Promises Promises #Mattot-Masai##devartorahparashathashava

The first aliya of this week's Torah portion, Mattot-Masai begins with the laws concerning vows.  "If a person makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips." (Numbers 30:3)  Keeping our vows is so important that Kohellet taught, "It is better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill."  (Ecclesiastes 5:4)  When we make a vow or a promise, we usually mean to keep our word.  Why do we so often fail to make good our word?

The answer to my question can be summed up in one word.  Procrastination.  Procrastination is a big word-seldom used, but often practiced.  Too often we postpone or put off until tomorrow what should be done today. An incident from the American Revolution illustrates how a British officers procrastination determined a victory for the Continental Army 250 years ago.  It is reported that Colonel Rahl, a commander of the British troops at Trenton, New Jersey, was playing cards when a courtier brought an urgent message stating that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware River.  Rahl put the letter in his pocket and didn't bother to read it until the game was finished.  Then, realizing the seriousness of the situation, he hurriedly tried to rally his men to meet the coming attack, but his procrastination was his undoing.  He and many of his men were killed, and the rest of the regiment were captured.

Earth's history is strewn with the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted resolutions. Believe it or not, the High Holidays are only 9 weeks away.  It is not too soon to begin to prepare for them by reviewing our lives and the promises we made. Every Kol Nidre I share this reading from Machzor Hadash which speaks to the heart of this week’s devar Torah. 

All vows, promises, and commitments made in Your presence-

May we be given the strength to keep them.

 

Our vows to ourselves, commitments to self-discipline-

May we take our lives seriously enough to heed them,

Honoring our resolves in the way we eat and drink,

The way we work and rest, the way we regulate our lives.

 

Commitments made to loved ones and friends,

Pledges made to worthwhile causes-

Help us to become as compassionate and generous

As we sought to be at those noble moments.

 

The promises we made to worship and to study-

We meant them when we made them,

But distractions were many, and our wills were weak.

This time, may we be strong enough;

May our better selves prevail.

 

Promises made in the synagogue by young people

Who glimpsed what life as Jews might hold in store for them-

May devotion and idealism be with them all their days.

 

Our marriage vows-may they endure

Through dark days and through dull days,

Through fatigue and through frustration-

May our live prove strong and our faith firm.

 

O God, we meant the promises we made

To You, to each other, and to ourselves,

Even as we mean the vows we silently make tonight.

 

Reach down to us as we strive to reach up toward You;

Give us the strength and self-respect, the fidelity and vision,

To grow to become the people we have sworn to be.

 

All worthy vows and commitments which we make from this Yom Kippur until the next-

May we be faithful enough and firm enough to keep them.

 

If you know there is promise, vow, or oath you should fulfill-don't put it off.  Do it today!

Is swordfish kosher? Khullin 66

Anybody who observes laws of kashrut knows that fins and scales are the signs of a kosher fish. In today’s daf TB Khullin 66 we learn that scales don’t have to be a permanent feature of the fish to be kosher. “§ The mishna states: And with regard to fish, any fish that has a fin and a scale is kosher. The Sages taught in a baraita: If a fish does not have scales now but will grow them after a period of time, such as the sultanit and afyan fish, it is permitted. Likewise, if it has scales now but will shed them when it is caught and rises from the water, such as the akunas, and the afunas, and the kesaftiyas, and the akhsaftiyas, and the atunas, it is permitted.”(Sefaria.org translation)

Is a swordfish kosher? Rabbi Isaac Klein writes: 

“In the Talmudic Encyclopedia, under the article ‘Daggim,’ this swordfish is identified as Xiphias gladius, a fish which, in its early stages, has scales that disappear when it matures. According to its Latin and Greek names it is suggested that it is the Akseptias of the Talmud: Hulin 66b (Talmudic Encyclopedia, vol V, pp. 207ff)

“Well there has been some question about this, one of the later authorities whose opinions have been widely accepted says unquestionably:

            It is the widespread custom in all Israel to eat this swordfish called “fish ispada”

even though it has no scales because it is said that when it comes out of the sea, because of his excitement it shakes and sheds its scales (Darkei Teshuva 83:16).

“Similarly, Rabbi H. P. Tchorch of the Israel Ministry of religion in a report about kashrut in Israel discusses the swordfish, and after quoting a number of authorities concludes:

            “From all the above it becomes clear that swordfish is permitted.”

“Then comes the following:

 

“However, a great scientist, and one the experts in identifying fish (ichthyologist), Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor at the Yeshiva University in New York, disagrees with the manner of classifying this fish. According to him, it becomes clear that there are two classes of fish called swordfish [sailfish and swordfish}. The first is the “clean” fish, but the second is an “unclean” fish. It is then possible to say that the author of Knesset

Hagadolah who permitted the fish ispada, meant the latter, which is called “sailfish” (Sinai, v. 32, issues 4-5, p. 209)

“Evidently this noted scientist and expert ichthyologist has so over awed all his colleagues in the Orthodox rabbinate, that even those who had permitted it, backtracked. In Israel they concluded that the matter needs further study.”

Rabbi Klein sought out experts in the field to ascertain whether the immature swordfish has scales are not. He turned to Dr. Carl Gans who holds a PhD in zoology to write a letter to Mr. Bruce B. Collette of the Bureau of Fisheries of the United States Department of the Interior. Mr. Colette is an expert one can rely upon. The following answer came:

            Dear Carl:

In reply to your letter of December 7 on the swordfish-scale problem, enclosed is a Fishery Leaflet by Isaac Ginsberg on the subject and also a xerox copy of the Nakamura

et al. paper of 1951. As you can see from these references, swordfish do have scales as juveniles. They retain the scales until they are approximately four feet long. This means

that most swordfish found in the markets no longer have scales although they once did. Whether this leaves it kosher or not is up to your rabbinical friend.

Sincerely,

Bruce B Colette

Assistant Laboratory Director

Rabbi Klein concludes: “… In the government List of Common Food Fishes that Have Both Fish and Scales, the swordfish is listed too. On the basis of this evidence, we have to reconfirm our original position that the swordfish is kosher. (My emphasis )”

For the entire teshuva see Responsa and Halakhic Studies by Isaac Klein, Ktav Publishing house: New York, 1975, pages 75-78.

Change now and avoid the holiday rush! #Pinkhas#devartorah#parashathashavua

Years ago a friend and colleague, Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky, introduced me to a wonderful book entitled #Parasha by Sivan Rahav-Mer, an Israeli journalist. I will like to share with you one of her insights in this week’s Parashah, Pinchas.

“Korach’s sons, however, did not die.” (Numbers 26:11) This short verse is one of the most optimistic ones in the Torah, surprising us with the news that’s sons are alive and well. Korach had led an aggressive uprising against Moses, attracting many followers, which was quashed when the earth opened up and swallowed them alive. Korach, his family, and followers all died in this tragic end to the rebellion. Or so we thought. Rashi tells us that at the last minute, as they were about to die, Korach’s sons had a change of heart and “during the dispute they contemplated repentance."  At the 11^th hour, they realize what a terrible mistake the father had made and decided to abandon the rebellion, saving their lives.

“What a message of hope for us! Even when all seems lost, we can still change course. Even if we have erred, it is never too late to rethink our path in life. It takes a lot of courage to announce our mistakes and our intention to mend our ways, but it can be done. We can go against our surroundings, and our family, we can stand up to a charismatic father, even when the battle has already begun. Just look at Korach’s sons. They did it and did not die.” (Page 246)

We read at the very conclusion of this Torah portion the holiday cycle including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as another reminder is not too early to think about the changes we want to make in our lives to become the people we truly want to be. To paraphrase a popular advertisement, “Change now and avoid the holiday rush!”

 

Khullin 62b and 63a Chesed must be done for everyone, not only for one’s friends

The Gamara has been identifying kosher and nonkosher birds. Most the time the identification doesn’t help us because the amoraim were identifying birds with their Aramaic name in ancient Babylonia. Daf TB Khullin 62b records another disagreement between Rashi and Tosafot.

The Gamara records the disagreement about the swamp rooster (תַרְנְגוֹלָא דְאַגְמָא) and the swamphen (תַּרְנְגוֹלְתָּא דְּאַגְמָא). “Abaye says: The swamp rooster is one of the eight uncertain cases, and this is the mardu, i.e., the marda mentioned earlier. Rav Pappa says: The swamp rooster is forbidden, but the swamphen is permitted. And your mnemonic to remember this is the statement of the Sages with regard to the verse: “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:4), that an Ammonite man is unfit to enter the assembly, but not an Ammonite woman. Mareimar taught: The swamphen is forbidden, because the Sages saw that it claws its prey and eats it. And this is the giruta, a non-kosher bird (see 109b).” (Sefaria.org translation)

Rashi in massekhet Nedah maintains that the swamp rooster (תַרְנְגוֹלָא דְאַגְמָא) and the swamphen (תַּרְנְגוֹלְתָּא דְּאַגְמָא) are indeed the male and female bird. Tosefot ד"ה תַרְנְגוֹלְתָא writes that one cannot explain that the swamphen is permitted and the swamp rooster is forbidden because of the halakhic principle “anything that comes out of a kosher animal is kosher anything comes out of a nonkosher animal is nonkosher.” For example, milk from a cow is kosher, but milk from a pig or a camel is treif. How could the swamphen be kosher whose chic swamp rooster the nonkosher?! Consequently, they explain that the swamphen and the swamp rooster are two different kinds of birds, one being kosher and one being nonkosher.

Daf TB 63a explains how the stork (ḥasidah -הַחֲסִידָה) got its name. “And why is it called ḥasida? Since it performs acts of lovingkindness [ḥasidut] for its fellows, giving them from its own food.” (Sefaria.org translation) If the stork performs acts of lovingkindness, ḥesed, why is it a nonkosher bird? Rabbi Zelig Pliskin his book Love Your Neighbor explains the reason why the stork is not a kosher bird. “Ramban writes that the birds enumerated in this portion (Shemini) are forbidden for consumption because of their cruelty. If so, the stork should be permissible since it does kindness.

“The Chidushai Ha-Rim answers thus: the stork favors only for those that are his friends. Since it does not do chesed for strangers it is considered unclean. Chesed must be done for everyone, not only for one’s friends.” (Page 229)

TB Khullin 61 The turkey wasn't always a kosher bird

The Torah never delineates the signs (simanim-סימנים) of a kosher bird. Nevertheless, the Sages taught that a kosher bird needs these four traits. 1, It can’t be a predatory bird; 2, It has to have an additional finger; 3, It has to have a crop; 4, One must be able to peel away the outer membrane of the stomach.

Two different parshiot in the Torah, Shemini and  Reah, the Torah collectively lists 24 nonkosher birds. The eagle has none of the four above traits of a kosher bird. The vulture and the kite each has one trait, but they don’t share the same trait. The Raven has two traits and the rest of the 20 birds have three traits. Because the Torah uses the eagle as the prototype nonkosher bird, “Rabbi Ḥiyya teaches: A bird that comes before a person with one sign of a kosher bird, and which is not listed in the Torah as non-kosher, is kosher, since it is unlike a nesher.” (Sefaria.org translation) If this is the case, why does the Torah enumerate the 23 other birds? These birds are the exception to the rule.

Now let’s turn our attention to the turkey. Turkeys are species native to North America. Following the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, turkeys were imported to Europe and the Middle East. Because the Torah does not name the turkey, some early rabbis were hesitant to allow it, as Jewish law generally requires a historical tradition (a mesorah) that a bird has been eaten safely by Jews. Eventually rabbis declared that the turkey is a kosher bird because it has all four. Now almost everybody eats turkey and it’s the most consumed poultry Israel.

My very first JTS Hebrew teacher Dr. Anne Lerner once told us that she doesn’t eat turkey on halakhic grounds. She explained why in a devar Torah on parashat Shemini.

“ But a number of rabbis, particularly in the 17th century, did rule that turkey was not kosher because there was no tradition of it being that way.

“One rabbi who apparently so ruled was Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1579–1654). Heller was a leading rabbinic figure of the period when turkey was rapidly advancing across Europe. He was, for example, the author of the Mishnah commentary Tosefot Yom Tov and is commonly referred to by its name. Although Joseph M. Davis states in his recent study of Heller, Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi, that he found no extant written evidence of Heller’s decision that turkey is not kosher, it is a well-known tradition attested—and even followed— by some of Heller’s many descendants.

“As a Heller descendant, I observe his legendary ruling that because turkey is not kosher his descendants may not eat it. Do I really think that turkey is kosher? By the book, probably not kosher; by the culture, I have to concede that it is widely accepted and has been for more than half a millennium. (Is that “a tradition?”).

“Thus, I will, for example, eat off plates that have had hot turkey on them. I don’t rail against the practice of considering turkey kosher, but I maintain the custom that it is not, as do my sister, my daughter, and my nephew. It’s a challenge in Israel, which has the highest per capita turkey consumption in the world, and annoying in November when people ask me about my menu.

“But there are reasons to maintain it. First, it reminds me of a special heritage. Because unlike the special Heller Purim (for another time), it is a burden so it testifies to the authenticity of the lineage. Second, in my family it has come through a female line that goes back to my great-grandmother before she inherited it from her father. In talking to Zivotofsky a few years ago, I realized how unusual it is for a minhag (custom) to be passed down through women. Women, he maintained, take on their husband’s minhag. In addition, it reminds me that the greatest halakhic minds of any era may be wrong—I’m just not sure which ones. Besides, given the trend toward increasing prohibitions in a significant faction of contemporary Orthodoxy, turkey may yet become unkosher, liberating it from the threat of the shoḥet the ritual slaughterer. If that should happen, my family may find itself unexpectedly in the vanguard.” (https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/the-liberated-bird-lets-talk-turkey/)

I don’t think we have to worry about turkeys no longer being kosher. Rabbi Joel Roth once said to me in a conversation that once the rabbis permit something, it is nearly impossible to retract it.

Anyone’s life can be fashioned into a spiritual masterpiece #Hukkatbalak#devartorah#parashathahavua

The first half of this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Hukkat, makes us confront death. We shall read about Miriam’s and Aaron’s death and we know how much they meant to the Jewish people. Because of Miriam’s merit according to the Midrash, a well followed the Israelite camp providing them with water. When she died the well disappeared. Aaron was a pursuer of peace and was mourned by all of Israel. The Torah portion begins for the laws of the red heifer whose ashes can make somebody ritually ready after being contaminated by a corpse. It ends with the military victory over King Og of Bashan and Sichon, king of the Amorites. Although the Torah doesn’t tell us the human cost of that war, we know from our history that even in victory we mourn the death of our soldiers who never made it home again.

By reading about those deaths we are forced to confront our own mortality.  I like to share something that my friend and colleague Rabbi Steven Saltzman of blessed memory wrote:

“Judaism doesn’t teach how to avoid pain and sorrow; it teaches us how to stand up without being broken by it. How to live in a world where painful tragic things happen, and still affirm it to be God’s world….

“None of us wants to feel that, at the end of his days, he will have passed through the world and left no trace behind, that he has had no real impact on the world. We would like to justify our existence, to stake our claim to some sort of immortality, and some remarkable achievement that will leave the world different for having been part of it. And yet, what can we do? Very few, if any, of us will write a book that we reread 20 years from now. It is not likely that any of us in this room today will come up with a medical discovery that will save lives, or an invention that will enrich lives. Who of us will have a bridge, a street, a building named after him?

“But Judaism speaks to the secret yearning of ours, and says that it is possible. It is within the power of everyone of us to be a memorable person, to live a significant and impressive life. Judaism offers us not only the secrets of life, but the secret of immortality, a living beyond our appointed years-how to be the kind of parent who will be remembered with words of blessing, how to be a friend who won’t easily be forgotten, how to be the kind a neighbor whose impact on the community will remain even after he is gone from the scene.

“Anyone’s life can be fashioned into a spiritual masterpiece. The equivalent of sainthood is not reserved for a small group of unusual souls who were separate from the rest of society. Sainthood, that is, a life a spiritual excellence, is the prerogative of every normal husband or wife, parent, working person, anyone who takes life seriously. You don’t have to have a particular talent for religion to be a spiritual remarkable person.” (From Yom Kippur Readings edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, page 199)

When we meet our Maker in 120 years God won’t ask us why we weren’t like Aaron or Miriam. God only asks of us that we fashion our lives so that we make our little corner of the world a little bit better, a little bit brighter, and a little bit cleaner. God only desires of us to become the person we already aspire to be.

 

Never underestimate the role of Jewish women #korakh#devarTorah#parashathashavua

In the first verse of this week’s Torah portion, Korakh's partners in rebellion are identified: Datan and Aviram sons of Eliav and On ben Pelet, from the tribe of Reuven. As the story unfolds, the name of On no longer appears. The Talmud and the Midrash tell us that On was dissuaded from rebelling against Moses by his wife, who is thus credited with saving his life. Apparently, On heeded his wife's advice and is considered to have done teshuva, repentance. The Gemara quotes the verse in Proverbs (14:1): "A wise woman builds her house; a foolish one destroys it with her own hands". The wise woman, says the Gemara, is On's wife, and the foolish is Korakh's.

This praiseworthiness of women has a long precedent. When Abraham hesitated to comply with Sara's demand to expel Hagar and Yishmael because she recognized his bad influence on Isaac, God told him to listen to all she says. Rebecca took a very practical position vis a vis the blessings of Isaac in directing Yaakov's actions. Rachel and Leah "deceived" Jacob when it was the future of the Jewish People that was at stake. Yocheved and Miriam acted courageously by disobeying Pharaoh and are highly praised for their role in preserving the future nation of Israel. Miriam's prophecy to her father Amram consisted of a logical argument which convinced him to take back his wife; Moses, the redeemer of Israel was the result. The Gemara says: "Because of righteous women our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt." Many other women in the Bible like Deborah, Yael, Esther Ruth, and Naomi were instrumental in saving the Jewish people.

In my Tuesday’s short story class we read “What To Do About The Women” by Talya Jankovits. Because the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the story demanded the removal of all pictures and photographs of girls and women of all ages so that they would never unnecessarily see the face of a woman. Then women began losing their faces. Their faces had no eyes, noses, and mouths. Their faces became blank canvases. The Rabbis’ solution was to sequester all females in their homes until they figure out what caused this spiritual plague. Then all the women of their community disappeared. To bring them back, all the men purged every last trace of their women until there was nothing left. “Not even a fleeting image to remember them by.”

The moral of the Torah reading and of the story is to never underestimate the role of women in Judaism and Jewish history.