Al Reguel Ajat

In the 19th century, Charles Darwin shocked the world with his “theory of evolution.” What bothered many people about his theory at that time was the idea that man descended from apes. To many, Darwin was considered the greatest of heretics, because they said that he had replaced the divine image with a monkey.

These people did not understand the main idea of ​​his theory. The idea of ​​evolution is clearly set out in the Torah: in the story of the Creation of the world. The sequence and development follow an ascending pattern. What was created first is less than what came later. Read the account in the Bible and you will see that plants were created before animals, fish before birds, birds before land animals, animals before man and woman. This order coincides with Darwin’s theory. The only difference between the theory of evolution and the biblical account is the fact that the latter includes in its narrative the Great Architect, God, without whom none of this would have happened.

If apes preceded man, it was because man is a more advanced being. The distance between ape and man is not quantitative but qualitative. And you cannot understand the Jewish conception of the world if you do not accept that not only does God exist but that He placed a part of Himself on earth. Man was created in the “image and likeness of God.” What does this mean? What it definitely does not mean is that we resemble each other physically. God does not have a physical form. “In the image and likeness” does not refer to appearance, but to something more in keeping with His Essence.

We share something with Him that gives us a divine component. For centuries, scholars have discussed what that characteristic is that makes man “similar” to God. Some say it is the human soul, because that mysterious part of our being is something divine, since it makes us immortal. Others say that what we share with Him is His Intelligence reflected in our mind, that unique gift that is our brain. Others dare to say that what makes us similar to God is free will, our freedom to choose and decide our path.

You can choose one or all of the interpretations of our “divine likeness”, this does not change the result, because in the end both conceptions, the evolutionary one and the divine creation one, put man at the top of the scheme. And in this, Darwin coincides with God.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Jewish History and Culture by Rabbi Benjamin Blech

The golden rule: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) is based on the principle that all men are equal, since we were created in the image and likeness of God and its application does not depend on whether I like or not my neighbor or even whether or not he is my friend or my enemy. In Shmot 23:4 it says that “if you find your enemy’s ox or donkey lost in the field, you must take it back to him. If your enemy’s donkey is weighed down by its load, you must help lighten it.”

Revenge is prohibited. The law of Talion, the famous “eye for an eye,” was explained from the beginning by our sages in two ways: that the punishment must be proportional to the crime committed and that the punishment must be applied by a court. They sought to avoid personal revenge and humanize the laws to avoid excesses in punishments. The rabbis also established that payment for a crime would, in most cases, be a financial penalty proportional to the damage caused.

In Leviticus 19:18 it is written: “You shall not take revenge or hold a grudge against the children of your own people.” “Do not say, I will do to him as he did to me, I will repay him in the same coin for what he did to me” (Proverbs 24:29). This does not mean that one should not proceed against someone who committed a crime, on the contrary, we should punish him, but within the framework of the law and not by your own hand.

Maimonides in his Mishne Torah sums it up as follows: “It is forbidden for a man to be harsh and irreconcilable and he should be easy to appease and difficult to provoke. If the offender apologizes (sincerely) he should forgive him wholeheartedly and with a willing spirit. If the other has harassed you and sinned against you, you should not take revenge or hold a grudge.” (Hilchot Teshuvah 2:10).

So, do you really think you can or should say: You’re going to pay me back?

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish People, their history and their religion, by Rabbis David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner

Work.-

There is considerable emphasis in Jewish tradition on the value of work. Even the fourth commandment, which defines the Sabbath rest, begins by saying: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work…” The rabbis, who considered the study of Torah to be the highest activity, recognized that it should be combined with a worldly occupation. In Pirkei Avot 2:2 Rabban Gamliel says: “The study of Torah must be complemented by work, for dedication to both keeps us from error. All study that is not accompanied by work becomes unproductive and leads to error.” The rabbis of the Mishnah era themselves had an occupation. It is the father’s obligation to teach his son a trade (Tosefta, Kiddushin I:II). And not only out of economic necessity, but for self-esteem: “Great is work, for it confers dignity on those who do it” (Nedarim 49b).

Labor relations.-

Judaism emphasizes the employer’s responsibility to treat his employees in a fair and considerate manner. The mitzvah that orders us to pay an employee’s salary on the same day (Leviticus 19:13) produced many rabbinical commentaries that sought to protect the employee. Even though slavery was permitted in biblical times, the Torah ordered that your slave should also rest on Shabbat.

Trade.-

Trade must be conducted in an honest and fair manner. Leviticus 19:36 says: “You shall have just weights and just scales…” and in 25:14 it says: “And if you sell to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not harm one another.” The Talmud explains the implications of these mitzvoth.

Social Assistance.-

Society has a special responsibility towards its weakest members: orphans, widows, the elderly, the disabled, the poor and the foreigner. All of them are mentioned in various mitzvoth and in the exhortations of the Prophets and are sought to be protected and helped.

Finance.-

There is a biblical commandment that clearly prohibits lending with interest to the poor. In today’s age, with the complexities of economic affairs, its application is a difficult matter. But the core of the matter, protecting the poor from economic abuse, remains valid.

Thus, we can say without fear of being wrong, that the Judaism’s view of any economic theory focuses on the moral quality of the society it produces and what kind of human relations it fosters. Freedom, justice, brotherhood and compassion are essential values ​​for any government, regardless of its affiliation. As you see, the Torah and the Talmud also teach us economics, but ethical economics.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish People, their history and their religion, by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.

Judaism emphasizes that those who have, when they give to those who do not have, are not doing an act of charity but of justice. Also, by doing so, it does not give a sense of superiority to the giver over the receiver. The Torah refers to the receiver as “your brother” to emphasize that he is someone equal to you.

In the book of Psalms, 41:1 it is written: “Blessed is he who considers the poor” and the Talmud interprets this to mean that we should give at the same time that we assess what is the best help we can give to a certain person. Rabbinic literature also speaks of giving being done anonymously or in secret, so as not to humiliate the recipient. In Temple times there was a publicly administered charity box, which kept both the giver and the receiver anonymous.

Maimonides set out the teachings of the rabbis on this subject with his list of eight degrees of charity. In ascending order they are as follows:

1. Giving reluctantly.

2. Giving gladly but less than you could give.

3. Giving only when asked.

4. Giving before being asked.

5. Giving in such a way that the recipient knows who gave it to him, but the giver does not know who received it.

6. Giving in such a way that the giver knows who received it, but the recipient does not know who gave it to him.

7. Giving anonymously to a community charity.

8. Helping someone who has become impoverished to get back on their feet by giving him a gift or a loan, partnering him in a business, or helping him find a job.

Giving Tzedakah is one of the mitzvoth that is most valued in Jewish tradition. In the tractate of Bava Batra (9a) the sages say that it is worth as much as all the other mitzvoth put together. However, good deeds, Gemilut Chassadim, are ethically superior to Tzedakah, since it involves personal involvement and is not just “checkbook charity,” and good deeds are done for the poor as well as for the rich.

Tzedakah undoubtedly belongs to the group of mitzvoth “Bein adam lechavero,” the ethical mitzvoth. And if it is done correctly, no one should find out about it, since in the end, it is just an act of justice.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish People, their history and their religion, by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.

In Devarim 30:19 God said, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.”

Rabbis tend to affirm that man is free in his decisions, but without denying that there is a divine presence. Rabbi Akiba said in Pirkei Avoth, “Everything is foreseen, but the freedom to choose is given. Rashi comments: Everything that happens to man is in God’s hands, for example, whether he is tall or short, rich or poor, intelligent or not, white or black, but whether he is a good or bad person is not in God’s hands, for He has entrusted this into the hands of man and set before him two paths, so that he may choose the path of fear of God.”

Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah writes: “Every human being has been given the freedom of choice. If he wishes to lean toward the good path and be a virtuous man, he is free to do so, and if he wishes to lean toward the evil path and be a wicked man, he is also free to do so….Every individual is capable of being virtuous like Moses or wicked like Jeroboam… and there is no power that can force him, that can decree him, or that can pull him toward one path or the other; he himself, of his own free will, will choose the path that he desires…..And this is a basic principle and a fundamental premise of the Torah and its commandments.”

An impressive testimony to Judaism’s affirmation of the reality of free will, the freedom to choose, is what Victor Frankl, psychologist and Holocaust survivor, writes: “The experiences in the concentration camp demonstrate that man can always choose which path to take. There were many examples, some of them heroic in nature, which proved that apathy can be overcome, that irritability can be suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of thought, even under such terrible conditions of physical and mental stress. We who lived in concentration camps can remember those men who walked between the barracks comforting others, giving them their last piece of bread. They may have been a few, but they were sufficient proof that almost everything can be taken from a person except one thing: the last of man’s freedoms, the power to choose what attitude to take in given circumstances, the power to choose one’s own path.”

By: Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish People, their history and their religion, by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.

Despite the vast body of rabbinic literature, the process of interpreting the Torah continues. The Oral Torah is unfinished. And this process does not depend on new divine revelations. Now, trying to understand God’s will must be carried out in another way: by applying human intelligence to the commandments given to us at Sinai. This process can go as far as making decisions democratically by a majority of duly accredited scholars.

In the Talmudic tractate Bava Metzia (59 a-b) a discussion is recounted between R. Eliezer and a group of sages. The issue was whether the oven of Aknai was pure or impure. R. Eliezer said yes and the sages said no. On that day, R. Eliezer brought all the arguments imaginable, but the sages did not accept them. Then he said to them: “If the Halacha agrees with me, let the carob tree prove it!” So ​​the tree was uprooted 100 cubits from its place (others say 400 cubits). No proof can be derived from the carob tree, the sages answered. Again R. Eliezer said to them: If the Halacha agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it! Then the stream of water began to run backwards. No proof can be derived from a stream of water, they answered again. Again R. Eliezer said to them: If the Halacha agrees with me, let the walls of this school prove it. Then the walls leaned as if they were going to fall down. At that R. Joshua said to the walls: When scholars are engaged in a halachic discussion, why do you have to intervene? And the walls did not fall, in honor of R. Joshua, but neither did they straighten up in honor of R. Eliezer and remained bowed. Again R. Eliezer said to them: If the Halacha agrees with me, let the proof come from Heaven. Then a heavenly voice was heard saying: Why do you argue with R. Eliezer, who does not see that on all points the Halacha agrees with him? But R. Joshua stood up and exclaimed: (The Torah) is not in heaven! What did he mean by this? R. Jeremiah explains: The Torah was already given to us on Mount Sinai. We will not listen to any heavenly voice. Therefore the opinion of the majority prevails.”

There is something else that is added below to this legend. The day after the argument, Rabbi Nathan meets the Prophet Elijah. Rabbi Nathan asks him: “What was Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu (God) doing at that time?” Elias answers: “He was smiling and saying, My sons have defeated me, My sons have defeated me.”

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish People, their history and their religion, by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.

A problem that concerns every sensible Jew is the existence of Jews who observe many mitzvoth but are, nevertheless, unethical people.

To think that being religious automatically makes a person ethical is a mistake, for a Jew cannot be considered religious if he or she does not also observe the ethical commandments of the Torah.

The commandments between man and God, Bein Adam Lamakom, are only one part of Judaism and if correctly fulfilled, have very profound ethical implications. A large number of commandments and much of the rabbinic literature is concerned exclusively with those mitzvoth that involve actions between one individual and another, “Bein Adam Lechaveroh” and are as important as the laws of Kashrut, putting on tefillin or praying. “To love your neighbor as yourself” is the most well-known example, but there are many others, such as the laws on charity, speaking ill of others, proper conduct in business, and more.

Judaism is so concerned with this point that it considers a person who has not studied these mitzvoth and “is ignorant, cannot be considered a righteous person” and therefore is not really an observant Jew. A Chassid is one who is an upright Jew and who practices good deeds. The sages consider that God rejects those who observe only the mitzvoth Bein Adam Lamakom and do not fulfill the mitzvoth Bein Adam Lechaveroh.

People who are unethical and unkind to their neighbors, but who pretend to be religious, are equated by the rabbis with one who commits the sin of Chillul Hashem, profaning the name of God. It is written in the Talmud, Yoma 86a: “….if someone studies the Tanach, (the Bible) and the Mishnah….but is dishonest in his business dealings and discourteous in his dealings with people, what do they say about him? Woe to the person who studied Torah, woe to his father who taught that person Torah; woe to his teacher who taught that person Torah; This person who studied Torah: see how corrupt his deeds are, how ugly his ways are;”

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: “The nine questions people ask about Judaism” by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin.

During the Roman siege of Jerusalem (1st century CE) an old teacher, Yochanan ben Zakai, managed to slip away and with the permission of the invading army, established a Pharisaic academy at Yavneh, on the Mediterranean coast near Jaffa. At that time, the Jewish people were divided. On one side were the Sadducees, mostly priests, who recognized only the written Torah, especially the Temple service, the sacrifices, and the leadership of the Kohanim. A second group were the Pharisees, heirs to a broader tradition, who had expanded, interpreted, and applied the Written Torah in what they called the Oral Torah. Their followers were men skilled in the law and its interpretation. A third group were the Essenes, who also rejected the priestly hierarchy and lived in rural communes devoted to manual labor and strict religious discipline. A fourth group were the Zealots, revolutionaries who were close to both the Pharisees and the Essenes and who sought to free Israel from the Roman yoke. A fifth group were the Nazarenes, Jews who attended the Temple and observed Jewish laws, but who were followers of Jesus.

The war with Rome destroyed the Zealots, totally reduced the influence of the Sadducees, disintegrated the Essenes, and Christians ceased to be a sect within Judaism and became an external movement made up of non-Jews. The Pharisees, with their synagogues and houses of study, were the only ones who survived this hecatomb.

The merit of the Yavneh school was that it managed to demonstrate that Judaism did not depend for its existence on the Temple, now destroyed, nor on sacrifices, but on an inner religious life full of spirituality and good deeds. The teachers of Yavneh created a new way of practicing Judaism without sacrifices, without priests and without the Temple. They dedicated themselves to compiling the teachings of their predecessors, such as Hillel and Shammai. It is interesting to note, by the way, that they were more inclined to the more flexible and less literal style of Hillel’s disciples than to the rigidity of Shammai. The title of «Rabbi,» which means «my teacher,» began to be used to distinguish that wise man recognized by his colleagues. The title was conferred upon them with a certificate called Semijah, which gave them authority to teach and decide on legal matters.

At that time, the Sanhedrin, the highest assembly of the Jewish people, was made up of rabbis who came from the most diverse ways of life and who depended on a trade or occupation to generate their own income to be able to live. They owed their religious leadership to their expertise and wisdom in the interpretation of the Torah, which attracted followers who became their disciples. The heirs of the Pharisees led religion along the path of personal ethical responsibility and obedience to the commandments of the Torah. They were the founders of Rabbinic Judaism and laid the foundations for what we have today. And it all began in Yavneh.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: “The Jewish People” by David J. Goldberg and John D. Rayner.

In the book of Exodus 33:13 Moses asks God: “…if I have found favor in your eyes, please show me your way, so that I may know you…” The question is one of those existential questions: Why do good people sometimes do badly and bad people do well?

In the Talmud’s Berachot 1:7, our sages try to explain it and in the first instance they tell us that depending on how the father of the person was, so will the son do. If the person is good and the father was not, then the person will do badly and vice versa. But the Gemara itself does not accept this answer: How can it be that a person’s fortune depends on the actions of his father? The Gemara tries to offer another explanation: perhaps that person is not completely good or not completely bad and that is why things are bad for the first and good for the second.

And the discussion between our sages continues until finally Rabbi Meir says: “In reality God does not give Moses an answer. In Exodus 33:19 God tells him, “I will favor the one I choose to favor, and I will be gracious to the one I choose to be gracious to,” meaning that even to the one who does not deserve God to be gracious to him, He can be gracious to him. This answer reminds us of what Rabbi Yannai says in Pirkei Avot 4:19: “We do not know how to understand why the wicked enjoy during their existence and why the righteous suffer during their life.”

In his book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, after learning of the diagnosis of the terrible illness of his three-year-old son Aaron, asks himself: “I thought I was following God’s ways and doing His work. How can this be happening to my family?” If God exists, if He were just a little fair, let alone loving and merciful, how could He have done this to me? And Kushner himself answers: “We should not ask, as Job did: “God, why are you doing this to me?” but we should say: God, look at what is happening to me. Can you help me? We should seek God not to judge us or forgive us, not to reward us or punish us, but to give us strength or comfort us.”

I have witnessed how people who call themselves religious, attribute the misfortune of others to their failure to fulfill the mitzvoth. Nothing could be more wrong. In reality, we do not understand why life is not fair, because to understand it we would have to know the ways of God. And not even Moshe Rabeinu knew them.

By: Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Tractate Berachot, The Art Scroll Series, Mesorah Publications, LTD and Harold Kushnier “When bad things happen to good people”.

In the book of Shmot (Exodus 24:12), it is written: “God says to Moses: Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the teachings and commandments that I have written to instruct them.” Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. Much of what God told Moses was written in the Torah, but other commandments, our sages say, remained in Moses’ memory.

For example, in Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:21, it says: “…you may slaughter any of your cattle or sheep…as I have instructed you….” But nowhere in the written Torah does it explain how to slaughter animals according to divine laws. Our sages interpret that these commandments are part of the Oral Torah that God gave to Moses.

The entire oral part of the Torah was eventually written down in the Talmud. The Talmud is the Oral Torah, an extraordinary work compiled by our sages over several centuries and continued by generations of scholars. One could even say that to this day, commentary is still being added to the original texts.

Now imagine that, before the invention of printing presses, the more than 2.5 million words that make up the Mishnah and Gemara (Mishnah + Gemara = Talmud) had to be transcribed by hand. It was the family of Daniel Bomberg, who were not Jewish, that produced the first large-scale editions of the Talmud in 1520 and 1523 CE.

Many editions followed this first one, and one of the most famous is the Vilna edition, published by the widow and the Romm brothers between 1927 and 1932. A page from that edition of the Talmud includes:

• In the center, the Mishnah text that introduced the topic, dating back to the year 200 CE.
• Below, the corresponding part of the Gemara from the year 500 CE.
• On the side, the commentary of Rashi, who lived in France between 1040 and 1105.
• On the other side of Rashi’s commentary are the Tosafot commentaries, written by sages who lived in France and Germany in the 12th and 13th centuries.
• Next to that are the commentaries of Rabbi Nissim Ben Jacob, a sage who lived in Tunisia in the 11th century.
• Nearly at the bottom of the page are notes from Rabbi Akiva Eiger, who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1761 to 1837.
• Below that note is an anonymous one, probably made by the editor.
• There are also margin marks, references to medieval codes, other Talmudic passages, and corrections from the edition by Joel Sirkes, Poland, 1561-1640.

How amazing! On the same page, we have texts spanning from the year 200 to 1930. And since there wasn’t enough room for more commentary, at the end of each tractate, the comments of great sages such as the Maharsha and others were included. Thanks to all of them, Judaism remains vibrant and up to date. This is why every tractate always starts on page 2. It’s missing page 1, as a symbol that the work of commenting on the divine commandments is not yet complete.

By Marcos Gojman
Bibliography: The Talmud by Rabbi Aaron Parry.