Al Reguel Ajat

Judaism is ultimately based on the belief that the world can and must be perfected (Tikun Olam). At some point, life will triumph over its enemies: war, oppression, hunger, poverty, disease, and even death. When this is achieved, humanity will reach the full potential to which human dignity can aspire. In that messianic era, the world will become a paradise and all human beings will be recognized and treated as someone created in the image of God. In a world of justice and peace, with all material needs met, men will be able to freely establish a harmonious relationship with nature, with each other, and with God.

The Jewish tradition has dreams but no illusions. It knows well that at this moment the world is far from being a Garden of Eden. Tikun Olam, the perfecting of the world, is a declaration of faith and hope. The Torah sets this goal for us as worthy of human effort, to be achieved throughout the course of history. This ideal state will not come to us through a miraculous act of divine origin. Our sages maintain that God chose a partner for this work. That partner is man. This final goal will be achieved only with his participation. The entire process of transformation will take place on a human scale and not through supernatural beings. And it will be achieved step by step. The perfection of the world will depend on this endless chain of human efforts. The Encyclopaedia Judaica defines the Messiah as Hamelej Hamashiaj, the Anointed King (melej = king and anointing is pouring oil on a person, to denote the character of his dignity) who would be a charismatic descendant of the house of King David, and who the Jews of the time of Roman rule believed would be created by God to free them from their yoke, and then restore the Kingdom of Israel, to which all Jews from exile would return.

Progressive movements within Judaism interpret the concept of Messiah as an ideal to be achieved. Orthodoxy maintains that he will be a man. The difference between the messianic dream and waiting for the Messiah of flesh and blood is enormous. The first is conceived as an effort of man over time. The second implies sitting and waiting for divinity to send us a redeemer. We have had men who have claimed to be the Messiah, such as Shabetai Zvi (17th century), who turned out to be a fiasco. Those who await the Messiah of flesh and blood consider the creation of the State of Israel as an aberration. These groups are the ones who claim to be the true “defenders” of Judaism and do not realize the positive impact that the State of Israel has had on the Jewish people.

We must all bring the “Messiah” with our own works and not wait for someone to send him to us. That is the bottom line in Judaism

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish Way by Rabbi Irving Greenberg and the Encyclopaedia Judaica.

In his book: Studying the Jewish Future, Calvin Goldscheider tells the story of Shmuel Braw, a Holocaust survivor who returned to his hometown of Tarnow in Poland to find that “Dos Yiddishkeit, Judaism,” no longer existed. What was Shmuel Braw referring to? He was not referring to the religious or cultural aspect. The Jewish religion and culture were still alive despite everything that had happened. So what was he referring to? He was referring to his community and its institutions. Being part of it was what being Jewish meant to him. The rest was incidental.

It is hard to understand. How is it that the essence of Judaism is its people and its institutions, in other words “One Kehila”? Isn’t Judaism the Torah, the Bible, the Talmud, the Halacha, Jewish philosophy, history, literature, art, language, gastronomy and everything else that makes us identify ourselves as Jews? We can imagine arguing with Shmuel and he would surely let us speak and say again: “You may be right, but here in my town, Judaism, “dos yiddishkait” disappeared.”

The lesson that Goldscheider wants to convey to us is that what is important in the end is the social. We can disguise it with the religious, or with the cultural, or with customs, but in essence, all our actions have a social background. And it doesn’t matter if we are orthodox or completely liberal, atheists or believers and unless we are hermits, if we live integrated into a social group, our behavior ultimately tells us: “I follow the rules or the customs of my group, because I want to be part of it.” And religious Jews act according to the rules of their group and traditionalists theirs. And Zionists and liberals follow their own.

The events that mark the cycles of Jewish life are at heart a social event perhaps more than a religious one. When we celebrate a Brit Mila, a Bar Mitzvah, a wedding and even when we unfortunately sit at Shive, the message we give is that we want to share with our group the fact that something good (or bad) has happened to us. And this sharing is done in the way accepted by the group. It seems that we do it to say to them: “Here I am, my family and I are part of you.”

All this is not new. Belonging and participating in community life is immersed in the Jewish spirit. Judaism is made to be practiced in a group. All our holidays are celebrated in community and the need for a minyan to pray is the best example. As Baruch Spinoza, the great philosopher of the 17th century, said, man (and especially the Jew) is definitely a social animal.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Understanding The Jewish Future by Prof. Calvin Goldscheider

In addition to the Torah, the Tanakh and the Talmud, there is another genre of rabbinic literature, which is the Midrash. There are many types and collections of “midrashim.” Essentially, it is the interpretation of sacred texts, usually from the Bible, although sometimes also from the Mishnah.

The language of the Bible is often brief and uncommunicative. Therefore, many questions remain unanswered. The Talmud answers some. The Midrashim try to answer most of them. They were written between the 4th and 6th centuries of our era. Some refer exclusively to halachic matters, laws, and others are hagadoth, theological narratives. There are many collections of Midrashim, such as Rabbi Ishmael’s “Mechilta” on the book of Shmot, “Sifra” on the book of Vaykra and “Sifre” on the books of Bamidbar and Devarim, all of them part of the Torah. The first is one of the oldest and is written in a simple and direct style.

It is clear that the Bible does not explain everything we would like to understand about its stories. And as times change, the relationship of readers to the stories of the Tanach also changes. This evolutionary process, along with the biblical way of telling a story, results in gaps and lack of order that affects our understanding and our relationship with the sacred texts. For the rabbis, the Midrashim were the way to fill those gaps and to order those texts, in some cases creating fables or legends that gave a background to the scarce narrative of the Torah.

There are three types of Midrashim: those that explain a text, especially commandments, those that contain parables or moral lessons and those that expand narratives of the Torah. They are rich in metaphors and allegories, wordplay and symbolism. For example, the Torah tells us that Adam told Eve, referring to the tree of knowledge of good and evil: “Do not eat from it, nor touch it, for you will die.” The Midrash Breishit Raba adds and tells us that the serpent “grabbed her and threw her against the tree” and explains that with this, the serpent made Eve see that she did not die by touching the tree and that she could then eat its fruit. This story is not in the Torah. Our sages created it in order to better understand what happened in that very famous biblical passage.

The Midrashim must be seen in their own context, because in them we can see the Jewish soul and mind perhaps in one of its most creative stages. The time in which they were written was a time of serious crisis for the Jewish people, especially in the Roman Empire. It seems that in difficult times, the talent of our sages grows more. The Midrash is part of that “Great Book” that never ends, that continues to grow and brings us new contexts and ways of understanding and relating to the sacred texts.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Essential Judaism by George Robinson.

The culture of Western societies is structured in what is commonly called “The rule of law.” In each society there is a unified system of laws that the authority applies blindly (remember how “Justice” is symbolically represented as a woman with a sword, a scale and a blindfold) and without considering the person that the law will affect, for better or worse. Legal matters are assessed in black and white, one is innocent or guilty, one complies with the law or not. There are no half measures. Since the Greeks and Romans, as a reaction to the absolute monarchies, there has always been a desire to be governed by laws and not by men.

The concept of “The rule of law” in the sense that the laws are black and white is not what our sages proposed, especially in the time of the Talmud. The rabbis adopted a pluralistic idea of ​​law and their approach was the other way around: law is a matter of being governed by men and not by rules. The difference between a Western legal process where a person demands his “legal” rights and a legal process within the conception of the Talmudic sages, where the person asks for an ethical solution to his problem (his ethical rights) is evident, it is putting ethical principles before legal principles. For example, the laws of many countries allow the deportation of a person who is illegally in that country and the authorities do not care if because of that action his son, who was born in that country and is therefore considered a legal resident, will be left alone without his mother. A Talmudic court would consider the ethical aspect of separating a mother from her child before coldly applying immigration laws.

In the Gemara there are multiple examples of discussions between rabbis where both parties have solid arguments to defend their position and where in the end the sages agree that both positions are valid. The Talmud Babli even accepts that it can deviate from the accepted laws, if the case has the merit from an ethical point of view.

Unfortunately, in modern Judaism, the “rule of law” has notoriously infiltrated many contemporary halachic conceptions. Halacha is being applied in “black and white”: if you comply with the accepted rule you are a “good Jew,” or if you do not comply exactly with the precept then you are not a “good Jew.” The Shulchan Aruch, originally conceived by its author Joseph Caro as an introduction to the study of the Talmud, has become a kind of rigid regulation of what is or is not permitted within Judaism and has led us to “westernize” our ancient culture. Judaism is becoming “black and white.” And not only because of its clothing.

By Marcos Gojman Bibliography: “The Judicial Process and the Nature of Jewish Law” by Hanina Ben-Menahem (Chap. 16 of the book: An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law, edited by N.S. Hecht and others)

Beam. A long and thick timber for roofing and supporting buildings. Dictionary of the Royal Academy.

In an ancient Talmudic source we find the account of a controversy between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, about a man who had stolen the main beam of a building and built his own house with it. The House of Shammai said that the entire house of the thief had to be demolished and the beam returned to its rightful owner. The House of Hillel said that the thief only had to pay the rightful owner in money the value of the beam, without having to demolish the house. Beit Hillel said that the thief only had to make the payment in money, supported by the “Takanat Hashavim”, the “provision for the one who repents” (BT Gittin 55a). The House of Shammai interpreted the Biblical commandment, “And he who stole it shall return the stolen object” (Vaykra 5:23), in a literal way, that is, the thief must return the original object to its owner. He is obligated to return the stolen object even if this means demolishing his own house.

The House of Hillel understood that if a repentant thief is faced with the choice of destroying his house or not returning the stolen object, he could choose the latter. Therefore, their school was inclined to allow him to repent in exchange for correcting his mistake without causing excessive harm to himself. Rashi explains that Hillel’s position contains the true meaning of Takanat Hashavim, because if you force him to destroy his home, he will avoid the act of repentance. Maimonides in his Mishne Torah tells us that the sages decided that the thief can pay the value of the stolen object and not have to destroy his home. Halacha prefers the rehabilitation of the scoundrel, rather than the imposition of a strict judgment of the Torah commandment.

It is this humanistic interpretation that prevailed and must prevail in rabbinical interpretations. Unfortunately in our time, extremist sectors lean towards literal interpretations, without realizing that applying the full weight of the law does not help a person to change. The weight of the law should not be greater than the weight of a beam.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Evolving Halakha by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Zemer.

The white marble of the Bet Hamikdash shone in a very special way. When we arrived at Mount Moriah, we noticed that the Temple was surrounded by a wall as if it were a fortress. We entered through one of its gates and passed through several courtyards with columns. We ascended a flight of steps and arrived at the Nicanor Gate, a huge bronze gate that required twenty men to open. That gate led us to the women’s courtyard and from there we went to the men’s courtyard, where half was reserved for us lay people and the other half for the Kohanim. To the right of the Courtyard of the Priests was the altar and the place for sacrificing animals. Around the courtyard there were several rooms: one where the Sanhedrin met, another where the Cohen Gadol lived during the week before Yom Kippur and others where the Kohanim bathed and groomed themselves. Above was the Hechal, a large, dark room where only the light of the Menorah illuminated it. From this room one passed to the most sacred place, the Kodesh Hakodashim, where only on Yom Kippur the High Priest, the Cohen Gadol, could enter.

We all prepared for the Great Day. We asked forgiveness from one another and fasted for our transgressions. But the one who prepared the most was the Cohen Gadol. It took him seven days to do so. He went over all the rituals and Torah readings that he would do on Yom Kippur. He had to do it perfectly. If he made a mistake, another priest was ready to replace him.

When the Great Day came, the Cohen Gadol bathed several times. Then he dressed in golden clothes. It was quite a sight to see: he looked like a shining sun. He lit the incense and arranged the lights of the Menorah. Then he washed and changed his clothes again. His clothes were now white linen of great simplicity. A young bull was ready for the first sacrifice. The High Priest proceeded to sacrifice it and say the appropriate blessings.

Then he went to where the two goats were. He took out two gold tablets, one reading “For God” and the other reading “For Azazel.” He turned them over and the fate of the goats was sealed: one would be sacrificed for God and the other would be the scapegoat. The people awaited the ritual by which all their sins would be placed on the animal. Then it was taken away to be lost in the desert.

After the sacrifices, the High Priest prepared the incense, took off his sandals and entered the Kodesh Hakodashim, where he prayed for a long time for a good year for his people. The people were relieved when they saw him leave. They feared for his life. The service ended when the High Priest took out the Torah scrolls and read the parts that speak of Yom Kippur (Vaykra 16). He then recited other verses from the Torah from memory and finished with the eight traditional blessings.

This was the Yom Kippur ritual in the time of the Bet Hamikdash, certainly different in form from what we do today, but with the same foundation of our ancient values.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish Festivals, History and Tradition by Hayyim Schauss and The Torah, A Modern Commentary edited by W. Gunther Plaut.

It is written in Vaykra 23.24: “Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a day of rest, a sacred occasion which you shall commemorate with trumpets.” Also in Bamidvar 29.1 it says: “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work in your occupations. You shall observe it as the day on which the horn is blown (Yom Teruah).”

The first thing that is interesting to note is that the term Rosh Hashana is not used in the Torah, so it seems that in biblical times they did not celebrate a holiday with that name. What they celebrated at that time was the Feast of Harvest, which had rituals that are now associated with Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. In Shmot 23.16 it says: “You must observe… the Feast of Harvest (Hag Haasif) at the end of the year,…” referring to the end of the harvest and the beginning of a new agricultural cycle.

The celebration of Rosh Hashana as an independent holiday began after the Babylonian Exile. It was in the time after the destruction of the Second Temple, in the writings of the Tanaim, that a group of sages of the Talmudic era used the term Rosh Hashana. Thus, the autumn festival was divided into three separate festivals: Rosh Hashana on the first day, Yom Kippur on the tenth day, and Sukkot on the fifteenth of the month of Tishrei.

It is in the Mishnah, compiled in the second century of our era, where Rosh Hashana is spoken of as the day on which God judges men (Rosh Hashanah 1:2) and in the Gemarah, completed in the fifth century, the subject is expanded. Since the Torah states that the shofar must be blown on that day, the sages included the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac to be read on that day, because of the connection with the ram and its horns entangled in the bush, which Abraham uses to replace Isaac in the sacrifice.

From that time on, the New Year began to be celebrated in synagogues, by blowing the Shofar and praying. The prayer began to be led by several people, one leading Shacharit and another the additional Musaf prayer. Over time, more parts were added to the prayer, such as the Piyut part, a liturgical poem from the Middle Ages.

The structure of Rosh Hashana has remained more or less the same as it was celebrated in the time of the Talmud, although over time new readings and rituals of great beauty have been added, the result of the creativity of the Jewish People over the centuries. But all this does not explain why the Jewish New Year begins in the seventh month.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish Festivals, History and Tradition by Hayyim Schauss.

When a Jewish baby is born or when a boy or girl reaches the age of bar or bat mitzvah, the desire of the people is that he or she arrives at a life of Torah, of Chuppah and of Maasim Tovim. Chuppah means the canopy used in the wedding ceremony and Maasim Tovim means good deeds. But arriving at a life of Torah means, among other things, arriving at a life of study.

According to Jewish tradition, God gave the Torah to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, as a source of blessings and life. In other words, God, when giving the Torah to the Jews, seemed to say to them: “Here, take this book home and tell me what you think of it.” And ever since then, they have been reading and studying it and telling God and themselves what they think His Book is. These comments appear in many places: in the Talmud and in the sermons of the rabbis, in works of fiction and nonfiction, but especially in any conversation between two or more Jews studying Torah together.

Judaism’s special way of studying Torah is through the method of “Midrash,” a word that in Hebrew means to seek, investigate, or even demand. Midrash transforms reading into an imaginative yet disciplined search for Revelation, typified by a passion that is at once personal and collective, scholarly and creative, arduous and fun.

Torah study is firmly grounded in human relationships. The Talmud especially discourages solitary study, and the rabbis advise “to get yourself a teacher and a study partner” and “to form groups for the purpose of study, since Torah can only be acquired in a group.” The real secret of Jewish survival is these constant conversations within these groups, which have been going on for three and a half thousand years.

These conversations have always been endless debates. Those who seek a simple catechism of faith to memorize must be confused and disappointed with the way Jewish pedagogy is dialectical and argumentative. Being Jewish means immersing oneself in the give and take that is Talmudic argument. And the only way to master this art of interpreting the Torah is through continuous study. Indeed, we were born, among other things, to study.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant.

The Jewish people have never believed themselves to be the possessors of the only true faith or to have the exclusive path to reach God, and for this reason Judaism is not a proselytizing religion; there are no Jewish missionaries seeking to convert people of other religions to Judaism. Since our rabbis teach us that all the righteous among the nations could reach the “world to come,” there was no need to save the souls of those who are not Jews, since their own religions can give them access to God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel says that “the idea of ​​the chosen people does not suggest a preference of God that implies discrimination towards other peoples. It does not mean that the Jewish people have a special quality that distinguishes them, but rather what they have is a special relationship with God.”

Rabbinic tradition does not connect the idea of ​​the chosen people with a feeling of superiority; On the contrary, the rabbis believed that God had imposed far more severe responsibilities on the Jews than on other peoples of the world, simply by giving them the Torah.

Today the phrase “chosen people” is linked to its complement of being “the people who chooses.” This is not a modern idea. According to the Midrash, (Mechilta Vachodesh 5) the Hebrews were not even God’s first choice to give the Torah. God went to other nations first, asking them if they would be willing to accept the divine covenant. But the other nations found the implications of that covenant too arduous. When He comes to the Hebrews, they reply (Shmot 24:7) Naase venishmah, we will do and we will listen. But still, the Midrash tells us that God was hesitant to give His Torah to the people of Israel and asks them for a guarantor to guarantee that they will observe His commandments. Israel offers its Patriarchs and Prophets, including heaven and earth, but God does not believe that all of that is enough. So the Israelites offer their children as collateral, even those who were not born, and now God agrees to give them the Torah. (Midrash Aseret Hadivrot 68).

Jewish tradition tells us of a relationship between God and the children of Israel that, like a coin, has two sides. That relationship of choosing and being chosen was the divine way for the Torah to reach man. That is why we were chosen.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant.

Para Gabriel.

Our tradition recognizes that often the way we relate to faith is not always rational but emotional. For example, a breathless look at nature or an unexpected act of kindness that touches us in a profound way, represent those moments of spirituality that fill our soul.

Sometimes it is the birth of a child. A child emerges into the world and despite the presence of nurses, doctors, machines, family members and all the elements that intervene in a modern birth, we know deep down that we are witnessing a miracle. We look at our child and recognize that all the biology books in the world cannot explain this new beginning. We hold in our arms not simply another person, but a being with infinite value and enormous potential. We hold a part of ourselves and know that if we are lucky, this part of us will outlive us. Suddenly, we have a little piece of immortality. And we ask ourselves: Who will remember us? How will he remember us?

The question “Do you believe in God?” is not a central question in Judaism. Not that one cannot ask it. But Judaism puts the emphasis on another point, not so much on believing but on having faith. It is not so much about proving the existence of God, but on feeling the presence of God. Not so much on philosophical arguments about God but, as the great philosopher and rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, on experiencing those moments of “awe and wonder,” moments where God suddenly seems to be very close.

Judaism does not seek certainty in our effort to know God. What it seeks is that closeness to God that gives us refuge, it is that feeling of the Divine presence, it is a glimpse of God’s love. The path to finding God is not an easy path, nor is it predictable and certainly not without obstacles, but it is open to all, to those who believe and to those who do not.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: God was not in the fire, the search for a spiritual Judaism by Rabbi Daniel Gordis.