Then it happened - just as I had finally prepared myself to bite the bullet and post again, I was literally prevented from blogging by "Blogger", because I was suspected of maintaining a "spam blog". As is often the case with frustrating situations in life, my inability to blog actually fueled my desire to do so. This morning, I discovered that the ban had been lifted, and all of the anxious anticipation that had been building up for two weeks inspired me to compose this re-introductory piece.

It's official - I am back in the blogosphere, and over the weeks and months to come I plan to remain active here on a regular basis. So please continue to check back for new posts, and spread the word to readers who may have given up on me by now.

Sukkot Material

It is high time for revisiting this important article from last year. Although probably the longest blog post I've ever published, I think it contains lots of food for thought for the holiday.

This post and this post, both of which compare and contrast Pesah and Sukkot, are also newsworthy today. As you can see, the latter post leaves a cliffhanger that was never resolved. I will attempt to blog on it over the holiday.

Sorry for the delay in bringing this material to your attention. Moadim Lesimha!

New Rambam Material

Another installment in the series of studies in the Rambam's Mishneh Torah is now available on Resheet Daat, my recently resurrected blog.

New posts on Vesom Sechel and Ask The Rabbi should be appearing over the next couple of days - stay tuned.

By the way, the posts on Maimonides have been written for publication in a weekly newsletter disseminated by the Maimonides Heritage Center, an organization with which I have recently become affiliated.

This explains the startling regularity of their appearance, at least compared to the more sporadic posting trends that are generally seen on my other blogs.

Finally!!!

Drum roll please...after a year of waiting, my blog dedicated to the thought of Maimonides - Resheet Daat - has its first post!

Thank you to all those who encouraged me to finally get going with that blog.

Laws of the Three Weeks and Tisha B'av

For those of you who haven't visited my other blog lately, please note that a brief compendium of the laws of the Three Weeks and Tisha B'av - entitled Nehamat Yaaqov - has recently been posted there.

The Nature of Teshuva

This is an essay on Teshuva (repentance) that I composed four years ago. Although it is on the lengthy side for a blog post, it is very timely. Since it is an old piece, I would especially appreciate your constructive feedback. There is a good chance it could use some revision.

“Take words with you, and return to Hashem...” (Hosea 14:3)

As we enter the period of the Three Weeks each year, the theme of self-improvement becomes one of the focal points of our thought. We are strongly encouraged to involve ourselves in the process of teshuva, or repentance, at this time. The Jewish notion of repentance, however, is by no means simple or self-evident. What exactly is teshuva, and how does one go about doing it?

The Torah provides precise guidelines for the fulfillment of all of its commandments; thus, if we intend to observe the commandments correctly, it is incumbent upon us to consult these guidelines as a matter of course. The commandment to repent of our sins is no exception to this rule - it encompasses a host of halakhot and principles that are indispensable to its proper performance. Therefore, before we can repent in a halakhically meaningful way, we must take up the study of the Torah’s unique approach to teshuva.

The Rambam’s Introduction - The Mitzvah of Teshuva

Without question, if we wish to develop a better understanding of the subject of repentance, we must turn to the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam. The Rambam was the first of our Sages to provide us with a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the topic of teshuva, and his accomplishment in this area remains unequaled to this day. Careful attention to the Rambam’s formulation of the Laws of Repentance is sure to reward us with valuable insight into their deeper significance. As an introduction to these laws, the Rambam writes:

“This section contains one positive commandment, namely, that the sinner should repent before Hashem and confess.”

This brief statement raises a powerful question: what sense does it make for the Torah to institute a commandment to repent? If a person who has transgressed one of the laws of the Torah subsequently decides to repent, he will simply go back to keeping the original commandment he violated. He does not need to be commanded to heed a commandment that already exists! If, on the other hand, he has not yet resolved to abandon his sin, there is no reason to think that an additional commandment will help him. He can choose to neglect the commandment to repent just like he opted to neglect the mitzvah he has already violated!

It is also noteworthy that the Rambam uses an apparently superfluous phrase to describe repentance, calling it repentance before Hashem. Of course, the Rambam is not alone in using this kind of terminology. The Tanach often refers to repentance as returning to Hashem. Nevertheless, this concept is very difficult to comprehend. When a person repents, it appears that he is attempting to return to the observance of a particular commandment, not to Hashem! The association of teshuvah with standing before Hashem does not seem like an accurate depiction of what occurs in real repentance where one’s conduct, rather than one’s God, is the center of focus. Simply put, how is the notion of being in the presence of God relevant to the process of repentance?

Repentance and Confession

As our investigation of the Rambam’s teachings progresses, further difficulties begin to emerge. The first chapter of the Laws of Repentance commences with these words:

All of the commandments of the Torah, whether positive or negative - if a person should violate one of them, whether willfully or inadvertently - when he repents and turns away from his sin, he is obligated to confess before God, Blessed is He, as it is written: “A man or a woman, when they do any sin...and they shall confess the sin that they did.” This refers to verbal confession. This confession is a positive commandment. How does one confess? He says: “Please Hashem! I have erred, sinned, and rebelled before you, and I have done such-and-such. Now I am regretful and embarrassed by my behavior and I will never return to this thing again.” This is the essential confession. And anyone who makes a more lengthy confession and elaborates on this topic is praiseworthy.

The first feature of this passage that requires some explanation is the repetitive clause “when he repents and turns away from his sin.” Isn’t repentance and turning away from sin the same thing? The Rambam appears to be repeating himself unnecessarily here.

The concept of viduy, or confession, is also difficult to understand. Ostensibly, in requiring us to repent, the Torah’s primary objective is that we stop behaving in ways that violate its laws. One can certainly make a firm decision to change one’s behavior for the better without verbalizing it; in the end, it is what a person does that should matter, not what a person says.

Yet, it is clear that the Torah sees confession as indispensable to teshuva. The Rambam reflects this by counting teshuva and viduy as a single, unitary commandment as well as by mentioning repentance and confession together throughout his treatment of the subject. Hence, we must ask, what benefit do we gain by translating our repentance into words? How does this make our teshuva more complete?

Additionally problematic is the Rambam’s recommendation that the sinner elaborate on his confession as much as possible. What room is there for elaboration in a viduy? Seemingly, once the sin has been identified, remorse has been expressed, and a resolution to change has been adopted, there is nothing left to say. Whether one’s confession is long or short, what we are most interested in is whether the sinner discontinues his inappropriate behavior. There should be no room for differences in degree - either a person has abandoned his error, or he has not.

Defining Teshuva

In order to resolve these difficulties, we must examine the concepts of sin and teshuva more carefully. Specifically, we must consider the fact that a person who violates one of the commandments is doing a lot more than acting inappropriately. His sin is not a random occurrence that can be viewed separately from his personal beliefs and convictions. On the contrary, through his action he is demonstrating something about his entire value system: he is making a statement about what he envisions - or does not envision - as his purpose in life.

An example will better illustrate this point. The Torah demands that we restrict ourselves to the consumption of kosher food. Eating kosher is instrumental to our development as human beings because it keeps us aware of our spiritual objective in life even as we are involved in taking care of our physical needs. Observance of kashrut demonstrates our belief that eating cannot be significant in its own right unless it is a means to our ultimate goal - the service of our Creator.

Hence, an individual who succumbs to temptation and consumes non-kosher food has not simply committed a technical violation of Torah law. He has indicated through his action that he is not fully dedicated to the philosophical principles of Judaism. He has not adopted an unequivocal set of life priorities - he remains torn between the lure of instinctual gratification for its own sake and his desire to develop his mind and soul. In a moment of weakness, his baser drives grabbed hold of him and overpowered his intellect, leading him to neglect an important commandment. The violation itself, however, was only a symptom of a more basic conflict within his personality.

When we become aware that we have committed a sin, then, this should serve as a stimulus to deeper reflection on the purpose of our existence. We should not write it off as a fluke but should perceive it as a sign that we have moved too far in the wrong direction philosophically, that we have not sufficiently clarified our ultimate priorities in life. We should realize that our action indicates that we are ambivalent about some aspects of the Torah’s values and directives, and that, as a result, we still struggle with them in practice. This in turn should motivate us to immerse ourselves in Torah study in order to gain a clearer sense of the purpose of our existence and to increase our awareness of how important its teachings and mitzvot are for our development. We will emerge from this quest with a more definitive set of principles and priorities to guide our lives - and, as a natural result, we will feel compelled to abandon our misguided ways. This, in fact, is the reason why the Rambam uses the double language “when a person repents and turns from his sin” when he introduces the mitzvah of doing teshuva. It is the internal, transformational process of self-reflection, value clarification and study that constitutes true teshuva - the behavior change is, as it were, a by-product of this monumental effort.

Teshuva - A Unique Commandment

Now we are in a better position to understand why repentance must be counted as an independent commandment. It is not equivalent to simply resuming the observance of the mitzvah that has been neglected. Even if the Torah had not included a mitzvah to repent, a person who ate non-kosher food would be expected to return to a kosher diet as soon as possible in order to avoid further violations of the formal laws of kashrut. This change in behavior alone would be expected as a function of the original commandments to keep kosher, with or without an additional commandment to repent.

This change in behavior, however, would not constitute real teshuva. The commandment to do teshuva requires a complex set of operations that transcend the realm of behavior and focus on the values and beliefs of the sinner. When we commit a transgression, we are obligated to delve into our personal convictions and correct the philosophical error(s) that led to the sin. We are commanded to refine our understanding of our purpose in life and the choices we must make if we are to achieve that purpose.

Although the person who decides to resume his observance of kashrut will do his best to avoid future kashrut infractions, he will still be required - as a function of his past violations - to engage in the more introspective process of teshuvah at some point in time. By introducing a separate mitzvah of teshuvah, the Torah teaches us that we have not fully repented for our transgressions until we have taken the time to explore the depth of their significance. Superficial changes in our habits are not enough to satisfy the Torah’s requirement of teshuva.

The Role of Confession

The new insights we have developed can also help us to explain why confession is such a central feature of repentance. Human speech is a reflection of the ability of human beings to think conceptually. Indeed, from the way an individual communicates an idea it is easy to measure the coherence and precision of his understanding. When a person cannot put what he is thinking into words, we tend to assume that his musings are not yet developed enough to be expressed in speech. Said simply, the use of language is intimately related to the use of the mind.

If teshuva were synonymous with bettering our actions, confession would have no intrinsic relationship to it. Repentance would be a matter of the body while confession would be a matter of the soul. One would theoretically be possible without the other. However, now that we see that teshuva is, in reality, a process of thought and analysis, it follows that - if we have truly completed the process - we should be able to summarize our conclusions in a final declarative statement.

At the culminating point of our introspection, we are challenged to demonstrate the clarity of our newfound convictions by expressing them verbally. If we cannot rise to the challenge, our repentance is by no means complete - our thought is not yet clear enough to be articulated. We must continue to seek a better understanding of our personal issues until we have a firm grasp on them, until we can use language to describe them.

By the same token, when we have made real progress in our soul-searching, our confession would be expected to mirror the profundity and complexity of our self-analysis. This is why the Rambam states that a confession has the potential for a great deal of expansion and elaboration. The more thoroughly we have delved into the significance of our transgressions and the examination of our life priorities, the richer and more descriptive our confessions will be.

Returning “Before Hashem”

At this stage it becomes clear why doing teshuva is always described as returning to, or before, Hashem. It is true that the immediate stimulus to repentance is usually a specific violation of Torah law that occurs at a particular time in a particular place. However, the process of repentance moves beyond the superficial features of a transgression to an analysis of its underlying causes and a reflection on the ultimate purpose of our lives. Teshuva culminates not merely in the rejection of incorrect values but in the sinner’s rededication to the highest human priority - the quest for knowledge of Hashem.

As a result of his soul-searching, the penitent’s awareness of his true position in the Universe has deepened tremendously; thus, he now stands in the presence of Hashem, humbly refocused on the meaning of his own existence.

"Cause" for Confusion

The First Cause Argument for God's existence has a lengthy and distinguished history. Like many of the classic metaphysical proofs, it is widely believed to have been "debunked" by David Hume and similar skeptics. However, the fact remains that many contemporary philosophers still take the First Cause Argument very seriously.

As most of the readers of this blog probably already know, I was involved in extensive blog-debates over the past couple of weeks, several of which revolved around the validity of the FC Proof. I defended the argument and maintained that most of the challenges raised against it were based upon misunderstandings of its premises. In order to clarify my position, I will present the traditional form of the proof and then offer some additional commentary. The proof runs as follows:

All material entities are dependent upon external causes that account for their existence. However, an infinite chain of dependent entities is impossible. Therefore, there must be an entity outside of the chain of material entities upon which the material chain as a whole is dependent. This entity would of necessity lie outside of the framework of space and time.

Two objections are typically lodged against this formulation:

1. It is not true that material entities all have causes. Although we see that the changes that occur to matter and energy are caused, that tells us nothing about the origin of matter itself. Maybe it was always here.

2. If we are going to posit that "something" is ultimately uncaused, why not simply say that the first material entity was uncaused? Why assume the existence of something outside of the material realm altogether?

Since I believe that I have already addressed the second objection satisfactorily in the past, I will set it aside for now and focus on the first. I may return to discuss the second issue in a future post.

The first objection is based upon a misconception that unfortunately plagues most discussions of these issues. The hidden assumption underlying #1 is that the definition of a "cause" is an agent that brings a certain object or entity into existence at a particular time. Therefore, if matter is eternal and therefore never "came" into existence, then this means that there is no need to assign it a cause.

This interpretation, however, is not what the philosophers intended when they proposed the First Cause proof. In fact, many of the thinkers who subscribed to the proof actually believed that the Universe was eternal! They simply employed the term "cause" differently than we do.

We tend to think of causes in a mechanistic, temporal sense. The bat causes the ball to fly through the air. Ingestion of the medicine causes the body to heal. This model of causality is derived from Descartes and is a product of relatively modern thought. It is not compatible with the framework in which the classical thinkers operated.

Causality, as understood in the classical context, means that upon which a thing's existence or nature depends. We are all the results of myriad "causes" that explain the fact that we exist and account for the way in which we exist. These factors may be genetic, environmental, or even cosmic in substance.

When we trace the chain of causality back far enough, we eventually hit a dead end. We come upon the most elementary entity, the basic building block that served as the cause for everything else in the Universe, yet the question remains - why does it exist and have the properties it has? By definition, in order to "explain" the first material entity's nature, we must make recourse to something beyond it.

This is why I would suggest that rather than utilizing the word "cause", we consider using the word "reason" instead. "Reason" doesn't have the same mechanistic overtones as "cause."

The proof would then run like this: Every material entity has a reason for its existence that is external to itself. That reason, in turn, has a reason for its existence. Yet an infinite chain of explanation is impossible. Therefore, we must conclude that there is a first entity whose reason for existence is inherent.

An example may clarify my point. The arrangement of molecules in a particular stone is attributable to numerous causal factors external to the stone. Those causal factors - local environmental conditions, for instance - wound up that way due to more fundamental, geological determinants that pertain to the makeup of the Earth's core. These geological determinants themselves are the product of broader astronomical determinants, etc.

But there is a limit to how far back we can trace the chain of "reasons" that account for the molecules in our stone. Ultimately, there must be a reason why the first determinant - the point from which everything else in the Universe initially emerged - existed precisely the way it did to begin with. The determinant of matter/energy itself can only be found outside of the framework of the material world.

It is important to note that, even if all of the causal factors or "reasons" existed simultaneously and from all eternity, the interdependence and hierarchical structure of the various entities would still be apparent. There would still be determining factors and determined factors. There would still be a need to account for the very first determined factor, by finding a determining factor external to space and time.

I feel that, by refining our use of language in this manner, our discussions of the First Cause Argument can proceed more thoughtfully and constructively.

Admittedly, this post is being completed off the top of my head rather late in the evening, so further installments will be necessary before any treatment of this subject can even approach comprehensiveness.

However, since I will be unable to post again until Wednesday at the earliest, I thought I should contribute something to the debate that can serve as food for thought in the interim.

Minor Delay

Sorry for the delay in posting my latest piece on the First Cause Argument...My schedule was unexpectedly complicated over the past two days, and this prevented me from finishing it.

I hope to post the final draft on Saturday night.

My belief is that the approach taken in the new piece has the potential to bring further clarity to the whole discussion.

Perhaps some of the misunderstandings will be laid to rest once and for all, and more fruitful analyses of the merits and limitations of the proof can begin.

Shabbat Shalom!

Revisiting the Red Heifer

This week's Parasha opens with the law of the Red Heifer and the process of ritual purification from contact with the dead. It is the perfect opportunity to revisit a worthwhile post from earlier this year.

Stay tuned...I hope to complete a post defending the First Cause Proof for God's existence later today.

The Sin of Moshe

Another outstanding literary analysis of Parashat Hashavua, courtesy of Rabbi Elchanan Samet.

As he explains in the concluding section of the piece, his interpretation of the text corroborates the Rambam's understanding of Moshe's error at Merivah.

You can read an abridged version of his essay translated into English here.

Erring By Design

The Argument from Design is one of the classic and most time-honored rational proofs for the existence of God. Yet its primary line of reasoning not only appealed to the ancient thinkers - indeed, it continues to enjoy popularity among a good number of contemporary scientists and philosophers to this day.

The essential thrust of the Argument from Design is this: The Universe exhibits a remarkable complexity, lawfulness, and order throughout. In the biological realm, the appearance of intentional design manifest in the harmonious functioning of living organisms is unmistakable. It seems profoundly unreasonable to attribute these phenomena to mere happenstance. Thus, we must infer that an intelligent Being is in fact responsible for them.

Enlightenment Period skeptics, beginning with David Hume, have challenged the Argument from Design on many counts, and their objections have been reviewed and rebutted by more recent thinkers. However, bad habits die hard, so moderns frequently declare that the Argument has been debunked, and tend to recycle even the most dubious of Hume's critiques as if they were beyond reproach. Perhaps the most talked-about contemporary atheist who has levelled Humean attacks against the Argument from Design is Richard Dawkins, whom our own favorite blogger-skeptic has borrowed from in his discussion of the topic.

The truth of the matter is that the objections to the Argument from Design are not very impressive philosophically. Many of them are flawed so seriously that they are naught more than chains of fallacy in disguise. In this post, we will confine ourselves to those counterarguments deemed by our friend to be worthy of an appearance on his blog. His anti-Argument-from-Design is formulated there as follows:

If you say you need an N+1 creator to design an N, then God is even more amazing than the universe, so you have simply pushed the question back one level, and now you have the problem of who designed God. And if you want to say that God doesn’t need to be designed for some incomprehensible reason, then you can say the same about the universe, for some incomprehensible reason.

Now, if you are philosophically inclined, reading this may already have given you a serious headache. But let's examine the argument he is presenting and attempt to define why it is flawed.

Basically, the counterargument proceeds like this: The Universe is incredibly complex, amazing, etc. This leads us to think a Creator must be behind it. But this Creator, in order to have produced such an amazing Universe, must Himself be even greater than that Universe. So, if we are going to ask how the Universe could be so intricate in the absence of a Creator, then we must ask the same about God - how could a Being so amazing possibly exist without a Creator?

The error in reasoning here is simple. When we observe the Universe's breathtaking harmony, we are faced with two options - either this order is a mere accidental grouping of blind material forces into lawful patterns, or it is an intentional design expressing itself through matter. The former seems terribly unlikely and forced, so we choose the latter.

But it is crucial to understand why the first option is counterintuitive - it is because we don't expect inert, brute matter to become organized into patterns of its own accord. There is nothing in pure physicality that suggests that it should have to or would tend to conform to any kind of intelligible principle whatsoever. So we naturally conclude that this must be the result of an external cause who designed the Universe on purpose.

God, on the other hand, is not something we believe to have emerged "by accident" from the chaotic motions of physical particles. He is a metaphysical Being devoid of any material properties - the source of order as opposed to an ordered entity. Wondering who designed God is like wondering who "designed" a concept - the term is simply inappropriate, since ideas are not constructed from raw materials; they are discovered or perceived. Attempting to apply the notion of design to God is ultimately an exercise in futility.

Considering an example of design drawn from our earthly experience will clarify this point. An architect formulates a coherent layout for the construction of a new home. That model is, so to speak, "imposed upon" the wood, brick, plaster, etc., by workmen who implement the instructions of the architect, and the result is a house that physically embodies the conceptual plan. Neither the materials alone, nor the architectural scheme alone, would ever bring anything particularly impressive into existence by themselves. It is only when the vision in the mind of the artisan finds expression in a physical medium that we see "design" manifesting itself.

So the question of the design of the Universe, which is comprised of matter, is legitimate, while the question "who designed God" is not.

Our good friend continues:

Now some people will argue that God is simple, and hence He fulfills the N-1 option above. But what kind of ‘simple’ is this? Not any kind of ‘simple’ that we can comprehend. Basically it’s just playing a word game, calling something simple when by any normal human standard we would call it complex.

This part of the argument betrays hazy thinking in the domains of theology and science. The premise underlying it is that whatever is responsible for the Universe must be as complicated, if not moreso, than the Universe itself.

Upon reflection, however, it should be obvious that this is not the case. Scientific theories aim to explain the complex phenomena observed in the world through the use of simple, general constructs that have the ability to account for an enormous number of particulars. Time and time again, science has revealed that what manifests itself to our senses as staggering complexity presents itself to our minds as the expression of a small set of fundamental principles. In fact, scientists' ultimate dream is to formulate a single Theory of Everything that will elegantly account for all observed phenomena in the material world.

If the skeptic's reasoning were correct, then this objective would be deemed absurd or even impossible from the get-go, since any theory of such grandeur would of necessity be more cumbersome and intricate than the subject matter it explains.

To summarize, then, we see that the concept of positing God as the ultimate source of the harmony in the Universe is actually quite logical - it is the natural culmination of the process of understanding our world. At first we take in a wealth of sensory information and feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of our environment. Then we slowly but surely move from the material details to the realm of the theoretical and conceptual, and begin to see myriad phenomena as expressions of an underlying set of rational principles or laws of nature. As we transition from experience to principle and from data point to concept, we similarly transition from complexity to simplicity and from chaos to order. This process of simplification and unification eventually leads us to the recognition of the Source of the majestic system of physical law itself - the Creator of the Universe.

The Perils of Skepticism

Recently, in a discussion of his conflicts regarding religious beliefs, a well known skeptic in the blogosphere wrote the following:

Some things I am on the fence about. Some things I am off the fence. Sometimes I am on the fence and then get off. Sometimes I get off and then get back on. Sometimes I am off the fence, but then have a chnage of heart and jump over to the other side of the fence. Sometimes I am on the fence, and fall off unintentionally. Sometimes I am on the fence but think I'm off it, but really I'm on it. Sometimes I think I'm on the fence, but really I'm off it.

This reminded me of a famous statement in the second chapter of Maimonides' Laws of Idolatry:

We are commanded not to consider any thought that might lead us to uproot one of the fundamental principles of the Torah. We should not turn our minds to it, reflect and be drawn after the imaginings of our hearts. Because a person's mind is limited, and not all minds are capable of grasping the truth accurately. And if just any individual were to be drawn after the musings of his heart, he would end up destroying the world on account of his limited intellect.

How so? Sometimes he will occupy himself with idolatry, and other times he will reflect upon the oneness of the Creator - maybe it is true, or maybe not; [or he will muse about] what is above, below, before or after the Universe. Sometimes he will consider prophecy - maybe it is authentic, maybe not. Sometimes he will think about the Torah - maybe it is divine, maybe not. Yet he does not know the principles by which to judge these matters such that he should grasp the truth properly, thus he eventually becomes a heretic.

About this, the Torah states, "do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes." That is to say, everyone should not follow the inclinations of his limited intellect and imagine that his thinking process has led him to the truth.

Certainly the Rambam does not intend to discourage thinking. What he is emphasizing is that an individual who wishes to investigate the most basic questions of religious meaning must be a person of profound humility who possesses the requisite background knowledge and the necessary training to succeed in his quest. Even someone with all of these qualities will fail unless he exercises extreme caution throughout the process, and carefully distinguishes between issues he is prepared to tackle and those for which he is not yet ready.

One who doesn't have the prerequisite qualifications for this course of study is bound to fail. He will move back and forth between different ideas based on their intuitive appeal - "maybe it is true, maybe not" - and will be unable to arrive at secure conclusions. As Maimonides explains in several places in the Guide for the Perplexed, the reason for this flip-flopping is a reliance - conscious or unconcious - on untrained intuition.

A person with an extensive background of study in a field of knowledge will develop an intuition grounded in reality. His gut feeling about an idea will carry weight because it is rooted in authentic intellectual cognition. This is why great physicists, mathematicians and Talmudists often legitimately and successfully employ their intellectual intuition in the course of theorizing about problems in their respective subject areas.

In one famous incident, Rabbi Soloveitchik z"l, known as the Rav, was asked for evidence to support a legal ruling he had offered. He responded that his conclusion was intuitive; nonetheless, he observed, "my intuition is halacha." Having been immersed for countless years in the wisdom and methodology of the Talmud and Codes, the Rav harbored no doubt that, when a specific formulation of a Torah concept appealled to him, this appeal had a rational basis and was not merely subjective.

A novice, on the other hand, has only his imagination and his emotions from which to draw intuitive guidance. Naturally, these agencies are among the most fickle and unreliable in the human psyche. They can provide the appearance of certainty one moment, only to replace it with doubt and skepticism in the next. Unfortunately, our innate desire to arrive at the truth and to investigate the mysteries of existence often causes us to overestimate our competence and delve into subjects that are beyond our ken. With nothing but shaky intuition leading us, we have a very slim chance of success.

This is where the benefit of mesorah, authentic intellectual tradition, comes in. All human civilizations transmit a cultural mesora of some sort to their citizens. This tradition shapes the values, practices and beliefs of the members of that civilization from earliest youth. Similarly, the mesorah of Judaism provides us with a system of metaphysical principles and mitsvot that serve as a basic framework for a lifetime of intellectual and spiritual growth. In its absence, the vast majority of people would either spend their lifetimes in philosophical perplexity, or be overwhelmed by the pressures of instinct and devote themselves to hedonism or materialism.

Of course, skeptics will question the tradition and wonder why they should accept it to begin with. I have already discussed this point on Vesom Sechel in the past, and hope to revisit it again soon.

Here it is in a nutshell: Judaism offers a systematic, rational approach to meaningful living. Its principles and structure are unique, profound and coherent. And the authenticity of its mesorah is rooted in the historical experience of an entire nation rather than resting upon personal testimonials alone. I think this makes it by far the most reasonable choice available to a thinking individual who is interested in conducting his or her life prudently, consistently and reflectively.

Relying on Miracles

Sorry for the delay in posting...My schedule hasn't permitted me to write much lately, but I am beginning to get back on track!

In this week's Parasha we read about the famous incident of the spies. Moshe sent twelve representatives of the Tribes of Israel on a fact-finding mission to the Land of Canaan. As we all know, the would-be spies utilized their trip as an opportunity to orchestrate a quasi-rebellion against Moshe and, as a result, the Jews were condemned to wander in the desert for forty years.

The commentaries debate whether Moshe sent spies because it was appropriate to do so, or whether this choice was actually a concession to the weakness of the Jewish people who needed reassurance before their entry into the land.

The Ramban argues that it stands to reason that Moshe would have sent spies regardless of the feelings and attitudes of the people. Although the Jews were charged with the responsibility of conquering the Land of Israel, Hashem expected them to conduct this campaign prudently and not to rely on miracles. As a part of normal military strategizing, Moshe would certainly have sent agents to gather data that would help him formulate a swift and efficient approach to capturing the Land. Moshe would have proceeded like any other political leader in this respect and would not have blindly and simplistically placed his trust in Divine intervention.

The Ramban's interpretation, however, raises an interesting difficulty. In Parashat Lech-Lecha, the Torah tells us that, immediately after Abraham arrived in Canaan, there was a famine in the land and he was compelled to relocate to Egypt. Although most commentaries regard this choice as appropriate and wise, the Ramban is an exception. He criticizes Avraham for lacking the faith necessary to remain in Israel despite the scarcity of food. Since Hashem had instructed him to settle in Canaan, Avraham should have trusted that he would be well taken care of even during a period of hardship.

In another post, I discussed the more traditional view of this narrative about Avraham and the lessons we can derive from it. It is certainly possible (and, in my opinion, more intuitive) to read the story of Abraham's trip to Egypt differently, and not to construe it as a failure on his part. Nonetheless, this is how the Ramban interprets Avraham's choice in this matter - as an error of major proportions.

The question, then, is clear. In the case of Avraham, the Ramban suggests that unwillingness to rely upon Divine intervention is a defect. By contrast, when it comes to the story of the spies, the Ramban states that, as a matter of course, a person should not rely upon miracles, and that it would have been incumbent upon Moshe to dispatch spies on an investigative mission before leading the Jews into Israel. Why does the Ramban distinguish between these two circumstances? Is reliance upon Divine aid praiseworthy or inappropriate?

I believe that the Ramban would answer as follows: Avraham was (ostensibly) commanded by Hashem to dwell in the Land of Canaan. Remaining there was, in and of itself, fulfillment of a Divine decree, and Avraham should have been willing to take risks in order to do so. There was no excuse for him to leave and thereby contravene Hashem's instructions. Avraham had reason to assume that God would provide for him in Israel no matter what, since he was involved in the performance of a mitzvah that could not be completed otherwise. Put simply, being in Israel was the mitsvah.

On the other hand, the commandment given to the Israelites in the desert was to conquer and settle in the Land of Canaan. But making decisions about how they would accomplish this objective was their responsibility entirely. Because it was only a means to an end, the process of conquest and settlement had to be carried out with careful forethought, extensive planning and thorough deliberation. There was no guarantee of miraculous assistance unless the Jewish people did their part to make the mission a success. Divine intervention would be experienced on an as-needed basis only!