NATION OR RELIGION?

One of the most fascinating, but not very well known, stories from the early 20th century is the attempt to renew the Sanhedrin, that is, the Jewish Supreme Court. To understand what the Sanhedrin means, you have to mentally get rid of the idea that Judaism is a religion, like Christianity for example, and assume that we Jews are a nation. And as a nation we have a land, Israel; a common language, Hebrew ; a long national history and a Constitution: the Tora. What makes more difficult to understand the notion of the “Nation of Israel” is that for roughly nineteen centuries we lived and survived in the diaspora, guided without an enforcing body by our God-given “Constitution.” This never happened with any other people in the world, and so it is difficult to understand and absorb the exceptionalism of the Jewish people, and mentally, we feel more comfortable calling ourselves a religion.

SUPREME COURT

Miraculously, after almost 2,000 years of diaspora we finally returned to our land, Israel. And although we are much better off than almost at any other time in our history, one of the technical problems that we still suffer as a people is that since we did not have our land, we did not have our Judicial Branch. And therefore some details of Jewish law or Halakha were applied in different ways in the different Jewish communities of the world. These differences, which exist in any country with its laws and constitution, are usually resolved by the final verdict of the Supreme Court of Justice , which is the ultimate authority to determine the law. But by not having a Supreme Court or Sanhedrin these discrepancies did not disappear in our mist, and created, for example, the differences before Sepharadim and Ashkenazim.

FROM RUSSIA TO CAIRO

Renewing the Supreme Court of Justice, a “national” institution, could only be done in the land of Israel. And at the beginning of the 20th century, when more and more Jews were establishing in the Yishub, i.e.,  “the new Jewish colony under the Ottoman Empire”, a very prominent group of rabbis decided that it was time to renew the Sanhedrin. The rabbi who spearheaded this effort was Aharon Mendel haCohen, an Ashkenazi rabbi born in Tiberia, Israel, in 1866. In 1896 Rabbi Aharon was invited to be a rabbi of a very special and unique congregation: the Ashkenazi community of Cairo, Egypt. This community was made up of Jews who had escaped the progroms in Russia and elsewhere in Europe since 1880. It is notable that in the 1920’s there was a Yiddish radio station and a community Yiddish theater in Cairo. Rabbi Aharon led that community for about 30 years and made it grow and flourish. One of the keys to his success was the excellent relationship he had with the main rabbis of the Sephardic communities of Egypt:  Refael Aharon Ben Shimon of Cairo and Eliyahu Bekhor Hazan of Alexandria. In addition, he maintained close ties with two very important rabbis in Israel: Rabbi Abraham HaCohen Kook and Rabbi Benzion Cuenca.

THE PROJECT OF THE CENTURY

Rabbi Aharon wrote many books and regulated the customs of the Ashkenazi community in Cairo. But his most famous work was “SEMIKHAT HAHAMIM” (“The Rabbinical Ordination”), where he formulated his project to officially ordain 71 rabbis and create the new Sanhedrin (also known as Bet haDin haGadol) in Israel. To achieve this, Rabbi Aharon had to bring together most of the worlds rabbis, especially from Europe, and establish an international Rabbinical Council that he called “The Great Assembly” (in Hebrew: kenesset hagdola) to elect the representatives of the Sanhedrin.  In 1903 Rabbi Aharon together with Rabbi Eliyahu Hazan organized a special congress in Krakow, Poland. The expenses were paid by the affluent community of Alexandria and particularly by one of the Jewish patrons of that community, Baron Jacques de Menashe.

RENOVATION OF THE SEMIKHA

The idea of ​​Rabbi Aharon was to revive the project of Rabbi Yaakob Berab (1474-1546), that is, to ordain a limited group of rabbis invested with the authority to ordain other rabbis until they form a Sanhedrin. This idea began when the Jews expelled from Spain began to settle in the city of Safed (Tsefat) around 1530. Although this project was not executed until the end, i.e., the Sanhedrin was never established, there were a few results: for example,  the Shulchan Arukh , written by Ribbi Yosef Caro (14880-1575) –who was the main student of Rabbi Berab– and his book was accepted by the entire Jewish people (that is: “nationally”) because Rabbi Caro was one of the first rabbis ordained with this new Semikha.

MISSION STILL PENDING

And while the idea of ​​Rabbi Aharon had the support of more than 500 rabbis from the Diaspora, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, unfortunately and mainly due to the great conflicts that the Jewish communities of the world suffered in the years before the First World War, this project was also unsuccessful. But the idea of renewing a Sanhedrin once we are established in Israel did not vanish, and Rabbi Aharon project inspired other attempts to renew the Sanhedrin in 1950, and even in 2002 and 2004. And I would not be surprised if these efforts for unification persist. Moreover, I think it is a pending issue, and I believe a prerequisite for the arrival of the Mashiach.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Rabbi Aharon haCohen also contributed to the strengthening of the young Yishub in Israel in the difficult early years of the 20th century. He encouraged a group of Jewish patrons to buy land in Jerusalem. These lands are today very prestigious residential neighborhoods such as Bet Hakerem and Bayit VaGan.

Rabbi Aharon passed away and was buried in Haifa in 1927.

To download the book Semikhat Hakhamim see here .

List of the rabbis that headed the project to renew the Sanhedrin en 1903.

בארץ ישראל
רבי יעקב דוד רידב»ז, בעיה»ק צפת
רבי אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק, אב»ד עיה»ק יפו
רבי חיים מ[שה] אלישר, ראשון לציון
שלושה אב»ד התימנים בירושלים
רבי בן ציון מ[איר חי] עוזיאל, חכם-באשי יפו
רבי יונתן בנימין הורוויץ, רב דכולל אמשטרדם בירושלים
רבי בן ציון אברהם קואינקה, מו»ל המאסף בירושלים
רבי ברוך מארקוס, רב דעיה»ק חיפה
רבי יעקב משה טולידאנו, איש טבריא

בחוץ לארץ

רבי רפאל אהרן ן’ שמעון, חכם-באשי קיירה
רבי יעקב מאיר, חכם-באשי סאלוניק
רבי חזקיה שבתי, חכם-באשי ארם צובה
רבי יעקב דאנון, חכם-באשי דמשק
רבי אליהו אבולעפייא, אב»ד איזמיר
רבי נסים דאנון, חכם-באשי איזמירנה
רבי יעקב יוסף הכהן, אב»ד בירוט
רבי חיים משה ן’ נאים, ראש אב»ד גיבראלטיר

To see the complete list of rabbis see this: אגודת הרבנים הכללי

MOURNING FOR PARENTS AND OTHER RELATIVES
The mourning periods differ depending on whether one is mourning for parents or other relatives. For a father or mother, the mourning period is twelve months, while for other relatives—husband, wife, brothers, and children—it is thirty days.
We keep a stricter mourning period for our parents because it is part of the Mitzva of Kibbud Ab vaEm, honoring one’s parents, which does not expire when our parents pass away.

COUNTING THE 30 DAYS
The thirty days are always calculated from the day of burial. The day of the burial counts as day one. Then you count twenty-nine additional calendar days. When you reach the thirtieth day, the period of Shloshim is completed.

KADDISH
The most important honor rendered for the memory of a loved one is the recitation of Kaddish, which requires the sons to participate in daily Minyanim. Torah study—whether through courses, classes, study groups, or even self-study—in memory of the deceased is also a meaningful way to pay respect. It is equally meritorious to participate in charitable causes, educational projects, or religious volunteer work. According to our tradition, all these actions represent a tribute to our parents.

SHAVING, HAIRCUTS, AND NAILS
For thirty days, counting from the day of burial, mourners for parents or other relatives are forbidden to shave or cut their hair or nails. In the case of mourning for a father or mother, this period is extended by one additional day, according to the Mashadi tradition. Women may fix or cut their hair after seven days. However, the Mashadi tradition is that older women and widows refrain from cutting or dyeing their hair for thirty days, and the same rule applies to trimming nails. For men, a holiday cancels the prohibition against cutting nails and dyeing hair, but not against shaving.

RESTRICTIONS
Mourners should not wear any new garments during mourning: twelve months for a father or mother, and thirty days for other relatives. They should also refrain from participating in festive events while the mourning period lasts. In most cases, these events are defined as occasions where happiness is expressed with festive music, especially live music.

CEREMONIES
If there is a wedding, the mourner may participate in the ceremony (Chupa) but not in the party. When the bride’s or groom’s parents are in mourning, one must consult a competent Rabbinic authority about the possibility of participating in the wedding celebrations.
A mourner may attend other religious ceremonies, such as a Brit Mila, Pidyon haBen, or any other Seudat Mitzva where music is not played. The exception is Sheba Berakhot: during the year of mourning, the mourner should not participate, even if no music is played. For Shabbat Aroussi—when the Sheba Berakhot falls on Shabbat and the presence of the mourner is meaningful for the bride and groom—the mourner may attend that Shabbat Sheba Berakhot.

THE BOURLA FAMILY

“Bourla” (also spelled “Burla”) is the surname of a famous Sephardic family from Spain. After the expulsion in 1492 we find this family in Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece, and in Smyrna, Turkey. Over time, part of the Bourla family migrated to Erets Israel, where they lived for centuries. Some examples: Rabbi Israel Burla (d. 1798) was one of Jerusalem’s leading scholars at that time. He is famous for his mission in Europe to enlist the help of European Jews for the benefit of Jerusalem by creating a special voluntary tax. Among his books are “Mekor Yisrael.” His son was Rabbi Yehuda Burla, author of Nachalat Yehuda. The son of Yehuda was the celebrated Rabbi Yosef Nissim Burla (1828-1903) who participated in the construction and settled in Mishkenot Shaannim, the first Jewish neighborhood outside the walls of Jerusalem. He was the author of Leqet Yosef, a collection of Halachot arranged alphabetically; Va-Yeshev Yosef, Rabbinical Responsible; Od Yosef Chai, Olat Shabat and others. Yehoshua ben Bekhor Burla (1852–1939), was a bookbinder by trade, and was in charge of Qeber Rachel in Bet Lechem and the grave of Shimon ha-Tsadiq in Jerusalem. He was the father of one of the most famous Israeli writers, Yehuda Burla (1886 – 1969), who wrote on Sephardic history and culture and especially on Yehuda Halevi. Yehuda Burla was awarded the PRAS ISRAEl (Israel Prize), the most prestigious award given by the State of Israel.

SALONIKA and AUSCHWITZ

Yesterday I mentioned that Thessaloniki was probably the largest Sephardic community in the early 20th century (see here). After the 1917 fire, the Jewish population decreased. Many Jews left the city, and fortunately many of them emigrated to Israel. At the beginning of World War II there were approximately 60,000 Jews in Thessaloniki. When the Nazis arrived in Thessaloniki, many tragic events occurred: a possible act of betrayal by a prominent member of the community (it is not easy to judge what actually happened in those times from our post-Holocaust perspective, so we better leave it there…). The Jews of Thessaloniki, practically the entire community, were deported to concentration camps in March 1943. The Bourla family and all their sons and daughters also boarded the terrible cattle cars that led to Auschwitz. Ninety-five percent of the Jews in Thessaloniki, 54,000 Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, or died during the terrible “Death March” from January to May 1945 (see more here). A member of the Bourla family survived the inferno. He married another Holocaust survivor, and in 1961 they had a son, his only child, Israel Abraham Bourla, also known as Albert Bourla.

ALBERT BOURLA

Albert grew up and was educated in Thessaloniki. He received his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology from the Veterinary School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. At 34 he left Greece and in 1993 he joined Pfizer in the US. He held many important positions and in January 2016 he served as president of the company’s Innovative Health Group. At the beginning of 2020 Bourla was the CEO of Pfizer International. In 2020, in light of the global COVID19 outbreak, Bourla ordered his team at Pfizer to act aggressively to develop a coronavirus vaccine. In November 2020, Pfizer announced that the vaccine they developed was effective in 95% of cases.

COVID19 and LA SHOAH

Simon Griver writes in «Globes» (January 4, 2021): “There is no mystery as to how Israel has already managed to vaccinate more than 1.25 million people. In just over two weeks, 13.5% of the population, including 52% of people over 60 will be vaccinated. Israeli health maintenance organizations are effective, highly digitalized and have been mobilized with enormous efficiency. What is not clear is how Israel received so many doses of the Pfizer vaccine so quickly… Israel had ordered millions of doses of the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccine, but did not order any doses of the Pfizer vaccine. When Pfizer announced that its vaccine was 95% effective against Covid-19 Israel’s top health officials were embarrassed that the country had bet on the wrong horse. So Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately spoke to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. It was the first of several calls. And ultimately Israel received four to five million doses of the world’s best vaccine in existence before the end of 2020,  enough to vaccinate and save the lives of at least two million people. “

THE ALLEGED CRIME
In the morning of Wednesday, February 5, 1840, the Catholic monk Thomas left his monastery in Damascus. In the afternoon, it is known that he entered the Jewish Quarter of the city to hang some announcements about the auction of the house of a deceased Christian woman. Towards nighttime, when Ibrahim Amara, the monk’s Greek assistant, saw that his teacher did not return, he went to look for him, but also did not return. After searching for them, Jean Bowden, the secretary of the French consulate in Damascus, rushed to inform the French consul Ulises Ratti-Menton of what had happened, and by the time they reached the Convent a large crowd had already gathered around it, shouting “It is the Jews! The Jews killed him!”

THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Both the French dignitaries and the local ruler, Sharif Pasha, immediately accused the Jews of the terrible crime. That Saturday, the police broke into the homes of the Jews and forced them to start opening graves to search for the bodies of the disappeared monk. The Jews were very agreeable to cooperating with the authorities. The community rabbi, Hakham Yaakob Antebi, requested that any Jew who knows anything about the disappearance of the monk should testify. One of the Jews volunteered in good faith that he had seen father Thomas in the Jewish quarter, near Shelomo Negrin’s barber shop, posting an advertisement. The police went to the scene to corroborate this testimony. They found the advertisement in question, and this was enough for them to immediately arrest the poor barber as a person of interest. Negrin denied any connection to the allegations. But it did not matter.

THE BLOOD LIBEL
The incitement against the Jews had already begun, and the Christians spread the rumor that the monk and his servant were murdered by the Jews “to use their blood in the matzot of Pesach.” This ridiculous accusation further incited the mobs. And to definitelly solve the mistery of the disappearance of the monk, the French and local authorities proceeded to the next phase: torture. The first victim was the barber Shelomo Negrin, who was severely beaten. The torture methods were absolutely gruesome. The suffering was so unbearable that, in a desperate attempt to stop the torture, the barber confessed to everything they coached him to say, and even agreed to confirm the existence of accomplices. The tormentors wanted to get their hands on the most prominent members of the Jewish community, so they could then blame the entire Jewish community for the alleged crime. Thus, Rabbi Moshe Abulafia, David Harari, Yitzchak Harari, Yosef Harari, Aharon Harari, Yosef Laniado, Yehudah Desalonica and later Yitzchak Picciotto, ended up being arrested too.

TORTURED TO DEATH
All of the defendants denied the allegations. But the French consul intervened and demanded that these Jews be tortured “until they confessed what everyone already knows they did.” Unable to withstand this horror, all of them ended up admitting to whatever trumped-up accusations that were hurled at them. The torturers also forced these individuals to accuse Rabbi Jacob Antebi and the most important merchant in the Damascus community: Mr Meir Farhi (the greedy local authorities wasted no time in confiscating all his property and businesses). Rabbi Antebi was also cruelly tortured , but with incredible strength of spirit he resisted and neither confessed to anything nor incriminated any other people.

ANIMAL EVIDENCE
Meanwhile, the authorities found some animal bones in one of the sewers of the Jewish quarter and asserted that these must have belonged to Father Thomas. The Jews asked that the bones be sent to a European university where these would surely be identified as animal bones, but the French consul refused and hastened to organize a funeral for “the remains of Father Thomas”. The animal bones were buried in a glorious ceremony, and on the headstone it was written that this is the grave of a holy martyr “killed by the Jews.”

DON’T FORGET THE CHILDREN!
David Harari and Yosef Laniado died while being tortured. The barber was exonerated for having given the first forced confession, the one that justified the arrest and torture of the other Jews. Rabbi Moshe Abulafia, who also had been brutally tortured, was forcibly converted to Islam under death threats (later, he returned to Judaism. His son was the famous Ribbi Isaac Abulafia. See here). The other nine prominent members of the Jewish community were charged with murdering Father Thomas and were sentenced to death. Complaints from the European Jewish community soon began to be heard, partly thanks to the fact that Ytzhak Picciotto was Austrian, and one of his relatives, Eliyahu Picciotto, was the Austrian consul in Aleppo, Syria. Eliyahu moved heavens and earth to report the injustice that was being carried out on behalf of the French government. But at first, the local authorities of Damascus were not moved. They actually decided to double down, and then ordered the arrest and incarceration of 63 children from the local Jewish school. The authorities announced that the children would be released only when the entire Jewish community would finally confess their crime and provide the evidence of the ritual crime of which they had been accused.

INTERNATIONAL SCANDAL
All this caused a great outrage in the Jewish communities in Europe. The most prominent European Jews such as Moshe Montefiore, the Rothschild family and the Jewish lawyer Isaac-Jacob Adolphe Crémieux, who later served as the Minister of Justice in France, questioned the procedure and the torture and exerted great pressure for releasing the prisoners sentenced to death. In the end, the international political pressure worked, and the local authorities had no choice but to announce that the death sentence had been canceled. The defendants were released on August 28, 1840.

SMOKE SCREENS
After some time, it came to light that early in the investigation two merchants had testified that they witness a violent altercation between the monk and an Arab-Muslim mule merchant, three days before the monk’s disappearance. The merchant had at the time attacked the monk and had vowed to kill him. The monk’s assistant had grabbed the merchant by the neck and began to strangle him, while Father Thomas walked away cursing the Arab and his religion.

The infamous Damascus Blood Libel ended without any other person ever being accused of the crime, and without any of the corrupt prosecutors being held accountable, arrested or punished.

See also this:  https://www.jpost.com/opinion/abraham-geiger-and-the-damascus-blood-libel-450030

RAISED BY HIS GRANDFATHER
Rabbi Isaac Abulafia was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1830. He came from a family of great luminaries dating back to the famous Ribbi Hayim Abulafia, who renewed the settlement of the Jews in the city of Tiberia at the beginning of the 18th century (see here). While still very young, possibly at the age of 10, Rabbi Isaac moved to Tiberia where he was raised by his grandfather, Ribbi Hayim Nissim Abulafia, who was also his Tora teacher. Soon after, Rabbi Hayim was chosen as Rishon LeZion, Chief Sepharadic Rabbi of Israel, so together with Rabbi Isaac and the rest of the family they moved to Yerushalayim. Soon Rabbi Isaac began to shine for his intelligence and his dedication to the Tora, and at age 23 he was sent to represent the Yeshibot of Israel in various Jewish communities around the world, where he was received with many honors for his knowledge, his honorable presence and his refined personality. From all over the world, including other cities in Israel, he received Halachic questions that he solved with his great illustration and his originality.

FAT COWS IN DAMASCUS
In 1861, when his grandfather died, Rabbi Isaac decided to return to Damascus where he served as one of the rabbis of the prestigious Rabbinical Court of the city. In 1873, when Chief Rabbi Rab Aharon Bagdadi passed away, Rabbi Abulafia was offered to serve as Chief Rabbi. At that time Damascus was a city with a vibrant Jewish community. A visitor from France, Rabbi Yerucham Ashkenazi who arrived in Damascus in 1859, wrote in his travel memoirs that many of Damascus’s Jews were affluent and famous for their generosity. The wealthiest had their own rabbinical library, which function as a small Yeshiba. Their greatest ambition was to support Talmide Hakhamim, Tora scholars, to study there.

SKINNY COWS
But in 1875 all this changed. The political situation was no longer the same, and the new government imposed higher taxes and more regulations that limited trade, especially imports and exports, which was what many Jews did there. Several of these affluent and generous community members left Damascus and went to Aleppo, Beirut (Lebanon) and other cities in the area. Rabbi Abulafia then decided that he had to create new opportunities to ensure the economic future of the young Jews of his community, helping them learning professions such as accounting, pharmaceutical, etc. so they do not depend only on trade. The Rabbi made a kind of alliance with the organization “Kol Israel Chaberim” which later became known as the “Alliance Israélite Universelle”;  this French-based Jewish institution provided funds for this purpose.

SCHOOLS WITH BENCHES!
Thus, in 1880 Rabbi Abulafia, with the approval of other Damascus rabbis, promoted the creation of a school where, apart from Tora, students would also learn to read and write in Arabic and French. Jewish schools were modernized and for the first time, students had benches to sit on, because until then they studied sitting on the floor. Rabbi Abulafia made sure that this type of education was also available for poor families. The most revolutionary thing Rabbi Abulafia did was also establishing a school for women, something very rare at that time. He was able to motivate parents by establishing a symbolic payment of “Half a Franc” to each family that sent their children to study there. 

SUCCESS OR FAILURE?
But in the long run this undertaking was not a 100% success… Over time parents and students demanded more and more training in secular matters, at the expense of Torah studies. But the more serious problem –that the Rabbis unfortunately noticed when it was already too late — was that the Alliance exerted an enormous influence causing the secularization of many Jews in Damascus and other Sepharadic communities in Turkey, Greece, the Middle East and North Africa. And although this should be the topic of a separate chapter, I will briefly relate what Rabbi Eliyahu ben Hayim SHELITA, who knew this subject first-hand, told his students in one of this recent classes: “In the Alliance, the teachers who taught mathematics or French language (secular European Jews or Gentiles) were young, dynamic, kind, and dressed in the latest European fashion. For Jewish studies, however, the Alliance would usually hire as a teacher an older man, generally poor and retired, who did not speak French, who had no modern pedagogical training and who was not dressed in a European style. The students naturally admired the secular teachers and aspired to become like them. This, inadvertently (or some believe that this was a sophisticated assimilationist strategy, that the rabbis at that time failed to foresee) the young students in the Alliance who did not admire the old Hakham, began to look at the Tora with those same eyes, and unfortunately religious practice became for them something to un-admire,  outdated and irrelevant. Rabbi Ben Hayim also explained that in virtually all communities where the Alliance arrived, secularization increased, and vice versa.

A JEW NEVER GOES TO ISRAEL. A JEW “RETURNS” TO ISRAEL.
Back to Rabbi Abulafia, he had only one daughter, who married the famous : “Señor” Hayim Moshe Laniado. Her son-in-law, who belonged to an aristocratic family, assisted the rabbi in publishing his books. Rabbi Abulafia’s most known work is “Pene Yitschaq,” a monumental six-volumes collection of Rabbinical Responsa (see the first volume of this book here).

In 1909 Rabbi Abulafia left the city of Damascus and returned to his beloved Eretz Israel to settle in Tiberia, the city of his ancestors, where he died a year later, on Adar 15, 1910.

(The story of his father, Rabbi Moshe Abulafia, is very sad, tragic and a bit complicated. So I will include it in the context of an article that I will dedicate especially to the subject: The Blood Libel of Damascus, 1840).

During the seven days following the wedding, festive meals are held in honor of the bride and groom, and at the end of Birkat haMazon the Sheba Berakhot, the seven blessings, are recited. But not at every meal. There are three conditions.

THE THREE CONDITIONS

1. Minyan. Ten adult men must be present. The groom counts among them.

2. Bet hatanim. The meal should take place at the couple’s residence. There are differences on this point: in several Sephardic communities in the diaspora the Sheba Berakhot are recited whether the meal is held at the couple’s home or elsewhere. Consult the rabbi of your community. The Ashkenazic custom also permits reciting them even when the meal is not held at the couple’s residence.

3. Panim hadashot. At least two “new” guests must be present: people who did not attend the wedding or the previous Sheba Berakhot. The Ashkenazic custom is satisfied with one new guest rather than two. The conditions of panim hadashot and of minyan are the same in all Sephardic communities.

WHEN A CONDITION IS MISSING

If one of these conditions is not met, and there are at least three adult men taking part in a formal meal, only the last blessing is recited: Asher bara.

HOW THEY ARE RECITED

When the Sheba Berakhot are said, the custom is to use two cups of wine. Birkat haMazon is recited over the first cup, and when the Sheba Berakhot are finished, the one who led Birkat haMazon himself says Bore peri hagefen. The other six blessings are said over the second cup. Once the last blessing has been recited, the wine from both cups is mixed and given to the bride and groom to drink.

When only Asher bara is recited, the custom is to say Bore peri hagefen first and then Asher bara.

Rabbi Yosef Bitton

The most profound work of Jewish thought is the book of Tehillim, the Psalms of King David. In this Text, the greatest poet of the Jewish people teaches us many fundamental concepts through his powerful words and elaborate metaphors. One of the questions which King David addresses in the well known Psalm 23 is: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Verse 1: “A Psalm of David. HaShem (=God) is my shepherd. I lack nothing! 2: He takes me to graze in places of delicate herbs, and He directs me to calm waters. 3: He satisfies my needs and takes me through honest paths, for His name. 4: Even if I walk through the valley of the shadows of death, I will fear no evil, because You (God) are with me; Your rod and Your staff comfort me.”

GOD IS MY SHEPHERD
This metaphor, depicting God as a shepherd, is revolutionary.
Once God is compared to a shepherd, King David continues the Psalm not from the shepherd’s point of view, but from the sheep’s perspective. The first thing the sheep does (verses 1, 2 and 3) is recognizing that the grass and the water she enjoys are thanks to the shepherd who provides it all. And that it is the shepherd who always guides her along paths of abundance.

THE TERRIFYING VALLEY
Suddenly, in verse 4, the Psalm changes tone. Not everything is peace, satisfaction and pleasure in the sheep’s life. There are also difficult moments; the sheep feels as though the shepherd is leading her through “the valley of the shadows of death,” and perceives that there is no escape. This is her end. But even in that valley of death, the sheep does not fear or despair. Why? Because the shepherd’s presence reassures her.
How? The Psalm mentions the shepherd’s rod and the staff. “Your rod and Your staff comfort me.” The rod is a short stick that the shepherd uses to ‘hit’ the sheep and redirect them when they stray from their path. The staff, on the other hand (literally!), is a cane with a curvature in the shape of a semicircle at its top; it’s quite long, often taller than the shepherd himself. The rod is used to push the animals or stop themfrom straying off the path. And the staff for catching them by the neck, preventing the sheep from moving forward. Let us now decipher the metaphor.

APPRECIATION
Firstly, King David invites us to appreciate all that we have, and to practice one of the most important gestures that help our Emuna (faith); “attribution”. Discovering HaShem, finding Him, ‘seeing’ Him in every instance and event that we experience. Like the sheep, even in difficult times, we too must begin by appreciating how much we have and declaring our gratitude to our generous Shepherd.

THE ROD AND THE STAFF
The shepherd positions himself behind the sheep. Thus, the sheep can not see the shepherd with their eyes, in the same way we cannot see the Creator with our eyes.
Imagine the sheep is thirsty, and goes to a river to drink water. Suddenly she feels something holding her back- it is the shepherd, who caught her neck with the staff and does not let her advance. The sheep is confused. It doesn’t make sense! She is thirsty and all she wants is some water! Why is the shepherd so unjust and cruel that he won’t let her drink?
The shepherd — and the reader — know that the sheep was stopped for a good reason. Perhaps the waters of that river are poisoned or infested with crocodiles or have turbulent waves. But the problem, which has no solution, is that there is NO WAY for the sheep to understand the motives of the shepherd. No matter how justified these are, the shepherd’s mind, ways and thoughts are beyond the sheep’s intellectual abilities. She may bleat and complain, but while the shepherd definitely understands her pain, there will still be an insurmountable barrier between the sheep the shepherd in terms of ‘understanding’ impossible (probably, the main advantage we humans have over the sheep is that we do understand why we don’t understand).

I WILL NOT FEAR BECAUSE YOU ARE WITH ME
The sole comfort of the sheep is that even when she walks through the valley of death without understanding why, the sheep senses that the shepherd is there. Ironically, it is sometimes when the shepherd intervenes in a painful way and the sheep feels the rod and the staff, that she realizes her shepherd taking care of a situation. And as long as the shepherd is there, she is not afraid. The only thing that would terrorize her is the shepherd abandoning her.

A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
With this exquisite metaphor, “God as our shepherd,” King David helps us understand is that in regard to God we are like sheep. Many things happen to us, which, from our point of view do not make any sense. We suffer “unjustly,” sometimes we feel the sting of the blow (illness, loss, suffering) or sometimes we feel something stopping us from moving, things not going well for us, invisible, inexplicable barriers preventing us from moving forward….Things can be so bad that sometimes we feel as though we’re on the threshold of death… and we don’t understand why. But in those times, we need attribution. We must believe that God is present. He is behind us, guiding us through the paths- the sometimes very difficult, inexplicable and painful paths- that He Himself brought us to!

The most important idea reflected in this Psalm, is that the sheep has no clue why she suffers but when she does, she instinctively returns to the right path, not because she ‘understands’ the shepherd. Rather, because she knows that the shepherd is behind her, and she trusts Him.

Every time there is a fatal accident, or when a child, a young man or a young woman passes away, we wonder why God allowed this tragedy to happen. This question sometimes arises from an intellectual place. But most of the time it comes from a deep pain. Especially when it comes from the relatives of someone who recently passed away. We rabbis are often the recipients of this painful question, because people naively assume that we have all the Answers… Like my colleagues, over the years I have learned a considerable number of arguments to address this topic. But I must confess that these arguments should not be understood as satisfactory “answers” to the question of why the righteous suffers but as reflections to help us realize why we can’t understand why the righteous suffer. Acknowledging our limitations would allow us to know more about ourselves.

With this disclaimer in mind, I would like to share with you a great lesson that we learn from an exceptional event involved an exceptional encounter between Moses and the Almighty.

WHAT WOULD YOU ASK GOD?

After HaShem forgives the people of Israel for the sin of the golden calf, a “conversation” took place between God and Moshe. Until that moment God’s revelation to the prophets had always been a one-way operation: the Almighty conveys a message to the prophet, in a vision, while the prophet is in a state of trance, or in a dream. Prophets always play a passive role: they are the unconscious recipients of the Divine experience. But they never have the opportunity to perceive the Divine Presence while in a state of consciousness. A dialogue with God is then unthinkable. But on one exceptional occasion, Mosha has a conversation with God while being fully awake, alert and conscious (in Hebrew פנים אל פנים). This allowed Moshe an extraordinary and unique privilege that no other human being had or will ever have: to be able to ask God a question. And what did a human being ask God at this exceptional moment? What is the deepest doubt of a man of faith?  Moshe asked God to show him “His glory.” “הראני נא את כבודך”, “Please, God, show me Your Glory.” The rabbis explained that Moshe was asking God to understand the most difficult subject: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” למה צדיק ורע לו. God is omnipotent, so why doesn’t He prevent innocent people from suffering? And if He can prevent suffering,  is God indifferent to the pain of good people?  Based on this explanation, the biblical words “show me Your Glory” should be understood as follows: Moshe says: “God, how should I explain the suffering of the just in light of “Your glory”, that is,  ‘Your reputation as Just and kind God’? The suffering of righteous men, Moshe hints, move men to think that God is not fair (or makes them doubt His existence). Moshe asks God to allow him to understand this enigma so that he can answer others and the “glory of HaShem” would remain intact.

YOU NEVER SAW AN ORANGE!

The Divine response is unexpected. The Tora does not give us an easy answer, nor does it tell us that Moshe suddenly had access to a solution to this enigma. The Tora is unique in asserting that human beings –even Moses, the man who reached the closest encounter with God– do not have access to this information. The way God administers His justice is beyond human understanding. God’s answer to Moshe comes in cryptic almost poetic words וראית את אחורי ופני לא יראו. “You can see My backside; but My front side will not be seen ”. “Back” and “front” obviously do not refer to a physical backside or front side, but to the reality as God sees it versus the reality as we humans perceive it. The multidimensional TRUE reality is referred to as “the front of God.” And we humans do not have access to that dimension. We suffer from what the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset calls: “perspectivism”. “No one has ever seen an orange,” said the famous philosopher. We see the orange (or anything else) one side at a time. When we see the front, we do not see the back. And when we see the orange from above, we do not see it from below. Then in our mind we build a visual idea of ​​the orange with all these partial images, but we never get to see the whole orange at once.

THE WOVEN TAPESTRY OF JUSTICE

I think that the simple example of the elusive orange, and the fact that the Spanish philosopher uses the idea of ​​“back and front”, is extremely helpful to understand our pasuq. We are destined (or condemned) to see a very limited dimension of reality, what the Tora metaphorically calls: “the back side” of Divine justice, a perspective that absolutely limited and often misleading. I can offer one more example to illustrate this complex idea. When you look at the front of a beautiful handmade tapestry, you see its harmonious and intelligent design. The way HaShem administers His justice is like the front of the tapestry: an impeccable design. But when you look at the backside of the tapestry, the design disappears and you only see threads of all colors, lines and knots mixed in a chaotic zigzag without design, sense or meaning. Human beings can only perceive the back of the tapestry of Divine justice. And no matter how hard we try, we can never visualize or project the front of the tapestry when we only see the back.

To be continued