~ Thoughts on the Parsha ~
Parshas Shoftim
A Seemingly Untraditional
Tradition
By: Daniel Listhaus
עַל פִּי הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר יוֹרוּךָ וְעַל
הַמִּשְׁפָּט אֲשֶׁר יֹאמְרוּ לְךָ תַּעֲשֶׂה לֹא תָסוּר מִן הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר
יַגִּידוּ לְךָ יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאל
“According to the teaching that they will teach you
and according to the judgment that they will say to you shall you do; you shall
not turn from the word that they will tell you, right or left.”
-Shoftim 17:11
Rashi[1] comments that this passuk (verse) teaches
us that even if one’s Rov (Rabbi) says about right that it is
left and about left that it is right we are obligated to abide by his ruling.
From the fact that Rashi is describing the Torah’s commandment as
“Listen to the Rabbis even if he says to you about right that it is left”, is
an indication that we are not just dealing with someone who knows nothing and
is asking a Rabbi for a halachik ruling, rather it seems that we are
dealing with someone who knows his “rights and lefts” and yet the Torah is
telling him that if he goes to ask a halachik shailah (question),
he must listen to the Rov’s answer even if what he is telling you seems
completely backwards.[2] Imagine the following scene: There is a person who
knows a thing or two about halacha and Torah values but comes up with a
question which, although he has a general picture of what the answer should be,
he is not 100 percent sure. So he goes to his Rov and asks a shailah.
After providing all the necessary details to his Rov, the Rov
thinks and responds with an answer which is totally out of the blue and
in the opinion of the asker, is clearly incorrect. As he listens to the
response with his jaw dropped open he thinks to himself, “It seems to be
contrary to basic halacha! How could that be kosher, it is so
obviously treif? Or how could that be mutar (permitted), it is so
clear that it is assur (forbidden)?” Yet, the torah tells us to follow
the rulings of the Rabbis even if they tell us about right that it is left and
left that it is right.
This commandment is difficult to understand. If it
is in fact so clear that what the Rov is ruling does not follow halacha,
then how could it be that we are commanded to listen? And on the flip-slide, if
a Rabbi indeed has the power to switch around the laws as he sees fit why can’t
he decide to cancel Shabbos, end keeping kosher, and eat on Yom
Kippur?
The
world view of Judaism is quite naïve. After all, the world at large has an
unsophisticated view of religion in general. Many people see life as one big
game. A person enters by choosing a religion which will provide a meaning to
life, a system of rules, motivation, spirituality, and some level of structure.
After all Pascal’s wager states that a rational person should live as
though God exists
and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will
have only a finite loss in this world with minor restrictions, whereas if He
does the possibility is there for an afterlife of infinite pleasures or
sufferings. Each religion of course must offer incentives[3] which promise some sort of fabulous after-life
providing one kept to the rules of the religion; and it goes without saying
that each religion believes about the other that it is total nonsense and that
they are in for a rude awakening when they die.
Imagine
a person born on an abandoned island with absolutely no opinion or religious
view[4] who is brought before a panel of representatives
of every religion. This person knowing nothing but logic and math will figure
that mathematically it is worth the “gamble” to be a religious person. Then he
will look at each religion and see that each has the same probability of being
true and that numbers of followers does not at all necessarily portray the
accuracy of the religion’s claims. So, this thinking person would make his
decision based on two factors: The demands and the potential rewards. After
all, if there is a religion out there with very few demands and a great reward
why wouldn’t he choose that one if it has the same chance of being right as any
other religion? After choosing a religion, this person may even be inclined to
try to recruit others, and this could be for any number of reasons depending on
the religion. In some cases, the religion itself demands it. In others, it may
not but the members feel the need to share with others what they found works
for themselves. And in some cases, neither of those reasons applies but the
members may feel better being part of a bigger crowd so they reach out to
others to join.
However,
as religious Jews we have the privilege of having an informed perspective of
Judaism specifically. We do not see a game of probabilities nor merely a world
with laws, but rather a world created and conducted by Hashem and fully
operating based on His Torah. There is no doubt that Judaism is by far the most
complex, detailed, and demanding religion. It is almost ironic that any other
religion calls us infidels or blasphemers for just “leaving out” so little
compared to all that we are already doing so well. Some religions do not eat
pig, but everyone knows which religion has the highest level of kashrus. Some
religions are very into repentance, but only one has the experience of Rosh
Hashanah, Yom Kippur, slichos, shofar, and significant
fast days throughout the year.
A major part of Judaism’s complexity lies within the
fact that despite the truth that we are the only religion to claim that
millions of people directly heard Hashem reveal Himself on Har Sinai and
that we received the Torah from Hashem and directly passed down this mesorah
(tradition) from generation to generation until today, still every
single halacha brought in Shulchan Aruch has a whole story behind
it. Which mitzvah is it a part of? How was it learned out? What were the
related disputes? Why did our mesorah choose to branch down one way to
get the final ruling and not an alternative way? So much thought and proofs
went into our mesorah since Har Sinai – always following the
guidelines set forth by Hashem in His written and oral Torahs. A glimpse of
this could be seen in the recorded Gemara we still learn today but the
infinite wisdom that exists behind the scenes is unfathomable.
The gemara[5] comments that it is precisely this complexity
which may turn people away. Besides for the fact that the laws themselves are
numerous and a challenge to keep to perfection, the fact that everything is
disputed makes it hard for a layman to take seriously. After all, if one Rabbi
tells me I can’t turn on a light on Shabbos because it creates a circuit
and another Rabbi tells me that I cannot turn it on because it is considered
making a fire, why can’t I just cancel the reasons out and turn it on? If there
is a dispute as to if a particular mixture is deemed kosher or not, why
can’t I just choose what I want with the justification that there is a Rabbi
out there that would hypothetically permit it? The gemara asks this but
offers only a cryptic answer that “all of Torah was given over to Moshe to
teach us”. How could we understand this gemara? How could we clarify and
become educated in our understanding as to how something wrong could be right
and something right could be wrong?
The Kli Yakar[6] explains as follows. The Torah and its laws
are from Hashem and it deals with reality from Hashem’s perspective. Hashem
gave us His Torah to guide us through this world and live effectively. The
Torah is from Hashem and the tools given to man in order to understand His
Torah are from Hashem, and nothing is simple. The Orchos Tzaddikim writes
an entire sefer on the middos (traits) which make up human
behavior and how to channel them appropriately. As the sefer repeats
many times, besides for each middah having a polar opposite, for example haughtiness and humility, it is
equally important to understand that there is “good haughtiness” and “bad
haughtiness” and that “good haughtiness” is not even haughtiness at all but in
fact humility. Standing up to people who are against Hashem, or taking care of oneself
are really acts of humility as they demonstrates understanding one’s place as
an eved Hashem. The same is true when it comes to halachos. Tamei
(impure) items, for example, have a facet of taharah (purity) to
them; and vice versa. It is just that the overwhelming aspects of a tamei item
screams out tamei while the majority of aspects of a tahor item
calls out tahor. However, a shift in the equation by adding variables
such as curveball situations or added details to a particular case could in
fact shift the dominant view of the tamei item to become tahor, or
a kosher item to be treif.
The integration of the right ingredients to add to
the mix in order to come to the accurate p’sak (ruling) is not for the
faint of heart. It takes a deep understanding of our mesorah as well as
the tools and guidelines handed over by Hashem to B’nei Yisroel to
understand and apply the Torah’s principles. This is the meaning of the gemara[7] which states that the members of Sanhedrin
had to know how to purify a sheretz (a tamei creeping
creature) according to the Torah; not by finding “legal loopholes”, but rather
by understanding the facets of everything and comprehending which variables are
able to change their balances and which cannot. There is an incredible amount
of responsibility and power given over to every proper beis din with
qualified dayanim (judges) k’das Moshe v’Yisroel to understand
the halachos with the associated reasons, proofs, details, and logic in
order to properly pinpoint if the thing that is in question which looks like tamei,
sounds like tamei, and smells like tamei is really tamei or
if its aspect of tahara has its moment to shine and what looks right is
suddenly left and what looks left is suddenly right. Not because of legal loop
holes, not because beis din is confused, and not because they have the
authority to flip-flop, but rather because we have an “untraditional tradition”
which is more complex than a set of rules because it is a description of
Hashem’s ratzon which by definition is reality and sometimes reality
calls the act of killing as being merciful even though it looks cruel,
sometimes calls giving tzedaka unkind even though it looks nice. It all
depends on the factors and details of the particular case based on the tools
and guidelines transmitted in our rich mesorah as well as the da’as
Torah perspective of the leading Torah authorities of each generation.
[1]
Devarim 17:11
[2]
See Ohr Hachaim 17:9 who says that although the Rov does not have
to offer his reasoning on his own, if one asks, he must say. It would see that
one can discuss why the Rov decided what he ruled as he did but the
final word is based on the Rov’s da’as Torah.
[3]
Note: Not all incentives are created equal. Some “offer” physical pleasures in
an afterlife, some “offer” more of an escape from punishment, while others
“offer” a chance to come back in another form.
[4]
Note: Being born on an island without influence of religion does not mean that
one cannot achieve it on his own. After all, Avraham avinu recognized
that there must be Hashem – Who not only created the world, but continues to
create it and intimately control it.
[5]
Chagiga 3b
[6]
Devarim 17:11
[7]
Sanhedrin 17a
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