Ideology and Reality

There are often huge divides between what something is ideally supposed to be and in reality what it ends up being. The divide that I want to discuss is that which exists in modern orthodoxy. How did the ideology depart from reality in such a severe way?

In the ideology behind modern orthodoxy a Jew is supposed to follow their Rabbi's judgement, like Jews have been doing for thousands of years. The greatest source of these halachic dicisions are based on the Rama and Shulchan Orech. However, in reality modern orthodoxy is usually described by people to be a lower level of observancy. The women are described as wearing pants, not covering their hair and just having a lower level of modesty than their ultra orthodox counterparts. The men are considered to be unlearned and less observant.

First off, I think these generalizations are incorrect. There may be people that associate with modern orthodoxy that do not follow strict halachic guidelines, but this is analagous to there being people that associate with Charaidi Judaism that cheat and steal. Do these people take away from the ideology of Charaidi Judaism? Exactly, they do not and neither do the people that are more lax about certain halachas that associate themselves with modern orthodoxy.

Modern orthodoxy is the branch of orthodox Judaism that believes it is possible, because of the changes in the world, to coexist with the outside world. No longer are Jews segregated and confined to the ghetto, but they must adapt to a new world where the Jew and non-Jew are viewed as equals and partners in society. Modern orthodoxy is the religious Jew standing up and saying that I will contribute to society as a whole. This is also why modern orthodoxy recognizes science as valid.

There have been several Jews that have lived in societies that were more integrated than the ghettos of Europe. The Rambam, Ralbag and Meiri are just a few great Torah scholars that lived in countries where Jews and non-Jews lived together and had constant interactions. This is why they embraced science and universal morals that applied to Jews and non-Jews alike. This was in opposition to some of their counterparts that lived in lands where Jews were constantly being killed by their gentile neighbors.

The question remains, are the Jews of this day and age supposed to view their non-Jewish neighbors as nonentities or are we supposed to interact with the societies around us in this day and age? Well, the modern orthodox philosophy says that we must interact and associate ourselves with our gentile neighbors. However, it seems like the Charaidi society believes in the seclusionary method of the European Ghettos.

Obviously, I think the modern orthodox approach makes more sense, but only time will tell us who is truly correct. Should we be like Avraham and show the world the beauty and truth of the Torah or should we be like Yaakov and seclude ourselves in Goshen?

Why Did Yitzchak Want to Give the Blessing To Eisuv?

In this weeks parsha we have the birth of Yaakov and Eisuv. When the pasuk refers to the naming of Eisuv it states that "Vayikrau shmo Eisuv" (They called him Eisuv). However, by Yaakov it states "Vayikra Shmo Yaakov" (He called him Yaakov). Why the discrepancy? Also, why does the pasuk tell us that Yitzchak loved Eisuv and Rivka loved Yaakov. First, how could either parent love one child more than the other? Furthermore, how could the tzadik Yitchak love Eisuv? The pasuk says he loved him because Eisuv brought him animals that he cought in the field, but how could Yitchak's love be bought in this way?

I think the way to understand this problem is in the following manner. The reason that by Eisuv it says that they named him in the plural form of the word is to represent the fact that Eisuv is a very physical creature. Everything Eisuv does is for benefit in this world, but the next world and G-d are inconsequential to him. Thus the pasuk uses the plural form to represent Eisuv as the embodiment of a world that is not singular, aka this world. By Yaakov it uses the singular and he called him, this represents a unity within Yaakov that shows that everything he did in this world was for the sake of G-D and that everything about Yaakov would be encompassed by G-Dly things and His will.

This brings us to the question of Yitzchak loving Eisuv and Rivka loving Yaakov. How could it be that Yitchak did not love Yaakov and that Rivka did not love Eisuv? If we look at the etymology of the word love in hebrew we see that it is closely related to the word give (hav means give, ahav means love). With this in mind we can explain that maybe the pasuk means that Yitzchak decided to give the bracha that leads to the creation of the Jewish people to Eisuv and that Rivka wanted to give it to Yaakov and not that either parent loved one child but not the other.

In light of this maybe we can answer up why Yitchak wanted to give Eisuv the bracha. The psukim tell us that Eisuv was a worldly person in the sense that he was violent and killed many animals and could force his will on others because of his power. Also, if we look later on in the parsha we see that Yitchak repeatedly was kicked out of wherever he went by the locals and they would stuff up the wells that he created. In light of this maybe it is possible to say that Yitchak chose Eisuv because he felt that the Jewish people would need power in this world to protect themselves. Yitchak saw his father as a mighty warrior that defeated the powerful coalition of the four kings and maybe he felt that Judaism would be able to prosper if it was led by the likes of Eisuv. However, Rivka realized that Judaism has to be a religion that relies completely on G-D and not on their own physical strength. This is why G-D allowed Rivka to switch the situation in order that Yaakov would get the blessing, because the Jewish people have to be completely relient on G-D and to rely on our own strength without G-D is incorrect.

Relationships

In this week's parsha of Chayei Sarah the pasuk refers to Avraham as Zaken, Old. The question here is why only now, after Sarah's death, does the Torah refer to Avraham as Zaken? Even when Avraham was 100 the torah still did not refer to him as Zaken, so what event happened that Avraham was now Zaken? Maybe it was Sarah's death, but why would that event cause Avraham to suddenly become a Zaken as apposed to any other event, like the war with the 4 kings, or the Akeida?

The Midrash Tanchuma tells us something very important about life. There are four things that cause a man to become old, fear, anger caused by children,a bad wife, and war. However, by Avraham his wife was so great that she was able to keep him from being old until she passed away. This comes to show a very important lesson, that not only will a good wife not be bad for you, but she will help you become better. Choosing a wife is so important that we should really learn from Avraham and Sarah.

There are many different types of relationships that can exist between a husband and wife that can lead to prosperity. The beginning of the Parsha talks about the end of Avraham and Sarah's relationship, but the end of the parsha talks about the beginning of Yitzchak and Rivka's relationship. These are two very different types of relationships. Avraham and Sarah's relationship was one based on mutual decisions, like we know that Sarah and Avraham were both prophets and some midrashim even say Sarah was greater. Also, Sarah was able to confront Avraham and tell him that Hagar and Yishmael must be kicked out of the house in order to save Yitzchak. However, by Rivka and Yitzchak we see that Yitzchak did not confer with Rivka before making decisions, like by the incident of Eisav and Yaakov, but Rivka was able to secretly mend Yitzchak's mistake without a confrontation. I think that these two relationships represent two equally effective ways for a marriage to work. One is where the husband is able to swallow his pride and always ask the wife if what he is doing is correct and then carrying out the decision. The other way is where the wife is able to swallow her pride and make sure that no matter what the husband does she will fix it without confrontation, like what Rivka did with Yaakov. The difference between these two marriages are that Sarah and Avraham were basically equals and there was a mutual respect, but by Yitzchak and Rivka the pasuk tells us that she was so overcome by his greatness that she fell off the donkey that was carrying her. She had an immense amount of respect for Yitzchak and he was significantly older than her (she was 3 he was 40). In a case like this Rivka felt it disrespectful to openly disagree. These are just two examples of how to make a marriage work, and work well.

Why Did Avraham Call Sara His Sister To Avimelech?

In this week's parsha after G-D destroys Sdom but before the Akeida, we have the incident where Avraham and Sarah go to the land of Avimelech. There are some similarities here to the happenstance of when Avraham and Sarah went to Egypt, but by in large there are differences. First off, why would Avraham tell everyone that Sara is his sister here? The Ramban points out that by Egypt Avraham had to tell everyone Sarah was his sister because it was a very corrupt society, but by Avimelech's kingdom there was justness and fairness like we see from how Avimelech treats Avraham after this incident and invites him to stay in his land. This is in contrast to Egypt where Avraham was kicked out once they found out Sara was his wife. Also, the Ramban points out that even if Avraham was afraid that Avimelech would steal his wife, she was now almost a hundred years old so how could Avimelech be interested in her?


I can't find any meforshim that explain this first question, but I would like to incorporate one of my own ideas to answer this question. The Ramban says that the only reason that Avraham decided to tell Avimelech that Sarah was his sister was because Avraham was worried that Avimelech was like Pharo. It is Interesting that Avraham would not be dan likaf zechus, give Avimelech the benefit of the doubt. Maybe we can all learn a valuable lesson from this incident. Avraham knew that Pharo, a powerful man, abused his power and therefore Avraham had to protect himself from being killed. This is why Sara went along with Avraham's plan and told everyone she was his sister. However, over by Avimelech we see that Avraham was telling people that Sarah was his sister and Sara would not be the one to say it. Maybe, just maybe, this can teach us that we should not judge all people that are in the same position in the same way. True Pharo abused his power, but Avimelech was a righteous king (Ramban's words not mine). The idea of giving people the benefit of the doubt seems important and very necessary over here since Avimelech was almost killed because it was not given. This could be why Sara would not initially tell anyone that she was Avraham's sister and it was Avraham that had to say that she was his sister.

The answer to Sara's desirability can be answered in one of two ways. One is that just like Rashi says in the beginning of parshas Chayei Sara that when she was a hundred she was as beautiful as twenty so we see that her beauty never waned. Or you could say that since Avraham was a powerful man and rich, by Avimelech stealing his wife it would have been a power play on Avimelech's part to show his superiority. If we look at the second possibility then, for Avraham, his concern is very legitimate, but if the beauty that avimelech desired was superficial then we have our previous question.

What Friends Are For

This week's parsha of lech licha is the description of Avraham's life before Yitzchak. During this period there was a war between 5 kings, which included the king of Sdom, and the four kings. Now, when the five kings rebelled against the four kings the four kings came and defeated the five kings and took many captives including Lot, Avrahams nephew, who was living in Sdom. When a messanger came to inform Avraham the pasuk says that Avraham was dwelling in the plains of Mamrei with his friends Aner and Eshkol and the Meforshim tell us that Mamrei was there also since it was his property. However, at the begining of next weeks parsha, Vayereh, it says that Avraham was dwelling in the plains of Mamrei, but there is no longer mention of Aner and Eshkol, so what happened to these friends of Avraham? Also, the pasuk later tels us that Aner, Eshkol and Mamrei went to war with Avraham and were included in the dividing up of the booty that was captured from the five kings, so where were Aner and Eshkol now?

This can teach us a valuable lesson about friends. What happened between next week's parsha that mentions the plains of Mamrei and the war with the four kings? The commandment from G-D to Avraham of bris mila was what happened. The Midrash Tanchuma points out that Aner and Eshkol both told Avraham not to listen to G-D and that fulfilling the Mitzvah of bris mila was bad. However, Mamrei told Avraham to follow the words of G-D. In truth, Avraham was going to follow the words of G-D no matter what, but he wanted to test his friends to see if they were really righteous. He found out that only Mamrei really believed in G-D, but Aner and Eshkol were lacking in their faith in G-D. Therefore, Avraham continued to be friends with Mamrei, but Aner and Eshkol he distanced himself from.

We can learn a very valuable idea about friendship from this idea in the Midrash Tanchuma. Friends should be people who help you in your service of G-D not someone who makes you doubt your service of G-D. A friend is someone who will always point you in the right direction and that is the person with whom one should stay close to, like Avraham and Mamrei. However, A friend that takes you away from G-D, one should distance himself from this type of person and this is why Aner and Eshkol are not mentioned after bris mila.

This is not to say that someone should not be friends with non-religious or even non-Jewish people. However, if your friends are dragging you away from your service of G-D then you should be very careful with them. Avraham knew that Aner and Eshkol would have a major affect on him if he stayed with them. This would be detrimental to Avraham's budding relationship with G-D and therefore he chose, with heartache, to remove himself from this tough situation.

Ten Generations from Adam To Noach

There were ten generations from Adam until Noah and then the great flood occurred. The Bible points out a main figure of every generation. The main figures were Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mehalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. All of these men were father and son. However, these were not the only people that existed between Adam and Noah, but they are the only ones explicitly mentioned for the generations between Noah and Adam. Were these men stated just as place holders or was there a greater reason why G-D specifically chose these men and their lineage?

It is interesting to note that by all of these characters the Bible mentions that they all had sons and daughters, but does not name any of them other than these ten. This leads me to believe that only the ten that were stated straight out in the Bible worshipped G-D and the rest either did not believe He was all powerful or believed in other gods. I say this because by the punishment of Cain the Bible says that Cain left the presence of G-D. How can one leave the presence of G-D, is He not all powerful and all encompassing? The pasuk means to say that Cain thought that He left the presence of G-D and by thinking this revealed that He did not believe in G-D's ultimate power.

The Bible then describes the descendants of Cain and these descendants lead to Cain's eventual punishment. It says in the Bible that Cain had a son Enoch, this is not the same Enoch mentioned in the ten generations between Adam and Noah. This Enoch then begot Irad, Irad begot Mehujael, Mehujael Begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech. Lamech is the one who ultimately kills Cain, however, by mistake. Lamech had a son named Jabal, the first shepard, and the name of his brother was Jubal, the first being to play an instrument for music. The final descendant of Cain to achieve anything of worth is Tubal-cain, the first one to make tools. We see from this that the only people mentioned in the Bible are people who make important contributions to society.

In light of this we can look back at who the ten people mentioned are that make the chain from Adam to Noah. These ten people were the righteous people that lived in their generations. While everyone else ignored G-D these ten people were always looking for ways to please G-D and connect with Him. Eventually, all other people in the world, other than Noah and his family, stopped believing in G-D and the morals that He designed the world to operate with. This is why G-D had to bring the flood about, the world had become so corrupt that the Bible says even the ruling bodies of the world would sleep with whoever they chose. G-D saw that man had become a debased creature that just followed every despicable desire and lust that came to his heart. Man no longer cared for G-D, rather he desired idols and licentiousness.

The Tower of Babel, Who Else Talks ABout It?

The Bible discusses the Tower of Babel. Did this event actually take place? Well according to historians and archaeologists it did. For instance, Abydenus (a Greek historian of the mid-fourth century B.C.), as quoted by Eusebius, spoke of a great tower in Babylon which was destroyed. The record notes: “[U]ntil this time all men had used the same speech, but now there was sent upon them a confusion of many and diverse tongues” (quoted in Rawlinson 1873, 28). However, since he did not live at the time when the tower of Babel would have stood maybe he was wrong.

In his book, Chaldean Account of Genesis (1880), George Smith of the British Museum—the scholar who translated the Babylonian flood account—published a fragment which is certainly reminiscent of the Bibles record. The inscription tells of an ancient tower. “The building of this temple offended the gods. In a night they threw down what had been built. They scattered them abroad, and made strange their speech. The progress they impeded” (1880, 29).

From an archaeological standpoint the precise site of the ancient tower of Babel is a matter of uncertainty, for there are possibilities among the remnants of several ruins in the region. Many, following Jewish and Arab traditions, locate the tower ruins at Borsippa (the “Tongue Tower”), about eleven miles southwest of the northern portion of Babylon. Others identify the site with Etemen-an-ki (“the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth”), which is located in the southern sector of the city near the right bank of the Euphrates river.

It is my opinion that the Tower of babel did in fact exist. However, if one reads the text closely it was not only a tower that they were building, but an entire city. Babel is one of the most ancient of all cities and it stands to reason that, just like the ancient Egyptians had pyramids, that the babylonians built towers as well. I mean, most ancient civilizations built towers. The Egyptians built their pyramids, the Incas and the Aztecs built their pyramids and the Chinese and Hindus had their temples of worship on top of mountains. Therefore, I would say, whether you think they believed in G-D or not it seems logical that a tower was built.