WHEN YOU REAP THE HARVEST OF YOUR LAND, YOU SHALL NOT REAP ALL THE WAY TO THE EDGES OF YOUR FIELD OR GATHER THE GLEANINGS OF YOUR HARVEST. YOU SHALL NOT PICK YOUR VINEYARD BARE, OR GATHER THE FALLEN FRUIT OF YOUR VINEYARD; YOU SHALL LEAVE THEM FOR THE POOR AND THE STRANGER: I AM THE LORD.

(Vayikra 19: 9-10)

 

 

Anyone who leaves the gleanings, the forgotten sheaf and the edge of the field for the poor, is regarded as if he had built the Temple and offered sacrifices therein.

(Rashi on Vayikra 23:22, based on Silberman trans.)

 

Do Gifts for the Poor Serve the Interests of the Giver? Of the Receiver? Of the World?

For God wants his Chosen People to be bedecked with every good and precious virtue, and that they possess blessed souls and magnanimous spirit. I have already written that deeds influence the soul, making it good and allowing God's blessing to rest upon it. There is no doubt that when someone leaves part of his produce out in the field so that the needy may take it freely, his soul shall be satisfied and his spirit blessed and proper, and that God will satisfy him with His bounty and his soul shall dwell in goodness.

(Sefer Ha-Hinukh Mitzvah #213)

 

You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger - It is evident that these laws are not made for the direct purpose of the actual maintenance of the poor. Even the poor man himself has to leave his gleanings, the forgotten sheaf, and the edge of the field from his own field to other poor people! It is clear that, at once at the harvest, at the moment when a person takes home that which Nature and his own hard-work has yielded to him, and puts the proud and far-reaching words "my own" in his mouth, these laws are to remind every member of the Nation, and to demand an act of recognition from him, of the fact that this "my own" includes for everybody the duty of caring for others who are needy... that in God's holy state the care for the poor and the stranger without property is not a matter which is left to the greater or lesser soft-hearted feelings of sympathy... but is raised to a God-given right to the poor, and a God-ordained duty to the owners of property from God.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 19:10, Isaac Levy translation)

 

 

Laws for the Sake of Humans

Ariel Rathaus

 

Aharei Mot (literally, after the deaths) is the only parasha whose very name mentions death. And yet, smack in the middle of it, we find a powerful statement of the connection between Torah and life It is a verse which we are used to reading every year in the Minhah service of Yom Kippur just minutes before the recitation of Sefer Yonah, a story whose fundamental message is that God spares the lives of Nineveh's many inhabitants. The passage from our parasha reads:

You shall keep My laws and My norms, by the pursuit of which man shall live, I am the Lord (Vayikra 18:5).

It would appear that the verse's meaning hardly required stating - i.e., that the Torah's commandments are geared towards shaping the Israelite life-style, and that the Israelites are required to live in accordance with them. Alternatively, a more midrashic reading (found in Sifra on the verse) has it that the commandments gain life in the world to come for those who observe them. However, the Sages went way beyond these interpretations, and pinned a number of powerful messages upon the verse.

One of these homilies is concerned with the study of the Torah by gentiles. The Talmud repeatedly attributes it to Rabbi Meir, while some midrashic sources attribute it to the tanna Rabbi Yirmiya, a member of Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi's circle. It would appear to be among the most resolutely "humanistic" statements in the entire rabbinic corpus, and it deals with the universal connotations of the word adam (a human), which is used in our verse instead of less inclusive phrases, such as any man of the house of Israel (Vayikra 17:10), or any Israelite (17: 13):

Rabbi Meir would say: From whence do we know that even an idolater who is occupied with Torah [study] is like a High Priest? Because it says by the pursuit of which adam shall live - it does not say Priests, Levites, or Israelites, but rather, adam. From this you learn that even an idolater who is occupied with Torah [study] is like a High Priest. (Sanhedrin 59a)

This exegesis is quite radical in its overturning of the exclusive relationship between the People Israel and the Torah of Israel. It announces that the divine message of Scripture is addressed to adam qua humanity in general. Not surprisingly, the Talmudic Sages drastically limited its meaning and application. The Gemara juxtaposes to it an antithetical statement of Rabbi Yohanan, saying that "a gentile who occupies himself with Torah [study] incurs the death penalty." (It seems that this harsh dictum was expressed in reaction to Christian attempts to appropriate scripture for themselves, the "True Israel" See E. E. Urbach's The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, pp. 489-90 in the original or pg. 550 in Israel Abraham's English translation) At the end of the day, the Talmud harmonizes the apparently contradictory views of Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yohanan It concludes that Rabbi Meir's statement applies to a gentile who limits his Torah study to the seven Noahide commandments which he is required to observe. However, if he studies the other parts of the Torah that are intended solely for a Jewish audience, he will indeed deserve the death penalty. (It should be mentioned that the poskim viewed Rabbi Yohanan's ruling as completely theoretical, and it really functions as a kind of aggadic statement. See the RaMBaM's (Hilkhot Melakhim 10:9) opinion, which says that if a gentile studies areas of the Torah beyond the Noahide commandments "they flog him and punish him, and tell him that he deserves to die for his actions, but he is not killed.")

A different drasha referring to our verse expresses a less extreme view than that of Rabbi Meir. Although it treats an entirely different issue and in much less strident language, it still springs from a philosophical foundation similar to that of Rabbi Meir's dictum. This world-view finds one of its most impressive and exalted expressions in Rabbi Akiva's famous statement:

Adam is beloved, having been created in the [Divine] image. He is especially beloved to have been informed that he was created in the [Divine] image. (Avot 3:14)

The second drasha on our verse comes in connection to the explication of the roots of a central principle of Jewish law, i.e. "Pikuah nefesh [regard for human life] pushes aside the Sabbath." Yoma 85a-b brings several different opinions regarding the scriptural basis for this principle, and it is worth mentioning the two views which seem most antithetical to each other; those of the tanna Rabbi Shimon ben Menasiya and of the amora Shemuel.

According to Rabbi Shimon ben Menasiya, the verse the Israelite people shall keep the Sabbath (Shemot 31:16) underpins the rule of pikuah nefesh, that the Sabbath must be violated when necessary in order to preserve human life. It is as if the Torah were telling us: "violate one Sabbath for his sake, so that he may be able to keep many other Sabbaths." Paradoxically, this argument demonstrates that, contrary to what we usually suppose, the principle of pikuah nefesh does not unequivocally voice a humanistic outlook. Here we see that concern for the preservation of human life does not automatically imply that human life is itself an absolute value, overriding all other values. It appears that for Rabbi Shimon ben Menasiya, the truly ultimate value is the Sabbath itself, and the preservation of Jewish life is instrumental for the realization of that value: a dead person cannot observe the Sabbath. In order for their to be a Sabbath in the world, there must be living people to observe it.

Shemuel's stand is completely different. He finds the source for pikuah nefesh in the verse from the parasha which I have been discussing; by the pursuit of which man shall live. He is especially concerned with the two final words. The verse says ve'hai bahem (in which [man] shall live) - and not she'yimot bahem (in which he shall die). In other words: The mitzvot are intended to strengthen life and not to destroy it. This is a straight-forward demand that human life should be taken as an ultimate value. For all its importance, the Sabbath is subordinate to the value of human life not only at the pragmatic level, but also in principle. This we hear from Rabbi Yonatan ben Yosef: "It [the Sabbath] is given into your hands, and you are not given over to the hands of the Sabbath."

Shemuel's drasha interprets the words ve'hai bahem as setting forth a clear order of preferences regarding the observance of the mitzvot that opens the way for a view of the entire Torah as a basis for the fulfillment of man's aspiration to a proper human life, where the words "proper human life" are understood in the plainest and most down-to-earth sense. (This aspiration should supplement, rather than contradict the great metaphysical goal of the establishment of a kingdom of priests).

From amongst the medieval exegetes, RaMBaN best expressed this notion. He extended the application of the Talmudic discussion described above beyond the technical limits of pikuah nefesh, commenting on our verse as follows:

Plain interpretation should take the words and my norms literally, i.e., as including all of the laws stated in parashat Mishpatim, and in the entire Torah. That is why it says by the pursuit of which man shall live - for these laws were given for the sake of human life through the building up of countries and of human well-being, that no one should harm or kill his neighbor. And so, Ezekiel repeated this phrase many times, by the pursuit of which man shall live (Ezekiel 20:11, 13, 21)... and our Rabbis said [in which man] shall live and not [in which man] shall die, to teach that pikuah nefesh overrides the Sabbath and the commandments.

The RaMBaN understands the word mishpatim (norms) in our verse in accordance with its use in the beginning of parashat Mishpatim. There it refers to the commandments regulating how human beings treat each other; commandments which guarantee that proper relations prevail amongst the members of the Jewish People. He adds that ve'hai bahem is here mentioned because the laws of the Torah as a whole serve the sacredness of life. They are intended in their very essence to serve as the basis for a society in which man is not a wolf to man, a society in which it is possible for one to live in peace and well-being. The law of pikuah nefesh is the most salient feature of this ideal. We have seen how Shemuel derived it from the words ve'hai bahem, but this is not represented here as an abstract legal notion, nor as having relevance only in extreme and unusual circumstances in which observance of the commandments invites life-threatening danger. Rather, it appears as an essential and integral part of the everyday existence which the Torah wishes to establish for the good of man himself.

From all of this we may learn that our aspirations for a decent society whose members enjoy peace and in which no one hurts his neighbor does not stand in contradiction to the Jewish People's other goals. In fact, the broad interpretation of pikuah nefesh offered above may even grant priority to our societal aspirations over other mitzvot. We can only hope that, as in previous generations, more and more of the faithful among our generation of Jews will become convinced of the great importance of the divine command ve'hai bahem, and that they will increase in their desire to base our Jewish existence in the Land of Israel and in the world as a whole upon the love of life and respect for all human beings who were created in the image of God.

Dr. Ariel Rathaus is a literary researcher and translator

 

 

When a stranger resides in your land, you shall not wrong him.

(Vayikra 19:33)

 

The true moral test occurs "in your land"

We learned - Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol says: Why does the Torah warn us thirty six times - some say: forty-six time - regarding [mistreatment of] the stranger? Lest you drive him back to evil ways. Why is it written, You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Shemot 23:20)? They learned - Rabbi Natan says: Do not point out your own shortcoming [i.e., having been a stranger yourself] in others.

(Bava Metziya 59b)

 

A stranger resides in your land: If he was a stranger in a foreign country where you too are a stranger, it would only be natural to love him, for it is the custom of strangers [i.e. aliens] to love each other (Pesahim 113), and you sympathize with his troubles in order to avoid them yourself. But if he lives in your land, in any case do not wrong him.

(Ha-Emek Davar Vayikra 19:33)

 

And love your neighbor as yourself

And love your neighbor as yourself - Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principle of the Torah.

Ben Azzai says: This is the record of Adam's line [When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God] (Bereishit 5:1) is an even greater principle.

(Sifra, Kedoshim 2)

 

It cannot be understood literally, since it is well-known that "your life takes precedent over that of your friend." Rather, the RaMBaM (Hilkhot Avel 14) explains it as meaning "[doing for your friend] as you would wish your friend would do for you." It is obvious that no one would expect his friend to love him as much as he loves himself, but rather to the proper extent taking into account good manners and how close the people are to each other - to that same degree you must love other people. That is why it [love your neighbor...] appears immediately after the preceding admonition [You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge]. Just as in the case when you wrong someone, you would not want him to take vengeance, but you would rather have him forgive your sin, so you should treat your neighbor as well. This is how the juxtaposition of the passages is to be interpreted according to the RaMBaM.

I learned another explanation of their juxtaposition from the Jerusalem Talmud (Nedarim 9:4), which states:

It is written; You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk How does this work? If one cuts meat [with one hand] and accidentally cuts [the other] hand would he then cut the ["offending"] hand? And love your neighbor as yourself. Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principle of the Torah.

This means that one who takes vengeance against his fellow is like someone who cuts meat. The hand holding the knife is negligent and cuts the other hand. Could someone imagine striking the hand that cut to avenge it? Similarly, love your neighbor as yourself follows you shall not take vengeance Even though one's own life and well-being take precedence over those of one's friend, in any case it is as if the two were one in the same person - even though it be proper for one limb to strike the other, in any case if the damage is already done there is no point to taking vengeance against the offending limb. Similarly, one should not take vengeance against one's fellow who has already harmed him, since he is just like you, all of Israel being a single soul.

(NeTziV MiVolozhon's Ha-Emek Davar, Vayikra 19:18).

 

 

 

 

If you enjoy Shabbat Shalom, please consider contributing towards its publication and distribution.

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel $1000
• English edition distributed via email $ 100

Issues may be dedicated in honor of an event, person, simcha, etc. Requests must be made 3-4 weeks in advance to appear in the Hebrew, 10 days in advance to appear in the English email.

Tax exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made through the New Israel Fund or PEF.

Contributions should be marked as donor-advised to OzVeShalom/Netivot Shalom, Shabbat Shalom project.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NEW ISRAEL FUND IS NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS UNDER $50. FOR DONATIONS BETWEEN $50 AND $999 THEY ARE CHARGING A $50 SERVICE CHARGE. DONATIONS ABOVE $1000 ARE CHARGED A 5% FEE.

New Israel Fund, POB 91588, Washington, DC 20090-1588, USA

New Israel Fund of Great Britain, 26 Enford Street, London W1H 2DD, Great Britain

PEF will also channel donations and provide a tax-exemption. Donations should be sent to P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., 317 Madison Ave., Suite 607, New York, New York 10017 USA

 

About us:

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of a civil society in Israel. It is committed to promoting the ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and justice, concepts which have always been central to Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of Israel and it no less views peace as a central religious value. It believes that Jews have both the religious and the national obligation to support the pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish law clearly requires us to create a fair and just society, and that co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an option but an imperative.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's programs include both educational and protest activities. Seminars, lectures, workshops, conferences and weekend programs are held for students, educators and families, as well as joint seminars for Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Protest activities focus on issues of human rights, co-existence between Jews and Arabs, and responses to issues of particular religious relevance.

9,000 copies of a 4 page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to over 350 synagogues in Israel and are sent overseas via email. Our web site is www.netivot-shalom.org.il

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom's educational forums draw people of different backgrounds, secular and religious, who are keen to deepen their Jewish knowledge and to hear an alternative religious standpoint on the subjects of peace and social issues.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom fills an ideological vacuum in Israel's society. Committed both to Jewish tradition and observance, and to the furthering of peace and coexistence, the movement is in a unique position to engage in dialogue with the secular left and the religious right, with Israeli Arabs and with Palestinians.