OzTorah

Q. Keeping the commandments seems to put you in a cage which gives you no freedom. You have to obey or else. How can Judaism demand this?

A. Emmanuel Levinas used this analogy when he said that to take refuge in moral or ritual codes is to abdicate responsibility. (Martin Buber said, “Religion no longer shapes but enslaves religiosity”). But the person who lives by the mitzvot doesn’t feel like this at all. It is true that without the codes you have more freedom of movement – you don’t have to pray, you don’t have to limit what you eat, what you wear, what you do on Shabbat, or whether you have a m’zuzah on your door. The problem comes when you have had your fling and your life doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere.

Having a set of traditions to honour gives you fixed points and endows the days and weeks with personality and colour. But more than this, the life of mitzvot is a constant series of symbols that indicate the principles that you serve. In the words of Eliezer Berkovits, you are “governed by a fixed set of moral values”, such as k’vod hab’riyyot, human dignity, and dar’kei shalom, “the ways of peace”. You might say that it is precisely there that the cage analogy is to be found, in the existence of a (cage-like) “fixed set of moral values”.

Why, you might argue, does one have to be controlled by values that are fixed? Let me challenge you: find better values. Or tell me why fixed values are necessarily inferior. Work it out, and I suspect that you will come back to Berkovits’ way of thinking before long.

Q. Why do the early morning blessings first acknowledge that the rooster recognises the dawn, then mention that we have not been made heathens, slaves or women (women have a separate b’rachah) and then thank God for opening our eyes in the morning and enabling us to move and get out of bed?

A. These blessings combine two Talmudic passages. One, in B’rachot 60b, says that as we perform each early morning action we should say a blessing; the other, in M’nachot 43b, says that a man should acknowledge every day that he has not been made a heathen, a slave or a woman. (There is a great deal to say about the reference to women and about their blessing, “God… who has made me according to His will”, but we have dealt with this issue previously.)

The question you have asked may be answered this way. The first thing that happens in the morning is that we wake up, courtesy of the rooster, an alarm clock or some other means. Then, before we even open our eyes or begin to move, we begin to think. Our first thought is, “I’m alive! I’m Jewish! I’m free!” and a man adds, despite the sexism, “I’m male!” Now that our mind is alert we can begin the series of actions that mark the process of getting up.

Q. Is there a Jewish view about poverty?

A. Isn’t it Tevye who says in “Fiddler on the Roof” that poverty is no disgrace, but it’s no great honour either? This probably sums up the Jewish view of poverty.

On the one hand, the Bible says that the poor will not vanish from the earth (Deut. 15:11), and in passage after passage it deems it a great mitzvah to support the poor and alleviate their condition (e.g. Ex. 23:11; Lev. 23:22, 25:35). On the other hand, it regards riches as a blessing, provided they are used wisely, and Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, editor of the Mishnah, is reported as showing honour to the rich (Eruvin 86a) – not necessarily because they are better human beings, but because the community needs their help.

Jewish social legislation has focussed from Biblical times onwards on lessening poverty by providing opportunities for self-help; Maimonides in his Eight Degrees of Charity applauds those who give hand-outs to others in time of need but praises most of all those whose help is anonymous, so no-one will feel humiliated, and takes the form of opportunities to become independent (the Chinese have a similar saying that better than giving a person a fish is to give them a fishing rod).

There is a widespread, antisemitic view that all Jews are rich, but what Jews themselves say is halevai – “Would that it were so!” There is hardly a Jewish community without a visible minority who live below the poverty line, though generally they live in dignity and do their best. Jewish welfare agencies often draw much of their support from people who have now made good but once were penniless refugees who remember how other people were there to help them.

Q. Why does the Torah say that no-one knows Moses’ burial place?

A. Probably in order to prevent a Moses cult developing, with an industry centred upon pilgrimages to his grave. But there is an additional, homiletical argument – where is Moses buried? Wherever people ignore his Torah.

According to the Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah to 9:4), Hadrian said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah, “I am greater than Moses, because he is dead and I am alive”. Rabbi Yehoshua retorted, “No, Moses is greater, because his word is obeyed and there is no guarantee that yours is!” So, as long as people study Torah, Moses is alive, but wherever Torah is neglected, there Moses is buried.

Likewise, as long as people treasure the Psalms, David is alive; as long as people consult Rashi’s commentary, Rashi is alive. And as long as people recite Yizkor and say Kaddish, and quote their parents, their parents are alive. We can all live forever if our children and future generations keep us standing beside them.

Three times a year our ancestors had to visit the Temple. In Hebrew the phrase (Deut. 16:16) is shalosh p’amim bashanah. Shalosh can be spelt with a vav but it does not need to be. In this verse the vav is there. Some say that since the numerical value of vav is six, there is a secondary meaning – that six times a year a person should visit their teacher, on Pesach, Shavu’ot and Sukkot, on Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur and Sh’mini Atzeret. The question is why one should visit a teacher at all and why on these particular occasions, with a further question: what happens if the teacher is no longer alive.

Visiting a teacher is a way of showing respect. It reconstructs the days when the teacher’s personality and influence surrounded all one thought and did. It renews the ideas and interpretations that came from the sage. If the teacher has passed away a “visit” involves looking at their writings or at least trying to re-evoke the lessons and conversations that may have taken place years before.

Why on these particular days? Not only because they are the major days in the year but because each one signifies a principle that every student needs – aspirations (Rosh HaShanah), overcoming mistakes (Yom Kippur), being yourself (Pesach), a moral compass (Shavu’ot), the need for Divine protection (Sukkot) and never letting the teaching fade (Sh’mini Atzeret).

Which teacher should one visit, either physically or notionally? The one who was your greatest mentor. In my own case I had the blessing to revisit my mentor’s home years after I left his classroom. It was a joy in both the personal and the intellectual-spiritual sense. It also taught me humility. By then I was an adult and a teacher myself, and it was good to be reminded how much more I still had to learn.