Parshath Aharei Moth (Leviticus XVI,1-XVIII,30) 4/15/11

A.

כמעשה ארץ מצרים אשר ישבתם בה לא תעשו וכמעשה ארץ כנען אשר אני מביא אתכם שמה לא תעשו ובחקתיהם לא תלכו: את משפטי תעשו ואת חקתי תשמרו ללכת בהם אני ד': ושמרתם את חקתי ואת משפטי אשר יעשה אתם האדם וחי בהם אני ד': (“According to the practice of the land of Egypt in which you dwelt you will not do, and according to the practice of the land of Këna‘an whither I am bringing you, you shall not do; and by their laws [huqqoth] you shall not go. My judgments [mishpatim] you shall do and My huqqoth you shall keep, to go by them; I am Ha-Shem. And you will keep My huqqoth and My mishpatim which an adam will do, and live by them; I am Ha-Shem”; XVIII, 3-5).

The Egyptians amongst whom the bënei Yisra’él had lived for 210 years had built a spectacular civilization, whose archaeological remains draw millions of tourists to the Nile valley to this day. What practices of this people are we not to emulate? How were they like those of the Këna‘anim from whom Israel would inherit the Holy Land? And while we are asking questions, note the peculiar alternation of verbs in the next two verses: We are to “do” or “make” [‘asa] G-d’s mishpatim, and “keep” [shamar] His huqqoth, then we are to “keep” them both, to “do” them. What are huqqoth and mishpatim? What is the point of the alternation?

B.

Hazal ask our first question: אי "כמעשה" יכול לא יבנו בנינים ולא יטעו נטיעות כמוהם ת"ל "ובחקתיהם לא תלכו" לא אמרתי לך אלא בחקים החקוקים להם ולאבותיהם ולאבות אבותיהם (“According to what ‘practice’? Can it be that they should not erect buildings or plant crops as they did? This is the teaching of ‘and by their huqqoth you shall not go’: I said this to you concerning only the laws which have been decreed for them [huqqim ha-haquqim lahem] and for their fathers and their fathers’ fathers”; תורת כהנים, פרשתנו). The midrash then goes on to detail these huqqim ha-haquqim lahem, which turn out to be the very catalogue of deviant practices, ‘arayoth, which occupies the rest of our parasha, against which Israel are repeatedly warned.

The Maharal mi-Prag (גבורות ד' פ"ד) picks up this thread, and notes that even after two centuries of exposure to the corrosive Egyptian influence, Israel had been little affected by this aspect of their culture. In evidence, he cites Psalms CXXII, 4: שבטי קה עדות לישראל (“Ha-Shem’s tribes are testimony to Israel”), i.e., שהעיד שמו עליהם שהם בני אבותיהם (“that His name upon them attested that they were sons of their fathers”), unlike the Egyptians who, because of their practices, could never be certain of their patrimony. Indeed, throughout that entire period, only one woman of Israel היתה במצרים שזנתה ופרסמה הכתוב שנאמר "ויצא בן אשה ישראלית והוא בן איש מצרי" מלמד שלא היתה בישראל רק זו וגו' (“was there in Egypt who fornicated and Scripture publicised her, as it is said, ‘And the son of an Israelite woman who was the son of an Egyptian man went forth’ [Leviticus XXIV, 10], teaching that there was no other in Israel but this one....”). The Këna‘anim, close ethnic relations of the Egyptians (cf. Genesis X, 6), shared their proclivities, as is apparent from the juxtaposition of their “practice” to that of their North African cousins just before the catalogue of ‘arayoth in our parasha. It is interesting that in the above-quoted midrash Hazal refer to both nations’ sexual mores as huqqim ha-haquqim lahem, especially in light of their comment elsewhere, on Exodus XV, 25: שם שם לו חק ומשפט (“...there [Moshe] laid down to [Israel] hoq and mishpat...”), that חק אלו העריות (“hoq [refers to] the ‘arayoth”; מכילתא שם). So if a hoq is something like the prohibited ‘arayoth, what are mishpatim?

C.

The Talmud defines mishpatim as follows: דברים שאלמלא נכתבו דין הוא שיכתבו ואלו הן עבודה זרה וג"ע וש"ד וגזל וברכת השם (“things which, were they not written [in the Torah], judgment would cause them to be written [by people], and they are: Idolatry, and ‘arayoth and bloodshed and robbery and cursing Ha-Shem”), whilst huqqim are דברים שהשטן משיב עליהם ואלו הן אכילת חזיר ושעטנז וחליצת יבמה וטהרת מצורע ושעיר המשתלח ושמא תאמר מעשה תהו הם ת"ל "אני ד'" אני ד' חקקתיו ואין לכם רשות להרהר בהם (“Things about which the yétzer ha-ra‘ talks back: Eating pigs [cf. e.g. Leviticus XI, 7], sha‘tnéz [ibid., XIX, 19 and Deuteronomy XXII, 11] and halitza [ibid., XXV,9] and the purification of a mëtzora‘ [Leviticus XIV, 2-32] and the scapegoat [ibid., XVI, 10]; and lest you say that they are meaningless practices, this is why it says ‘I am Ha-Shem’; I, Ha-Shem, decreed it, and you do not have permission to question them”; יומא ס"ז: עיי' רש"י שם). As the Torah Tëmima explains, the Talmud is מפרש משפט על הדינים שהשכל והמוסר מחייבים אותם לעשות או שלא לעשות וחקה הם מצות שאין השכל והדעת משיגם (“explaining mishpat in terms of things which reason and morality compel to do or not to do, and a huqqa is [one of] those mitzvoth which reason and knowledge do not grasp”). He goes on to explain that this is the reason the Torah says simply “do” concerning mishpatim: Since they are intellectually self-evident, no justification or detailed explanation is necessary; all that is necessary is execution and implementation. Concerning huqqoth, however, we are obli-gated to learn them, to commit them to memory, since they are not self-evident or subject to logical analysis.

But the sharp-eyed reader will already have noted the apparent contradiction between the midrëshei halacha quoted above and our Talmudic passage, in that the first assign ‘arayoth to the category of huqqoth whilst here they are termed mishpatim. And why does our passage then go on to tell us the we must “keep” both mishpatim and huqqoth, in light of the Torah Tëmima’s explanation?

D.

To engage in the practices which the Torah terms ma‘asé eretz Mitzrayim and ma‘asé eretz Këna‘an is to undermine the foundations of a stable, functioning society. This should be obvious to anyone capable of viewing the matter dispassionately: Such actions corrode and vitiate the family structure essential to the nurturing of the next generation, and, by fostering mistrust and suspicion, they wreck social cohesion generally, not instantaneously, but gradually, over time.

Hence, the Talmud categorizes them as mishpatim, matters discernible through the exercise of judgment. However, the human capacity for self-deception under the influence of the yétzer ha-ra‘ and its physical lusts is endless. Once one accepts the demands of the yétzer, they become huqqoth (or huqqim; for our purposes he two words are basically synonymous), and children raised in the spirit of this laissez-faire, anything-goes attitude toward fundamental morality will regard them as haquqim lahem (as the Torath Kohanim quoted above ssys), not amenable any more to rational analysis and judgment. Over time, “for them, for their fathers and their fathers’ fathers,” such practices will work their evil, corrupting the society at large, leaving it a rickety, vulnerable, insecure structure. This is why Hazal also tell us, in this context and that of the instructions given at Mara, before Mattan Torah (“there” in the verse from Exodus quoted supra), that they also fall into the category of huqqim. To a prophet and tzaddiq of the stature of Avraham avinu, the trend was obvious already in the early days of the Egyptian state (cf. Genesis XII, 10-20, Rashi ad loc.). Later, his great-grandson Yoséf experienced personally the force of Egyptian depravity (ibid., XXXIX,7ff.) and therefore warned his father and brothers to segregate and seclude themselves in Goshen (ibid., XLVI,31-34). Such a trend in Këna‘an was equally obvious to Avraham’s son, Yitzhaq, as we read in Genesis XXVI, 6-25. Over time, their society, too, would be eroded and crumble before the onslaught of Israel, girded with the moral armor of Torah. This is what G-d meant when he told Avraham that his descendants would only return to the Holy Land in the fourth generation after exile, כי לא שלם עון האמרי עד הנה (“...for Emori iniquity is not complete until them”; ibid, XV, 16). Këna‘ani society was not yet ripe for the fall. Western civilization now finds itself at this same moral crossroads. The United States, in particular, has been subject to the assault of the “sexual revolution” since the early 1960’s, and the resulting laissez-faire, “anything-goes” attitude toward traditional morality has even come to infect relatively conservative circles, for it underlies the Libertarian fallacy, that such behaviors between “consenting adults” do not harm anyone else; to the contrary, as we have seen, they rot societies from the inside out. The choice between the Torah’s self-evident mishpatim or the “non-judgmental” huqqim ha-haquqim lahem will have to be made very soon, lest the damage become irreversible, and the West go the way of Egypt and Këna‘an. For ourselves, as we complete our preparations for Pesah, simultaneously cleaning the hamétz from our houses and from our souls, it is wise to reflect on the liberation from the mores of Egypt and Këna‘an which the Exodus from Egypt and subsequent Mattan Torah constitute, and redouble our sense of gratitude to Ha-Shem Eloqeinu.

Parshath Aharei Moth-Qëdoshim (Leviticus XVI,1-XX,27) 4/23/10

A.

This week’s double parasha contains a very comprehensive list of illicit liaisons to be avoided in the interests of actualizing and maintaining the level of sanctity necessary in Israel. Before Ma‘amad Har Sinai we were told that our purpose was to serve as a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, a “kingdom of kohanim and holy nation” (Exodus XIX, 6). Now, we are told again, קדשים תהיו, “you will be holy” (XIX, 2), and again והתקדשתם והייתם קדשים (“And you will sanctify yourselves and be holy”; XX, 7), and yet again: והייתם לי קדשים כי קדש אני ד' ואבדל אתכם מן העמים להיות לי (“And you will be sacred to Me for I, Ha-Shem, am holy; and I have separated you from the nations to be Mine”; ibid., 26).

Prominent in that list, first mentioned in Chapter XVIII and re-emphasized in Chapter XX, is the following: ואיש אשר יקח את אחתו בת אביו או בת אמו וראה את ערותה והיא תראה את ערותו חסד הוא וגו' (“And a man who rakes his sister, daughter of his father or of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a hesed....”; XX, 17).

To anyone possessed of a living sense of the Hebrew language, the statement is a jarring peculiarity. Hesed is a well-known and common Hebrew word which occurs hundreds of times in Tanach with roughly the meaning “kindness.” In what way is this word applicable here? After all, as the verse goes on to state: ונכרתו לעיני בני עמם ערות אחתו גלה עונו ישא (“...and they will be cut off from the eyes of their people; he has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he will bear his sin”).

B.

The Talmud offers one solution, which Rashi cites: א"ת קין נשא אחותו חסד עשה המקום לבנות עולמו ממנו שנאמר "עולם חסד יבנה" (“If you say, Qayin married his sister, G-d did a hesed in order to build His world from [Qayin], as it is said, ‘The world is built of hesed’ [Psalms LXXXIX, 3]”).

In short, the Talmud reads this as though the term hesed refers to an original, one-time dispensation which was granted at the dawn of creation, in order to enable the human race to get underway. There were originally, after all, only two people; the next generation consisted entirely of their descendants. If siblings were not permitted to marry, whom, exactly, would they marry and how would the human race carry forth its imperative of פרו ורבו וצלאו את הארץ (“be fruitful and multiply and fill up the earth”; Genesis I, 28)? Hence, G-d did a hesed with His creatures to permit them to go forward (עיי' סנהדרין נ"ח: וע"ע מאמר זה במלאו בירושלמי יבמות פי"א ה"א ודברי קרבן העדה ופני משה שם).

Well and good, but that dispensation had taken place a long time before Mattan Torah, and had already come to an end, since bënei Noach are partially forbidden this relationship (עיי' רמב"ם הל' מלכים פ"ט ה"ה), and the Torah forbids it completely to Israel, regardless of whether she is one’s sister on the father’s side or on the mother’s side.

Rashi himself terms this a midrashic interpretation of the verse, and offers a different suggestion for the simple meaning of the word. Hesed, he tells us, is a לשון ארמי חרפה, an “Aramaic expression [meaning] an object of reproach or contempt”).

Thereupon hangs an observation with very deep significance indeed for Israel.

C.

Rashi has put his finger on a rare occurrence in the Torah, one in which an Aramaic word appears all by itself in a context in which all the other words are Hebrew (for a second example, compare Deuteronomy XXXIII, 2, in which vë-atha, “and he came,” appears where we might expect u-va’). It must be emphasized that this is an entirely different phenomenon from that of Genesis XXXI, 46, the only occurrence of a connected Aramaic phrase, yëgar sahadutha, in the Torah. This is recognised as a foreign phrase, since it is translated in the same verse into Hebrew, gal‘éd, “mound of testimony.” Our case is an instance in which the word is used as if it is a Hebrew word.

Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related languages, and share a number of roots between them, though more usually with some phonetic change. In the case of our verse, the word appears identical with a Hebrew word whose meaning is rather nearly the reverse of the Aramaic word. Rabbi Yochanan Zweig, shlit”a, has taken note of this apparent reversal, and suggested that it may be explained by a major difference in the world-views of Hebrew and Aramaic, respectively.

To point up that difference, he reminds us that the Ba‘al ha-Turim famously notes that the letters of the word Arammi, “Aramaean”, also form the form the word rammai, “trickster”(Genesis XXV, 20; ע"ע בראשית רבי פס"ג סי' ד'). The Torah contains several examples of devious Aramaean behavior, that of Lavan (Genesis XXIX, 27); his descendant Bil‘am ben Bë‘or (Numbers XXI, 6, Rashi ad loc.; עיי' זוה"ק ח"א קס"ו:), as well as his sister Rivqa (Genesis XXVII, 1-25), and daughter Rahél (עיי' מגילה י"ג:).

The last two are of the greatest interest to us, since Rivqa, Rahél, and her sister Lé’a are the direct ancestresses of the Jewish people, and Avraham was adamant that his son Yitzhaq marry a girl from Aram (Genesis XXIV, 4, 10), as in deed Yitzhaq instructed Ya‘aqov (ibid., XXVIII, 2).

Why should this be? What is it about ramma’uth, “trickery,” that recommends it as an essential ingredient in the ancestry of the Holy Nation, such that the patriarchs ensured that Israel got a double dose of it?

Rabbi Zweig suggests that an essential part of the character of a confidence man is an ability to empathize with his victim, to “feel his pain,” as one of the greatest political confidence men of the 20th century was wont to say. It is only in this way, he suggests, that the trickster is able to tailor his message to the victim, so that the victim will be taken in, and will trust the trickster. The emphasis, then, of the Aramaic language is outward, toward the object of the action; it follows that the thrust of the Holy Language is inward, toward introspection, and the feelings and attitudes of the subject of the action.

We see this at work in the very word at issue in our verse. When one does a hesed, there are two sides to the phenomenon. On the one hand, from the point of view of the person who performs the act (whatever it is), it is a gracious act of kindness, wholly meritorious. From the point of view of the one receiving the hesed, though, it is something else. He is now under obligation to the person performing the act. No matter how graciously the act has been performed, the recipient will feel uncomfortable until or unless he has been able to pay it back, to requite the act in some fashion. In short, the Hebrew meaning of the word hesed views the term subjectively, from the point of view of the performer of the act; the Aramaic meaning with its overtones of shame views it objectively, from the point of view of the recipient.

This fundamental fact of human psychology underlies the Rambam’s classification of tzëdaqa: The highest form of tzëdaqa is to enable the recipient to earn his own living, so that he no longer needs charity; the second greatest is a mattana bë-sether, a gift in secret, such that neither the donor nor the recipient knows the other’s identity, and the donor therefore cannot feel superior in some regard to the recipient, nor can the recipient feel ashamed in the face of the specific donor (רמב"ם הל' צדקה פ ה).

(Another example, by the way, of such a reversal in the meaning of a root which serves to con-firm Rabbi Zweig’s observation may be found in comparison of the Hebrew word שכח, shachah, "forget," and Aramaic אשכח, ashkah, “find”. Here again, forgetting is subjective, on the part of the person who has lost the object; finding is objective, relating to the object lost).

D.

From the mirror images of the word hesed, viewed as a Hebrew word, from the point of view of the giver, or as an Aramaic word, from the point of view of the recipient, we can see why it was that this quality of empathy, of being sensitive to the other person’s feelings, is essential to the Holy nation, if we are to perform mitzvoth properly. in such a fashion that they only effect good things, and do not, G-d forbid, cause pain or hardship to others.

From our own point of view, as we know (for instance) from the patriarch Avraham, there is a great wellspring of the desire and zeal to do good, to benefit others in whatever way we can. It is our matriarchs Rivqa, Rahél, and Lé’a, who provide us with the sensitivity to see the other’s point of view, and act with care and discretion in response to that imperative, so as not ever to hurt anyone unnecessarily. It is only by exercising both the patriarchal and the matriarchal heritage of Israel that we are able to fulfill the injunction with which G-d introduces the list of forbidden liaisons: ושמרתם את לקתי ואת משפטי אשר יעשה אתם האדם וחי בהם (“And you will keep My laws and My judgments, which a person should do and live by them”; XVIII, 5). “Living by them” requires that we be sensitive both to the way in which we perform mitzvoth, and to their effects on others.