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 [the agricultural produce left for the poor during the harvest]. When a wicked man and an honest man stand before you in judgment, do not say "Since he is wicked I shall rule against him." That is why it says; You shall not subvert, etc. - [it refers to] he [who] is needy in respect to his performance of commandments.

(Yalkut Shimoni Mispatim 352)

 

You shall not subvert - This is the opposite of nor shall you show deference, and its meaning is to warn you not to find him guilty just because his poverty makes him unimportant to you.

(ShaDaL Shemot 23:6)

 

keep far from a false charge - How do we know that if two people come for judgment, one dressed in rags and the other dressed in garb worth a hundred measures [of silver], that they are told: [Either] dress yourself like him [in rages]* or dress him after your own fashion? We learn it from the verse, keep far from a false charge.**

(Shvuot 31a)

*In order that you not cause us to be partial to you and that you not cause me to avoid saying things against you because of your importance, lest I say, "How shall the court believe me [in my charges] concerning such an important man?"

**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 not mistreat any widow or orphan. If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives 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 mother Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac 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 Lord has called you back as a wife forlorn and forsaken. Can one cast off the wife of his youth? - said your God. For a little while I forsook you, but with a vast love I will bring you back. In slight anger, for a moment, I hid My face from you; but with kindness everlasting I will take 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 Lord God will wipe the tears away from all faces and will put an end to the 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 the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, 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

Editor

 

 

 

 

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

• Hebrew edition distributed in Israel $700
• 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.

In Israel, checks made out to Oz VeShalom may be sent to Oz VeShalom-P.O.B. 4433, Jerusalem 91043. Unfortunately there is no Israeli tax-exemption for local donations.

US and British tax-exempt contributions to Oz VeShalom may be made through:

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

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

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NEW ISRAEL FUND IS NO LONGER ACCEPTING DONATIONS UNDER $100.

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

All contributions should be marked as donor-advised to Oz ve'Shalom, the Shabbat Shalom project.

 

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.

5,000 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.