Al Reguel Ajat

The story of Adam and Eve, the incident with the snake and the forbidden fruit, had many implications. In principle, it marks the submission of woman to man. God, Rabbi Telushkin tells us in his book «Biblical Literacy», punishes Eve with the pain of childbirth and being subjected to Adam’s domination. Furthermore, since the biblical account tells us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, this already gives her a second-class status and submission to man. Sanhedrin 39a, says that removing Adam’s rib «was beneficial to Adam, that God removed his rib and gave him a shifkha, a maid, to serve him.» A comment that the Talmud attributes to the daughter of Rabban Gamliel.

The implications that arose within Judaism from this relationship between man and woman are many. In Orthodox circles, women are definitely second-class beings: among many things, women are exempt from fulfilling time-bound mitzvoth, they are exempt from studying the Torah, men are thankful every morning that God did not make them women, and men are the only ones who can initiate divorce proceedings, which creates the problem of the agunah woman, the one whose husband does not want to give her the Get, the divorce, and therefore cannot remarry.

But the position of liberal Judaism is different. From the very explanation of the biblical story, which does not present Eve as the one responsible for this great “first sin.” The great educator Shlomo Bardin tells us: Imagine that a young woman marries a young man whose father is the president of a large company. After the marriage, the father appoints his son vice president and assigns him a huge salary, but since he has no work experience, the father does not give him any responsibility. Every week, the young man receives a fairly large check, but he has nothing to do. His wife soon realizes that she is not married to a man but to a young boy and as long as her husband continues in his father’s business, he will always be a young boy. So she forces him to quit his job, leave his safe surroundings, go to another city and start to stand on his own two feet. That is why Eve ate the fruit of the tree.”

Aaron Soloveitchick, in his book «Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind», tells us that it seems that woman has an advantage over man, a unique sacred spark attributable to her feminine nature. He says, “This conclusion can be deduced by just looking at Creation in Genesis. It seems that the higher was created after the lower. First light was created and with that other forms of energy. Then the inorganic world and then the organic world. And in the organic world plant life first and then animal life. And within the animal kingdom the simpler species came first and then the more complex ones. Adam, or humanity, was created after all the animals. And within the human species, the male came first and then the female. This proves that women have an innate spiritual advantage compared to men.” Eve is much more than just Adam’s “first lady.”

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Works cited.

The biblical period is known as the time, in the history of the Jewish people, when God was always close and present and the moral was linked to the natural. The man of the Bible understood that if he observed the commandments of the Torah, he could expect good rains for his crops, have many children and achieve victories over his enemies. God himself managed both the natural and the moral. The punishment that Cain received for the blood of his brother that he shed, the Egyptians who drowned when the Red Sea opened, are examples of this double function of the Creator: to use His power over nature, to teach us a lesson. The biblical blessings and curses illustrated how nature and historical events reflected the Covenant that the people of Israel had with God.

But in the book of Job, things begin to change. There is a division between the God of Nature and the God of Morality. Nature punishes Job severely, even though he was a pious person who observed the divine commandments. And Job does not understand how the God of the Bible, who uses nature to teach us ethical lessons, now acts with him in this way.

The Talmudic period, on the other hand, no longer has a close and present God. It is the period of defeats, the destruction of the temple and of exile. Hard and difficult historical events began to crack the biblical promise of immediate gratification if you observed the mitzvoth. The Talmud tells the story of a boy who, obeying his father’s instructions to keep the mother bird away from the nest, so that he could take her babies, falls from the tree and kills himself. The mitzvoth of respecting your parents (Shmot 20:12) and of keeping the mother bird away (Devarim 22:6-7) are stipulated by the Torah to carry a long life as a reward. However, this case presents us with a conflict with that biblical promise. The Talmudic master concludes: “There is no reward for fulfilling the commandments in this world.”

And the rabbis question themselves in the Talmud: If God hates idolaters, why doesn’t He destroy them? If someone stole seeds and planted them, why doesn’t He prevent them from germinating? And our sages answer: Olam qui minhago noheg, the world functions under its own natural laws. The crucial point of this Talmudic text is the admission that natural forces and events do not reflect the moral relationship between men and God. The tsunamis that have killed thousands of people are not a divine punishment. In biblical times God spoke clearly. Now, He is silent.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Conflicting Visions, by Rabbi David Hartman.

Organizing the commandments of the Torah into a code, in order to facilitate understanding and carrying them out, has always been a goal of our sages. The Mishnah was the first compendium of our teachers’ commentaries on the mitzvoth. The Talmud, composed of the Mishnah and its complement the Gemarah, was finally canonized in the 6th century.

But the rabbis were not satisfied with the laws – halacha – set out in the Talmud. From Babylon they promulgated new responsa on practices and interpretations of the commandments that were incorporated into the Talmud, such as those of Rabbi Isaac Alfasi in the 11th century.

In the 12th century, Maimonides wrote a code organized by topics and where he only presented the conclusions on each topic discussed by our sages, without mentioning the details of the discussion or the teachers who participated in it. Maimonides intended his Mishneh Torah to become a universal guide for the practice of Judaism, but it was met with much criticism, especially from scholars in Europe.

In the 14th century, Asher ben Yehiel, a rabbi who lived in Germany and Spain and was therefore familiar with the customs of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, decreed that no decision could be made on the basis of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah alone, but that the Talmud itself had to be consulted first before a verdict could be given. Nevertheless, his son, Jacob ben Asher, developed a new code based on Alfasi’s commentaries, those of his father, and those of Maimonides. He called it Arba Turim, the four rows, and grouped the laws into four categories: Orach Hayim, the path of life (on prayer and holidays), Yoreh Deah, teacher of knowledge (kashrut and mourning), Eben Haezer, the rock of society (marriage), and Hoshen Mishpat, the shield of judgment (civil matters).

In the 16th century, Joseph Caro initially wrote a detailed commentary on the Arba Turim, which eventually became the Shulchan Aruch, a halachic code that means “the table set or served” and that followed the same format as the Arba Turim. The Shulchan Aruch eventually became the most widely accepted compendium of halachic laws to this day.

However, the good intention of facilitating the practice of Judaism in a series of clear and concrete rules compiled in a code can make us lose sight of the origin and the true background of these rules and how to observe the commandments of the Torah. It’s like sitting down to eat without considering or knowing everything that was done by those who prepared the dishes that are served to us. We can enjoy the food, but we can’t create new dishes. Sometimes it’s not so good to just come and have the table set. Every now and then you have to go into the kitchen.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish Almanac, edited by Richard Siegel and Carl Rheins

The 39 books that make up the Tanakh (Bible in Hebrew) were chosen from a very large group of works that existed at the time when the selection was made. The selection was a process that required five centuries. For example, the Torah with its five books, acquired its status as a sacred book in the fourth century before the current era. The books of the prophets were collected and organized in the period of the Second Temple. And the decision of which books were to form the third part of the Tanakh, the Ketubim, was made after the destruction of the Second Temple, possibly in the second century of our era. The decision of which books were to be included was not easy. There was much controversy especially with five books: Ezekiel, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Esther and Ecclesiastes, which were finally admitted.

When the Biblical Canon, the group of books that make up the Bible, was closed, many were left out. One of them, for example, was the Book of Maccabees. Comparing those that did make it to those that did not, we can deduce that three criteria were used to select them. The first is that they had to be written in Hebrew. The Book of Daniel was hastily translated from Aramaic into Hebrew, in order to be included. The second condition is that they had to have been written in the period before “prophecy ceased in Israel,” roughly in the fifth century BCE. The third condition is that the book met the religious standards set by the rabbis.

At that time, Hebrew was written only with consonants, just as the Torah scroll is written. Vowel points were invented in the post-Talmudic era, roughly in the seventh century, and biblical texts with their vowels were finally determined in the tenth century. In Hebrew, a group of consonants can mean different things depending on the vowel points that are placed. For example, the consonants HRB can be HoReB, the name of a mountain, or it can be HeReB, which means sword. HLB can be HaLaB, milk, or HeLeb, fat. Putting the wrong vowels can completely change the meaning of a commandment or a story. It was finally in the tenth century that the definitive text, known as Masorah or Masoretic, was developed. It is the one we use to this day. And the division of the Bible into chapters and verses was even later than the Masoretic era.

The books of the Bible were not written by a single person or in the same era. It took many centuries to write it. The Torah was written by Moses and the books of the later prophets by each of them. The books of Proverbs, the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes are attributed to King Solomon and the book of Psalms to King David.

The Bible, in the end, is the historical and collective experience of a people seeking to learn and understand the ways and will of God. This is what makes the Bible, in a broad sense, the book of the Jewish people. The Bible is more than an extraordinary book; it is the document of incorporation of Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Article The Eternal Book, by Abraham J. Feldman in the book The Jewish People’s Almanac, edited by David C. Gross.

Judaism gives us a different perspective on how to raise children. By sanctifying the most basic aspects of daily life, it teaches us that there is greatness not only in spectacular and glorious achievements, but also in our small actions and efforts each day. There are three fundamental principles of Jewish life: moderation, celebration, and sanctification. We must continually study, learn, and teach these principles.

The principle of moderation teaches us to do two seemingly incompatible things at the same time: passionately embrace the material world that God created, “and God saw that it was good” (Breishit 1), and exercise self-discipline. Judaism clarifies for us the correct way to engage with the world: we must not copy animals, who act on instinct, nor pagans who worship nature and the sensorial, nor angels who long for nothing, nor ascetics who avoid earthly pleasures. It was on purpose that God created us with this double condition: the intense desire for material things and the freedom to decide with self-discipline. It is up to us to use these attributes for good or evil.

Moderation leads us to celebration. We are obliged to acknowledge what we have received from God in a moderate but enthusiastic way. In other words, we are obliged to give thanks but also to celebrate it. There are different ways to give thanks; the Jewish liturgy helps us with blessings for food, for seeing a rainbow, for receiving new clothes, for having escaped from danger, for a day of rest, for doing something for the first time, etc. And the act of celebrating can be easily accomplished through the annual cycle of Jewish holidays. Celebration and thanksgiving are two fundamental principles in Judaism and in the Jewish way of raising children.

Sanctification, the third principle, is the process of recognizing the sacredness in the actions and events that happen every day. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the most sacred place is not the synagogue but our home. They call it “mikdash meat,” our little holy place. Our table with our children is like an altar. It can become the most sacred place on the planet. Jewish tradition teaches us to sanctify our daily activities. From the way we treat our partner, our children, the people who work in our house, to our pets and animals. There are rules for reprimanding, for praising, for greeting in the morning, for going to bed at night, since each of these actions is sacred in Judaism.

Moderating, celebrating and sanctifying in the Jewish way is the way to turn our children into men and women of integrity who appreciate the most sacred gift that God has given us: the small moments of life.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel.

The Torah established the death penalty as punishment for those who commit the following transgressions: “For adulterers, both men and women; for those who have sexual relations with an animal; for those who blaspheme using the name of God; for those who do not keep the Sabbath; for children who hurt or curse their parents; for incorrigible rebellious children; for homosexuals; for those who have incestuous relations; for premeditated murderers; for rapists; for those who steal slaves; for those who do not arrive virgins on their wedding night; for kidnappers; for false prophets; for those who perform human sacrifices; for those who practice witchcraft and divination; for those who worship idols.”

It is a very long list for this punishment to have almost never been applied in practice throughout the history of the Jewish people. The sages in the rabbinic era set conditions so difficult to meet that they practically prevented any Jewish court from enacting it. The two witnesses required had to present completely consistent and very exact testimony (at what time it happened, in what exact place, how the person was dressed, etc.). It also had to be established that the guilty party was fully aware that what he was going to do was punishable by losing his life. And it was the responsibility of the witnesses to warn him of his transgression and its consequences, and the transgressor also had to acknowledge that he was duly warned. In addition, the Sanhedrin that would have to hear these cases had to be composed of 23 sages of the highest reputation and honorability (Masechet Sanhedrin 1.4).

It is written in the Talmud, Mishnah Makkot 1:10: “A Sanhedrin that executes a person in seven years is a destructive court. Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah said: “One in seventy years.” Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba said that if they were members of a Sanhedrin, the death penalty would not be applied to anyone. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel warned: “This would multiply the murderers in Israel.” Rabban Shimon only questioned the case of murder, but not in other cases. Today, all denominations within Judaism have spoken out against capital punishment and in Israel it is prohibited except for treason in times of war and for convicted Nazi criminals.

What does all this teach us? How is it possible that the rabbis put up so many obstacles to prevent a biblical commandment from being fulfilled? Has the Torah made a mistake? The Torah considered in those times that committing such actions was reprehensible and wanted to emphasize this in the clearest and most forceful way. But the rabbis realized that on the one hand, not all transgressions were equally serious (some of them we do not see as transgressions against the spirit of Judaism today) and on the other hand, the punishment was too harsh and irreversible. All of this tells us that the interpretation of the Torah is a continuous process of adaptation and adequacy of the mitzvoth to each time and place. Therefore, capital punishment, a commandment designed never to be applied.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Various sources including The Death Penalty in Rabbinic Teachings by Rachel Biale

Shabbat is the most original contribution of the Jewish people to the world. It is the combination of the social principle of weekly rest with a beautiful religious ritual. The Torah gives Shabbat a central place from the very Creation. In Breishit 2:2-3 it is written: “And on the seventh day God finished the work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all the work that He had created and made.” Our sages say in Breishit Rabbah 17:7 that what God created on the seventh day was “menujah,” rest, tranquility, serenity and stillness.

If God has to “rest,” then even more so man. And the mitzvah says: “You shall remember the Sabbath day, to sanctify it. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your livestock, nor the stranger who is with you.” Shmot 20:8-10.

But the rabbis in the Talmudic era asked themselves: What does it mean to do no work? What can be done and what cannot? There are 39 prohibited works listed in the Mishnah in Masechet Shabbat 7:2. They represent the actions that were carried out for the construction and organization of the Mishkan in the Sinai desert. And they are: 11 related to agriculture, 13 to livestock, 7 to hunting, 2 to writing, 2 to construction, 2 to fire, 1 to finishing the making of an object and 1 to transporting things from the house to the outside and vice versa.

The problem arises when the substance of the matter, which is rest, menuchah, is lost and the form is emphasized. For example, planting is one of the 39 jobs that we should not do. Some expand on this by saying that everything that helps the plant is included in planting, such as watering, fertilizing and pruning. But the height of exaggeration is clearly displayed in this rule followed by ultra-Orthodox groups: “It is also forbidden to eat or drink in the garden, when we do so directly on the ground, since it is impossible to take sufficient care so that no liquid falls on the grass (you would be watering the garden!!!) or that some seed or grain of our food falls on the ground and germinates.”

Similar rules like this last one can be found in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Solomon Ganzfried, who, in his second volume, has 25 chapters with 435 rules related to what can and cannot be done on Shabbat. The mere thought of having to comply with 435 rules on Shabbat left me feeling tired and tense. A state that is totally opposite to the concept of menuchah.

Rabbi Joel Roth tells us in his book The Halakhic Process: “The widespread acceptance of the Shulchan Aruch is one thing, and the elevation of each of its decisions to the status of inviolable law is another. To do this is to equate a relatively recent code with the Torah itself. Worse still, to do this presupposes that the author of the code is virtually infallible. Furthermore, accepting the Shulchan Aruch as the only law, eliminates the basic principle that gave the sages of each generation the power to make authentic decisions with the corresponding religious authority.” It seems that they forgot that Shabbat was created for rest.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The texts mentioned.

Judaism assumes that man is only the guardian and not the owner of Creation and that God created the world with man as a partner in this enterprise. The Midrash tells us that God made Adam and Eve responsible for caring for the environment and that if they were to destroy it, no one but themselves should and could repair it. (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah VII 12.1)

The insistence on man’s responsibility to care for Creation was emphasized by the rabbis with the mitzvah “bal tash hit,” “do not destroy.” According to Devarim 20:19, during a war, destroying the enemy’s lands or their food sources was prohibited. This prohibition of destruction was generally extended in Jewish literature to all natural resources at all times and places.

“Bal tash hit” has many implications. In general, it prohibits senseless destruction. It requires us to be careful not to harm wildlife. We must take care of the air and water and in general everything that surrounds us.

Also the mitzvah of “yishuv haaretz,” colonizing the land, is focused on the sense of doing so in a way that improves the world. On Tu Bishvat, the New Year of the Trees, the custom of planting trees is an example of this mitzvah.

A third mitzvah, “Tzaar baaley hayim,” prohibits causing suffering to any living being. In Devarim 25:4 it is stated that you should not muzzle an animal that helps with work in the field, which implies that the animal cannot eat while doing its work. And in 22:10 it clearly states that you should not put an ox and a donkey together in a yoke, since the latter does not have the strength of the former and putting them together would cause unnecessary suffering.

The Talmud explains that we can even violate the laws of Shabbat to save or cure an injured or endangered animal. We are also obligated to feed animals before we eat. And the slaughter of animals for their meat must be done with the least possible suffering for the animal. The laws of Noah prohibit us from eating parts of a living animal. Hunting as a sport is also prohibited.

The world discovered the ecological issue a few decades ago. Judaism has been dealing with it for millennia, because it is immersed in the very essence of Jewish tradition. That is why ecology is not a new topic in our Torah.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: “Judaism, the way of sanctification” by Rabbis Samuel H. Dresner and Byron L. Sherwin.

During the first five centuries of our era, the chief rabbis of the academies in Eretz Israel and Mesopotamia provided the Jewish people with a legal system based on three elements: the Talmud, the rabbinical courts and academies, and the responsa, which are the rabbis’ answers to specific questions.

With the Talmud, the Jewish leadership created a set of norms, religious rulings, and legal precedents that enabled Jewish communities that were spread out in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, to share a written language and a common legal frame of reference, regardless of the political, religious, and economic environment in which each lived.

The academies also acted as rabbinical courts, offering advice on specific issues and helping to resolve legal disputes or litigation in economic, social, or religious matters. No matter where Jews lived, whether in Babylon in the sixth century, in Fustat (Egypt) in the eighth century, or in Cordoba in the eleventh century, rabbinical courts formed a judicial and arbitration body based on the Talmud as a single, binding code, but adapting their decisions to the economic contingencies and social environment of each place where Jews lived.

The process of applying Talmudic laws to new problems and particular circumstances was simplified by the mechanism of rabbinical responsa. In the academies of Sura and Pumbedita in Mesopotamia, scholars would discuss each problem using the Talmud as a paradigmatic guide, then issue a written ruling, which was sent to all Jewish communities in the Diaspora through the network of Jewish merchants. The typical structure of a responsum consisted first of presenting the ruling in question, then a concise explanation of why the ruling was reached, followed by quotations from the Talmud to support the verdict and often including arguments to refute any possible objections. The responsa service was not free: people who submitted a question had to pay for the answer. These payments served to support the academies and the scholars. The rulings of the rabbinical courts were so highly valued that contracts have even been found between Jews and non-Jews in which both agree to submit to the arbitration of a rabbi.

Having a common written alphabet, Hebrew, a common legal canon, the Talmud, a legal institution, the rabbinical courts, and a process for adapting the Talmud to the economic, social, and political circumstances of the place where they lived, the responsa, created a powerful binding mechanism that helped the development of Jewish communities scattered throughout the world but integrated into a large network. This was the Jewish self-government.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Chosen Few by Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein.