You can follow the rules and still not be doing the right thing.
The Torah describes the following scenario:
Every 7th year, debts were cancelled. I lend money to you and when the 7th year comes around, you don’t have to pay me back.
Moses, however, tells the people the following: If someone needs a loan and the 7th year is coming up, don’t say, since the 7th year is coming, I won’t help the person out. The wording is so insightful: השמר לך פן יהיה דבר עם לבבך בליעל לאמר hishamer l’kha pen yih’yeh davar im levav’kha b’liay’al lemor - Be careful that your heart doesn’t convince you not to give. (Deut. 15:9-10)
נתון תתן לו Naton titen lo - you should definitely give. ואל ירע לבבך מתתן לו V’al yera levav’kha mititen lo - and you shouldn’t let your heart prevent you from giving.
I want to take a few minutes to address a reality that affects people who act in the name of religion and it not a new reality, as the Torah demonstrates.
People follow the rules and are still not ultimately doing the right thing. We’re all susceptible. We follow the rules - we say I’m following my religion or the law of the land - but what we do ignores the larger picture of what is decent and just and so we don’t actually end up doing the right thing.
The behavior must have been common for our rabbinic ancestors as well because they came up with concepts to describe it. The Ramban said a person can be נבל ברשות התורה naval bir’shut haTorah
You can behave like a boor while conforming to the literal requirements of the Torah.
So in our day you have a baker in the midwest who won’t bake for LGBT weddings because of his religious claims.
And US officials who deny entry to asylum seekers because of their religious claims.
The Torah, in addressing poverty, urges people to go beyond the rules, not to allow the rules, or a particular understanding of them, to excuse boorish, and sometimes unjust, behavior.
The journalist Lucy Aharish, an Israeli Arab, delivered a monologue of her reaction to the recent Israeli law known as the nation-state law or, colloquially in Hebrew, Hok hal’oom. The law, passed mid-July by the Knesset, affirms Israel’s status as a Jewish nation-state, no news here. But it downgrades Arabic from being another official language to a language with special status. And it fails to explicitly invoke the language of equality for all of Israel’s citizens that is written in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Anyway, Lucy Aharish, an Israeli Arab Muslim woman whose critiques in the past have been aimed at the Muslim world as well as Israel, delivered a pointed talk about how hurt she is that the current law does not explicitly state that all of Israel’s citizens are equal.
In her talk she tells an emotional story about her parents, who moved to the mostly Jewish town of Dimona and received threatening letters claiming that Arabs don’t belong in Dimona.
Lucy’s mother was frightened and hurt and showed one of the letters to a neighbor of theirs named Menachem, a Holocaust survivor, who tore the letter into shreds and said, אני כאן ואף אחד לא יוציא אתכם משום מקום ani an v af ekhad lo yotzee etkhem mishum makom. "I’m here, and no one will force you out of anywhere."
Of course there are many Israeli Jews like Menachem. Sadly, there are also those who wish to discriminate for whatever reasons, just as there are among all groups of people, and this new law gives them the opportunity to say, I’m following the rules. And then to go and do that which is unjust.
Aharish directed the following statement toward the Prime Minister of Israel: Equality is a right that belongs to citizens in a democratic country and not an act of hesed, of kindness.
In a similar vein, the Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi wrote an open letter to the Palestinian Israeli neighbors who live in his building. In it, he defended the need for a Jewish state but also bemoaned the fact that the new nation-state law does not mention equality for all of Israel’s citizens. Here is an excerpt:
"I need a Jewish state not only as a refuge for Jews but for Judaism. Only here can we be certain that Judaism will survive the pressures of modernity. I need one place on the planet whose public space is defined by Jewish culture and values and needs, whose holiday cycle begins on Rosh Hashana and where the radio sings in Hebrew and the history taught in schools is framed by the Jewish experience. Where Jews from around the world can recreate a people from its broken pieces.
"But to be true to itself, Israel must also be the democracy the authors of the Declaration of Independence promised it would be. Failure to embrace Arab citizens in the national identity presents another kind of existential threat to Israeli society. My problem with the Nation-State Law, then, isn’t that it defines Israel as a Jewish state but that it doesn’t also define Israel as the state of all of its citizens. The law is fatally flawed not for what it says but for what it omits." (Yossi Klein Halevi, "Letter to my Palestinian Israeli Neighbors," Times of Israel, August 5, 2018)
The Torah teaches us that we cannot take refuge in the rules when the rules are unjust. We must act justly even if it means defying the rules.
The next step is that we demand that the rules be changed if necessary, so that the rules reflect what is just.
That’s something our ancestors trying to address poverty understood, something that our ancient rabbis understood, something that all decent people understand.
How do we we know what's just, what's right? The yardstick that the sage Hillel applied remains as helpful as ever. What we don't want others to do to us, we shouldn't do to them.
I say to each of us, if you, if we, are about to invoke “the rules” as we prepare to do something that we know is not right, we should pause and ask ourselves what’s right. And then steel ourselves up to do what’s right. And then, as needed, steel ourselves up to fight so that the rules reflect what we know to be right.
That’s ultimately what pursuing tzedek, justice, is about.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on August 11, 2018
The Torah describes the following scenario:
Every 7th year, debts were cancelled. I lend money to you and when the 7th year comes around, you don’t have to pay me back.
Moses, however, tells the people the following: If someone needs a loan and the 7th year is coming up, don’t say, since the 7th year is coming, I won’t help the person out. The wording is so insightful: השמר לך פן יהיה דבר עם לבבך בליעל לאמר hishamer l’kha pen yih’yeh davar im levav’kha b’liay’al lemor - Be careful that your heart doesn’t convince you not to give. (Deut. 15:9-10)
נתון תתן לו Naton titen lo - you should definitely give. ואל ירע לבבך מתתן לו V’al yera levav’kha mititen lo - and you shouldn’t let your heart prevent you from giving.
I want to take a few minutes to address a reality that affects people who act in the name of religion and it not a new reality, as the Torah demonstrates.
People follow the rules and are still not ultimately doing the right thing. We’re all susceptible. We follow the rules - we say I’m following my religion or the law of the land - but what we do ignores the larger picture of what is decent and just and so we don’t actually end up doing the right thing.
The behavior must have been common for our rabbinic ancestors as well because they came up with concepts to describe it. The Ramban said a person can be נבל ברשות התורה naval bir’shut haTorah
You can behave like a boor while conforming to the literal requirements of the Torah.
So in our day you have a baker in the midwest who won’t bake for LGBT weddings because of his religious claims.
And US officials who deny entry to asylum seekers because of their religious claims.
The Torah, in addressing poverty, urges people to go beyond the rules, not to allow the rules, or a particular understanding of them, to excuse boorish, and sometimes unjust, behavior.
The journalist Lucy Aharish, an Israeli Arab, delivered a monologue of her reaction to the recent Israeli law known as the nation-state law or, colloquially in Hebrew, Hok hal’oom. The law, passed mid-July by the Knesset, affirms Israel’s status as a Jewish nation-state, no news here. But it downgrades Arabic from being another official language to a language with special status. And it fails to explicitly invoke the language of equality for all of Israel’s citizens that is written in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Anyway, Lucy Aharish, an Israeli Arab Muslim woman whose critiques in the past have been aimed at the Muslim world as well as Israel, delivered a pointed talk about how hurt she is that the current law does not explicitly state that all of Israel’s citizens are equal.
In her talk she tells an emotional story about her parents, who moved to the mostly Jewish town of Dimona and received threatening letters claiming that Arabs don’t belong in Dimona.
Lucy’s mother was frightened and hurt and showed one of the letters to a neighbor of theirs named Menachem, a Holocaust survivor, who tore the letter into shreds and said, אני כאן ואף אחד לא יוציא אתכם משום מקום ani an v af ekhad lo yotzee etkhem mishum makom. "I’m here, and no one will force you out of anywhere."
Of course there are many Israeli Jews like Menachem. Sadly, there are also those who wish to discriminate for whatever reasons, just as there are among all groups of people, and this new law gives them the opportunity to say, I’m following the rules. And then to go and do that which is unjust.
Aharish directed the following statement toward the Prime Minister of Israel: Equality is a right that belongs to citizens in a democratic country and not an act of hesed, of kindness.
In a similar vein, the Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi wrote an open letter to the Palestinian Israeli neighbors who live in his building. In it, he defended the need for a Jewish state but also bemoaned the fact that the new nation-state law does not mention equality for all of Israel’s citizens. Here is an excerpt:
"I need a Jewish state not only as a refuge for Jews but for Judaism. Only here can we be certain that Judaism will survive the pressures of modernity. I need one place on the planet whose public space is defined by Jewish culture and values and needs, whose holiday cycle begins on Rosh Hashana and where the radio sings in Hebrew and the history taught in schools is framed by the Jewish experience. Where Jews from around the world can recreate a people from its broken pieces.
"But to be true to itself, Israel must also be the democracy the authors of the Declaration of Independence promised it would be. Failure to embrace Arab citizens in the national identity presents another kind of existential threat to Israeli society. My problem with the Nation-State Law, then, isn’t that it defines Israel as a Jewish state but that it doesn’t also define Israel as the state of all of its citizens. The law is fatally flawed not for what it says but for what it omits." (Yossi Klein Halevi, "Letter to my Palestinian Israeli Neighbors," Times of Israel, August 5, 2018)
The Torah teaches us that we cannot take refuge in the rules when the rules are unjust. We must act justly even if it means defying the rules.
The next step is that we demand that the rules be changed if necessary, so that the rules reflect what is just.
That’s something our ancestors trying to address poverty understood, something that our ancient rabbis understood, something that all decent people understand.
How do we we know what's just, what's right? The yardstick that the sage Hillel applied remains as helpful as ever. What we don't want others to do to us, we shouldn't do to them.
I say to each of us, if you, if we, are about to invoke “the rules” as we prepare to do something that we know is not right, we should pause and ask ourselves what’s right. And then steel ourselves up to do what’s right. And then, as needed, steel ourselves up to fight so that the rules reflect what we know to be right.
That’s ultimately what pursuing tzedek, justice, is about.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on August 11, 2018
Do you need a personal loan? Do you need a loan to pay bills/finance your business? Do you need a mortgage loan? Do you need a loan to finance an existing business or start up one? You can contact Mr Steven Ryan today via this information . email: stevenryanfinance@gmcom or whatsapp : +1 (480)993-7165
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