Al Reguel Ajat

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.

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.