The Halachic Process Part 1

About seventeen years ago, a rabbinic question was brought to me, that I felt unqualified to answer. It happened to be a point in the laws of family purity; determining when a woman is or isn't permitted to her husband. We must take these situations very seriously. To permit the forbidden, or forbid the permitted, are equally serious sins. The particular stain that was brought to me was VERY borderline. I pondered the sources, as well as my training, and could see equal basis for permitting or forbidding the woman to her husband. I knew I needed to consult a greater expert. It was only recently that I had returned to the U.S., and didn't really know who were the local experts in this field. I asked around, and was told that there was a service of the Satmar community in Borough Park, Brooklyn, where one could come during most of the hours of the day and pose questions to experts. I went there, and showed the rabbi on duty the particular stain. He said "Such a question you bring me?!?!", meaning that it was extremely complex. I said "if it was a little better or a little worse, I would have ruled on it myself!". At this his face became angry. ""And who are YOU to rule on these issues?" He was right. He didn't know me. Even most rabbis are not trained on the intricacies of this area of law. I told him that I had special training in this area. He asked me "from whom?" I swallowed hard. I was trained by Rabbi Shammai Gross, one of the main halachic experts in the Belz Chasidic community in Jerusalem.I knew, however, that Belz and Satmar had been at odds for half a century. This man was Satmar. Would he throw me out of his office when I told him who had trained me? I finally said "I studied under Rabbi Shammai Gross". His face immediately lit up. "Yeah? Wonderful! Then I will tell you what I'm thinking". He went through all the considerations that I had pondered. He added several more! He even added one that I had never heard of! In the middle of his words, I interjected that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the great Sephardic rabbi, had written a comment on this point as well. As I said it, i realized that I might have put my foot in my mouth. Rabbi Ovadia was a former Chief Rabbi of Israel. This rabbi was anti-Zionist. To my great surprise, he said "Oh, I know, I'm already taking his view into consideration". I was shocked. I had referenced two rabbis whom, I thought, he would disparage. But no, his face was beaming! He finally ruled that the question I had brought was permissible. I was so overwhelmed by the way he handled the question, and how he had risen over politics, as well as over the confines of East European custom, and rendered a brave and true decision. I kissed his hands as I left.
In most Day Schools, students are handed lists of laws (Dinim). Do this, don't do that. At the Secondary level, they are usually directed to one law book or another, depending on the stance of the particular school or community. But halachah, at the level of the learned is nothing like this. There are equations that must be considered. The circumstance at hand, and the people involved, can, and often do, make a difference. Local practice will be a consideration, but not always the deciding factor. A true expert will rise above his own practices, and take the entire spectrum of opinion into consideration. Even more important, he may totally disagree with the ruling of another rabbi, but will still respect the man and his opinion, as long as it is based on sources. The rabbis of the Talmud tell us that the students of Hillel and Shammai had such great differences, that their strife nearly broke the Jewish people in two. A Heavenly Voice rang out in the study hall. "Both these and these are the words of the Living G-d. But the Halachah is in accordance with Hillel". Let us not be too hasty to judge that another rabbi, another community, another practice, is wrong. If it follows Torah sources and methodology, it, too, is the Word of the Living G-d.
In my coming post, I will give some examples not only of current controversies, but of how, and why, they are controversial in the first place, and how BOTH can be a respected part of the Halachic system

Access to the Gift

"See, G-d has given you the Shabbat..." (Exodus 16:29)
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Gur points out that if one sells a well to his neighbor, only the well may be considered as sold, unless otherwise specified. However, if one gives a well as a gift, the legal assumption is that he is also giving the recipient a means of access to the well. Why this distinction? When one SELLS an object, one is interested only in the money he receives. If one gives a GIFT, one is primarily interested in his neighbors happiness, and includes in the gift everything necessary for its enjoyment. In this case, the access route is automatically included.G-d gives us the Shabbat as a gift. He also provides the path to access this special holiness. He is interested in our happiness.

Sweeten the Waters

In this weeks's Torah portion, we have an unusual incident, where shortly after the Splitting of the Sea, the people saw that they were without water. The grumbled against Moses, whereupon G-d showed Moses a tree, which, when thrown into the bitter lake before them, turned the waters sweet. The question is asked, why does the Torah criticize the people their grumbling? Isn't thirst in the middle of a desert a good reason to grumble? Rabbi Isaac Meir of Gur suggests as follows: The Torah first says (Exodus 17:1-2) that they had no water to drink and they fought with Moses. The next verse says that they were thirsty, and they complained bitterly. The sequence was that FIRST they SAW the lack of water, and began to doubt G-d and Moses. THEN they became thirsty, and all the stops were out. They were angry and argumentative before the problem began! . When the problem actually began, they were angry and rebellious beyond any proportion! What should they have done? When the problem was only apparent, they should have taken counsel with Moses. and proceeded to pray. Long before they had become thirsty, the problem would have been solved. Instead, the problem became an emergency even before they were faced with the problem. Once in the midst of it, they felt hopelessly trapped.
When I lived in Israel, I taught sofrim (scribes). Each letter must be perfect. Some imperfections render the writing invalid, others are still passable. I always told my students, when they saw a problem, to put a pencil mark next to it, and come back to it in half an hour. The more one looks at the problem, it will undoubtedly get worse by the minute. Concentrate on what MAY be wrong, and it WILL become horribly wrong. We need to think, pray, trust, and see things in proper proportion. The waters WILL become sweet

Questioning Apparent Injustice

There is a fascinating Midrash that speaks of some of the background behind the subjugation of the Israelites in Egypt, and the subsequent redemption. As I have pointed out previously, some take Midrash literally, other take it allegorically. In any case, this story contains powerful messages for us.
The Egyptians, among other atrocities, sealed up Hebrew children into the walls of their buildings. (This belief is also shared by Egyptian Muslims, who have barren women pray at ancient ruins for the murdered children to enter their wombs. This is especially done at the village of San El Hagar). Moses pleaded "G-d! What did these innocents do to deserve this?!" G-d answered "take one out and you will see what will happen".Moses removes a child from the building. His name is Michah. Now, when Joseph had died, he first commanded that his body be brought to the Holy Land when the Israelites would finally leave. The Torah says that "he was placed in a coffin in Egypt". The rabbis say that the Egyptians, wanting the Israelites to always remain at slaves, sunk Joseph's coffin at a secret location in the Nile. At the Exodus, Moses sought someone who was still alive from the time of Joseph's death. A granddaughter of Jacob, Serah, daughter of Asher, was still alive. (This involves yet another Midrash). She pointed out the approximate location of Joseph's coffin. Moses took a piece of gold, and wrote on it "Come up, Ox!" (Each of Jacob's children were compared to an animal, with Joseph being the ox.See Deut, 33:17). The coffin floated to the surface, and Moses saw to it that it was carried out of Egypt with full honors.honors. Michah saw the gold with its inscription, and picked it up to keep as a souvenir. When the Israelites, under the influence of the Mixed Multitude, saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from Mt. Sinai, they assumed him to be dead, and threw their gold into the furnace in order to make an idol. Michah threw in that inscribed piece of gold, and out jumped a golden calf; a baby ox. This explains Aaron's strange statement to Moses "I threw the gold into the furnace, and out came this calf". The calf seemed to be alive, and most of the people took it as a sign of its divinity.
The implications here are huge. The obvious, and very human, question of an apparently nedless, innocent death, resulted in one of the greatest sins in the history of Man. Also, the illusory nature of Evil can be such that even good people are fooled. The mysteries of life and death, the struggle of good and evil, often have causes and meanings not immediately evident to our limited senses. Like the old saying that "hindsight is 20/20" (or 6/6 if you are talking metric), we simply don't see and don't know. This goes much further when speaking of Spiritual processes. We need to know that G-d is in charge, and we cannot always tell if an event is good or bad. We need to know that every story has a prologue, every story has an epilogue. We only see a tiny sliver of history. We often delude ourselves into thinking that our tiny sliver of history is all there is. History is vast. G-d is yet vaster. We are simply building links in the chain of history; doing our part in the Divine plan.

Darkness

n this week's Torah portion, among other topics, we have the Ninth Plague; the plague of Darkness.(Exodus 10:21-23). We read that the darkness was actually palpable, and "No man saw his brother, and no man could rise from where he was sitting for three days". Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Gur interpreted as follows "No man could see his brother, "see" in the sense of understand and respect. Each had his own "truth", which made no allowances for acceptance of another viewpoint. Therefore, no one could arise. No one could function and go about his day in a meaningful way, let alone see the light of G-d,, because his negativity simply doesn't allow him to process the message of G-d. But for the Children of Israel, "there was light in all their habitations". The events leading up to the Exodus produced a feeling of unity and mutual respect, that lit the way for discovering who they are, and where they are going." He gives the example of some people who scrupulously avoid getting into conversations before morning prayers, as they fear that it would be difficult to pray with devotion after engaging in mundane talk. When such people see others who DO engage in such talk, they have a choice. They could either think that the other person is woefully lacking in the desire and appreciation of the seriousness of prayer, or that the other person is on a higher spiritual level, and unaffected by pre-prayer conversation. If they takes the first route, they will be spending their time reading the prayer book, but filled with a sense of superiority that doesn't allow room for G-d. If they take the second route, they can arise. If they take the first route of "not seeing" their brothers, they will remain stationary, enveloped in darkness.

Stuck in the Mud

Rabbi Meir of Premishlan was poor. His friend and colleague, Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin, was quite wealthy. Once they were both travelling and happened to meet. Rabbi Israel was riding in a luxurious coach, with four strong horses. Rabbi Meir rode in a small cart, drawn by one skinny horse. Rabbi Israel said to his friend: "I use four horses, so that if I get stuck in the mud, they can pull the cart out. Why are you content with one?" Rabbi Meir replied "Since I know that I have only one weak horse, I am careful not to get stuck in the first place".

Rabbi Meir of Miracles

Yesterday I told of the holy Rabbi Yirmiah. A few feet from his unassuming tomb, there is a small road going up a hill. At the top, there are two synagogues, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi, each overlapping a small catacomb containing the remains of the second century Talmudic rabbi, Rabbi Meir, often refereed to as "the Master of Miracles" (baal hanes). He was one of the keenest scholars of the Mishnah. He was the perennial optimist. In a debate as to when a person who had come to danger should be assumed dead, he argued that we never assume death until it actually presents itself His sister-in-law was taken prisoner by the Romans, who placed her in a brothel. She refused all pressures and threats to compromise her virtue.Rabbi Meir went to the brothel, and pleaded with the Roman official in charge to free her. His pleas did, in fact, move the official. However, the official was answerable to higher officials, and he feared for his life. Rabbi Meir told him not to worry. If he got into trouble, to simply say "G-d of Meir answer me, G-d of Meir answer me." The official did this, and great miracles occurred so that he came to no harm. Since then, it is customary in many Jewish communities, that a person experiencing difficulties either gives a coin to charity, or lights a candle, and says "G-d of Meir answer me!". Many (including yours truly)do this every day before morning prayers. Renovations were conducted (about a hundred years ago) at the synagogues over his grave, and the actual burial cave was discovered, filled with ancient clay lamps. The custom is very, very old.
When I lived in Israel, I went to Tiberias (Teveria) each month. Once our kids were old enough to take care of themselves for a few hours, my wife, Sima, would accompany me. The tomb of Rabbi Meir was always a major part of our journey. We prayed there for many things. of course, it is not Rabbi Meir, or any other person who performs the miracle; it is G-d. We are asking G-d for miracles in the merit of the righteous.
When our oldest son, Nachman, was in High School, he suddenly got a fever which had no obvious cause. After a few days, his Yeshiva sent him home. We took him to doctors, who performed every conceivable test. No explanation, no change...for an entire month. Finally, my wife and I decided to take make the trip to Teveria. We felt that we needed a miracle. We arrived at the tomb of Rabbi Meir at two in the afternoon. We prayed for an hour. At the end of the hour, we called our son to check how he was doing. He said "Fine! My fever broke at two o'clock!" Even before we prayed, as our feet took us into the presence of the Tzaddik, G-d sent healing!
My G-d heal all of our wounds, all of our worries, in the merit of all the righteous! G-d of Meir, answer us!