What's been on the Rabbi's Mind? Yom Kippur Learning 5779

In the Desert A Vision (Midbar Shur): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook on the Torah Portion of the Week / Translated by Bezalel Naor, Parshat Vayishlah (pp.43-49)
Now one might receive the mistaken impression that the Torah endorses this attitude, whereby we should assign a greater value to our own people’s good than to the welfare of others. After all, the Torah commands the Children of Israel to conquer the land from the indigenous nations. But this is clearly unacceptable! How could God, Whose mercy extends to all His creations, oppress His own handiwork?! How could the Most High command that we remove from our hearts the well being of the entire human race for our own selfish good?! Therefore, at the time the covenant was first established with our ancestor Abraham, a divine protest was lodged: The very thought of nationalism is despicable to God, for He equates all mankind. The goal is to seek the true success of all God’s creations. True justice means that one views with equal concern the advancement of the entire human race.

A Stranger and a Resident by Rav Soloveitchik

One is either a stranger, an alien, or one is a resident, a citizen. How could Abraham claim both identities for himself?

Abraham’s definition of his dual status, we believe, describes with profound accuracy the historical position of the Jew who resides in a predominantly non-Jewish society. He was a resident, like other inhabitants of Canaan, sharing with them a concern for the welfare of society, digging wells, and contributing to the progress of the country in loyalty to its government and institutions. Here, Abraham was clearly a fellow citizen, a patriot among compatriots, joining others in advancing the common welfare. However, there was another aspect, the spiritual, in which Abraham regarded himself as a stranger. His identification and solidarity with his fellow citizens in the secular realm did not imply his readiness to relinquish any aspects of his religious uniqueness. His was a different faith and he was governed by truths, and observances which set him apart from the larger faith community. In this regard, Abraham and his descendants would always remain “strangers.”

In the Desert A Vision (Midbar Shur): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook on the Torah Portion of the Week / Translated by Bezalel Naor, Parshat Vayishlah (pp.43-49)

Where then does the the notion of the “Chosen People” enter? The Jews were elected to work at uplifting the entire human race; to bring humanity to the goal the Almighty expects of it. Israel were set aside as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” A kingdom of priests ministers to the other nations in order to morally perfect them. So the separation from the nations is itself the greatest unification, in order to benefit the human race. However, if Israel will desert the good, which is the holy Torah, then its nationhood and its territorialism are an abomination before God. It is inconceivable that for the sake of a people’s natural self-love, other nations should be displaced. All are God’s handiwork. Israel must know that no permission was granted to displace a nation for the sake of national self-aggrandizement. There is one form of justice, whether it be on the individual or collective level.Therefore, several times over, the Torah links the giving of the land to the observance of Torah. Without the raison d’etre of Torah, the setting apart of one nation, would be considered an injustice.

TIKKUN OLAM; ORTHODOXY’S RESPONSIBILITY TO PERFECT G-D’S WORLD

By: Jonathan Sacks. Delivered at the Orthodox Union West Coast Convention. December 1997 – Kislev 5758.

Jewish history is a journey through three destinations: the destination of Jewish land, the destination of Jewish children, and the destination of changing the world. The question is how do we do it?

There are two ways of teaching morality; first is to teach universal rules, and the second way is to give particular examples...That became the Jewish vocation; not to stand for some universal truth but to be a particular, specific living example of how to live. Somehow the Jewish people would be the people in whose daily lives the will of G-d, and in whose collective history the presence of G-d would be particularly evident...

We were the people who were born in slavery to teach the world the meaning of freedom. We were the people who suffered homelessness to teach humanity the importance of every people having a home. We were the people who were the quintessential strangers to teach humanity that “Thou shall not oppress the stranger.” We were the people who walked through the valley of the shadow of death to teach humanity the sanctity of life. We were the people who were always small but yet survived to teach the world a people does not survive by might nor by strength but by My spirit, says G-d. Above all, we were the people that was always different to teach humanity the dignity of difference. Against all expectations it happened, and no other people before or since has had the impact that we have had on the civilization of the world.

Paul Johnson, a Catholic writer in Britain, has written one of the great histories of the Jewish people...“To them,” writes Paul Johnson, ”we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human, the sanctity of life, the dignity of the human person, of the individual conscience and possible redemption, of the collective conscience, and social responsibility, peace as an abstract ideal, and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items that constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without the Jews, the world might have been a much emptier place.”...

Why is it, therefore, that if you read the Shulkhan Arukh, Gemara you find very little about

this? The answer is that for two thousand years what chance did we have? For two thousand

years we were dispersed, scattered, exiled, we were powerless, we were what Max Weber called the pariah people, who in the world would think of learning from us? We were the wandering Jew, Old Israel, displaced, superseded, we were the people rejected by G-d. That’s what the nations thought. Who thought of learning from us? Thus, Tikkun Olam which could not be implemented as a Jewish value, squeezed under the door in some attenuated way. You find in the mystical literature, for example, that by keeping the mitzvot somehow mystically we would change the world, or passively like in the alienu prayer in which we say al kain nikaveh lecha Hashem Elokaynu l’takan olam. We don’t know how we will do it, but we hope You will do it. Or in the Talmud itself where ‘Tikkun Olam’ functions as a mere concept of creating a social order, making sure that there is no chaos in society. It would have been absurd to raise our sights any higher than that because who were we to change the world?

A Stranger and a Resident by Rav Soloveitchik

There is an inevitable tension in trying to uphold the two identities. Many Jews maintain that the universal and the covenantal cannot be combined in our relationship with other faiths. It is absurd, they argue, to claim unity in the secular realm, and the next instant to make an about-face by emphasizing our distinctiveness and separateness in the religious sphere. There is something contradictory and psychologically discordant in maintaining this dual role. They feel the need to choose between being human and being Jewish, and very frequently it is the secular reality which becomes their dominant concern. They become ardent supporters of humanistic and philanthropic causes and they passionately identify with efforts to enhance the moral and aesthetic quality of life, while neglecting the spiritual-religious element as far as they themselves and the Jewish people are concerned.

Among these one-identity proponents one can find many who persist in expressing an unabashed pride in their heritage. Their total immersion in secular affairs has not severed their Jewish connections. Yet they often tend to redefine their Judaism in universal terms, to dilute its aspects of distinctiveness, and to present it as not very dissimilar from the majority faith. Their reformulation of the theology, worship, and rituals of Judaism tends to de-emphasize the religious differences that are deemed to form barriers to full social and political integration.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Tradition Volume 12, No.3-4 (Winter/Spring 1972) - translated by David Landau

The state has no intrinsic value; only an instrumental value. This principle is common to both the religious (theocentric) approach and the humanist (anthropocentric) approach. Attributing to the state an intrinsic value is the essence of the fascist approach.

The state itself is the enemy of the individual, since it is—by its very nature—an apparatus of power and coercion. Being an apparatus of this kind, it can neither realize nor embody "values" (in every sense of the term "value"): things of value are only achieved by men and not by the "state" (i.e. the governmental apparatus), and to achieve them men struggle among themselves within the framework of the state. There is not—nor can there be—unanimity among men concerning "values": thus the state serves as an arena for internal struggles.

TIKKUN OLAM; ORTHODOXY’S RESPONSIBILITY TO PERFECT G-D’S WORLD

By: Jonathan Sacks. Delivered at the Orthodox Union West Coast Convention. December 1997 – Kislev 5758.

...I repeat there is no formula, no Shulkhan Arukh, and no responsum governing how to be mitaken ha’olam. For this the Orthodox community needs not only masters of the law but also ba’alai nivuah – people with historical insight; that is the challenge of our time. We have thank G-d done magnificently on the two great challenges of Jewish history: Israel and Jewish children. Now what stands before us is the third great, untouched challenge of tikkun olam that we, in a secular age, should become role models for spirituality. That we in a relativistic age should be able to teach people once again to hear the objective “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not”. In an age in which religion so often brings conflict we should teach once again that Shalom, peace, is the name of G-d and that the mighty is one who turns an enemy into a friend. If we do these things there will surely come to all of us that experience of living a Jewish life and knowing that those around us, those with whom we have dealings are blessed by that life, and they will return to us saying: you have been a prince or princess of G-d in our midst. Do that and we begin to perfect the world.