commentator archives - dr belkin on drama

I always love looking through old newspapers - i think its fascinating to see old perspectives and what exactly people were thinking about back then.

A friend of mine decided to look through the archives of the commentator and found a fascinating article by Dr. Belkin.  I found this article to be a little harsh, but maybe that just reflects a lack of sensitivity on my part - you'll see what I mean when you read it.  Overall, I think we all wish the university today was guided a little more by the perspective of Dr. Belkin.

Just a word/story about Dr. Belkin:  One shabbos an alumnus of YU was here who was a talmid of R Gorelick (one of the roshei yeshiva at YU then from pre-war europe).  R Gorelick told his talmidim: 'you all think that I am kodesh, while Dr. Belkin, who is just the president of the university, isn't anything special.  But really its exactly the opposite - in Radin, Dr. Belkin was the big iluy/masmid while I used to hide in the bathroom and read Voltaire. ' At which point one student interjected - c'mon rebbe, you don't really know voltaire - so R gorelick showed him that he knew voltaire a lot better than this student.  the point being that despite not being famous, dr belkin was obviously very chashuv, so we should take seriously what he says.

anyways, heres the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2M_eyjK9lJLS2c3dW14cjN2ZXc/edit?usp=sharing

(theres one more very important thing I want to say about this article but that will be for later)

chayei sarah - the last nisayon

Kayadua, there is a machlokes about what exactly the ten nisyonos of avraham were.  The Rambam ends the list in parshas vayera with the climactic akeidas yitzchak.

But the rabbeinu yonah ends the list with the beginning of this week's parsha - he thinks the tenth nisayon was avraham's burial of sarah: העשירי קבורת שרה. שנאמר לו קום התהלך בארץ לארכה ולרחבה כי לך אתננה. וכשמתה אשתו לא מצא מקום לקברה עד שקנאו ולא הרהר.

At first glance, this seems ridiculous - avraham was willing to sacrifice his son - what does the sacrifice of 400 coins mean in relation to that - its nothing?

(What we say below isnt meant to explain how the tenth nisayon was greater than that of the akeidah - that I do not say.  but it will explain how the 2 nisyonos were different  - how the nisayon of kevuras sarah is not automatically subsumed under that of the akeidah)

By akeidas yitzchak, hashem commanded avraham to slaughter his son.  obviously thats an incredible nisayon - but at the end of the day, if hashem commands you to do something, you do it.

By kevuras sarah we have exactly the opposite - hashem told avraham that the land is his.  Efron is even (seemingly) offering the land for free - its so tempting - just take efron up on his bluff and take the land for free - after all - it really belongs to avraham anyways as per hashem's havtacha.

The nisayon wasn't to obey hashem, no matter how hard that might be.  hashem didn't say anything here.  the nisayon wasn't even to do what's right in the absence of a command- mitzad hadin, its entirely possible that avraham had every right to take the land without paying (leaving the discussion by the shepherds aside for now).  the nisayon was that even if hashem didn't say anything, and even if you're totally justified/in the right, and even if the guy you're dealing with is a dishonest jerk (as efron was), still you should give in to him and pay for the field - even though he offered it for free!

The gemara somewhere in Bava metzia recounts how when one amora hired workers who instead of doing the job for him, accidentally broke his stuff, he wanted to take payment from them.  This amora's rebbe stepped in, however, and forced him to not only not take payment for the damage the workers did, but to pay them for their time as if they had done their job - obviously this is far above and beyond what the letter, and perhaps even the spirit of the law requires - but thats the lesson of the tenh nisayon.  we have to go so far to be nice to others, and put aside our pain / frustration at the lack of justice that doing so entails - that is non-trivial.

Good shabbos!

Tefillah - Against the baalei mussar

I'm trying to find someone to whom I can attribute the idea which I'm about to disagree with (if you know please let me know).

I've heard people attribute to the baalei mussar that the highest level of tefillah is to not daven for anything specific; rather you should daven that hashem should do whatever is best - after all, you don't really know what is best - so maybe you / the world would really be better off if you didn't get what you're davening for.  Therefore, leave the decision about what's best to Hashem and let your role be to daven that whatever Hashem knows is best should happen.

I think this is ridiculous.  First of all, chazal were mitaken all our tefillos, and they never do this.  Much more powerfully - how different and lacking our torah would be were the characters in tanach to follow this terrible advice.   The emotional power of sefer tehillim would vanish.

We would never learn the depths of Moshe's desire to enter Eretz Yisrael.

In connection to this week's parsha, we would lose Avraham's powerful tefillah to save sdom.  Instead of "hashofet kol haaretz lo yaaseh mishpat", we would have avraham say, ok G-d, whatever you think is right.

We wouldn't even be here to discuss this question, because the exact same thing would happen when Hashem told moshe he was going to wipe us out after the cheit ha-egel.

I think this mistake is connected to another flaw in people's understanding of tefillah.  Many are troubled, how does it make sense that Hashem listens to our tefilos - mimah nafshach - if we deserve it, Hashem should give it to us without us asking, and if we don't deserve it, then asking makes it better?  How can Hashem "change his mind" (lo ish kel viychazev) simply because we lay it on very thick to him?

So theres the famous shtickel torah - tefillah doesn't change G-d, it changes you.  by davening you are transformed into a person worthy of what you're asking for.

Its cute.  And of course it is true that tefillah, by virtue of its being a mitzvah, makes one a better person.  But thats not the real answer to this question.

Let me ask you another question:  I need a house to live in.  Now, Why should I invest effort into building  this house.  Mimah nafshach - If I deserve the house, G-d must give it to me.  If I dont deserve it, then why would G-d let me keep it simply because I exerted some stupid physical effort to build the house.  Can G-d change his mind about whether or not I deserve this house simply because I build it?

Ela mai, for whatever reason (and we can get at an approximate intuitive understanding of why this is so), G-d created the world in a way that having a house to live in doesn't correspond to the simple metric of do you deserve it / do you not.  Theres another factor thrown in - did you build the house.

So Hashem also wanted another metric to be thrown in (and again, we can attain an approximate understanding of why G-d wanted this) which is that independent of deserving it, did you daven for it?  Hashem wanted to create a world where he could say Ki mi goy gadol asher lo elokim kerovim eilav - to do that he had to introduce a separate metric.  But its no different, no more unfair, no more G-d changing his mind, than the fact that you need to build a house to live in it.

(I hate to quote chasidim, but I realized that this idea is mefurash in R Tzadok.  In KBY, R Kalman Ber had us memorize this line from R tzaddok - I dont know where its from and I didnt understand its significance until I understood the above mashal.  but here it is:

"Tefillah tzarich likol davar, af al pi shekivar nigzar min hashamayim")

So if you think tefillah is really just a way to change oneself, then it doesn't really matter what you ask for.  But if we correctly understand that tefillah is part of the way Hashem created the world, and it is just like hishtadlus in that regard, then we see immediately why its important to daven for specific things.

Theres a fascinating gemara in bava metzia (I think 106a).  The gemara says something along the lines of the following:  if I asked my worker to plant wheat and he planted barley, and there was a makkas medinah that destroyed all the wheat and barley around the area, the worker is still chayav.  why? because I, thinking the worker had planted wheat, davened for hashem to protect the wheat; if there had really been wheat there, maybe my tefilla would have been answered.  since there was only barley, my tefilla had no effect.

So I was very troubled:  Does G-d run a bureaucracy up there in shamayim: Sorry sir, your tefilla form says wheat, not barley - this seems ridiculous.

But in hishtadlus, effort alone doesn't count.  If you try to build a house with rotten wood, all the good will in the world gets you no where.  Tefilla is another form of hishtadlus and hence follows the same rules.

This is all very non -rambam - esque.  But it has an application which I find inspiring, and that is again, avraham's tefilla to save sdom.  Whats pshat that avraham can argue with Hashem about whether it is just to destroy sdom or not - the chutzpah!

But as we've said, in tefilla, it does matter that you are specific.  you shouldn't leave it to g-d to decide whats best; rather, as part of your hishtadlus of tefilla, you have to evaluate what you think is best / right to ask for (the same way that in regular hishtadlus you have to decide what to be mishtadel for).  Avraham thought it was right to save sdom - if he had any other way to do so, he would have tried it.  but he didn't.  so his last line of hishtadlus was tefillah.  Even if G-d himself wants to destroy sdom, that doesn't change avraham's moral compass of right and wrong - he is still obligated to be mishtadel to do good - and part of that chiyuv includes davening.  (This is al derech the machlokes rambam and ramban about ratzon hashem and right and wrong (ramban somewhere in bris bein habesarim) but thats for another discussion).  This is a very powerful idea.

Good shabbos!

Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich

I know Im supposed to answer the question I asked about milah.  But the formulation is still fuzzy in my mind.

Tonight Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich came to speak at YU, where I had the zechus to hear him.  If you never heard of him (like I hadnt till last week), he was born an irreligious Jew in Soviet Russia, became interested in Jewish history and started an underground Jewish education movement in Russia, was arrested trying to escape to Israel and spent eleven years in the gulag in communist russia.  Despite all that, he remained (and if anything grew more) committed to Judaism and when he was freed, moved immediately to Israel where he became fully Orthodox.

What stood out to me was Mendelevich's tremendous ahavas yisrael.  He said that the publicity of his trial and attempted escape forced the Soviet Union to begin to allow Jews out of Russia, such that while almost no Jews had left Russia once communism took over there, by the time he was freed 300,000 Jews had emigrated from Russia to Israel.  He said that he felt it was a worthwhile trade - he would stay longer in prison to free more Jews from the communists.  and this prison wasn't exactly a pleasant place - he was beaten, put to forced labor, never allowed visitations from family or friends.  If he had given in to Russian demands to confess, to not act religious, things would have gone much easier for him.  He brought the hard conditions upon himself, and still felt it was worth it to help other Jews escape.  That is pure ahavas yisrael in every sense of the phrase.

Too often we separate our private religious lives / relationship with Hashem from our interpersonal relationships - this man allowed no such distinctions - when he spoke about his life, you saw that to him, being true to G-d was the same as being true to His people, and vica versa.  He almost died on several occasions because of his refusal to take off his yarmulke - you could just look at that narrowly as dedication to mitzvos bein adam lamakom (and it is certainly incredible even in that light alone).  But Mendelevich described that to him it wasn't just that - it was about him representing the spirit of the Jewish people to the Russians - we cannot be broken.  Should Mendelevich give in, he realized it reflects badly not on him alone, but on our entire people.  Through that, his action of (literal) mesiras nefesh became one that is limaan kol klal yisrael.

Please G-d, we should all never know any of the suffering Mendelevich knew, but we should all strive to reach his level of ahavas hashem and ahavas yisrael.

Theological crisis

Thats a slight exaggeration.  But here's the question, and it has critical theological ramifications.

The Rambam (peirush hamishnayos end of seventh perek of chullin) is adamant that all the mitzvos we do, we do because we were commanded at sinai - even if some mitzvos were given before sinai, the tzviuy from before sinai isnt what is mechayev - only the tzivuy from sinai counts:

ושים לבך לכלל הגדול הזה המובא במשנה זו והוא אמרם מסיני נאסר, והוא, שאתה צריך לדעת שכל מה שאנו נזהרים ממנו או עושים אותו היום אין אנו עושים זאת אלא מפני צווי ה' על ידי משה, לא מפני שה' צוה בכך לנביאים שקדמוהו, דוגמא לכך, אין אנו אוכלים אבר מן החי לא מפני שה' אסר על בני נח אבר מן החי, אלא מפני שמשה אסר עלינו אבר מן החי במה שנצטווה בסיני שישאר אבר מן החי אסור. וכן אין אנו מלים בגלל שאברהם מל את עצמו ואנשי ביתו, אלא מפני שה' צונו על ידי משה להמול כמו שמל אברהם עליו השלום, וכן גיד הנשה אין אנו נמשכים בו אחרי אסור יעקב אבינו אלא צווי משה רבינו, הלא תראה אמרם שש מאות ושלש עשרה מצות נאמרו לו למשה בסיני, וכל אלה מכלל המצות.

A question that we will need to get back to to answer my primary question: why is the rambam so adamant about this, and why is this such an important "klal gadol".

But before we discuss that, the primary question:  As you can see in the second bolding, one of the rambam's examples of a mitvzah given before sinai is the mitzvah of milah in this week's parsha, and the rambam explicitly writes that the tzivuy to avraham is not what binds us - rather it is the tzivuy from moshe that we care about.

How do you square that with the pashut pshat in the psukim:

(ט) וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וְאַתָּה אֶת־בְּרִיתִי תִשְׁמֹר אַתָּה וְזַרְעֲךָ אַחֲרֶיךָ לְדֹרֹתָם:
    (י) זֹאת בְּרִיתִי אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְרוּ בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ אַחֲרֶיךָ הִמּוֹל לָכֶם כָּל־זָכָר:
    (יא) וּנְמַלְתֶּם אֵת בְּשַׂר עָרְלַתְכֶם וְהָיָה לְאוֹת בְּרִית בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם:
    (יב) וּבֶן־שְׁמֹנַת יָמִים יִמּוֹל לָכֶם כָּל־זָכָר לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם יְלִיד בָּיִת וּמִקְנַת־כֶּסֶף מִכֹּל בֶּן־נֵכָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא מִזַּרְעֲךָ הוּא:
    (יג) הִמּוֹל יִמּוֹל יְלִיד בֵּיתְךָ וּמִקְנַת כַּסְפֶּךָ וְהָיְתָה בְרִיתִי בִּבְשַׂרְכֶם לִבְרִית עוֹלָם:
    (יד) וְעָרֵל זָכָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִמּוֹל אֶת־בְּשַׂר עָרְלָתוֹ וְנִכְרְתָה הַנֶּפֶשׁ הַהִוא מֵעַמֶּיהָ אֶת־בְּרִיתִי הֵפַר: ס

Hashem specifically commands Avraham in a tzivuy lidoros (notice the boldings) - how can that tzivuy be batel?  How could it be that we are not obligated to do milah because hashem commanded avraham in a tzivuy lidoros?  Do we not fulfill that tzivuy when we do milah?

Check out the rambam's language by mitzvas milah in sefer hamitzvos:

 והמצוה הרט"ו היא שצונו למול את הבן והוא אמרו יתעלה לאברהם (ס"פ לך) המול לכם כל זכר

(notice the bolded, underlined, and italicized word for emphasis)

The tzivuy of milah is the one that was given to avraham - how do we make sense of that?

(Lest you think this is a kashya by all mitzvos that were given pre-mattan torah, its not true.  Look at the leshonos in sefer hamitzvos and the pesukim vitimtzah nachas.)

I asked R Twersky about this issue, and while he didn't have answer, suggested a direction to think in.  I still need to think about it more before I can think about attempting to formulate an answer.  But this is a major theological crisis.  Ideas, anybody?

mezuzah

I know this has nothing to do with the parsha, but I was thinking about this and I have something I hope is interesting.

The Rambam has harsh words for those who use mezuzah as a mystical protection from danger:

אבל אלו שכותבין מבפנים שמות המלאכים או שמות קדושים או פסוק או חותמות הרי הן בכלל מי שאין להם חלק לעולם הבא, שאלו הטפשים לא די להם שבטלו המצוה אלא שעשו מצוה גדולה שהיא יחוד השם של הקב”ה ואהבתו ועבודתו כאילו הוא קמיע של הניית עצמן כמו שעלה על לבם הסכל שזהו דבר המהנה בהבלי העולם.

those who put "shemos hamalachim" in a mezuzah to be some sort of supernatural protection have taken a tremendous mitzvah that centers around yichud hashem, around loving and fearing g-d, and made it self-serving - to act as mystical protection.  there is no greater perversion of torah (according to the rambam) than this.

(Rashi and Tosfos seem to argue on this rambam, and indeed, on this very halacha, the ramach is masig (quoted in the kesef mishna): כתב הרמ"ך דבמסכת ע"ז משמע מהא דאמר אונקלוס לגונדא דרומאי כי הקדוש ברוך הוא עושה המזוזה לשמור ישראל מבחוץ.)

(This is reflective of the rambam's general take on amulet users (peirush hamishnayos sotah 7:4): אל תטריד את מחשבתך במה שהוזים כותבי הקמיעות וטפשי בני אדם)

Based on this approach, the rambam writes something fascinating in the last halacha of hilchos mezuzah:

חייב אדם להזהר במזוזה מפני שהיא חובת הכל תמיד. וכל זמן שיכנס ויצא יפגע ביחוד השם שמו של הקדוש ב"ה ויזכור אהבתו ויעור משנתו ושגיותיו בהבלי הזמן. וידע שאין דבר העומד לעולם ולעולמי עולמים אלא ידיעת צור העולם ומיד הוא חוזר לדעתו והולך בדרכי מישרים. אמרו חכמים הראשונים כל מי שיש לו תפילין בראשו ובזרועו וציצית בבגדו ומזוזה בפתחו מוחזק הוא שלא יחטא שהרי יש לו מזכירין רבים והן הם המלאכים שמצילין אותו מלחטוא שנאמר חונה מלאך יי' סביב ליראיו ויחלצם.

Chazal mention malachim in the context of mezuzah - how does the rambam square this with the disdain he showed for shemos malachim earlier?  Answers the rambam, the malachim aren't fiery beings with wings that protect man from physical danger - the malachim are mitzvos that remind us of hashem and protect us from sin.

I thought that with this we can understand a difficulty in the rambam elsewhere.  The rambam, based on a gemara brachos, writes:

וכל זמן שיכנס לבית הכסא אומר קודם שיכנס התכבדו מכובדים קדושים משרתי עליון עזרוני עזרוני שמרוני שמרוני המתינו לי עד שאכנס ואצא שזה דרכן של בני אדם. (hilchos tefila 7:4)

A person is supposed to ask the malachim to wait for him when he enters the bathroom  - since they cant go in.  How does the rambam understand this - we have fiery beings with wings who escort us but they cant go into the bathroom?  We're allowed to daven to them - isnt that avodah zarah?

But juxtaposed to the rambam in hilchos mezuzah, this makes perfect sense.  We are familiar with the famous gemara that tells how dovid hamelech, when he entered the bathroom, was disturbed by the lack of mitzvos - no tefillin, no mezuzah, an issur talmud torah.  This tefillah reflects that sensitivity - we are scared to enter a place where there are no mitzvos, and we pray that our mitzvos should still be there - we should still be shayach to mitzvos - when we come out.

I find this whole approach very inspirational.  First of all, there are those who think this "modern" shittah of the rambam is less "frum" than the shitah that mezuzah literally protects from physical harm.  I think its exactly the opposite - the rambam's position is much more frum.  We don't do mitzvos to gain physical protection - to the contrary, we do mitzvos even if that means suffering in this world.  Hence mezuzah is not about physical protection - its about a meaningful protection, a protection from sin.

Second, I think this connection to the tefilla before entering a beis hakiseh reveals a profound sensitivity to mitzvos - its only five minutes without mitzvos, but that should bother us.  We should all be zocheh to attain such a madrega.

Shavua tov!