YOU SHALL NOT SUBVERT THE RIGHTS OF YOUR NEEDY IN THEIR

DISPUTES. KEEP FAR FROM A FALSE CHARGE; DO NOT BRING DEATH TO THOSE WHO ARE

INNOCENT AND IN THE RIGHT, FOR I WILL NOT ACQUIT THE WRONGDOER.

(Shemot 23:6-7)

You shall not subvert the rights

of your needy in their disputes. Why is this said? Because it

says nor shall you show deference to a poor man in his dispute (Shemot 23:3)

– this only tells me about the poor; how do I know about the needy? We learn it

from the verse; You shall not subvert the

rights of your needy in their disputes.

Abba

Hanan says in the name of R. Eliezer:

Scripture is referring here to leket, shikheha, and pe'ah

**Since his opponent is silenced, he

can make his lie convincing.

(Rashi ad

loc)

Dedicated to the

memory of my father-in-law, Emanuel Halperin, z"l,

who feared Heaven and was generous in charity.

You Shall Not

Mistreat Any Widow or Orphan – What About the Divorced Women?

Yehudah Pinchover

(This article appeared with

slight differences in Shabbat Shalom in 5764)

Of all the commandments, the one

commanded by the Torah in the most emotional and powerful language appears in

our parasha. I am referring to the commandment not to

oppress the misfortunate:

You

shall become widows and your children orphans. (Shemot 22:21-3)

The RaMBaM

explains in Hilkhot Deot:

A man ought to be especially

heedful of his behavior toward widows and orphans, for their souls are

exceedingly depressed and their spirits low, even if they are wealthy! (6:10 Hyamson translation)

This commandment is just one of

many devoted to caring for the weaker members of society. The list of

"beneficiaries" of the Torah's attention is quite long. Besides the

widow and orphan just mentioned, it also includes the stranger, the pauper, the

Levite, the male servant, and the female servant. But who is missing?

As someone living in our present

historical period, I sense the prominent and hurtful omission of the divorced

woman from this list. It must be remembered that the Torah is not unaware of

the divorced woman; she appears together with the widow in connection with

certain prohibitions. The

Torah and our Sages took technical measures, such as the get [bill of

divorce], ketubah [marriage contract], and

other edicts to protect the divorced woman's legal status. But where does the

Torah express concern for the insult suffered by the divorced woman? And where

is the commandment to support abandoned women, such as those whose husbands

refuse to grant divorce, and agunot [women

whose widowhood cannot be technically established]? The souls of these women

"are exceedingly depressed and their spirits low," even if some of

them are wealthy! Where is the concern of the Sages, of the community's

leadership, both Rishonim [early post-Talmudic

scholars] and Aharonim [more recent

post-Talmudic scholars]? In my research, I have not found an emotional and

powerful call on behalf of divorced women similar to the kind we have seen

regarding the widow and the orphan.

One might attempt to argue that

the divorced woman never garnered the kind of attention given the widow

because, up until our day, divorce was not widespread, and also because divorce

is an undesirable social phenomenon in society. However, it turns out that

divorces did take place in the biblical period, in the Talmudic period, and in

the Middle Ages. In those times, divorced women found

themselves in an even more vulnerable position than they are in today.

One must also remember that moral condemnation of divorce (which is not implied

by the Torah) occurs at most once in Scripture, in Malachi 2:16: For I

detest divorce – said the Lord, God of Israel. There is some indication of

a similar attitude among the Sages (see, for instance, Gittin

90b and Pesahim 112a), but it is not the prevailing

approach. The Sages viewed the dissolution of any family as unfortunate, but

also as a persistent phenomenon that is not to be fought against (as opposed to

the Christian view).

While I have not found a

scriptural passage that explicitly addresses the divorced woman's plight, hints

of concern for this problem have turned up. The Torah displays great empathy

with Sarah's handmaiden, Hagar, when telling the story of her torment and

banishment. (See

on this Martin Buber's Darko

Shel Mikra, 295-6). And

so, the RaMBaN wrote:

Our mother [Sarah] did

transgress by this affliction and Abraham also by his permitting her to do so.

And so, God heard her [Hagar's] affliction and gave her a son who would be a

wild-ass of a man (Bereishit 16: 12), to afflict the

seed of Abraham and Sarah with all kinds of affliction. (Bereishit 16:6, Chavel

translation)

ReDaK (on Bereishit 16: 6) states that this section of the

Torah was written in order to teach us how not to behave:

God did not approve of what

Sarah had done, as the angel says to Hagar, For God has paid heed to your

suffering (16:11), and

repaid her with a blessing that would replace her suffering… and this entire

story has been transcribed in the Torah in order to teach people good

qualities, and to remove the evil [qualities].

Consider also what the Sages

said about the verses Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi…Isaac then took brought her into the tent of his

loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother's death (Bereishit 24:62, 67). According to the midrash, Isaac was troubled by

Hagar's humiliation, which had been visited upon her for his sake. As a result,

he could not take Rebekah to be his wife before Hagar

returned to Abraham. Isaac was able to set his own household, love Rebekah and bring her to his mother's tent, and to find

consolation only after Hagar

was back with Abraham.

One might also say that by

picturing Israel metaphorically as a divorced, abandoned, and hated woman upon

whom God takes pity, the prophets teach us good qualities which we must adopt

for ourselves, in accordance with the notion, "Just as He is called

merciful, so too, you should be merciful." For example, this is apparent

in Isaiah 54:6-8 (see also 60:15):

The

you back in love – said the Lord your Redeemer.

I did not find much in the way

of explicit halakhic rulings on this matter, but the

following two wonderful stories demonstrate that at least some of the Sages

were aware of the plight of divorced women:

In the days of Rabbi Tanhuma, Israel required a fast [for lack of rain]. They

came to him and said, "Rabbi, proclaim a fast, proclaim a fast. The first

day, the second day, the third day [passed], but no rain fell. He assembled

them and preached to them: "My children, be full

of mercy for each other, and the Holy One Blessed be He will be full of mercy

towards you." While they were distributing alms to their poor they saw one

man handing coins to his ex-wife. They approached him [Rabbi Tanhuma] and said to him: "Rabbi, what are we doing

here when transgression is here with us?" He said: "What did you

see?" They told him: "We saw a certain man give coins to his

ex-wife." He sent out and had him brought before the community. He said to

him, "What is she to you?" He said: "My ex-wife." He said:

"Why did you give her coins?" He said: "Rabbi, I saw that she

was in trouble, and I became full of pity for her." At that moment Rabbi Tanhuma turned his face upwards and said: "Master of

all worlds – Consider this one, who does not owe her sustenance, yet when he

saw her in trouble he was filled with pity for her – and You, of Whom it is

written God is compassionate and merciful, and that we are your children, the

children of your beloved, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, how much

more so that you should be full of pity for us. The rain immediately began to

fall, and the world was watered. (Bereishit Rabbah 33:3)

Rabbi Tanhuma

is of the opinion that rain does not fall thanks to the external ritual

trappings of a fast, rather only on condition that people become full of mercy

towards each other. The people failed to internalize the essence of charity;

they went forth to distribute alms outside, they

came across the divorced man who had become full of mercy towards his ex-wife.

Since their hearts were not full of mercy, they suspected the two of them. Only

Rabbi Tanhuma is able to tell us that rain returned

to the world thanks to that man who paid attention to his ex-wife's

predicament.

The second story opens with a halakhah concerning the dignity of the divorced woman:

Just as a man saves his widow's kavod [honor, material sustenance] so too he saves

the kavod of his ex-wife, for Rabbi Ya'akov bar Aha said in the name of Rabbi Lazar: and not

to ignore your own kin (Isaiah 58:7) – that is his ex-wife.

The story follows immediately:

Rabbi Yosi

HaGalili's wife caused him much grief. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah

came up to visit him, he told him: "Divorce her, for she does you no

honor." He said: The [price] of her ketubah

is too much for me. He said to him: I will give you the [price of] her ketubah. He gave him the [price of] her ketubah,

and he divorced her. She went and married the town's watchman. He [the

watchman] went broke and became blind, and she would lead him around town [to

beg for alms]. One time she took him around town, yet he was given nothing. He

said to her: "Is there no other neighborhood here?" She said to him:

"There is my ex-husband's neighborhood, but I do not have the strength to

enter it." He began hitting her. Rabbi Yosi HaGalili passed by and heard them embarrassing themselves

in the market. He took them and set them up in one of his houses. And he

brought them food for as long as they lived. (Yerushalmi

Ketubot 11:3)

Rabbi Yossi

took pity upon his ex-wife who had caused him so much trouble, who had

apparently impoverished him, and with whom it was still difficult to get along.

Rabbi Yossi and his ex-wife also knew that any

connection between them would be seen by the public in a negative light.

Despite all this, Rabbi Yossi saw that she was

distressed, took pity upon her, brought them into his house and fed them for the

rest of their lives.

It is interesting that in both

of these stories it is the ex-husband, rather than the community, who acts

compassionately towards the divorced woman! If only we, as human beings, as a

community, and as a people, could learn to show each other compassion. My

reproach of His people over all the earth – for it is the Lord who has spoken

(Isaiah

25:8).

Yehuda Pinchover is one of Netivot Shalom's founders.

And The Holy One, Blessed Be He,

Cares for the Weak

The correct interpretation appears to

me to be that He is saying: "Do not wrong a stranger or oppress him,

thinking as you might that none can deliver him out of your hand; for you know

that you were strangers in the land of Egypt and I saw the oppression

wherewith the Egyptians oppressed (Shemot 3:9) you,

and I avenged your cause on them, because I

behold the tears of such who are oppressed and

have no comforter, and on the side of their oppressors there is power (Kohellet 4:1) and I

deliver each one from him that is too strong for him (Tehillim 35:10). Likewise you shall not afflict the

widow and the fatherless child for I

will hear their cry, for all these people do not rely upon themselves but

trust in Me." And in another verse He added this

reason: for you know the soul of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in

the land of Egypt (Shemot 23:9). That

is to say, you know that every stranger feels depressed, and is always sighing

and crying, and his eyes are always directed towards God, therefore He will

have mercy upon him even as He showed mercy to you, just as it is written, and

their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage (Shemot 2:23), meaning that He had mercy upon them

not because of their merits, but only on account of the bondage.

(RaMBaN Shemot 22:20, Chavel translation)

The

Sanhedrin – and not the Sword – is with the Altar

Thoughts

on Amona

Rashi, commenting on the

beginning of our parasha, asks, as per

the Mekhilta:

And why was the parasha of adjudication (dinim)

placed next to the laws pertaining to the altar [found at the end of Parashat Yitro]?"

Rashi's answer:

To inform you that you

should place the Sanhedrin near the altar [Alternate reading "near the

Temple"].

One can, of course, relate literally to this drasha quoted by Rashi, seeing it

as concrete instruction to place the Sanhedrin in the Office of Hewn Stone. But

even this spatial explication, which interprets textual juxtaposition into

geographical proximity, invites us to investigate the significance of this

proximity, in the sense of "Expound, and reap reward."

In contrast to the

appropriate proximity between the Sanhedrin and the altar, we find that there

exists an essential contradiction between the altar and "the sword":

If you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your sword upon them you have

profaned them.

The Tanhuma (Yitro 17) expounds:

For by wielding your

sword upon them you have profaned them – From this our rabbis derived: The altar was

created to prolong man's life, iron was created to shorten his life; it is not

right that that which shortens be raised against that which lengthens.

The altar, then, cannot tolerate bloodshed and

cannot serve as protection against punishment for murder.

Rabbi Shimshon Rafael

Hirsch, commenting on the first passage of our parasha,

elaborates upon Rashi's midrashic

commentary:

And these – Immediately

preceding, in the construction of the altar, the symbolic expression of the

fundamental basic principle was given, viz., that our whole relationship to God

is to be taken as one through which justice and humanness for building up human

society and morality and decency for the work of each individual on himself,

are to be gained and formed, on a firm unshatterable

basis. To that principle, the vav ("and")

adds the mishpatim, the legal laws by which

the building up of Jewish society on the basis of justice and humanness is

first of all ordered. Herev – the "sword,"

force and harshness are thereby to be banned from the Jewish State, only then

can they be worthy to erect an altar to God in their midst. That is why these mishpatim come before the building of the Mishkan [Tabernacle]. (Translated by Isaac Levy)

Rabbi Hirsch, then, sees in the establishment of a

just and ethical society, without force and brutality, an essential stage that must precede the erection

of the altar.

That is to say: lives

of holiness and religious fervor stand in opposition to violence and cruelty,

and they are contingent upon the existence of a legal system that manages the

relationships between people.

I think that the events

at Amona demand of us to think seriously about these

principles. When good youths violently resist the security forces of the State

of Israel, serious questions arise regarding the educational tendency that

justifies everything for the sake of the struggle for "the Land of Israel."

Is this not a case of "love that subverts the norm"?

On the other hand, it

has been shown in the past that it is possible to enforce governmental

decisions without the use of violence on the part of the security forces. Was

this not a case of overzealousness of the kind described by the phrase "hatred

which subverts norms"?

It is important to

consider these questions, not in order to discover and punish the "guilty

party," but principally in order to improve the chances that even this

difficult disagreement be conducted without violence and in a manner respectful

of democratic values, just as the "Sanhedrin" would oversee and

restrain the "altar," and keep the "sword" from touching

it.

Pinchas

Leiser

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