Warning: Pray Only With Caution

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

In American English, “falling flat on one’s face” is a comic fail. In Jewish tradition, however, it is a prayer posture of terrible power and danger, known as nefilat apayim.

After the Oven of Akhnai incident, Rabbi Eliezer’s wife prevented him from praying prostrate. She knew that he blamed her brother, Rabban Gamliel, for his excommunication, and feared that G-d would avenge his pain. One day, she was distracted, and her brother died.

Many siddurim still refer to the “Tachanun” prayer following the morning and afternoon amidahs as nefilat apayim. We however limit prayerful prostration on any surface to the High Holidays. There are many reasons for that choice[1], but I think at least one of them is a fear of praying too successfully.  

Another possible reason is that prostration on a stone floor is permitted only on the Temple Mount; anywhere else, the same action is a violation of even maskit, a prohibition closely related to idolatry.

However, there is no violation of even maskit if something separates between face and floor. Around 3.5 minutes into his recorded OU shiur on 2Divrei HaYamim Chapter 7, Rabbi Shalom Rosner contends that this is why we put our heads on our arms when saying tachanun. The practice is a vestige of a time when we did nefilat apayim. The arm was used to separate between our head and the floor, just in case.  

On this basis, Rabbi Rosner asserts that it is a mistake to believe that there is a halakhic  requirement for the relevant arm to be clothed, for example in a long-sleeved garment. “There is no such halakhah!” It is true that the arm by itself would not suffice as a separation. However, one can say tachanun on a shtender, or over a table, and the furniture serves as an adequate separation. The point is to separate face from floor, not face from arm.

However, the ArtScroll siddur’s instructions say that: “The head should not rest on the bare arm, rather the arm should be covered with a sleeve, tallis, or even a cloth”. Mr. Mitchell Klausner was bothered by Rabbi Rosner’s seemingly cavalier dismissal of a position endorsed by ArtScroll and brought it to my attention.

I initially responded based on my high school girsa deyankuta that ArtScroll is merely channeling Mishnah Berurah 131:3:

ונוהגים לכסות הפנים בבגד,

ולא די כיסוי היד שנופל פניו עליה,

לפי שהיד והפנים גוף אחד הם, ואין הגוף יכול לכסות את עצמו [מ”א]:

The custom is to cover the face with a garment,

and the covering of the hand that his face falls onto is not sufficient,

because the hand and the face are one body, and the body cannot cover itself.

But this only intensified the problem. While Rabbi Rosner might not be aware of the ArtScroll instructions, he surely was familiar with the Mishnah Berurah, and with the Magen Avrohom that the Mishnah Berurah cites.

One might respond that Rabbi Rosner understands those sources as discussing cases where there aren’t enough tables for the people saying tachanun. But this is a weak reading of Mishnah Berurah’s statement that “The custom is”.    

On the other hand, Mishnah Berurah states that the custom is “to cover the face”, and not the hand, which I think fits well with Rabbi Rosner’s contention that the issue is about separating face and floor, with the hand having no per se significance.

However, Magen Avraham does not say quite what Mishnah Berurah ascribes to him. Here is Magen Avraham 131:2:

ומ”מ נוהגין להפסיק בבגד,

דיד לא חשיב כיסוי, 

דמין במינו אין חוצץ, 

כמ”ש סימן צ”ח: 

Regardless, the custom is to separate via a garment,

because the hand is not considered a covering,

because a thing does not legally separate between its own kind (and something else),

as is written in Siman 98.

Where Mishnah Berurah speaks of “one body”, Magen Avrohom speaks of “one kind”. I thought of connecting the dispute between Rabbi Rosner and ArtScroll to this difference. But I worried that I was overreading mere stylistic variations, so I looked in Siman 98 – and found nothing obviously relevant.  However, Machatzit Hashekel corrects the citation to Siman 91, and adds a citation to Siman 74 as well.

Here is Shulchan Arukh OC 91:3-4:

יש אומרים שאסור להוציא אזכרה מפיו בראש מגולה;

וי”א שיש למחות שלא ליכנס בבהכ”נ בגלוי הראש.

כובעים, (קפיל”ה בלעז) הקלועים מקש – חשיבא כסוי,

אבל הנחת יד על הראש – לא חשיבא כסוי;

ואם אחר מניח ידו על ראשו של זה – משמע דחשיבא כסוי.

Some say that it is forbidden to speak a Divine Name with one’s head uncovered;

and some say that one should express an objection in order to prevent someone entering a Beit Knesset with an uncovered head.

Hats woven of straw – are considered a covering,

but placing a hand on the head – is not considered a covering;

but if another person puts their hand on this person’s head – the indications are that this is considered a covering.

The distinction between the same person’s hand and another’s demonstrates that Mishnah Berurah’s formulation is just a more precise formulation of his source Magen Avrohom. All hands and faces are of the same kind, but my hand is part of the same body as my face.

However,  Rav Yosef Caro (=“the Mechaber”) in Shulchan Arukh OC 74:2 does not distinguish between hands.

הרוחץ ערום במים צלולים, ורוצה לשתות –

יכסה בבגד ממטה ללבו,

כדי שלא יהא לבו רואה את הערוה כשיברך.

ודוקא בבגד, אבל בידים – לא הוי כיסוי. 

A person who is bathing in clear water, and wishes to drink –

must cover with a garment under their heart,

so that their heart will not see their genitals while they bless/

Specifically with a garment, but with their hands – this is not a covering.

Perhaps the distinction should be imported/assumed; but again, the temptation is to make a conceptual distinction between the contexts and connect it to our issue. For example: Siman 91 is discussing whether the head is covered, while Siman 74 is discussing whether the heart and genitals are separated. (The separation here would be accomplished by putting an arm across the chest) Someone else’s hand suffices to cover, but not to separate.[2]  Does someone else’s hand suffice for tachanun? If yes, would that prove that the issue there is about covering the face and not about separating it from the floor, and that’s why ArtScroll insists on long sleeves?

Unfortunately, this speculation is disproven by Ramo’s (=Rabbi Moshe Isserles, Mapah) gloss:

A gloss:

The same is true if he covers his head with his hands – this is not considered covering the head.

See Siman 91.

(Terumat HaDeshen in the name of Or Zarua).

Ramo explicitly equates the separation of heart and genitals with the requirement to cover the head, and even cites Siman 91!

We could still say that while Ramo equates the two contexts, Rav Caro distinguishes them; but that seems a bridge too far without clear evidence. More likely, Rav Caro assumed that one would understand the law regarding headcovering from Siman 91.

The upshot is that the standard for all these contexts is the same, and our issue can’t rest on a dispute about which standard applies.

With that avenue exhausted, I reconsidered Rabbi Rosner’s argument from first principles, and asked myself: If the need for an anti-even maskit separation can be satisfied by a table, why is the arm necessary at all? I’m not aware of anyone suggesting that leaning on an arm, sleeved or otherwise, is necessary for tachanun only when there is no furniture to put one’s head on.

Moreover, why retain a concern for even maskit if we no longer put our faces anywhere near the floor? Moreover, why are anti-even maskit precautions necessary at all if the floor isn’t stone? This question is hotly debated even regarding Yom Kippur, when we do put our faces to the ground!

The historically correct answer is that there is another reason for covering the arm.  Here is Eliyah Rabbah 131:2:

כתב בספר המנהיג לכסות פניו בטלית או בסדור,

ולא ביד עצמו, מפני שכתובין שם עונותיו:

The Sefer HaManhig wrote that one should cover his face with a tallit or sudar,

and not with the hand itself, because his sins are written there.

This is cited by a host of Acharonim (always as “HaManhig quoted by Eliyah Rabbah”; it seems that they were unable to find the source in HaManhig, and I have not found it either). This rationale obviously cannot be satisfied by saying tachanun over furniture, and is the source for those who require long sleeves.

Elyah Rabbah does not explain why the hand is necessary at all, only why it must be covered. Let’s assume that the purpose is to prevent any risk of actual nefilat apayim, as Rabbi Rosner argues (and as did Rav Elyashiv). Regarding even maskit, this seems hopelessly overdone, requiring the law to stack precaution upon precaution. But what if the true concern is lest we damage others with our prayer?  

My custom is not to say tachanun whenever I am conscious of being angry with someone else for personal reasons.

---

[1] See e.g. Peninei Halakhah at https://ph.yhb.org.il/20-15-13/#_te01ftn15_18

[2] The halakhic discussion is based on traditions about Rabbeinu Tam’s bath etiquette that would make for a fascinating historical article, if this has not already been done.

What is the Halakhic Status of the Doctrine of the Trinity?

Text & Texture Tradition’s Blog of Orthodox Jewish Thought

December 26, 2009 by Aryeh Klapper  

(Many of the relevant texts with translation are appended after the article) 

             What is the halakhic status of the Doctrine of the Trinity?  This is in a certain sense a presumptuous, and in another sense a meaningless, question.  What I mean by that is that since many Christian theologians declare that the doctrine is rationally unintelligible, it is presumptuous of us to claim to understand it well enough to pass judgment on it, and since the logical positivists claimed that statements which cannot be falsified, i.e which are impervious to contradiction, are meaningless, a question about the meaning of an admittedly self-contradictory doctrine is meaningless.  Nonetheless, the question undoubtedly has practical halakhic ramifications of great import, such as whether one has to die rather than verbally assent to the doctrine, and therefore we have no choice but to address it.

            I don’t wish to approach it from the perspective of contemporary psak here, however, but rather to understand the seminal position of “the Tosafot on the daf”.  So I won’t engage with the many different Christian self-understandings of this issue, and will largely ignore the numerous variant formulations found in the various Tosafists.  I also need to acknowledge that the meaning of Tosafot is debated by a remarkable list of the great acharonim, as well as contemporaries, and that I can only write here, in standard rabbinic idiom, ואני הנראה לעניות דעתי כתבתי – acknowledging that others greater than I have said otherwise (and likewise), I have written what seems true to my impoverished intellect.  Finally, I need to thank my friend and long-ago chavruta Rabbi Yaakov Genack, who researched this sugya with me at great length in YU when we were “doing Avodah Zarah together”. 

              The immediate halakhic queston before Tosafot is the ban stated by Shmuel’s Father (Sanhedrin 63b) on forming commercial partnerships with ovdei avodah zarah (whether this position reflects a Talmudic consensus, or a minority position, is not our issue here) on the ground that

1. a partnership disagreement may generate a requirement to take an oath, and
2. an oveid avodah zarah partner would presumably swear by his own divinity, and
3. there is a Biblical prohibition against being the cause of someone else mentioning the name of “another god”.  (There are of course contextual limits to that prohibition, but for our purposes, all that need be said is that an oath certainly falls within them.)

Rashbam reasonably deduces that a fortiori one may not require an oveid avodah zarah to swear to one even when imposing such a requirement is financially advisable, but Rabbeinu Tam permits this. 

Rabbeinu Tam’s initial basis for doing so is by analogy to a Talmudic permission to accept repayment of loans made without a receipt to ovdei avodah zarah near avodah zarah festivals, despite the risk that this will cause them to commit avodah zarah when they thank their god(s) for enabling them to remove their debt – this suggests that one can risk causing avodah zarah by ovdei avodah zarah in order to avoid financial loss.

This argument, however, is not seen as compelling, as here the issue is not a risk of avodah zarah, but rather a certainty that the oath will be taken.  (This rejection itself may be challenged as follows: The plaintiff in a lawsuit always requires the defendant to take an oath in the hope that the defendant will choose to concede rather than commit perjury; thus while it is certain that the oveid avodah zarah will swear by his god(s) of he swears, it is not certain that requiring him to swear will result in him doing so, and the Jewish plaintiff would much prefer, for reasons unrelated to halakhah, that he choose not to do so.  But Tosafot does not take this route.)

The alternative ground then offered is that Gentile contemporaries swore by the names of “their holy ones” (very likely saints, although in alternate versions it may refer to the Bible), and the do not see these holy ones as divine in a way that makes halakhah regard them as names of other gods.

This ground, however, is not sufficient, for two reasons:

A. 

Gentile oaths also referred to the Name of Heaven, and by this they seemingly intend something other than the God we worship (at least the Trinity; in Rabbeinu Yerucham’s version, “their intended referent is Yeshu haNotzri”). 

Two responses are offered to fill this gap:

1. The Name of Heaven, even when used to refer to “another god”, does not constitute a “name of another god’, and therefore causing someone to use the Name in that sense is not a violation of the prohibition against causing the mention of the name of another god (This is a somewhat troubling argument, as it seems hard to think of a clearer instance of literally being ‘mechallel shem shomayim”, desacralizing the Name of Heaven.)
2. While Gentile contemporaries have a different theology than we do, their intended referent when using the Name of Heaven is the One Who Made Heaven.  This is close enough to our conception of G-d that causing someone to use the Name of Heaven in that sense is not a violation of the prohibition against causing the mention of the name of another god.  (What remains unclear is whether causing someone to use a name other than the Name of Heaven, e.g. “Fred”, with the same meaning, e.g “the One Who is Three who made Heaven”, or “the human incarnation of the divine”, would also not violate this prohibition)

B.  

Granting that we can understand Gentile contemporaries as using the Name of Heaven in their oaths to refer to a god who is at the least not wholly other than G-d, and that their references to “their holy ones” in the same oaths are halakhically not references to gods, there seems no way to deny that they are swearing by the Name of Heaven and “their holy ones” simultaneously, and a beraita (Talmud Sukkah 45b) bans statements that refer to G-d and anything else equally, even if G-d is referred to only by pronoun.  (As cited in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai on Sanhedrin 63a, the ban refers as well to including G-d and something else in a collective pronoun.  Again, this prohibition has contextual limits, but Tosafot assume that the taking of an oath falls within those limits.)

Tosafot’s response to this is that

a.  while the prohibition against the “names of other gods” applies both to mentioning them oneself and to causing others to mention them, the prohibition against referring to G-d and anything else equally applies only to doing so oneself.

b.  Furthermore, that prohibition applies specifically to Jews, and not to Gentiles.  Therefore, there is also no issue of causing a Gentile contemporary to sin by taking an oath by G-d and something else, even though it is forbidden to cause Gentiles to sin (as stated explicitly on AZ 6b and elsewhere in the Talmud), and even causing a Jew to take the same oath would be causing that Jew to sin. 

It should be evident that this last response says nothing whatever about the Halakhic status of belief in the Trinity – it refers specifically to statements that refer to G-d and other things equally even when it is obvious that the stater does not see those other things as divine.  In another context I have pointed out, as has Dr. David Berger, that it is actually the second response to A above that is more relevant to the issue of the Trinity.  The question, as I noted above, is whether the claim that using the Name of Heaven in a Christian sense does not constitute using a “name of avodah zarah” entails that believing the Christian understanding of G-d does not constitute Avodah Zarah; in other words, when Rabbeinu Yerucham says that the first statement is true even when the Name of Heaven refers to Yeshu HaNotzri, would he necessarily say that one could cause someone to swear by the name Yeshu haNotzri? 

It seems to me that the answer in Tosafot is likely yes, as to be effective Tosafot’s final argument regarding “lifnei iver” must also be true with reference to avodah zarah as such; in other words, he must hold that causing a Gentile to swear by the Name of Heaven, understood in a Christian sense, is not an act of worshiping Avodah Zarah.  This would presumably not be true if one intended the Name of Heaven to refer to a minor (or major) member of the Roman pantheon for instance. 

            In another context I seek to demonstrate¹ as against Professor Halbertal, that Meiri’s understanding of Christianity is mischaracterized as radical; it is actually identical with that of Tosafot as described in the preceding paragraph.  I also note more tentatively, in the name of the Seder Mishnah, that this position may even be shared by Maimonides, as he always derives the prohibition against belief that G-d is divisible from the verse “Shema Yisroel”, which presumably applies only to Jews.

            A few points in conclusion: 

1. The halakhic position that belief in the Trinity is avodah zarah for Jews but not for Gentiles is highly attractive practically, and in some senses morally, and adopted by many post-medieval decisors, but I cannot find any medieval basis for it.  This of course raises fascinating issues in terms of psak.
2. As noted trenchantly by Rav Yehudah Herzl Henkin, the claim that belief in the Trinity is not avodah zarah for both Jews or Gentiles does not mean that Christian practice for both Jews and Gentiles.  Certainly Maimonides states explicitly that Christianity in all its forms is avodah zarah, despite the cogent argument from Seder Mishnah cited above.  It also seems to me clear that Tosafot believed that conversion to Christianity was yehareg v’al ya’avor, and I find it very hard to believe, in the absence of an explicit contrary statement, that Meiri thought otherwise. 

What I think has generated confusion is the tendency to translate avodah zarah as “idolatry”, i.e. as the worship of false gods in place of the One True G-d.  A better halakhic definition is “the worship of anything other than the One True G-d”  (In another context I have argued for an even more precise definition that accounts for the permission to serve human beings in manners that would be forbidden as worship with regard to other things, ואין כאן מקום להאריך.)  This can be seen from Nachmanides’ understanding that the paradigmatic case of avodah zarah, the sin of the Golden Calf, was worshiping it as a representative of the true G-d, and from Maimonides’ argument that the original avodah zarah was the worship of the stars etc as the intermediaries between G-d and humanity.  Thus, for instance, genuflecting before, or burning incense before, statues of human beings may be avodah zarah even for someone (Jew or Gentile) who does not believe those statues to be anything more than symbols of the One True G-d.

It is necessary to state, and emphasize, in conclusion that as understood above Meiri stands for the critical position that the commission of acts of technical avodah zarah, and belonging to a religion that regularly requires such acts, does not remove a Gentile from the status of “bar dat”, of civilized person, to whom essentially all the moral obligations one has toward Jews apply equally,  This is actually more radical, and has more universalist implications, than understanding his tolerance as rooted in a particular understanding of Trinitarianism, although I tend to argue that even in this reading Meiri is not all we need to develop a Halakhah that genuinely acknowledges the tzelem Elokim of every human being.  But Meiri certainly takes us a long way in the right direction.

1. Editor’s Note:  This is a referrence to an as-of-yet unpublished paper by Rabbi Klapper initially given at the 2007 AJS conference.  You can read an unauthorized summary here.  An audiotape of the basic ideas can be found here.

Sanhedrin 63b

A beraita: “And the names of other divinities you must not mention” – this forbids a person to say to his friend ‘Wait for me next to that avodah zarah’; “it must not be heard on account of you” –  this forbids one from taking an oath in its name, or upholding a oath in its name, or causing others to take an oath in its name or uphold an oath in its name . . . “or causing others to take an oath in its name, or uphold an oath in its name’ – this supports the statement of Shmuel’s father, for Shmuel’s father said: It is forbidden for a person to make a partnership with a non Jew, lest the non Jew become liable to swear to him, and swear by his avodah zarah, when the Torah says “it must not be heard on account of you”

סנהדרין סג:

תניא (שמות כ”ג): “ושם אלהים אחרים לא תזכירו” – שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו  ’שמור לי בצד ע”ז פלונית’; (שמות כ”ג) “לא ישמע על פיך” – שלא ידור בשמו, ולא יקיים בשמו, ולא יגרום לאחרים שידרו בשמו ויקיימו בשמו … “ולא יגרום לאחרים שידרו בשמו ושיקיימו בשמו” – מסייעא ליה לאבוה דשמואל,  דאמר אבוה דשמואל: אסור לאדם שיעשה שותפות עם הנכרי, שמא יתחייב לו שבועה ונשבע בעבודה זרה שלו, והתורה אמרה: “לא ישמע על פיך”.

 Tosafot Sanhedrin 63b

“It is forbidden for a person to make a partnership” – Said R. Shmuel (Rashbam): All the more so if it has actually come to an oath, that one must not receive it from him (i.e., one must not allow him to swear). But Rabbeinu Tam said: It is permitted to receive the oath from him rather than lose out financially, as we say on Avodah Zarah 6b: that on n a loan made orally one may receive payment from idolaters (near their festivals) because this is as if one is saving the money from them, and we are not concerned lest the idolater go and thank his divinity afterward. Even though that case (AZ 6b) is one of doubt (perhaps he will go thank his divinity), whereas this case is definite (as he must swear), nonetheless in this time all of them swear by their sacred ones (saints) but do not see enshrine them as divinities. Even though they mention among them the name of Heaven, and their intention is for something else, nonetheless this is not “a name of avodah zarah”, and also, their intent is for the Maker of Heaven. Even though they partner the name of Heaven and something else, we have not found that it is forbidden to cause others to partner, and there is no issue of “before a blind person (you must not place a stumbling block”, because the Noachides have not been prohibited to (partner the Name of Heaven and something else)..

תוספות סנהדרין סג:

אסור לאדם שיעשה שותפות – אמר ר’ שמואל: כ”ש שבועה עצמה דאין לקבל הימנו. ור”ת אומר: מותר לקבל הימנו השבועה קודם שיפסיד. כדאמר בפ”ק דמס’ ע”ג (דף ו:) דמלוה ע”פ נפרעין ממנו מפני שהוא כמציל מידם, ולא חיישינן דילמא אזיל ומודה. ואע”ג דהתם ספק והכא ודאי, מ”מ בזמן הזה כולן נשבעים בקדשים שלהן ואין תופסין בהם אלהות, ואע”פ שמה שמזכירין עמהם ש”ש וכוונתם לדבר אחר, מ”מ אין זה שם עבודת כוכבים, גם דעתם לעושה שמים, ואע”פ שמשתפין שם שמים ודבר אחר, לא אשכחן דאסור לגרום לאחרים לשתף, ולפני עור ליכא, דבני נח לא הוזהרו על כך.

Mishnah Sukkah 45a

When they left the altar (following the aravah-ritual on Hoshana Rabbah), what would they say? “Beauty unto you, altar; beauty unto you, altar.” Rabbi El’azar said: “To Him and to you, altar; To Him and to you, altar”.

סוכה דף מה.

בשעת פטירתן מה הן אומרים? “יופי לך מזבח, יופי לך מזבח”. רבי אלעזר אומר:  ”ליה ולך מזבח, ליה ולך מזבח”.

Talmud Sukkah 45b

“When they left the altar what would they say” – But they would be partnering the Name of Heaven and something else, and a beraita teaches: Anyone who combines the Name of Heaven with something else is uprooted from the world, as Scripture says: “Except to Hashem by Himself”. !? This is what the MIshnah means: (When they left the altar, what would they say?) “To Him we concede and to you we offer praise; To Him we concede and to you we offer encomia.”

סוכה מה:

בשעת פטירתן מה הן אומרים וכו’ – והא קא משתתף שם שמים ודבר אחר, ותניא: כל המשתף שם שמים ודבר אחר נעקר מן העולם, שנאמר (שמות כב) “בלתי לה’ לבדו”. !? הכי קאמר: ליה אנחנו מודים ולך אנו משבחין, ליה אנחנו מודים ולך אנו מקלסין.

Train Up a Child in the Way They Should Go (or Any Other Way), and When They Are Old, They Will Not Depart from It

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

(Title text: Mishlei 22:6, revised from the Revised KJV)

Memorization is best done when young. This is the import of Abbayay’s famous statement that “I wish I had learned this as part of my girsa deyankuta” = the things I studied by rote as a child.

At least, that’s what I remember from being taught Talmud Shabbat in 8th grade. But looking now at Shabbat 21b, it seems clear to me that the phrase is said by the anonymous Talmud rather than by Abbayay.

Here is the sugya:

Said Rabbi Zeira  that Rav Matna said;

or some say it:

Said Rabbi Zeira that Rav said:

“The wicks and oils that the Sages said ‘One may not light Shabbat candles with them’ – one may light Chanukah candles with them, whether on a weekday or on Shabbat.”

Said Rabbi Yirmiyah:

“What is Rav’s rationale?

He holds that if (Chanukah candles) go out (before lasting the required half-hour) –

one need not relight them, and that it is forbidden to use their light.”

The rabbis said it in the presence of Abbayay in the name of Rabbi Yirmyah –

but he did not accept it;

When Ravin came (to Babylonia from Israel),

the rabbis said it in the name of Rabbi Yochanan –

and he accepted it.

He (=Abbayay) said:

“Had I merited – I would have learned this tradition from the beginning.”

But he learned it!

The practical difference is for girsa deyankuta.

(Rashi comments: “which lasts longer than that of old age”.)

How are we to take Abbayay’s statement of apparent regret, “Had I merited etc.”?

One possibility is that Abbayay

    a. genuinely regrets having rejected this tradition when it was first told to him, and
    b. sees his initial failure to accept this tradition as reflecting a personal spiritual insufficiency rather than a correct epistemological position, and
    c. as the Talmud explains his statement, sadly expects to have trouble remembering this tradition.

A second possibility is that Abbayay’s statement is a self-effacing effort to diffuse the sting of his initial rejection, even though he would do the same again.

How might one choose among these possibilities?

A key point is recognizing that the Talmud has a subtle sense of humor. Or at least I think it does – I may be overreading. Let’s consider the two other places in the Talmud where the phrase “If I merited” appears. 

Here is Chagigah 13a:

Said Rabbi Yochanan to Rabbi Eliezer:

“Come, I will teach you of the Making of the Chariot”.

He said to him: “I am not yet hardened (meaning: strawlike, hardened, aged enough to fear death, asexual).”

By the time he hardened – Rabbi Yochanan had died.

Rabbi Asi said to him:

“Come, I will teach you of the Making of the Chariot”.

He said to him:

“Had I merited – I would have learned this from Rabbi Yochanan your teacher.”

Here three alternative morals can be derived from “Had I merited”:

    1. Never turn down a chance to learn mysticism from a master
    2. Rabbi Eliezer never wanted to learn the Making of the Chariot
    3. Rabbi Eliezer had mastered the Making of the Chariot from other sources but didn’t want to embarrass Rabbi Yochanan or his students by revealing this.

The first moral emerges from reading the phrase straight; the latter two from reading it with a tinge of humor.

The upshot is that each sugya can be read both ways, and neither is proof of how to read the other.

Now consider Yebamot 64a-b:

A beraita:

If a man married a woman and stayed with her for ten years, but she did not give birth – he must divorce her and pay her the ketubah, as perhaps he did not merit having children from her . . .

Is it so (that men who don’t merit having children with a first wife may merit having them with a second)?!

But the Rabbis said to R. Abba bar Zavda (after he was widowed):

“Marry a woman and have children!”

And he said to them:

“If I had merited, I would have (children) from my first wife!?” 

There, he was just putting the Rabbis off,

because R. Abba bar Zavda was made infertile by the public lectures of Rav Huna.

R. Gidal was made infertile by the public lectures of Rav Huna.

Rabbi Chelbo was made infertile by the public lectures of Rav Huna.

Rav Sheshet was made infertile by the public lectures of Rav Huna.

Rabbi Acha bar Yaakov had a urinary blockage. They hung him from the cedar of Rav’s house, and something green as a palm frond came out of him.

Said Rabbi Acha bar Yaakov:

Sixty elders we were, and all of us were made infertile by the public lectures of Rav Huna, except for me, because I fulfilled regarding myself “Wisdom will sustain the life of its master”.

Rav Huna’s lectures were presumably of legendary length, on the order of Rav Soloveitchik’s shiurim for his father’s yahrtzeit, and at the same time sufficiently enthralling, or perhaps he was so intimidating, that men endured terrible urinary distress rather than leave in the middle.

One hopes that the Talmud here is exaggerating the longterm effects – surely someone would have intervened to suggest a bathroom break had Rav Huna’s shiur really been a major health risk. And yet – I recall sitting in a shiur during the First Gulf War when a background sound began that might or might not have been a missile alert siren. The lecturer was famous for his disregard of such alerts – he would talk about using them as occasions to drive to visit his parents, since traffic was minimized. It took several minutes before a few of us had the courage to go outside to check (and discover that it was not in fact a siren).

However, the sugya’s opening seemingly depends on taking the physical effects of Rav Huna’s shiur literally. The Talmud explains that Rabbi Abba bar Zavda was merely deflecting his peers by attributing his failure to have children with his late wife to a lack of personal merit. The real reason was that he had been rendered infertile by Rav Huna’s shiur.

Unless the Talmud is in on the joke, and the point is that Rabbi Abba had marked the demand that he remarry as inappropriately intrusive. A childless widower is not required to confess impotence, among many other reasons that he might not be ready for remarriage. The Talmud specifically tells a story that it believes no one sensible would take literally.      

Note that the use of “If I had merited” on Chagigah 13b can easily be understood as an effort to deflect an overbearing but well-meaning self-appointed mentor. In other words, “If I had merited” may be a polite, lightly humorous way of navigating a difficult social situation.  

If this is correct, the Talmud’s comment in Shabbat that “the practical difference is girsa deyankuta” can also be seen as in on the joke. After all, the gap between the initial rejected presentation and the second accepted presentation may have been only a few days! 

The real issue is that the durability of childhood memorization is a double-edged sword. As Meiri to Pesachim 112a points out, it means that mistakes endure as well:

Some of (the great Sages) cautioned

never to teach a child from a book that had not been thoroughly proofread,

because an error that enters into girsa deyankuta

becomes rooted and engraved in the imagination

so that even when he ages, he will not swerve from it.

Perhaps the Talmud’s exposition of Abbayay’s point is that the young should be choosier about what they learn than the elderly, but ironically, they don’t have the experience to choose wisely.

I wonder what I would have made of that lesson if the sugya had been taught that way to me in 8th grade. Would I have appreciated the humor, and the inherent irony of the lesson?

I also wonder whether the bigger issue with childhood learning isn’t error but rather narrowing. In 8th grade, I probably had no interest in whether the phrase was actually Abbayay’s, and I don’t recall rethinking the issue before last week (“Behold I am nearly 58 years old, but I did not merit . . .”). Our early education locks us into seeing possible interpretations as the only possible interpretations. I don’t think this is educationally inevitable. The problem is that we legitimately want childhood education to set boundaries and solidify core assumptions, and it’s hard to do both kinds of teaching at the same time. Also, the adults with educational responsibility may strongly disagree about which possibilities should be left open and which foreclosed. Did your school wish you to understand the Talmud’s irony in the long run?

Were Yosef’s Brothers Doomed to Hate Him?

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Yosef’s brothers could not “speak to shalom with him”. Rashi, citing Chazal, praises the brothers for avoiding hypocrisy. Does that imply that they were silent? Or rather that they explicitly rebuked him? In halakhic terms, they refused to violate Do not hate your brother in your heart, but did they fulfill You must surely rebuke your fellow, and not bear sin because of him?

Even if they rebuked him – does the Torah mean to say that all interactions with sinners must include rebuke? Is it hypocrisy to carry on normal social intercourse and rebuke only when a relevant issue comes up? That seems overly harsh. Seforno accordingly offers a less positive evaluation of the brothers’ behavior:

Even though they had to speak with him regarding household management and shepherding,

seeing as he was the one in charge by his father’s command,

they were unable to speak with him to shalom and companionship in the manner of brothers.

In contrast to Rashi, Seforno evaluates the brothers’ inability to engage in normal social conversation with Yosef as a weakness and failure. Presumably the brothers held like Rashi. Since they end up selling Yosef into slavery, after seriously considering fratricide, I’m strongly tempted to pasken like Seforno.

However, arguments from consequences generally assume that we know not only what happened, but what would have happened. Rashi might respond that following Seforno would have led them to actual fratricide.

That response can be psychologically justified in a variety of ways. For example, hypocrisy often leads to self-loathing, and escape from self-loathing is a prime motive for violence. Or: every ordinary interaction with Yosef increases their sense of injustice at his place in the world, whereas abrasive interactions give them a sense of getting some of their own back.

But one should not evaluate behavior in a relationship from the perspective of one side only. The Torah tells us that the brothers’ hatred was initially a reaction to the reality that Yaakov loved Yosef more than he loved any of them. Yosef then aggravates the hatred by sharing dreams in which they acknowledge his superiority. However, the Torah does not tell us whether Yosef is aware of their initial hatred, or of their reaction to his dreams.

This nuances the dispute between Rashi and Seforno.  Possibly Seforno would agree that when an undissolvable relationship begins to go sour, an aggrieved party has the obligation of rebuke rather than taking the easy short-term way out and sliding into permanent avoidance. The dispute is only whether the rebuke must be sustained until the other side acknowledges the breach and engages.

On the other hand, perhaps Seforno puts too much on the brothers by ignoring the power dynamics in the relationship.  Perhaps it is Yosef, favored and in charge, who has the primary or only obligation to engage. Put more sharply: Yosef has nothing to lose that he deserves to have.  

Midrash Tanchuma holds strongly that Yosef did not reciprocate his brothers’ hatred and incivility.

He (Yosef) would come ask-about-their-shalom, but they would not respond to him.

Why? Because that was his practice, to ask-about-their-shalom.

You have people who, before they enter into authority, ask-about-the-shalom of people,

but once they enter into authority, they become arrogant and aren’t concerned to ask-about-the-shalom of the populace,

but Yosef was not like that – even after he entered into authority, his practice was to ask-about-the-shalom of his brothers,

            as the Torah says: He asked-them-about-their-shalom. (Bereishis 43:27)

The Holy Blessed One said to him: Yosef, you would initiate asking-about-the-shalom of your brothers in This World, while they hated you,

but ultimately – I will reconcile you and remove the hatred from amongst you and settle you in tranquility and make shalom among you,

as David Hamelekh said: Behold how good and how pleasant brothers dwelling in togetherness. (Tehillim 133:1)

I’m not convinced, on several levels.

First, Yosef asks about his brothers’ shalom only when they come to Egypt the second time, bringing Binyamin. He speaks harshly to them the first time they come, and the Torah records no speech on either side when he is kidnapped.

Second, Yosef’s approach as described in this midrash was more likely condescension than engagement. He asked-about-shalom to people as an authority, not as an equal. That can work and even be admirable in a hierarchical relationship that both sides accept. It is infuriating to a social inferior who regards their inferiority as an injustice.

Third, one-way social intercourse, especially from a position of power, rarely works. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Netziv both suggest that Yosef predictably made things worse by trying to speak shalom to them.

Malbim adds a vital psychological nuance:

Ordinary hatred cools when the enemy speaks words of shalom and reconciliation . . .

but hatred arising out of jealousy, and all the more so if one sees the enemy as lying in ambush against your life and dignity, and that he deserves death – increases when the enemy speaks about shalom . . .

If this is correct, we can use reactions to civility as a way of diagnosing the causes of hatred, and therefore whether seeking civil dialogue is a viable counter-hate strategy.

Deborah suggested that in our case the brothers’ anger was displaced onto Yosef from Yaakov. We can develop this by saying that they needed to hate Yosef in order to avoid hating their father. Any sense that Yosef was a decent person was therefore profoundly threatening to them emotionally. Therefore they could not tolerate civility.

On this model, perhaps jealous hatred is always a matter of displaced anger. It follows reasonably that determining how to react wisely involves identifying the true object of the other’s anger.

The two most likely objects are G-d and themselves. Jealousy entails the belief that X has something that I don’t have but should have. How can that have happened? Either they don’t deserve it, in which case G-d has been unjust, and I should be angry with Him; or they do, in which case I have been inadequate, and I should be angry with myself. If I am not willing to allow G-d to love someone else more than He loves me, or to believe that someone else deserves more than I do – I will hate them.

Let’s suppose that Yosef had fully and correctly understood the fraternal dynamics. What could he have done to heal the relationship?  

It’s tempting to answer that Yosef could have abdicated any position of authority and preference. He could, in short, have engaged in utopian socialism. But I suspect this is a fantasy. First, nothing he could have done would have stopped Yaakov from loving him more than his brothers. In fact, Yaakov would probably have loved him all the more for trying to refuse the advantages. Second, Yosef had dreams. Forcing a person to give up their ambitions in the name of enforced material or social equality denies a more fundamental equality, which we can perhaps frame as an equal right to the pursuit of happiness.

Yosef’s dreams come true in the end because he is capable of listening to Pharaoh’s dreams without jealousy. That enables him to interpret them in a way that fulfills rather than competes with his own dreams.  

I suspect that Yosef’s only chance was to listen to his brothers’ dreams in the same way that he listened to Pharaoh’s. But this would have been extraordinarily difficult. The brothers may long since have given up dreaming (although Leah never stopped dreaming of a world in which Yaakov loved her as much as he loved Rachel). Or their dreams may all have been reactionary, dreams of revenge rather than of self-fulfillment.

Is It OK to Kill People Because They Deserve to Die?

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Shekhem kidnapped Dinah. Kidnapping is a violation of the Noachide prohibition against gezel. All Noachide prohibitions are capital crimes. Therefore, Shekhem committed a capital crime.

Kidnapping is a violation of the Noachide prohibition against gezel. The Noachide commandment of dinim obligates punishing kidnappers. According to Rambam (Laws of Kings 9:14), it follows that “All baalei Shekhem were liable to be killed, because Shekhem committed gezel, and they saw and knew, and they did not bring him to justice”.

Ramban disagrees. He initially grounds his disagreement in Yaakov’s criticism of Shimon and Levi:

ואין דברים הללו נכונים בעיני,

שאם כן,

היה יעקב אבינו חייב להיות קודם וזוכה במיתתם,

ואם פחד מהם,

למה כעס על בניו ואירר אפם אחר כמה זמנים,

וענש אותם וחלקם והפיצם,

והלא הם זכו ועשו מצוה ובטחו בא-להים והצילם?!

These words are not correct in my eyes,

because if this were so,

our father Yaakov would have been obligated to precede them in the merit of causing (the Shekhemites) deaths,

and (even) if he was afraid of (the Shekhemites),

why did he express anger at his sons and curse their rage many years later,

and punish them by separating and dividing them,

when they meritoriously did a mitzvah, and had faith in G-d, Who saved them?!

Ramban then points out an internal weakness in Rambam’s argument. Why is his justification at all necessary?! Shekhem was a Canaanite city, and the Torah testifies repeatedly that the Canaanites were idolaters, and therefore deserved death! Ramban concludes that Shimon and Levi had no jurisdiction over the people of Shekhem. They were vigilantes masquerading as sheriffs.

Let us be clear. Ramban does not think Yaakov criticized his sons for any actions necessary to rescue Dinah. He does not deny the guilt of the people of Shekhem. The only question is whether their actions were in fact necessary, in two ways: First, maybe their overtures of conversion and peace were genuine. (I think this explanation assumes that Dinah would post facto have chosen to stay with Shekhem. That would not in any way justify Shekhem’s action in kidnapping her.) Second, maybe some of the killings were not necessary to rescue Dina.

Ramban challenges Rambam by asking why Yaakov criticized Shimon and Levi. He leaves open the possibility that Rambam successfully articulates Shimon and Levi’s self-justification.

However, I suggest that Rambam may not accept that self-justification. He may agree with Ramban that Shimon and Levi had no jurisdiction over the Shekhemites, but on different grounds.

Ramban believes that one nation cannot interfere in the internal affairs of another except as necessary to protect specific victims. (It’s not clear whether interference is justified to protect victims internal to the other society, or only to rescue one’s own citizens from them.)

Rambam by contrast allows for the possibility of “nation-building”. However, he agrees that jurisdiction over failure to fulfill dinim can be exercised only for the purpose of enabling the creation of a lawful society. Shimon and Levi had no such purpose. A society in which everyone is equally dead is not better than a society in which some people kill others.

If one reads Rambam the other way, as agreeing with Shimon and Levi, the results are as follows. Everyone in Shekhem has committed a capital crime; everyone in Shekhem has the obligation to kill everyone in Shekhem who has committed a capital crime; therefore everyone in Shekhem has the obligation to kill everyone else. Subsequent repentance is irrelevant if the punishment is for past crimes, so there is no way out, ever. I don’t see this as a reasonable Torah outcome[1].

Ramban’s underlying claim is that Yaakov was correct, and I am arguing that Rambam agrees. The basis for this claim is that Yaakov curses Shimon and Levi’s anger in his deathbed “blessings” for his sons in Parashat Vayechi.

Moreover, Yaakov expresses fear that their actions will generate a wave of violent antiJacobism, but some sort of Divine Terror prevents the violence. One might think as a result that Shimon and Levi are “justified by history”. However, Yaakov knows on his deathbed that his fear was not borne out and curses their anger anyway. This suggests that his primary argument was moral rather than pragmatic; and/or that he saw the Divine Terror as an act of Divine grace rather than as an endorsement; and/or that the saw the generation of antiSemitism as a terrible thing even if it did not lead to violence. Possibly he saw his eventual need to leave Israel for Egypt as a consequence of Shimon and Levi’s actions, and/or he understood the kidnapping of Yosef, as performed and enabled by his brothers, as a punishment for or consequence of Shimon and Levi’s actions.

The objection to Ramban’s claim is that in this week’s parshah, Shimon and Levi have the last word, and their last word is powerful and convincing: “Shall he treat our sister like a harlot?”  A full defense of Ramban (and Rambam as I read him) requires an explanation of the Torah’s choice to delay its judgment and leave us in temporary and uncomfortable sympathy with Shimon and Levi.

One possible approach is to analyze this as a rhetorical device. A useful debating tactic is to present the other side’s position clearly in order to demonstrate that one’s rejection arises out of understanding and sympathy rather than dismissal. That helps us avoid the trap of thinking that other actions like those of Shimon and Levi can be justified because they are somehow better motivated or aimed at worse crimes.

The obvious problem with this approach is that it often backfires. Readers have a hard time overcoming their sympathy for Shimon and Levi. For that matter, a careful reading of the parshah also yields at least a degree of romantic sympathy for the individual person of Shekhem, the star-crossed, self-sacrificing, and charismatic leader. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l liked to quote a dialogue in which a woman told Voltaire “To understand all is to forgive all”, and he replied: “Let us therefore not understand too much, lest we forgive too much”. Empathy is dangerous; we are capable of sympathy for the devil, and Satan is the most relatable character in Paradise Lost. Lack of empathy is at least equally dangerous; among other consequences, it makes violence seem the inevitable consequence of disagreement. The Torah chooses to risk allowing us to understand too much. Let us be careful lest we forgive too much, in ourselves and others.

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[1] Deborah Klapper contends that “The real problem with Rambam’s position is that it makes everyone everywhere who belongs to any society we don’t control liable to death because they didn’t kill someone else for doing something we think is illegal.” I think this is an effective reductio ad absurdum against that position, but I don’t think it’s what Rambam intended. He must grant Gentiles the capacity to define the Noachide laws to a very significant extent; to acknowledge that dinim has been minimally fulfilled if a society has a passable criminal justice system, even if the occasional eater of flesh from live animals slips through, or I suspect even if they all do; and his position must in practice be qualified and nuanced in many other ways. In short, Rambam’s brief restatement of the Noachide commandments is an expression of principles rather than a practical law code. Epigrammatically one might say that it is more Torah than Mishneh Torah.