Al Reguel Ajat

The Talmud in Bava Basra (21a) tells us: “And Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Indeed, we must remember that man, Yehoshua ben Gamla, in a favorable manner, for if it were not for him, the Torah would have been forgotten in Israel. Originally, if a child had a father, he would have been taught Torah, but one who had no father could not have studied Torah. Therefore the sages decreed that teachers be established in Jerusalem, so that any young man could go to study there and learn Torah. As it is said (in Isaiah 2:3), “And out of Zion shall go forth the Torah.” But since not everyone could go to Jerusalem, Yoshua ben Gamla decreed that local authorities should install teachers in each province and in each town and that they should bring children of six and seven years of age to be taught by these teachers.”

Scholars place Yehoshua ben Gamla’s takana (rabbinical decree) in the years 63 to 65 of the common era, before the destruction of the Second Temple. What did the takana entail? Nothing more and nothing less than establishing the foundations of the system of compulsory education for all Jewish males from the age of six. The religious, economic, cultural and political implications were enormous and we live with them to this day. And this is even more impressive if we understand that at that time the rest of humanity was mostly illiterate and only the dominant political classes could read and write. Judaism became a literacy religion.

But this decree had a high cost. Sending one’s son to be educated meant a significant economic loss, since labor was lost in the fields, and one also had to pay the teacher and buy books, since education was not free. Many peasants did not want to or could not do it, and it did not represent any economic benefit to them. The consequence was that, not being able to study Torah, they began to abandon the practice of Judaism and convert to other religions. It is estimated that from the 5 to 5.5 million Jews that existed in the year 65 AD, they dropped to 1-1.2 million in the year 650. Of course, assimilation was not the only factor that caused the loss of population, but it was the most important.

But on the other hand, having a literate population gave enormous benefits to the Jewish people. Knowing how to read and having received education facilitated the transition from a rural population to an urban one that began to dedicate itself to commerce, trades, medicine and finance. And this was reflected in a noticeable improvement in the economic situation of the Jew who was able and willing to send his children to Beth Sefer, the house of the book, as the primary school is called.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla surely did not think that his Takana would affect the development of the Jewish people in such a radical way, but without a doubt that was the result. We owe to this Takana in large part, the fact that we are “The People of the Book.”

By Marcos Gojman

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

A few years ago, in an Orthodox Jewish school in New Jersey, a teacher told his students that dinosaurs never existed. When a student told the teacher that he and his family had recently visited the Museum of Natural History in New York City and had seen dinosaur bones, the teacher replied: “What you saw were not dinosaur bones, what you saw were dog bones that swelled up in the flood at the time of Noah.”

The literal interpretation of biblical texts leads, in the case of ultra-Orthodox Jewish movements, to deny obvious truths that science has proven. Do we have to deny the existence of dinosaurs because they are not mentioned in Breishit? The Rambam thought quite the opposite. If science has proven beyond a doubt that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, we have to discard the literal interpretation that insists that the universe is less than six thousand years old. There are scientifically sound and religiously valid interpretations that explain the age of the universe. One of them holds that the six days of creation were not 24-hour periods. Even if we want to be consistent, God created the stars, starting with the Sun, on the fourth day. How can we explain that the first three days of creation had sunrise and sunset if there was no Sun? We have to understand that those periods – days of creation – lasted much longer, perhaps billions of years. This explanation gives enough time for dinosaurs to have existed and become extinct before Adam and Eve were created by God.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan recently discovered in the writings of Rabbi Yitzhak of Akko, a 13th-century Kabbalist and student and colleague of Nachmanides, that Rabbi Yitzhak had calculated that the Universe was 15.3 billion years old, based on interpretations of biblical and rabbinical texts. A figure quite close to the 15 billion that scientists attribute to the Big Bang.

Just as it is a mistake to deny scientific discoveries, it is also a mistake to think that science can explain absolutely everything about life and its meaning. Scientists themselves recognize that the more doubts they resolve, the more doubts arise. We know that dinosaurs existed, but until now we do not know the real reason why they disappeared. Only God knows.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Maimonides, Spinoza and Us, by Rabbi Marc D. Angel.

Without a doubt, the work of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known as the Rambam or Maimonides (1138-1204), marks a watershed in the religious vision of Judaism. His approach based on reason and philosophical thought, provided a different way of understanding Judaism. Among his many works, his Mishneh Torah stands out, a treatise that explains in a clear and orderly manner the precepts that our sages captured in the Talmud. In Sefer Hamitzvoth he takes the 613 commandments of the Torah, comments on them and gives rules on how to interpret and carry them out.

But it is in his Guide for the Perplexed where the Rambam presents us with the precepts of Judaism from the point of view of reason and philosophical language. In it, he shows that one can reach the same Truth, with a capital T, both through the path of reason and through the path of religion.

In book three, chapter XII of The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides tells us that suffering has three origins. The first is that which comes to man because he is subject to genesis and destruction. What does this mean? All living beings in nature are born and die. It is a rule from which none escapes. It is nature’s way of renewing itself and of old beings giving way to young ones. And to achieve this, nature has many paths: illnesses, accidents, earthquakes, fires, floods, plagues, etc.

The second is that which originates from other people. It is the conduct of others that can affect us and make us suffer either physically or psychologically. The damage caused by crime, bad rulers, wars and any person in general can be the cause of pain for many. Pain that can even end in death.

The third is the evils that one causes to oneself, by the way one acts. It can be physical harm, such as those who smoke or drink too much, or it can be psychological, such as personality disorders. Maimonides expands on this concept and explains to us that this evil comes from desiring things that are unnecessary for the preservation of the individual and the species. Desire has no limits and satisfying it at all costs leads us to act in a way that can harm us.

Knowing the origin of suffering helps us to understand it and to take a proactive attitude to avoid it, as far as possible, to mitigate it or to endure it with a better attitude. Therefore, when you suffer from something, consult Dr. Maimonides.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Maimonides, Spinoza and Us, by Rabbi Marc D. Angel and Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed.

Our rabbis teach us that the path of the Torah is a very narrow path with fire on the right side and ice on the left side. Whoever follows the Torah must always be well focused and balanced, to avoid going off the path and falling in either direction, ice or fire.

On the right is fire, the fire of religious passion that has lost control of itself. This is the fire of religious zeal that slides into extremism, fanaticism and exaggeration. Turning to the right implies giving up a person’s ability to reason in favor of a transcendent and mystical relationship with God. However, with the suspension of the use of reason, one has the possibility of following false gods and superstitious beliefs.

On the left is ice, the ice of skepticism, of crazy rationalism. The warmth of the Torah is lost, its inner beauty and power are denied. Moving to the left means giving up one’s spiritual sense in favor of a cold philosophical view of life. With the rise of ice comes the possibility of living without ever having been able to confront and experience God.

We live in a time when it is increasingly difficult to walk the path of Torah in a focused and balanced way. The intensity of the fire on the right has created a religiosity characterized by extremism, obscurantism, and authoritarianism. We witness a comfortable conformity in thought, behavior, and even dress. Thousands of people stop thinking in favor of following the dictates of their «rebbes» or other halachic authorities. Kabbalists and pseudo-Kabbalists take advantage by giving out amulets, red threads, and magical blessings.

The threats from the left are equally dangerous. Widespread secularism and agnosticism create a huge vacuum. Sociologist Peter L. Berger refers to this modern condition as «spirituality in a vacuum.» To live without feeling the presence of God is to miss a vital and meaningful aspect of life.

Is it possible to maintain a balanced, intellectually sound vision of Judaism? Is it possible to avoid falling into the anti-rationalism of the right or the super-rationalism of the left? Of course. We can walk along that path of the Torah that rests, on the one hand, on the classical foundations of Divine Revelation and on the other on the premise that we have the right and responsibility to question ourselves intellectually, in a spirit of freedom and using our reason. Maintaining that balance is the secret.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Maimonides, Spinoza and Us, by Rabbi Marc D, Angel.

Superstition is the belief contrary to reason that attributes to everything a magical explanation. Essentially, superstition is engendered, maintained, and fostered by fear. When people do not understand a specific phenomenon, they feel that they need a supernatural explanation to fill that lack of knowledge. Indeed, false prophets or witches take advantage when people are most fearful. The masses will listen to those so-called holy men and women who claim to have supernatural knowledge and who perform rituals that claim to save them from the things that frighten them.

It is not only fear that engenders superstition. It is also the desire to find approval in the eyes of God. People want to feel loved, favored, and blessed by God. Therefore, people do everything they can to earn God’s favor. They seek some kind of reciprocal relationship, where they give something to God, such as sacrifices or rituals, and seek to receive something in return. It is a means of negotiating personal favors.

But where does superstition end and religion begin? Maimonides emphasized that since both superstition and religion transcend the domain of reason, it is important not to confuse their boundaries. Judaism seeks to bring us closer to God through thought and mitzvot. Superstition seeks to circumvent God’s powers by using magical formulas or rituals. The Torah is very clear in its prohibition of witchcraft and magic (Deuteronomy 18, 10:12). The Rambam disapproved of the use of amulets, a very common practice to this day and which people justify by saying, «What if they do work? There is nothing to lose by trying them.»

Some rabbis such as the Vilna Gaon did not agree with Maimonides. He argued that in the Talmud, some of our sages speak of amulets that do work, of witches and demons that do exist, and of magical incantations that do work. But in our modern times, the words of the Vilna Gaon are an example of a flawed and superstitious worldview. Rambam teaches us that human beings must be thinking beings. Just because some ancient rabbis believed in demons does not mean we have to do the same. On the contrary, we have to consider all of humanity’s intellectual and scientific developments in order to understand what is happening around us.

The separation between religion and superstition sometimes becomes blurred in cases of terminal illness or serious problems. Normally rational people turn to «miracle workers» and pseudo-kabbalists for help, thinking that this can help them solve their problem. We can understand that in desperation, someone might turn to such instances, but we must not forget that being superstitious is not the way of Judaism. Because if you continue despite everything, I don’t think your luck will change. Or who knows, maybe it will ¿!!!?

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Maimonides, Spinoza and Us, by Rabbi Marc D, Angel.

For Ilana.

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells us: Unetaneh Tokef is one of the prayers we say on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur that simultaneously moves me the most and makes me question myself the most. In the first part, this prayer tells us that all of our actions, the good and the not so good, are written by us, and that part of what will happen to us in the next year will be the result of how we have lived and how we have behaved, including how even what we eat will affect us, and all of this will determine only part of our future. And this part, it is clear to me, is our responsibility.

But in the second part, Unetaneh Tokef tells us that on Rosh Hashana our destiny will be written and on Yom Kippur our destiny will be signed, who will live and who will die and there is not much we can do about it. And this makes us uneasy. Because we don’t want to accept that life is unfair. And we don’t like to hear this phrase. We’d like to think that someone is at the steering wheel and that everything has a reason for being. We’d rather blame ourselves and say that we deserve it and not have to admit that things happen in the world at random.

Kushner continues: Rabbis teach us that we can comfort the hurting by saying that in the long run what happened will be for the best or that we shouldn’t question God’s ways. And this doesn’t mitigate the pain or take away the anger that many feel when they have suffered, for example, the loss of a loved one. How can it occur to us that God wants deformed children to be born? How can it occur to us that God wanted a young mother to get multiple sclerosis? That God wants a father and husband to die at an early age from a heart attack? Who told them that we glorify God by holding Him responsible for every earthquake, every tsunami, every hurricane, every fire, every mudslide, every car accident, every terrible disaster, including the Holocaust?

Rabbi Kushner concludes by saying: When we understand that God is not the cause of a baby’s terminal illness, we understand that God is actually on our side and not on the side of illness and calamity. We understand that God is all-powerful, but that His power is not to control everything but to allow the laws that govern order in the universe to act according to the original plan that He defined. For those who suffer, God is responsible for giving us the strength to endure it, for taking us by the hand and helping us cross the valley of shadows and darkness, until we see the light again. Because not everything that happens in the world is God’s will.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Rabbi Harold Kushner’s participation in the book Jews and Judaism in the 21st Century, edited by Rabbi Edward Feinstein.

Any outside observer would have thought that with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the history of the Jewish People would have come to an end. Other peoples who suffered a similar fate soon disappeared. But this was not the case for the Jews. Their leaders were able to transform Judaism into a powerful and sustainable way of life that did not need a central sanctuary or a territory of its own for national continuity.

The ensuing Jewish vitality and creativity was rooted in the actions of those who oversaw the formation of the new Jewish way of life after the tragedy of the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people throughout the world. I refer to the rabbis. They realized that if Jewish religious life depended exclusively on access to Jerusalem and its Temple, Judaism would not survive. At that time, the Torah took center stage, and the mobility that the written word allowed (you can carry the Torah physically or in your memory anywhere) was the key to Judaism’s survival.

Lacking a physical, geographic, and national center, the rabbis sought other ways to unite a people who were far from the borders of Eretz Israel and who were scattered throughout the Roman and, before that, the Babylonian empire. They developed regular religious services and a standardized liturgy. These services did not require a priest or an altar. They could be conducted anywhere in the world by any Jew.

The synagogue became an important Jewish institution. Jews could gather there to pray, study, and socialize. The home also became a center of Jewish practices, with celebrations such as the Passover Seder or Shabbat dinners.

Judaism could thrive anywhere where the Torah and its interpretations could be studied and Jewish law put into practice. Yet the loss of national sovereignty and the destruction of the Temple were never forgotten by the Jews. They were always mentioned in religious services.

Jews love their books and the written word because they are something that cannot be taken away from them. Even when books were confiscated or burned, their words remained in our memory and we could reconstruct them.

Thanks to the written word, we can take Judaism with us everywhere. That is our great secret. We have made the written word our great passion to the point that we put it in our entryways with the Mezuzah, in our minds and in our hearts with the tefillin, and in our daily lives with the Torah and its precepts. That is what makes Judaism portable.

By Marcos Gojman:

Bibliography: Embracing Judaism, by Rabbi Simcha Kling revised by Carl M. Perkins and God Was Not in the Fire by Daniel Gordis.

The best “stock shares” that we can undertake in the Jewish stock market are framed in our sacred texts. Their quotes are always on the rise and together they represent the index of Jewish ethics. Let us see what they are and their keys on the board:

-The sanctity of life. JAIM

According to Jewish tradition, life is something precious. Therefore, everything possible must be done to preserve and improve it. Both the individual and the community have the obligation to care for the sick, the elderly and the weak. They must never be abandoned. Even the life of animals is precious as well. Jewish law prohibits sport hunting. An animal can be killed only to feed us and this must be done according to our laws that minimize its suffering.

-The search for peace. SHALOM

Our sages translate the sixth commandment as “You shall not murder.” Judaism allows people to defend themselves, even by killing an aggressor when there is no other alternative. Killing is not the same as murder. Jewish tradition has never glorified military victories. At the Passover seder we pour a few drops of wine to symbolize our sadness at the loss of Egyptian lives. Even in our time, Israel has never celebrated its military triumphs with parades. We all know the prophecies of Isaiah that describe the Jewish vision of peace.

-Justice. TZEDEK

Peace cannot exist in a society that is not just. “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20) is a biblical commandment. The Jewish legal system protects the rights of the individual and condemns a society that allows exploitation, poverty and ignorance.

-Mercy. HESED

A just society can also be cruel unless it is administered with mercy and compassion. God is presented to us in the sacred texts as someone who is just but also merciful.

– Perfecting the world. TIKUN OLAM

One of the best-known prayers is the Aleinu, which is said at the end of all prayers. In it we express our desire and our obligation to act to improve the world. Our vision of perfection refers to “this world” and not to the world to come.

It is worth investing in these “stocks”. It has been proven that their return has always been the highest in the history of humanity.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Embracing Judaism, by Rabbi Simcha Kling and revised by Carl M. Perkins.

In such a short space as this, it is almost impossible to present the main features of the Talmud, even in a summarized form. The Talmud is difficult to describe because there is no work to which it can be compared. Rooted in the Bible, it is filled with biblical verses and repeatedly cites the Bible as the basic source for making its decisions.

But it is neither a biblical commentary nor a legal code. It is encyclopedic in nature but it is not an encyclopedia. It is the product of many individuals and editors, but it is not the work of a single individual or a single group. The Talmud contains many legal cases, but it is more than a legal treatise. It contains the give and take of discussions with their arguments and also the marginal comments that have nothing to do with the specific cases that initiated the discussion. It includes ethical issues and religious and liturgical practices, laws regulating personal, commercial and agricultural life, community organization and social assistance.

Talmudic discussions are not concise. They may include many things that the rabbis and their disciples mentioned as a result of quoting a mishnah: their reactions, explanations, discussions, deliberations, stories that came to their minds, references to other opinions or other sources. For this reason, the Talmud is not a work that can simply be read. It must be studied.

Studying the Talmud is not easy, but it is an extraordinarily stimulating and challenging experience from an intellectual and emotional point of view. The Talmud is a work that challenges us and must be explored and investigated with energy, tenacity and commitment. Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz says: “The Talmud is framed in questions and answers. Expressing our doubts is not only legitimate but essential to its study. The Talmud is perhaps the only sacred work in the world that not only allows but encourages the student to question it. True knowledge can only be achieved through spiritual communion, where the student must participate intellectually and emotionally in the Talmudic debate.” It is, without a doubt, the best exercise for the brain and the mind.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Embracing Judaism, by Rabbi Simcha Kling and revised by Carl M. Perkins.

There are stories in the Torah that make us think that God alone cannot perfect the world. The concept of a Garden of Eden, the incident between Cain and Abel, the Flood, or the story of the Tower of Babel, are all examples of something being missing. And that which was missing was the Covenant that God made with Abraham. God asks Abraham to be a source of blessing for all peoples. God told him: “May all the nations of the world be blessed through you” (Breishit 12:3).

The covenant with Abraham symbolizes how God needs man as much as man needs God. When God is about to destroy Sodom, He says: “Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do now?” (Breishit 18:17). Why does He ask? Does God have to consult man? God does not ask, God gives orders. God ordered Noah to build the Ark and did not ask him if he agreed with His decision to destroy the world. But now it seems that God is saying, “I cannot act unilaterally, I must at least tell Abraham.” Rashi explains this by saying that before Abraham, God was the God of heaven, but after Abraham, God is the God of the Earth.

The passage in Breishit 18, where Abraham discusses with God the fate of Sodom, is one of the most beautiful and educational passages in the Torah: “What if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom?” Abraham asks. “Is the Supreme Judge of the Earth going to act unjustly?” And Abraham was not citing an outside source to support his argument. Abraham’s words came from his own moral intuition that told him it would be unjust to destroy a city if righteous people lived in it. He even asked God to spare the entire city if some righteous people lived among them.

God could have answered, “Your ways are not My Ways and your thoughts are not My Thoughts,” told Abraham that man’s ethics cannot be used to judge God, and ended the discussion there. But He did not. God fully accepts man in his moral context. Being a partner in the Covenant meant bringing our full humanity to that relationship with the Creator.

But the haggling continued: forty, thirty, twenty, until reaching ten righteous ones. Why did God let Abraham continue the discussion? It seems that God was not only not bothered by Abraham’s arguments, but quite the opposite. God seems to be telling us that He loves having a partner in the Covenant who feels worthy enough to dare to criticize His own actions. God was no longer seeking to simply impose His will. That is why He discussed it with Abraham.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: A Covenant for Love by Rabbi David Hartman, part of the book Jews and Judaism in the 21st. Century, edited by Rabbi Edward Feinstein.