Category Archives: Halacha

“According to His Will”

Posted on August 17, 2011 | 6 comments

     “This is the state of the contemporary Liberal world – the fear of giving offense has been self-inculcated in a group which must, now, consider literally every word and action for potential violation of the New Norms” (David Mamet, in The Secret Knowledge).

     That, as well as anything, explains the recent self-immolation of a colleague on the “Orthodox left” (perhaps, better, “left Orthodoxy”) who demeaned and denounced the daily blessing recited by men thanking G-d for “not having made me a woman” and opined that he has stopped saying it, in breach of a Jewish tradition that is several millennia old. Stealing from the non-Orthodox playbook, he castigated Orthodoxy for its “maltreatment” of women, and our “inherited prejudice that…women possess less innate dignity than men.” He even brazenly declared the blessing a “Desecration of G-d’s Name,” trampling any sense of propriety and humility and demonstrating the ability to leap over the spiritual giants of Jewish life in a single bound – quite a stupendous feat.

    To be sure, the condemnation of his remarks elicited from him a standard (and partial) retraction, apologizing for the stridency of the remarks but not their substance. This is the flip side of a fairly typical liberal criticism, the clichéd “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it,” when, actually it is the substance, often irrefutable, that bothers them. Here, not only was the tone repugnant, but the sentiments were equally abhorrent – and were not only not withdrawn but educed defenders from the “left Orthodoxy” who are adept at finding the one source that seems to support their views (even if it doesn’t) and are blithely contemptuous of Jewish tradition, history, custom and the wisdom of our Sages. It is impossible to read his remarks without sensing that he perceives the Talmudic sages and their spiritual successors down to our day as, G-d forbid, small, bigoted, and immoral people who are his moral inferiors. One wonders why he can respect anything that they say, being so flawed, and why any of his students or congregants should care to study the opinions of those hopeless misogynists. A rabbi must have enormous self-confidence, to say the least, to set himself up as judge and jury over the guardians and transmitters of the divine word, and he must also be inordinately sensitive to feel pain when none is intended.

     Some of my learned colleagues have written eloquent articles about the provenance of this particular blessing, starting with the Yerushalmi (Brachot, Chapter 9) that explains it as referring to man’s obligation in Mitzvot that are numerically greater than those of a woman, a servant and a heathen. (See, e.g., Rav Dov Fischer at http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/08/08/who-hast-not-made-me-a-liberal-rabbi/). Another distinguished colleague wrote beautifully of an encounter with a woman who said that she loved the female version of the blessing – a woman correspondingly recites a blessing thanking G-d “for creating me according to his will.” She understood it as follows: women were the last entity created during the six days of creation, and therefore represented G-d’s special creation – the only entity created perfectly, “according to His will.” It is the man who recites wistfully that G-d did not make him a woman. Not only is that interpretation clever, creative, respectful of Chazal, and reflective of a joy and contentment with life, it also echoes Rav Hirsch’s commentary that women are spiritually superior to males and naturally closer to G-d than men are. I don’t have to agree – I think men and women are spiritually equal before G-d but just given different roles – to respect her satisfaction with her station in life. That is true love of G-d and love of Torah – the exact opposite of the embittered assault on Torah and Orthodoxy (among other sins – batei din, agunot, the lack of female rabbis, etc.) that emanated from the quarters mentioned above. The task of the Rabbi is to teach Torah to the unlearned, not reinforce their basest stereotypes, and one who chooses an interpretation of Chazal’s words that put them in a bad light, as opposed to teaching the many traditional interpretations that are holy and positive, is defining himself and his biases rather than the Torah. Indeed, it is peculiar that a rabbi who claims to be concerned with women’s spiritual dignity would find that dignity not in a uniquely feminine role but in rank mimicry of man’s role.

     We are living through a period of history in which “sensitivity” has become so acute that every word and deed is scrutinized by self-appointed moralists for even the possibility of offense, and in a world in which we try to co-exist with numerous individuals who are always taking offense about something or other. Some people are just thin-skinned, but today there are many who have no skin at all; they are just a bundle of raw nerves, claiming either victimhood or an unrestricted license to protect potential victims as they see it, and using that status as a club with which to beat the less-enlightened who do not share their views. There is little that, read a certain way, does not give offense, so here’s a brief list of blessings that the fastidious might also consider omitting:

     Blessed is Hashem…Hamelamed Torah l’amo Yisrael (who teaches Torah to His peopleIsrael) – might offend the world by singling out the Jewish people for our special relationship with G-d;

 …hamachzir neshamot lifgarim meitim (who restores souls to dead bodies) – might offend those who r”l die in their sleep;

…She’lo asani goy (who did not make me a heathen) – might offend non-Jews;

…She’lo asani aved (who did not make a slave) – might offend the working man;

 …pokeach ivrim – (who opens the eyes of the blind) – might offend the blind;

 …matir assurim – (who unties the bound) – might offend the incarcerated;
 … zokef kfufim – (who straightens the bent) – might offend the hunchback;

 …she’asa li kol tzarki – (who provides all our needs, i.e., shoes) – will offend Shoeless Joe Jackson;

… hameichin mitzadei gaver (who prepares the steps of man) – might offend the lame;
 …Ozer yisrael bigvura and oter yisrael b’tifara (who girdsIsrael with might, who adornsIsrael with splendor) – really offends non-Jews who apparently were not so blessed with might or splendor;

…hanoten laya’ef koach (who gives strength to the weary) – will offend the exhausted who nonetheless wake up every morning;

… Yotzer ha’meorot (who formed the luminaries) – offends evolutionists, and sounds too much like the claims of those right-wing creationists.

…Habocher b’amo yisrael b’ahava (who chose His people Israel with love) – offends…well, it is obvious. There are many others. It is not that everyone will be offended by everything; it is rather that someone might be offended by some of them, and the sensitivity police will be on the case, poseurs all.

     And, of course, noten Hatorah (who gave us the Torah) – will offend those who do not believe that G-d actually gave us the Torah but assume it is a man-made ball of wax that can be shaped as they wish in order to conform to the prevailing political correctness of every generation.

   But I suppose that is the whole point of this exercise. My colleague prefers to abstain from this blessing citing the Rabbinic dictum “Shev v’al taaseh, adif” (“it is preferable to sit and not do…”) Of course, that dictum is our general recourse when we confront a conflict of laws – when an action will simultaneously fulfill and violate different commandments; it is does not at all relate to a case in which one chooses not to fulfill  mitzva because he has shamefully construed it as a “sin.” And what really is the source of the alleged sin, to add to Mamet’s quotation at the top ?

     One of my distinguished colleagues recently called attention to the introduction of the Steipler Gaon to his work “Chayei Olam.” The Steipler writes that too many Jews are spiritually perplexed – either a consequence of intellectual confusion or uncontrollable desires whetted by what they see in the world around them – and usually because they have gazed in the works of free-thinkers whose words are impure and transmit impurity, and this nonsense is retained in and shapes their minds. And then he writes (translation mine): “It is appropriate to respond to these confused individuals that do they really think that they are the first people ever to have these questions and doubts ? Does it take some genius to be thus confused ? Rather do you not understand that thousands of the giants of Israel in every generation wrestled with every possible question, doubt and angle – and yet their faith remained perfect and complete, in force, and they all served the will of their Creator with fear and reverence because their souls were pure and in the light of their understanding they saw the truth clearly – what is true and what is false and counterfeit… From the simple faith of all our Rabbis, you will be able to understand that for every question and doubt there are clear answers….”

     Part of humility is deference to those whose wisdom, deeds and moral attainments were greater than ours, and teachers of Torah should attempt to inculcate that deference – rather than affect an air of moral superiority. This most recent effort to impose the fleeting morality of modern times on the eternal values of Chazal does more than disparage generations of Jews – men and women – who properly understood the intellectual depth and moral goodness of our Sages; worse, it ordains every individual to pass ultimate judgment on every aspect of the Torah, filtering every detail through a subjective moral code that will differ from person to person. Such lacks more than just humility; it undermines the unity of the Jewish people, our faith in Torah, and our acceptance of the “yoke of the divine kingship.”

      Many have traveled down that road; few have returned. The substance is as shallow as the articulation was disgraceful. Both should be withdrawn, and the honor of our Sages and their formulation of our daily prayers, and the spiritual dignity of men and women, affirmed.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Minhagim, Philosophy, Tefillah

Piety and Dysfunction

Posted on July 15, 2011 | 8 comments

     What was most striking about the reaction to last week’s piece on dating, published in the Jewish Press, was not just the chord that it struck with so many people about the miseries of the contemporary dating scene or the incapacities of many men to embrace adulthood but especially the criticism that was rooted in the prevalence of promiscuity in modern life and the methods of preventing its encroachment in our world. As many readers stressed, even casual and public interactions are unavoidable inducements to randy and sinful behavior. Strange as it sounds, the objections challenge – or at least, invert – a statement of Chazal.

    The Gemara (Bava Batra 165a) says, in the name of Rav, that certain sins are hardy perennials that are difficult to suppress: “Most [people are guilty] of theft, a minority of promiscuity, and everyone of slanderous speech,” which the Gemara soon qualifies to mean the “dust of lashon hara” – indirect, disparaging
speech but not overt gossip. (It is safe to say that these days few roll only in the dust of lashon hara.) But what of the Gemara’s assertion that “mi’ut ba’arayot” – only a minority are guilty of sexual misconduct? The overheated rhetoric that came my way seemed to imply – strike that, it was stated explicitly and quite stridently – that if young men and women simply talk to each other, even in public and even in controlled settings, that sin is inevitable for all but the most unresponsive and lifeless among them. How can that be, if the Gemara perceives only a minority as succumbing to these sins?

    Conversely, since the more prevalent danger is theft, why do we not embrace the same restrictions in this area that are suggested in the dating context? Rashbam notes that people are prone, especially in business, to allow themselves leniencies that increase their own profits at the expense of others (known in today’s parlance as shtick). Recall that Rav Yisrael Salanter said famously that just as there is a prohibition to seclude oneself with another’s wife (yichud),
so too there should be a prohibition to seclude oneself with someone else’s money. Reb Yisrael was undoubtedly correct, as always, that the temptation of illicit money exceeds that of lewdness, and yet we have not incorporated the same restrictions: we don’t require two people to work a cash register in a Jewish store, we are not admonished not to enter stores alone lest we shoplift or
remain alone in someone’s living room in the presence of his I-Pod or other desirable devices, nor do we require that young people with uncontrollable lusts for money and no legitimate means of earning it just avoid any contact with it.
Perhaps we should – but we don’t, because erecting limitless fences around sin
does not build character or develop reverence for Heaven. What is does is leave
a person incapable of exercising any self-control the moment one of those
fences collapses.

    Indeed, Chazal did establish one fence regarding relations between unmarried people – the prohibition of seclusion that was decreed by the Sanhedrin of King David in the wake of the Amnon-Tamar episode. Consequently, it is surely forbidden for unmarried people to seclude themselves. But how then is another fence built around the initial fence – a decree added to a decree – that would prohibit even public interactions? Is the world so much different today than it was 50, 100, 500, 1000 or 3000 years ago?

    Yes and no. The world is different in terms of the dissemination of bawdy material and the tawdry imagery that inundates our senses. Modern means of communication has eased transmission of both the holy and the profane. Our eyes and our souls are always at risk whenever we venture out into the world, and even when sometimes we sit at home or in front of a computer. But human nature is the same, and we delude ourselves into thinking that, somehow, today’s young people are more concupiscent than people in ancient, medieval or pre-modern times. That is simply false. People are people and human nature is human nature. (Even the display of raunchy material is nothing new. Visit any art museum – I was at the Louvre in Paris last week – and one realizes that medieval art was almost exclusively either Christian-themed or naked women – and sometimes both, simultaneously. Of course, they called it art, like others term even more salacious material today. Either way, there is not much for a Jew to see. I developed a new appreciation to the genius of Monet, and even Morris Katz.) In the past, the public frowned on debauchery, but that does not mean that its incidence was any less frequent than today.

     Obviously, the Bible has many stories of misconduct between the sexes, and the Torah prohibitions reflect that one’s desires gravitate toward those areas. The Maharal himself was banished from Prague (after his first stint there) because the people resented his carping about one of their prevalent vices – adultery – and this in a community that numbered just several thousand Jews. There is nothing new under the sun. So, knowing what we know, how can Chazal say that just a “minority” are guilty of promiscuity? Would they say the same today? Would Rav amend his statement to read that, today, sadly, “all are guilty
of theft, lechery, and gossip” – in which case, what hope is there for any of
us?

     I conclude that Chazal were correct, and that only a minority of people are guilty of licentiousness. All people are subject to fantasies, even persistent ones, but most do not act upon them. Hirhur (fantasy) is part of the human condition; fleeting thoughts are impossible to inhibit and our obligation as strivers for perfection then becomes uprooting them, not dwelling on them, and becoming involved in some more gainful and productive pursuit. To think that we can eliminate unconscious thoughts reflects an ignorance of human nature, and
Chazal profoundly understood human nature. And to think that we can eliminate sin by supplementing the Torah’s and Chazal’s prohibitions with even more prohibitions is misguided. It simply drives sin underground – to which a
generation of Jews who hide televisions in their closets, or received deliveries of televisions in air-conditioner boxes, or who furtively sit over their computers surfing the internet without a life-preserver can undoubtedly attest. At the end of the day, there is no alternative to self-control, which is a function of reverence of Heaven.

     Human nature is human nature, and no community is immune from sin or devoid of sinners. The Jewish world – right, left, center, Modern, Haredi, yeshivish – has its share of miscreants, pedophiles, thieves, psychos, murderers, adulterers, degenerates, deviants, and those who would expose or cover up those sins and sinners, crimes and criminals. The comfort might be that our numbers are smaller relative to the general population in all these vices, and that lasciviousness is still perceived as aberrational conduct that is not or should not be tolerated in our midst and appropriately shocks us when it does occur. But to think further that there is one foolproof way that works for all – one way to avoid sin or temptation, one way to find a spouse, and one way to have a happy, fulfilling marriage – is delusional.

   There is something else that needs to be said, an outgrowth of some of the responses I received. Fear of sin is a virtue in Jewish life, in a way that it is simply not understood in the rest of the world. We should always be mindful that we can stumble at any time, and therefore always have a conscious awareness of G-d’s presence. But there is a fine line between piety and dysfunction that tends to get blurred. Reading recent accounts of families that segregate the sexes for meals – or families in which brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law do not converse for fear of the “next step” – crosses the line from excessive piety to palpable dysfunction. If we posit that Chazal are correct – and who among us would not? – that only a mi’ut ba’arayot – then we have to accept that self-control and self-discipline are sufficient to allow normal interactions and to restrain, even among the most lustful among us, improper conduct. If not – if one cannot walk the streets or converse or casually interact without harboring persistently impure or libidinous thoughts that coalesce with an uncontrollable urge to lunge at random females, that is dysfunctional, and such a person requires all the safeguards that we can conjure, and even some that we have not yet imagined. But normal people do not require that.

    The bottom line is that one who does not learn self-control before marriage will not learn it after marriage either, and invariably fall into that minority category that Chazal addressed. And one who cannot restrain his passions in any area of life – money or gossip included – will never learn to restrain it until he/she begins a process of teshuva, self-awareness, and discipline. That process is the true perfection of the soul that is a primary purpose of life itself, and
that process must always be informed by the recognition that the ways of Torah
are the “ways of pleasantness,” as well as normalcy.

8 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Machshava/Jewish Thought, Philosophy

Eat, Pray, Love

Posted on March 29, 2011 | Comments Off on Eat, Pray, Love

   Well, forget the “eat” part. But what is the connection between “pray” and “love”?

     The Torah restricted donations to the Tabernacle to those people “whose hearts motivated them” to give. But it is the only mitzva in the Torah that is so circumscribed – the Torah never says observe Shabbat only if your heart is into it, eat kosher food only when your motivation is pure, or learn Torah only when you are in the mood. Those are absolutes – we are commanded to perform those mitzvot regardless of our internal state. Yet, here the Torah constrains the participants of this mitzva. Why ? What should it matter to the treasurer how you feel when you pay your dues ?

     Of course, this mitzva – and another that partakes of a similar framework – both come under the rubric of avoda – service of G-d. The Talmud (Taanit 2b) quotes the famous verse we recite daily in Sh’ma and comments:  “‘…to love G-d and to serve Him with all your heart.’ What is the service of the heart ? Prayer.” Both prayer and contributions to the Sanctuary depend on and are defined by the engagement of the heart. But how do we engage the “heart” in these activities?

     A recent visitor raised a question about a common phrase in our davening that I had never noticed before. More than one thousand times a year, we recite in the amida the (17th) blessing that begins “Retzai”, that “G-d should find favor with the Jewish people and their prayers, and restore the service to the Sanctuary, “v’ishai yisrael u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon.”  Leaving aside the question of to which clause “v’ishai yisrael” (the fire-offerings of Israel) belongs – former or latter – please focus on the last four words: “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon“/ ArtScroll translates as “…their prayer…accept with love and favor;” Metzuda Siddur: “accept their prayer, lovingly and willingly;” and the new Koren siddur: “Accept in love and favor …their prayer.”

      Unfortunately, unanimity here trumps exactitude, because the translation does not precisely convey the meaning of the words. The translations would be correct if the words were juxtaposed – “b’ahava u’v’ratzon” – “with love and favor” (just like that phrase b’ahava u’v’ratzon  is utilized every Shabbat in Kiddush – “in love and favor You gave us Your holy Shabbat  as a heritage.”) But here it does not say that. It reads “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon”- the “love” and the “favor” are separated.

      What are we saying, according to the exact translation?  That You, G-d, should “accept our prayers that are offered with love.” It is obvious: if the tefilot are not offered with love, then how can we ask G-d to find favor in them ?

    I only found corroboration for this elucidation in one of the commentaries – that of Rav Shimon Schwab in “Rav Schwab on Prayer.” He too was troubled by this phraseology, and he explained it the same way, and stated that when he recites this blessing, he mentally places a comma after b’ahava:“u’tefilatam b’ahava, tekabel b’ratzon“/ In context, in this blessing, he suggests, we are asking nothing for ourselves. It is out of our pure love of G-d that we want His presence to permeate the world – so that “our eyes should witness Your return to Zion in compassion.”

      But perhaps the intention is even more expansive, and is meant as a commentary on prayer generally. A prayer that is not offered out of love is simply… words. Words. A contribution given to the Tabernacle in which the heart is disengaged – and is done perfunctorily, without feeling, sensitivity, or gratitude – is unwelcome, and unworthy of us. The arena of divine service demands engagement of the heart, because the whole purpose of the mitzva is perfection of the heart. It is not only the action of prayer that has to be carried out with love, but the person himself must be in a state of love when he recites his prayers. That is much rarer than we care to admit.

    Rav Kook wrote that the study of Torah is divine service with our minds and intellects. We develop and perfect our minds, all in line with G-d’s word. But prayer is divine service with our emotions (Orot Hakodesh I:252), another dimension of the human personality. For sure, the intellect is more reliable than the emotions in ascertaining truth, and is also more exalted – but the emotions are a more credible determinant of who we are and of how we perceive ourselves. We sometimes know things that we do not internalize, that do not animate us, and that do not even speak to us. We can know things that are not really a part of us. But we are how we feel. It is therefore that internal state that we bring to our davening – and that makes it either vacuous and mechanical or meaningful and heartfelt.

     We are experts in the obligations of prayer, and in satisfying those obligations often monotonously. A popular book on tefila contains a chapter on “Twelve Strategies to Getting Your Prayers Accepted,” as if that is a primary goal of tefila. Of course, some strategies are valid, some are better than others and some are just shtik (in deference to the modern dumbing down of Judaism). But entirely omitted was our simple phrase “u’tefilatam b’ahava tekabel b’ratzon” – “accept with favor their prayers that are recited with love.” Prayers that are recited with love are accepted; prayers that emanate from our hearts and that reflect our inner world find divine favor. To pray (properly) is to love, and to love is to desire to pray.

    And even more: those who pray with love find “eternal favor.” In a world that is filled with uncertainty and in which our enemies abound, the only certainty we have is in tefila – in our direct line to G-d that is contingent on the “offerings of our heart.” Only then will we merit beholding His return to Zion, and His protective hand that nourishes our eternal bond with Him, and our eternity as a people.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Halacha, Tefillah

A Tale of Two Letters

Posted on January 17, 2011 | 1 comment

 (First published as an Op-ed in the Jewish Press, January 12, 2011)  

   Twenty rebbetzins in Israel recently issued a public call to Jewish women “not to engage in romantic connections with Arabs.” The declaration followed in the wake of a number of cases where Jewish women either inadvertently or intentionally became involved with Arab men and suffered grievously as a result.

 More tellingly, it followed the controversial letter of 300 rabbis calling on Jews not to sell or rent homes to Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods. So first their husbands ban real estate transactions with Arabs, and now the wives prohibit social relations. What’s next?

 What’s next should be interesting to behold as opponents of the rabbis’ letter vehemently objected to their psak in the most caustic and sometimes insulting terms, and moralists of all stripes compared the ban on home sales to Arabs to the Nuremberg Laws and the bygone era of discrimination against Jews across the globe.

 The problem, of course, is that the Nuremberg Laws also prohibited social relations between Jews and non-Jews, so the same criticisms should pertain here. But if those criticisms are again lodged by the same critics, does it then mean we have reached a stage in this era of political correctness in which rabbis (or their wives) or Jewish leaders are not allowed to call for Jews to marry other Jews?

 Must we stand mute as the intermarriage rate exceeds 50 percent because we are obligated to pay greater obeisance to ideals of the equality of man and individual freedom of choice – both noble Western values that are rooted in Torah but are never applied absolutely in a Torah (of, for that matter, a Western) context?

 The conundrum that these cases engender is the occasional conflict between Judaism and democracy. Both are illustrious legal and political systems, the former of divine origin and the latter a human contrivance, and both are valued by modern man. But they are not identical. The Torah is not incompatible with democracy, but nor is it synonymous with democracy; if it were, then we would not need the Torah. We could merely consult the writings of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson instead of laboring through the discussions of Abaye and Rava.

 And, ultimately, Judaism is a way of life that connects a person to the Divine and democracy an enlightened form of government that regulates the affairs of man. To conflate the two is to distort both, and to assume that the product of democracy is necessarily superior to the eternal Torah is an act of self-denigration unworthy of serious Jews.

 In truth, I think it was unwise and impolitic for the rabbis to issue a public statement calling for a prohibition of home sales to Arabs. Such proclamations sound jarring to the modern ear and can never be fully understood by people outside the Torah world (perhaps not even by some within the Torah world).

 That is because these ideas reflect the unique value system of the Torah, which has its own constructs, its own logic and its own worldview. It cannot be easily pegged into another philosophical or political framework. Try telling your non-Jewish friend that your son cannot marry his daughter and that you cannot drink his wine; there is no comfortable way to explain it.

 It is for this reason that certain halachot are characterized as halacha, v’ein morim kein, laws that are not to be publicly discussed for fear of being misunderstood. Both the Nuremberg Laws and, l’havdil elef havdalot, the holy Torah, proscribe relations between Jews and non-Jews. The former did it out of racial hatred and pure evil; the Torah does so out of a need to preserve the unique character of the Jewish nation that would convey the divine idea to the world. The former was vile and odious, and the latter a reflection of God’s love for the Jewish people and for mankind. But a simpleton will only look at the results and, seeing the same prohibition, conclude, “it’s all the same.” It is not all the same, and that shallowness is more polemical than it is sincere.

 * * * * *

 It is difficult for me to criticize the rabbis in question because, after all, they were not acting as parliamentarians but as rabbanim who were asked a question of Jewish law by a “multitude” of people. Nor were they scholars drafting an article for a Torah journal in which they were bound to cite all opinions and leave the practical applications to the “local Orthodox rabbi.” They were the local Orthodox rabbis, and were duty-bound to answer a halachic question posed in a way that reflected the truth of Torah and the needs of the community they service. And they did.

 Could one look at the same question and conclude otherwise? Invariably so – such is the nature of any halachic question – but their answer to their constituents, who after all live in the Mideast, not the Midwest, was reasonable and appropriate.

 Why so?

 In truth, the Torah does discriminate between Jews and non-Jews, just like shuls distinguish between members and non-members and countries distinguish between citizens and even legal aliens. And it is well known, and patently clear across the world, that people prefer to live among their own kind – especially minorities. That is why there is a Chinatown, a Koreatown, a Little Italy, a Spanish Harlem, a Boro Park, and hundreds of other ethnic enclaves. That’s not to say you can ban other people from living there (I happen to enjoy a little diversity); it is to say that as a practical matter, people recognize homogeneity makes for a more cohesive community and usually a better quality of life. And that is in the United States, still an oasis of stability.

 In the Middle East, bear in mind that there are Arab countries – Saudi Arabia and Jordan leap to mind – in which land sales to Jews are banned by law under penalty of death. The Palestinian Authority has executed dozens of Arabs guilty of that “crime.” Israeli drivers entering Jordan – a nation formally at peace with Israel, treaty and all – are compelled to remove their Israeli license plates and affix Jordanian license plates, for fear that the sight of Israeli plates will inflame the local population.

 Integration, a splendid ideal, has not been successful in the Middle East, not between Shiites and Sunnis, Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians, Iraqi Muslim and Kurds, or Lebanese Christians or Muslims. Nor has it been fully harmonious in Israel, where mixed communities like Lod, Ramle and Haifa often are the scenes of confrontations between Jews and Arabs with nationalistic overtones.

 The rabbis’ letter relates directly to this state of affairs, discouraging the sales of homes and fields because of the fear of intermarriage, the potential loss of Jewish identity and cohesion in the neighborhood, and the danger of inviting (not a foreign but) a hostile element into a Jewish city. The rabbis relied on the Torah’s admonition of lo techanem, which one opinion in the Gemara (Avodah Zarah 20a) interprets as not giving non-Jews a foothold in the land of Israel.

 Now, one can argue whether that applies only to the seven Canaanite nations, or only to idolaters (which Muslims are not), or to all non-Jews. But lost in the halachic discussion is the reality that these prohibitions existed because these groups were perceived as deleterious influences on the Jewish polity; one would have to be blind and deaf to reality to presume that the Arab presence in Israel today (even Israeli Arabs) is innocuous, and that Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods pose no threat. All the naysayers in Israel should be challenged: how many Arabs live in their neighborhoods – in Caesarea, Ramat Aviv, Ra’anana, Re’ut and Shoham? How do they anticipate maintaining security for Jewish residents when Arabs move into Rechavia, Rechovot and Alon Shvut?

 * * * * *

 Some of the critics are being more than a little disingenuous. Others seemed to be troubled more by the theoretical loss of the right of Arabs to buy homes in Jewish neighborhoods than the actual loss of Jewish homes in Gush Katif.

 One very distinguished rosh yeshiva found fault with the rabbis’ letter for, among other reasons, calling for nidui, a form of excommunication, for those who will not heed the ban. He asserted that nidui is not mentioned as a penalty for a violation of lo techanem. But he erred, with all due respect, as the letter did not link nidui with lo techanem but with a separate halacha that prohibits the sale of Jewish-owned land even outside Israel to a non-Jewish anas (terrorist), and renders the Jewish seller also liable for damages caused to the remaining Jewish residents for “unleashing a lion upon them” (Bava Kama 114a, Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 334:43). Clearly, that is the context of the rabbi’s letter, motivated not by anti-Arab animus but by a love of Jewish life and in an attempt to safeguard it.

 There is a reason why the Jewish National Fund has refused to lease land to Arabs for a century; after all, it is the Jewish National Fund. There is a reason why there is a Law of Return that applies only to Jews. There is a reason why most Arabs are exempt from mandatory military service in Israel, a classic instance of discrimination.

 Whether we attribute the exemption to forestalling the psychological discomfort that might be caused to Israeli Arabs who have to wage war against other Arabs, or simply because the military does not trust the Arab soldier to be loyal to Israel (excluding of course the Bedouin, Druze, and Circassians, among the non-Jews who serve with great dedication in the IDF), the effect is the same: Arab citizens of Israel largely do not serve in the military because they do not uniformly see their destiny as part of the Jewish state of Israel.

             Obviously, none of this is relevant in an American context, in a nation that was founded on a non-denominational basis with liberty and justice for all. But removing these laws from Israeli society would engender a fine democracy while eviscerating the potential for a Jewish state.

 Intermarriage poses a similar dilemma to Jewish survival, and it is fascinating that the words v’lo techanem are followed immediately in the Torah by the proscription v’lo titchaten bam (Devarim 7:2-3), “and do not marry them.” It is hard to justify, or explain to an outsider, why in an enlightened, egalitarian, modern society, in which love should conquer all and be the only foundation for marriage, Jews cling to the “antiquated” notion that Jews should only marry Jews. Understandably, a group of Reform Jewish women, right on cue, pilloried the rebbetzins for their audacity in calling on Jewish women not to date or marry non-Jewish men.

 Will the rebbetzins’ declaration elicit the same catcalls from Orthodox circles as did the rabbis’ letter, and if so, on what grounds? Will the Nuremberg Laws be invoked again? Will the right of any American to marry any person serve as the predicate for a contemptuous dismissal of the rebbetzins’ concerns? Certainly, one can argue that lo techanem does not technically apply to Arabs, and argue similarly that the Torah does not technically ban “dating” non-Jews, only marrying them. But these are distinctions without differences. Both prohibitions share a common denominator: they are designed to preserve Jewish identity – as a covenantal people and as residents of the land with which God blessed our forefathers.

 So why does the Torah – which, after all, posits that all human beings are created in the image of God – discriminate between Jews and non-Jews in certain laws? Because Jews constitute one family (that’s why we always argue with each other), and family is allowed to treat non-family differently; otherwise, there is no purpose to family. Thus, we are enjoined to “love your neighbor as yourself,” but I am allowed to love my wife and children more than I love your wife and your children.

 As a Jew, I am commanded to love Jews more than I love non-Jews, not because there is anything wrong with non-Jews but because Jews are family. It is not immoral to distinguish family from non-family; it is right, natural and proper.

 Some critics evidently feared a public relations problem, but they need not have overreacted. They should have calmly explained that there are Torah laws that are designed to foster a communal spirit and brotherhood that is essential to Jewish life. We are not obligated to treat non-Jews as family, but it must be underscored that we are obligated to treat non-Jews fairly, decently, respectfully and with integrity – even in Israel – in a way in which they are able to pursue happiness and fulfillment in life, and, in Israel, as long as they acknowledge Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel.

 Indeed, I don’t believe lo techanem means that land in Israel may never, under any circumstances, be sold to non-Jews. But when the Saudis are attempting to buy thousands of dunams in the Galilee and might soon be able to overwhelm the Jewish presence there, it is suicidal to pretend that elementary measures to preserve Jewish life in Israel are somehow unnecessary or inherently immoral.

 Discrimination is a nasty word in an American context, so we should try another: havdalah. When Shabbat ends, we bless God who “distinguishes between the holy and the profane, between the light and the darkness, between Israel and the nations, and between the Shabbat and the six work days.”

 These distinctions might not play well in Peoria or on the editorial pages of The New York Times (or some secular Jewish newspapers), and it is injudicious to make them the focus of the Jewish public persona. But they are real, substantive, and, understood properly, should be unobjectionable to all good people.

 And they are also an important reminder to us that we are one family who share the blessings of our forefathers and who merit basking in the Divine Presence that has guided us back to the land of Israel to test our mettle, our faith in His Torah, and our worthiness for complete redemption.

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