Core Jewish Values: Week #2-- Community

Since the entire congregation are all holy. From the day of standing at Mount Sinai, the entire congregation became holy.

-- Ibn Ezra's comment on Numbers 16:3

"Do not separate yourself from the congregation" but rather share in their troubles. As anyone who separates from the congregation will not [live to] see the consolation of the congregation (Taanit 11a).

-- Bartenura's commentary on Pirke Avot 2:4

Musar literature is often described as "ethical literature." Professors Isaiah Tishby and Joseph Dan have described it more precisely as "prose literature that presents views, ideas, and ways of life to a wide public in order to shape the everyday behavior, thought, and beliefs of this public." Musar literature traditionally depicts the nature of moral and spiritual perfection in a methodical way. It is "divided according to the component parts of the ideal righteous way of life; the material is treated methodically – analyzing, explaining, and demonstrating how to achieve each moral virtue (usually treated in a separate chapter or section) in the author's ethical system."

Musar literature can be distinguished from other forms of Jewish ethical literature such as aggadic narrative and halakhic literature.

Kav ha-Yashar (lit. The Just Measure; קב הישר) authored by Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover (1648–1712) is one of the most popular works of musar literature of the last three hundred years. First published in 1705 in Frankfurt am Main, it has appeared in over 80 editions, in nearly every country around the world. The work was famous for uplifting the spirits of Jewish communities in Europe after the Chmelnitzki Massacres of 1648-1649.

Contemporary Halakhic Problems, David Bleich

Part I, CHAPTER VIII Social Problems

1

A person should always associate himself with the community.

2

BERAKHOT 30a

3

Personal liberty and the rights of the individual are strongly rooted as cardinal values of Western philosophy. Systems of thought which view the rights of individuals as paramount and inalienable find it difficult to accommodate the concept of a state which requires its citizens to surrender basic freedoms and to sublimate individual self-interest for the sake of the welfare of society. Much of Western social and political philosophy is devoted to the formulation of an intellectual matrix designed to justify the extension of the powers of the body politic to spheres beyond the simple protection of its members against evildoers. Thus, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European thought gave rise to various forms of a social-contract theory. Inherent in many such theories is the concept that, at least ideally, the state should maintain a laissez-faireattitude toward its citizens insofar as possible.

4

Jewish thought—and law—is based upon an entirely different set of premises. Man is bound by divinely imposed imperatives which oblige him to be concerned with the needs of his fellow. Some of these obligations are entirely personal. Others either could not possibly be discharged by any person acting independently or, if directed to individuals, would constitute an inordinate burden. Hence such obligations become the responsibility of society at large. According to Nachmanides,¹ the very first divinely commanded system of law, the Noachide Code, contains a single positive commandment, dinim, which translates into a general obligation to promulgate laws and to establish standards regulating the manifold areas of interpersonal intercourse. Jewish law recognizes not only the reciprocal dependency of members of the human race, but also that the human condition requires that the governing authority, acting as the representative of society as a whole, be endowed with the broad powers necessary for the promotion of social welfare.

5

Judaism views every man as his brother's keeper. Since furtherance of the common good is not simply an ideal but is, in many instances, a positive obligation, government need not necessarily derive its authority from the consent of the governed. In fact, Judaism does not view the social order as being predicated upon consent at all. "Inhabitants of a city may coerce one another" is the phrase commonly employed in rabbinic writings in introducing a description of the services or amenities which society must provide for its citizens. From the moral right of one citizen to force another to discharge obligations vis-à-vis his fellow citizen arises the positive coercive power of the state designed to achieve the same end. The state in such instances simply acts as the agent of its individual citizens in assuring that all the citizens contribute to the promotion of social welfare and well-being. Indeed, the power of coercion is vested not only in governmental entities but in more limited social units as well. Thus, artisans may organize themselves into guilds and are empowered to impose binding regulations upon all practitioners of their craft. The individual may not refuse to accept restrictions designed to enhance the common welfare.

6

In any system of law conflicts are bound to arise between personal liberty and social needs. The respective rights of society and of the individual require careful elucidation in order that conflicts between the two be resolved. While the general principles of Jewish law in this area are incorporated in the various codes, subsequent responsa literature is replete with examples of how Jewish law strives to strike an equilibrium between the rights and prerogatives of society and those of the individual.

The Woman Took the Child and Nursed It: A Teshuvah on Breast Feeding in Public Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson (2005)

Full Responsum is found at: https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/assets/public/halakhah/teshuvot/20052010/artson_breastfeeding.pdf

שאלה :Is it permissible to breast-feed in public, particularly in the מדרש בית and in the בית כנסת ?And if so, what are the appropriate considerations and limitations to its practice? תשובה :The issue of appropriate parameters for public breast-feeding (בפרהסיא הניק( involves several questions requiring new articulation in our own age:

• The first of these is modesty (צניעוּת .(Modesty is indeed a virtue, and is close to the core of Jewish social ethics. As the Rambam reminds us of this Jewish ideal: גדולה צניעות” acting to accustomed were Sages theנוהגים תלמידי חכמים בעצמן, לא יתבזו ולא יתגלו ראשן ולא גופן , with great modesty, they did not shame themselves nor bare their head or their bodies.” Yet what constitutes appropriate modesty is, in part, a matter of social consensus. Given that no less an authority than the Shulhan Arukh recognizes that there is no timeless definition of modesty, that its specifics falls into the category of custom, how we implement this value invariably raises questions of how we might best implement Jewish values in our own age. We are really exploring what constitutes appropriate relations between men and women, given that women now serve as doctors, prosecutors, rabbis, and entrepreneurs. What may have heightened the dignity of women in a patriarchal age may no longer do so in our own. For the sake of preserving the goal of modesty, we may need to alter its previous modes of implementation.

• Changing ways in which men and women relate are not the only transformations of our age. We live in a time in which many are asserting the public value of child rearing, both for men and for women, insisting that public institutions now accommodate parents who struggle to work while raising their children. As a society, we all have a stake in supporting good parenting. How those values conflict with earlier standards of dress and decorum must also concern us in considering the halakhic status of public breast-feeding.

• Finally, ours is an age in which the public role of women has advanced beyond mere tokenism. Ways in which the first generations of working women were forced to make themselves invisible as women are no longer tolerable. Indeed, many women and men now reject the notion of inviting women to join men in institutions and traditions which have been shaped exclusively by men and men’s concerns. To truly invite women to participate is to invite them to reshape male institutions now to articulate a woman’s voice as well. As a result of these concerns —the role of custom in defining modesty, the public’s responsibility for encouraging good parenting, and the need to make room for the presence of women as women in public life — a simple listing of traditional sources, without attention to original context and contemporary application, would be inadequate to fashioning a proper halakhic response. Our search, therefore, will consider not only the texts, but their worldview and our own.

Conclusion:

Given that our age is one in which modesty remains an imperative, that ours is a time in which women work as equals in all fields of human endeavor, that ours is a time in which the powers of law, society, and religion must come to the aid of working parents who seek to pursue productive lives while fulfilling the mitzvah of Tz'niut, Modesty, it seems clear to me that the halakhic mandate today is to permit public breast-feeding, including in a Beit Midrash or worship service, provided that it is done in a modest and discreet fashion. This requirement would be met, for example, by using a cloth or towel to cover breast and baby, by the maternity shirts specially made for this purpose, or by sitting toward the rear of the room. For those women who prefer to nurse in private, appropriate facilities (such as a room adjoining the sanctuary) should be offered whenever possible. Given the diversity of communal norms and standards, each community should translate this general principle in a manner appropriate to its membership and style. It is highly unlikely that a man will be erotically charged by the sight of a woman discretely breast feeding, and those men who are should seek ways to restrain ”תנו רבנן: המרצה מעות לאשה מידו לידה כדי להסתכל בה - אפילו יש .gaze their avert to or themselves בידו תורה ומעשים טובים כמשה רבינו - לא ינקה מדינה של גיהנם, שנאמר (משלי י"א) יד ליד לא ינקה רע - לא ינקה ”גיהנם של מדינה Our Rabbis taught: If a man counts out money from his hand into the hand of a woman so as to have the opportunity of gazing at her, even if he can vie in Torah and good deeds with Moses our teacher, he shall not escape the punishment of Gehinnom.” The responsibility for restraining inappropriate male sexuality lies with men. And the responsibility for rearing up a new generation lies with us all: parents, community, and the Jewish people as a whole. It is incumbent on us to make it easier for parents to participate in communal life, and we are obligated to take aggressive steps to integrate women into public life without having to leave their distinctiveness behind. For mothers to be able to participate in public life will require that some of them will need to breast-feed in public. There is nothing in the tradition to disbar them, and a good deal in the tradition to permit them. One can make a strong halakhic argument for permitting discreet breast-feeding during prayer as well. Some will express concern about safeguarding a sense of heightened holiness attached to prayer, and a sense that some parts are still generally concealed, both by men and by women. Custom is a powerful force in the unfolding of halakhah, and general Jewish expectations of clothing during prayer deserve a healthy respect. Maintaining a sense of the synagogue and of prayer as a “sacred space” is a worthy consideration, one worth supporting in our time too. But what makes for “sacred space,” and which activities are permitted (or encouraged) there are in a state of transition. In our day, we recognize that precluding children from the sanctuary has a deleterious effect on their later Jewish observance, as well as on the possibility of their parent’s (or parents’) participation in Jewish worship now. Balancing values — involvement vs. distraction — is the work of any halakhic ruling. In this case, we must also consider the mother’s need to pray, learn, and connect in community, often met only by her time in a synagogue, and the value of regular synagogue attendance from the earliest age. The issue here, it seems to me, is one of distraction. As with all human activities in a synagogue, the breast feeding should be done quietly, modestly, and discreetly. Based strictly on our read of halakhah, it is permissible to breast feed in shul. Based on our Jewish values, it is a positive value to make nursing mothers welcome in our services. Where does this leave us? There are no explicit texts dealing with a mother breast feeding in public, other than the one that focuses on grounds for divorce. Even in that case, only one Tanna issues what looks like a clear prohibition, and Talmudic consensus seems to permit that behavior in that sugya, despite the lone Tanna’s attempt to prohibit. In texts dealing with the male body in public, and the female body in private, there is a clear mandate to permit the partial exposure of the body, provided that some attempt at covering is maintained.

• From antiquity, the virtue of צניעותis to concretize the sense that human beings are made in God’s image, and thus each person has a right to dignity and to respect. Modesty is a virtue because it regulates relations between men and women away from exploitation and sheer lust, to an appreciation of the personhood of other human beings. Those values continue to deserve (and require) reinforcement. • In antiquity and in modernity, married Jews having children is a great mitzvah, one which the entire community bears a religious obligation to facilitate and to support.

• The march of Jewish law has been one toward greater rights for women, and an expanding franchise in which women enjoy greater legal protection and consideration with each passing age. In our own time, that traditional process has resulted in women occupying many professions previously barred to them, including the rabbinate. More recently, that same unfolding has led to serious consideration of how women as women will reshape the very institutions in which they can now hold power, and how they can participate without obscuring their distinctive voices or perspectives. As women assume their rightful place as public people, Jewish law must support their new roles without forcing them to abandon other religiously-laudatory roles (i.e. that of mother). :פסק דין /Ruling The Reading the sources in the light of these considerations, I understand halakhah to permit public breast-feeding, including in a Beit Midrash or synagogue sanctuary during a worship service, so long as it is done in a modest, subtle, and dignified fashion. (This requirement would be met, for example, by using a cloth or towel to cover breast and baby, by the maternity shirts specially made for this purpose, or by nursing in the rear of the room.) It is also preferable that Jewish institutions provide places where mothers who prefer to nurse in private may do so. Many synagogue arks are emblazoned with the wordsעומד אתה מי לפני דע , know before Whom you stand. In Torah study and in prayer, we are in the presence of the One whose salvation is intimated through human nursing: "That you may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that you may drink deeply, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.” Jewish institutions, in particular, have an obligation to welcome, facilitate, and support nursing mothers and their babies.