It was 5 pm Shabbos and I was at a niece’s (secular) high school graduation. My brother and sister-in-law (somewhat religious but cut a few more Shabbos corners than I) were having 15 other relatives over afterwards at a (nonkosher) restaurant (though they did pay in advance so not changing money on shabbos). I had already flown 1000 miles or so to be at the four-hour graduation so I think I had already done plenty to honor the aforementioned niece. But should I have done more by going?
Arguments against:
1. Should I even be at a place where money was spent during shabbos? (Counterargument: maybe they’d be in separate room, so maybe it wasn’t quite the same as being in the middle of a restaurant)
2. Though I am not entirely kosher, for some years I have generally been able to keep 100 percent kosher on shabbos. (Counterargument: pretty arbitrary line, isn’t it? Counterargument 2: I could always just get a soda, though that would lead to pretty awkward questions).
3. Given the lateness of the hour, there’s no way of having a Seudah Shlichit (third meal) or davening mincha if I went to the party. (You can assume there were no prayerbooks on hand, and if party lasted till 7 or 8, no time to get to shul).
4. Given that no one would get to restaurant till almost 6, maybe party would be over by the end of shabbos (Counterargument: in fact they broke up an hour or so earlier).
What do you think I did/should have done? I’ll give you the answer in the comments section.
In this week’s Torah portion, Moses conducts a census of the tribes. Nachmanides notices that the Levites are far less numerous than the other tribes. How come?
Nachmanides writes that according to the Tanchuma, the Levites were not subject to Egyptian bondage. (Where they got this idea from I have no idea). By contrast, the other tribes ‘ “lives were made bitter by the Egyptians with hard work in order to diminish them, the Holy One, blessed be He, increased them to overcome the decree of the Egyptians … But the tribe of Levi reproduced and increased in a normal way, and therefore they did not become as numerous as the other tribes.” (Nachmanides commentary to Numb. 3:14).
I find it hard to imagine why the Levites would have been less oppressed than the other Hebrews, unless they were somehow coopted by the Egyptian regime (kind of like Kapos in concentration camps).
But if they were a privileged class, it would make sense that they bred less, just as middle-class people and people in middle-class countries have fewer children today.
The more you have, the more you want to give your children, and the more you want to give your children, the more you think twice before burdening yourself with them.
By contrast, a slave doesn’t have much of a future, and so isn’t going to worry too much about the costs of the future. Moreover, poor people (especially in a preindustrial society with high infant mortality and no birth control) might think something like “Well, half our kids will die so we might as well have more to make up for it.” Plus, if you’re a mistreated slave sex is pretty much the only thing you have to keep your mind off your troubles (assuming arguendo that you weren’t all that well-fed).
This week’s portion, the last one of Leviticus, closes with a list of blessings and curses. One of the blessings is “peace in the land.” (Lev. 26:6). You might think that this means the absence of war. But Nachmanides lists numerous possible meanings for the phrase “peace” including:
1. “peace among you, and no man shall fight among his brother” (i.e. no conflict or civil war within Israel).
2. God “will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land” (i.e. no predatory animals, and perhaps more broadly no other natural disasters)
3. “you will pursue your enemies” (i.e. victory in war, as opposed to the absence of same)
4. a mystical “all-inclusive peace”.
In other words, the term “peace”, which seems so simple, has an enormous variety of possible meanings. And to get political, if your enemies say they want “peace” it might not mean what you think it means (at least if your enemy has read Nachmanides!)
Conversation between me and another male at a singles event:
Other guy (OG): What’d you think of woman X (not her real name, obviously!)
Me: I find her neither comely nor fair to look upon. (I actually said it more or less this way; I felt like in a mostly-frum setting I wanted to be delicate in my language).
OG: Are you kidding? She’s smoking hot!
(PS- OG actually got into a conversation with woman X, though I have no idea whether they actually made a date. May they live and be well!)
In his commentary to Lev. 23:40 (which states that we should take “the fruit of goodly trees”, aka an etrog, during Succot) Nachmanides states that the etrog is the fruit from which Adam and Eve sinned, because they saw that the forbidden tree of knowledge “was good for food” (Gen. 3:6)- something that (to Nachmanides) sounds like “goodly trees.”
Given the rather odd taste of the etrog, I can only imagine what really might have happened between Hashem and Eve:
Hashem: “You have disobeyed me, and you’ll be punished. By the way, how’d that fruit taste?”
Eve: “Yuck.”
Hashem: “The snake wasn’t lying- you’ve gained some wisdom already- that etrogs taste like [dirty word of your choice]. Here’s a little more wisdom for you: you’re mortal.”
Adam and Eve: “Double yuck.’
This week’s Torah portion contains the laws of some festivals, including Passover, Shavout, and Rosh Hashanah (Lev. 23). For all these festivals, the Torah uses similar language: they are “holy convocation[s].” (Lev. 23:7, 21, and 27) and Jews are not to do “servile work.” (Id.) Presumably, “servile work” is different from the work prohibited on Shabbat. But what work is “servile”?
The traditional Jewish rule is (just to oversimplify enormously) that work related to cooking and food preparation is mostly OK and other work is not.
But where did this rule come from? Nachmanides explains. He cites a Baraita (2nd-century statement of Jewish law) which in turn cites Exodus 12:16, which uses the “holy convocation” language in reference to Passover, but adds: “no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat” (emphasis mine).
So we know from Exodus that during Passover work is forbidden except for food-related work. To interpret the similar “holy convocation” rules in Leviticus differently would create a contradiction between the Torah’s rules for Passover. Thus, food-related work is allowed during Passover, and “servile work” is primarily non-food-related work.
What about the other festivals? The Torah’s language regarding Shavout and Rosh Hashanah is the same as its language regarding Passover, so the same rule applies.
I was reading Nachmanides on Kedoshim and found something I liked. Lev. 19:17 refers to rebuking another so “thou shalt not hate [him/her] in thy heart.” Some people might think of this (and for all I know, do think of it) as an invitation to busybodydom.
Bu Nachmanides has a sensible interpretation: “do not hate your brother in your heart when he does something to you against your will, but instead you are to reprove him, saying ‘ Why did you do this to me’? and you will not bear sin because of him by covering up your hatred … for when you will reprove him, he will justify himself before you [so that you will have no cause to hate him] or he will regret his action and admit his sin, and you will forgive him.”
In other words, if the other person does something to you, reprove him not to show off your own virtue but because then you give him a chance to justify himself.
I’ve been meaning to comment about something that I thought was pretty wacky: someone named Yitta Halberstam (who apparently writes inspirational books) wrote an article on the Jewish Press endorsing makeup and even plastic surgery for frum girls, on the theory that they need to be more attractive in order to line up mates. The article has been beaten up on by people far more in touch with her (frum) world than I.
But there was one thing in the article that didn’t get beaten up on enough. She writes that her work was inspired by an event in which girls were introduced not to young men, but to their mothers.
Now, I can’t really judge this element of Jewish society for giving parents first crack at dates (as out of my experience as that is). I think there is a legitimate argument to be made that parents can judge a personality more intelligently than children.
But why does Ms. Halberstam think a parent can judge what their son will consider attractive? I certainly wouldn’t expect my mother and I to agree!
Perhaps these girls should wear makeup for a date with a boy. But makeup for a date with the boy’s mother seems a little more above and beyond the call of duty to me.
I found a blog, Baby Carrot, that is apparently a “shidduch blog”, focusing on dating (mostly in yeshivish/right-wing Modern Orthodox circles).
Though I’ve had a decent number of dates in NYC (about two a month), deciding who to pursue has been hard. I’ve turned down second dates (or at least failed to ask for them) more than being rejected, and I think about the first situation more than the second. Situations where the woman said no to me just aren’t that interesting: usually perfectly nice but as exciting as a mashed potato sandwich as far as I can tell.
But deciding who to pursue (whether to ask out once or for a second date) is harder. Tough issues:
*How old is too old? I want someone who can bear children but realistically no one less than 10 years younger than me (I’m 48 so that means 38) really is interested in dating me so far. I could hold out for younger (and keep furiously, futile-ly pursuing thirtysomethings), give up on children and date women my own age, or split the difference and date women who are reproductive longshots but not quite menopausal. So far I’m been splitting the difference, mostly dating 40-44 yr olds.
*How frum/secular is too much? I think liberal-minded Modern Orthodox is ideal, but how far do I deviate left or right? I generally don’t pursue women who think of themselves as something other than, say, MO/Conservadox, but am open to being pursued just a little.
*How smart/educated is smart/educated enough? Should I date women who don’t have B.A.’s (I didn’t even realize that there was such a thing as Jewish college dropouts till I moved here, leaving aside the occasional family black sheep). My gut instinct is that a good fit will be a woman just educated enough to appreciate my talents but uneducated enough that they don’t look down on me (so if you teach at Columbia, I doubt you’ll be interested in me).
I don’t have an answer to these questions, these are just some things I agonize about.
This week’s Torah portion is full of laws about sex (Lev. 18) and Nachmanides has some interesting (if out of the mainstream) ideas.
He begins by saying that these laws are part of the general proposition that we should distance ourselves of heathen abominations. He asserts, for example, that “the Egyptians were addicted to carnality, in all forms of the forbidden relationships, and with males and cattle.” This statement seems to have little Scriptural support; the best Nachmanides can do is cite a statement from Ezekiel that the Egyptians are “great of flesh… whose flesh is as the flesh of asses.” It seems to me that this statement is just an example of the general human tendency to dehumanize our enemies by ascribing some sort of sexual beastliness to them.
In fact, a recent Internet hoax did the same thing to Egyptians, accusing them of trying to legalize necrophilia. Why did this hoax have legs? Probably because lots of Americans and British fear Muslims, and are eager to leap at any excuse to show that they are a lower form of life. (Admittedly, violent Islamic extremism provides a much better rationale for these fears- but accusing puritanical Muslim extremists of being too sexually active makes about as much sense as accusing Ron Paul of being a warmonger). Similarly, Nazi propagandists liked to accuse Jews of being sexual offenders lusting after Aryan women.
Nachmanides goes on to set forth his general theory of sex: “sexual intercourse is held distant and in contempt in the Torah unless it is for the preservation of the human species, and therefore where there can be no offspring [such as in pederasty or carnal intercourse with beasts] it is forbidden.” (Commentary to 18:6). In keeping with this view, he is utterly mystified by the prohibition on incest, since from the standpoint of procreation a son/daughter or a father/daughter relationship makes perfect sense. He concludes that we “have no tradition as to [the reason for] this prohibition …there is in this matter one of the secrets of creation.”
I don’t think Nachmanides would fit in to the modern Jewish mainstream on either issue. The assumption that sex is only for procreation may make sense in the Catholic world, but I’m not sure how widely shared it is in Judaism. Certainly I’ve never read any suggestion that menopausal women shouldn’t have sex! And I think most Jews today would say that incest is so obviously bad as to be prohibited by the Noahide laws applicable to all humans.
So what’s my takeaway point? For most of this year, I’ve thought that Nachmanides is a little more sensible than the more widely-quoted Rashi. But one difference between Judaism and some other religions is that we don’t believe any particular sage is infallible, even Nachmanides.
