Deluge of Doubt Torah & "Natural" Ethics (Ki Teitzei),

Indecisive. Weak. Not good enough. Am I doing the right thing? Accusations and self doubt are part of the semi-conscious soundtrack of my mind and I am not alone. These thoughts can be distortions of reality and unreasonable. However, living with uncertainty is also a strength.

The verbal onslaught is not just internal. There is a constant stream of emotive arguments for one course of action or its opposite. For example, on Sunday night I listened to Michael Kirby. A dignified, and distinguished former judge of the High Court of Australia. He observed, how despite the fact that people praise him for his various accomplishments because he is gay he is treated like a second class citizen in his own country. In a telling reflection of the ferocity of the current public debate, he insisted that ‘he was not bullying anyone in putting forward his view’.     

Some people seek refuge from uncertainty in religious absolutes. However this depends on the question of whether the Torah claims to have all the answers and therefore ethical ideas from sources outside the Torah are not deemed valid? Or does Torah recognise ‘natural ethics’?

In the Torah reading this week we are confronted by the treatment of a captive “woman of beautiful appearance” (1) during a war in ancient times. In one interpretation (2) of this passage, it is about managing a man’s lust and seeking the lesser of two evils. The woman goes through a process that is designed to make her less attractive to this man in an effort to dissuade him from marrying her. It seems to be all about his needs, not hers.

The woman’s consent for having sexual relations with this man is required (3). However commentary tells us that as prerequisite for the marriage she was to be converted to Judaism and according to one view this could involve coercion (4). Even the marriage itself does not seem to depend on the full agreement of the captive woman/new wife (5).  

This law is only confronting if there is a standard of ethics that we measure the Torah against. If we assume that G-d’s law defines morality then it is not good by definition? Perhaps. However, I think that Torah does recognise the validity of natural ethics.

The Torah calls us to to do that which is good and proper in the eyes of God (6). However our tradition teaches that the word “proper” refers to faithful conduct in matters of trade and dealing with others in a way that is pleasing to people (7). Human concepts of ethics are clearly valid.  

Proper human conduct preceded the revelation of God’s law by twenty six generations (8). People conducted themselves “according to proper logic and faith without the Torah” (9). In fact if the Torah had not been revealed we could have learned modesty from a cat, to avoid theft from ants etc (10). The tradition that we could learn how to behave from observing the behaviour of animals and insects demonstrates that a) there are virtuous character traits that can be learned outside of religious law and b) that it would be proper to learn this from observing natural phenomena (11).

Judaism teaches that natural notions of ethics and religious revelation are interdependent, neither of these really works without the other (12). There are many nations of the world that have not followed the Torah yet, they are ethical (13). Torah, religious revelation and teachings,  can play a key role in setting a person on the right path, but there is also that which comes to a person from within himself and his natural conduct...And if a person does not have this natural preparation the commandments of the Torah will not be enough. Because commandments can straighten a person generally but it is impossible for them to address fine details that are constantly arising anew. [for this] one needs morals and natural ethics…(14).

Returning to the  law of the beautiful woman, there are alternative commentaries of some aspects of this that are somewhat less in conflict with natural justice. The required process of her crying for a month long is designed for her benefit, the mourning process being cathartic (15) and about honoring her parents. Shaving her hair, and cutting her nails are part of her spiritual transformation (16). Still challenging, but the woman is seen as person, not an object.

The question about the place of natural ethics, is also reflected in an astonishing teaching relating to the commandment to send away a mother bird before taking her chicks or eggs (17). If someone recites a prayer that attributes this commandment to God’s mercy that person is silenced (18). One explanation (19) for this is that the commandments are not to be understood as expressing mercy but as God’s decrees!”.This seems to be a dismissal of the merits of the natural ethical value of mercy as being unimportant, with the prefered emphasis placed on obedience.

Again, other commentary offers an alternative view. The restriction on attributing the commandments to mercy is technical not theological. It applies [only] to mitzvot whose reasons have not been specified, therefore in it is not for us to decide what the motivation is. Furthermore, the required “silencing” is only after the prayer was recited with a caution to avoid saying it another time rather than being so terribly heretical that it needs to be corrected immediately (20). Another commentary states that to take the mother bird along with her young is “a way of cruelty” (21), implying that this commandment is indeed motivated by mercy.  

A final example from our reading is the insistence of the Torah that we show compassion for someone who escaped an oppressive situation and seeks refuge with us (22). Commentary about this law equates human concepts of what is to be regarded as cruel or merciful with what is pleasing to God and imitates God’s ways (23).  

Once we accept the importance of a human element in discerning proper conduct we are in the messy ambiguous space of subjective value judgements about specific situations. Of course we can bring religious wisdom to decisions, but we will still often need to grapple with the questions of what is right or wrong. It is not easy but would we really want it any other way? I think not.

Notes

1. Deuteronomy 21:10
2. Rashi on Deuteronomy 21:10
3. Yeraim, cited in Ritva,cited in Yalkut Meam Loez states “It has not been permitted, only by her consent, he is not allowed to have intercourse with her against her will. Ramban on 21:11, states “it is not proper to sleep with her, in a situation in which she being “forced” [into conversion] as she mourning her family and faith and screaming in her heart to her god to save her and return her to her people and her god/s.”
4. Ramban on 21:11, states that her conversion is by compulsion, however Ramban sees a process in which she is comforted and encouraged to accept her new reality, that she will never see her people again and therefore she will adjust to the point that her idol worship will be removed a little from her heart and she will cleave to this man. To what extent such resignation and acquiescence should be  considered consent is a tough question.  According to Rabbi Yonason in Sifrei and Sifrei Dbei Rav cited in Yalkud Me’am Loez she is not to be converted against her will, also according to the Rambam,  cited in Yalkud Me’am Loez p. 795, the conversion is voluntary.
5. we are told in the Torah that if the Jewish man does not want to marry her that she goes free (Deuteronomy 21:14). According to Ibn Ezra’s commentary on the words “she goes free”, the assumption is that the man “should do her will”, which implies that we assume that she did not want the marriage.
6. Deuteronomy 12:25 & 12:28
7. Mechilta
8. Vayikra Rabba 9:3, Tana Dbei Eliyahu Rabba 1
9. Etz Yosef commentary on Vayikra Rabba 9:3
10. Talmud, Eruvin 100b
11. Lichtenstein, A. in Hebrew translation http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/deot/lichtenshten-4.htm https://www.scribd.com/doc/16263866/Does-Judaism-Recognize-an-Ethic-Independent-of-Halakhah-by-Rav-Aharon-Lichtenstein
12. Ethics of the Fathers 3:17
13. Yachin, Tiferet Yisrael commentary on the Mishna.
14. Meiri on Avot 3:20 in Beit Habechira p.56, Vagshal publication 1971, based on Mekitzei Nirdamim, 5696
15. Maimonides in the Moreh Nevuchim, cited in Ramban on 21:11, also in Chizkuni
16. Chizkuni, he argues that it is similar to rituals performed as part of the transformation of the Levites when they were appointed to their roles in the desert temple (Numbers 8:7).
17. Deuteronomy 22:6–7
18. Mishna in Talmud, Berachot 33b, translation from Sefaria.org
19. Rashi on Talmud, Berachot 33b
20. Maharsha, on Talmud, Berachot 33b
21. Chizkuni
22. Deuteronomy 23:16-17
23. Ramad Vali, Mishneh Torah, Devarim.

רמ"ד וואלי - משנה תורה - דברים (דף 242-243) מפרש המצוה לא תסגיר בקשר לחילול השם וקידוש השם. אלו דבריו: " כי כבר ידוע שהוא בורח מפני אכזריות אדוניו שרדהו בפרך ואינו יכול לסבול את רשעתו. ואם ישראל ימסרנו ביד אדוניו יהיה חילול השם גדול, כי יאמרו הגוים שבני ישראל אכזריים יותר מהם, מאחר דניחא להו להחזיר העבד העלוב מוכה ומעונה בידו של אכזר. ואדרבה ניחא ליה לקב"ה שיהיו ישראל בחזקת רחמנים בעיני האומות... עמך ישב בקרבך. דהיינו במקום המוצנע, שלא ימצאנו אדוניו ולא יחזירנו לשעבודם.
במקום אשר יבחר. הוא ולא אתה. כי בחירת אחרים מצערת את האדם כשהיא כנגד בחירתו.
באחד שעריך. דהיינו בעיר ולא בכפר, כדי שתהיה הצלתו בטוחה ולא מתרופפת.
וגם בעיר עצמו. בטוב לו. ולא בטוב לך, שאם ירצה ידור בבית זה ואם ירצה ידור בבית אחר ולא תכריחנו לדור בפי רצונך. שאם תעשה כך, זהו חסד שלם המשתוה אל הנהגת אדון הכל, ואתה עושה נחת רוח ליוצרך, וקידוש השם לעיני העמים."

Facts?! Forget it. Faith!! & Friendship. South Sudan & Beshalach

Is faith like this image? The "fact" is that there is no image
on the right yet after 15 seconds it appears then disappears.

I am thinking about how some manage to continue to believe despite some “facts” that appear to contradict those beliefs. Atheist or believer, we all need to put our faith in someone or something if we are ever to achieve anything. It can be a business idea, or in a relationship with other people, another tribe or with a God that, as I understand Him, is engaged with his creation and therefore it would follow that He allows humans to butcher each other. I also think about how God as described in the Torah, with His Wrath and all, is a comfortable fit for a new age guy like me.

I have been thinking about how this relates to my fellow; fathers, brothers, mothers and children in South Sudan and to what they are going through.

It was on a starry night in Yogyakarta in 2010 that I was first introduced to their world. I heard a heart-warming story from an American Missionary, Bill Lowrey, about the wise and fearless leaders of the Nuer and Dinka tribes who brought peace to their people after decades of terrible fighting.  Rev. Lowrey’s told me about his “approach (which) drew on the rich wisdom of the indigenous Nuer and Dinka peoples, as he integrated their traditional peacemaking methods with modern theories of conflict resolution”. (1).

“One of the local rituals involved participants spitting into a gourd filled with water. When it came to Bill, he spat into it too. When everyone had spat, they splashed the water on each other. The spittle on the tongue is meant to be the coldest part of a person, and splashing it symbolized cooling off the hot bodies, charged with the ‘heat of conflict’. Bill asked the chiefs to tell stories they heard from their fathers’ mothers about how conflicts were resolved in the past. They sat opposite each other, divided by a rope representing the Nile, and discovered the wisdom of their respective ancestors was very similar. They told stories about what was done to them, and finally were asked what they ‘remembered’ for the future of their daughters’ sons” (2). At the end of the process “the Dinka and Nuer signed a covenant to end their tribal war and sealed it by sacrificing a bull, which signifies wealth for both of the tribes. By stepping over the bull, they publicly pronounced their commitment for a new peace (3)”.

It is heart breaking that the world’s newest nation is now facing further death and conflict, despite the traditional wisdom that ended the fighting there just over a decade ago.  One of my Facebook Friends has been personally affected with the loss of his brother in the fighting. I have no doubt that people there can list the “facts” of the conflict that explain their tribes’ perspective and the wrong doing of their enemies. I pray that somehow, despite the unimaginable difficulty involved, the facts and grievances of both sides can again be set aside.

In our Torah reading this week we read about events a bit further up the Nile. The Jews or Israelites had left Egypt filled with faith, embracing Moses and their invisible God, following them in to the wilderness. It is not long before they face the sea in front of them and enemies behind them. They are told to disregard the facts and keep going (4), miraculously the sea splits. Yet, a short time later, new facts emerge. They arrive in the Sinai desert (5) just as their food runs out (6). They don’t politely pray for food, instead they turn on Moses “we wish we could have died by the hand of God in the land of Egypt, when we sat on the flesh pot and ate our fill of bread”. Moses tells them that their faith will return when God will send fat birds for them to eat and manna from heaven. I think Moses is implying a criticism of them. It is only when you have a full stomach and lack for nothing do you believe that it was God who took you out of Egypt, just a few weeks earlier.

Faith, friendship and even coexistence require us to disregard some facts and focus on hope and faith. Of course, this is easier said than done, but perhaps the only way forward. My prayers are with all who suffer from violence and injustice, including those whose suffering is justified by the facts.

1)    https://www.tanenbaum.org/programs/peace/peacemaker-awardees/reverend-william-lowrey-sudan,
2)    As told me to by Rev. Lowrey, for more of the story as he told it to me, http://torahforsociallyawarehasid.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/embracing-unknown-and-alternatives-to.html
3)    Ibid, https://www.tanenbaum.org ..
4)    Exodus 14:15
5)    Exodus 16:1-18
6)    Rashi

Sticks and Words, Prejudice and Jephthah's daughter. Chukat 2011

There are situations in which the choosing violence over words has some appeal, and using words for reaching agreements and shared understanding seems too hard or impractical. For this discussion I am thinking of “sticks” in a broad sense, all coercion and harsh interaction can be seen as having a touch of violence about it. This week Jews read a story[1] that includes prejudice, violence and a man of deeds, the warrior, Jephthah who made a vow to sacrifice his daughter. In the Torah reading, we are asked to blindly obey a commandment about a mixture of water and ashes of a burnt red cow that has opposite effects on different people[2]. We are also confronted with a sin involving a rock that was beaten rather than spoken to[3]. This is an exploration of sticks and words.

Action Man’s and his Maligned Mother

Jephthah did not worry about scholarship. He thought that as long as he served God with a pure heart we would not stumble[4]. He is introduced as a “Gileadite was a mighty man of valour”, but also as the “son of a lady, a prostitute”[5].  Commentaries are divided between taking it literally[6], and the suggestion that the derogatory name was used for any woman who married out of her tribe. Her marriage was completely acceptable by law, but strongly frowned upon by people worried about land moving between tribes[7]. Influence by stigma, a stick.

Banished

The prejudice does not end with his mother. His half brothers, from his father’s “proper” wife drove Jephthah out with force and strong arm tactics[8].  This was a great injustice[9], stick #2. Banished from his family, the fallen son of a prominent family goes to the land of “Tov”, and he hangs out with “empty men”[10]. This band went out to battle all the time and that’s how they got their food[11].

Conditions,

An external threat of war leads the people to set aside their prejudices. Out of desperation Jephthah is called back and offered the leadership. The psychologically scarred man reminds the people “but you have hated me”[12]. He is deeply distrustful, only accepting the leadership with conditions that he will remain as leader afterwards, whether they still want him or not.  Another stick.

“Stick” Words

Jephthah sends a message to the Amonite king, “what is there between you and me? That you have come to fight me in my land”[13]. The king of Amon demands the peaceful return of Amonite[14]  land that the Israelites took at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. The historical truth was that the land was originally Moabite but had been conquered by Emorites, and only then conquered by the Israelites from them[15]. Jephthah’s response categorically rejects the claim, “Israel did not take the land of Moab or Amon”[16].

In the Harvard negotiation model, the ideal is for the parties to agree on a solution based on meeting as much of their interests as is possible. A harsher element in negotiation is “standards”, when the parties focus on external criteria that force the other party to agree to their terms. Jephthah must have assumed, probably rightly, that there was no chance for a peaceful resolution based on interests. Instead he focuses on standards, such as whatever one’s God has given belongs to that group, so the Amonites and Moabites can have whatever their god Kmosh gave them. Another argument is the passages of 300 years since the original conquest “Why did you not recover the land then?”[17]

The War and the Vow

The tough talk is followed by a battle, and it is then that Jephthah makes the vow. "If You will deliver the sons of Ammon into my hand, whatever comes …from the doors of my house towards me, when I return in peace…shall be to the Lord, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering."  A vow is a way to force ourselves to do later what we will no longer want to do, again a stick.

Jephthah is victorious. The results are a “very great slaughter and the sons of Amon were subdued before the sons of Israel[18]”.  “Jephthah came to Mizpah, to his house, and behold, his daughter was coming out towards him with timbrels and with dances …And it was, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! …and I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot go back."  

He was wrong, he certainly could go back. The Torah clearly allows for vow to be annulled by a scholar. He refused to go to the high priest, Phineas because he thought that as leader it was beneath his dignity to go to Phineas. Phineas, thought it was beneath the office of the high priest to go to Jephthah[19]. “I am a high priest the son of a high priest, will I lower myself and go to an Ignoramus?!”[20] Both Jephthah and Pineas are strongly condemned for their arrogance, although there is a view that Phineas had a right to be insulted by Jephthah’s arrogance, although he was a leader of his generation he was not to be compared to with the righteous of other generations, nor was he to be respected as a scholar[21]. 

Acting on the Vow

Jephthah’s daughter agrees to comply with her fathers vow…and he did to her his vow which he had vowed; and she had not known any man…[22]. Commentary differs on whether she was killed[23] or isolated for the rest of her life[24]. Either way, an avoidable terrible choice[25], if only he had bothered to study and would have known that his vow could be cancelled.  

Mindless worship

All this would point to the value of knowledge. Yet, there is a place for the non-logical. In introducing the law of the red heifer, the Torah states; “This is Chukaht חוקת (the statute of) the Torah which the Lord commanded, …take for you a perfectly red unblemished cow…[26]”. The word Chukat means a law for which no reason is given. While some might assume that God knows the reason for this, in Chasidic teachings it is suggested that these commandments simply transcend reason[27]. The words “this is the statue of the Torah” is also taken to mean that it would be better for a person to treat all the laws of the Torah as unexplainable commandments rather than try to find reasons for them[28]. 

The Chasidic movement sought to correct the devaluing of the worship of the unlearned Jews that stemmed from the great emphasis on scholarship in 17^th and 18^th century Eastern Europe. It insisted on celebrating the sincerity and holiness of the “simple Jews”. In its Chabad version it also emphasised self nufilication. Somewhere out of all of this emerged a saying that “Sechel” (the mind) is concealment of Godliness.” While it still encourages us to think as a means of worship, there is a downgrading of the importance of thinking in comparison with obediance.

Words Not Sticks

On the other side of the argument is the following idea. The Israelites were without water. God told Moses to take a stick and speak to the rock and water would appear. But he hit the rock instead: a repetition of his exact action forty years earlier under God’s instructions when he had made the same request for water. What was the difference? Four decades before, Moses had been leading slaves; they were acustomed to being told what to do, now they were free people. Times and people had changed. The stick was no longer needed – just words. Moses had failed to change and was no longer the man to lead the people.[29]

Violence in its various forms might be necessary at times, minimizing it should help.

---

[1] In our Haftorah reading from the prophets

[2] Numbers 19:1-22

[3] Numbers 20:7-12

[4] Me’am Loez, translated by Rabbi Nathan Bushwick (1991), Moznaim Publishing New York, Jerusalem, p. 234

[5] Judges 11:1

[6] Metzudat David

[7] Radak (David Kimche, 1160-1235), Ralbag

[8] Metzudat David

[9] Ralbag

[10] Judges 11:3

[11] Ralbag

[12] Judges 11:7

[13] Judges 11:12

[14] I would assume that  Amon and Moab were closely related peoples, both parties to the conversation do not distinguish between them

[15] Numbers 21:26 see Rashi

[16] Judges 11:15

[17] Judges 11:26, echoed in the Talmudic law in Bava Basra chapter 3, of Chazakah, that someone who claims ownership of land and can prove possession for three years does not need to produce the original sale documents unless the original owner protested within the three year period. Otherwise his silence is part of what legitimises the possessors claim.

[18] Judges 11:33

[19]  Midrash Tanchuma, Rashi

[20] Midrash Tanchuma Yashan quoted in Liebovitz, N, Studies in Bamidbar, p. 274, This reminds me of the case about an accountant for a company called Chicago Kosher in Winnipeg, Canada. This company sold meat certified as Kosher all over the world. The accountant calculated the combined output of all the Kosher butchers in Winnipeg, and realised that it did not add up to the meat processed in the factory. He approached the certifying Rabbi about his concerns. The Rabbi asked him, can you study the Talmud? “No” he said, can you study the Mishnah? “No” etc. The Rabbi dismissed him as an ignoramus. The accountant then went to another Rabbi who was less judgemental and more supportive. The accountant was proven right, when police discovered meat from non-Kosher butchers being delivered in middle of the night. I met the accountant years later, but heard the story from someone who knows him well.  

[21]  Me’am Loez, p. 239

[22] Judges 11:36-39

[23] Ramban

[24] Abarbanel, Ibn Ezra, Radak

[25] Talmud,  Ta’anit 4a

[26] Numbers 19:2

[27] I remember this in the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I don’t have an exact source

[28] R. Mendel of Kotzk, quoted by R. Zeev of Strikov, in Greenberg, A, Y, (1992) Torah Gems, Y Orenstien/Yavneh Publishing Tel Aviv

[29] Sacks, (2009) Chief Rabbi Jonathan, Future Tense, Hodder & Stoughton London