I PLEADED WITH THE LORD AT THAT TIME, SAYING, "...LET ME, I PRAY, CROSS OVER AND SEE THE GOOD LAND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE JORDAN, THAT GOOD HILL COUNTRY, AND THE LEBANON."

(Devarim 3:23, 25)

 

For the same state is in store for all (Kohelet 9:2) - Moses said to God: Master of the Universe, all are equal before you; you destroy the innocent and the wicked alike. The spies angered you by speaking ill of the Land, as it is said, thus they spread calumnies about the land (Bamidbar 13:32), while I served your children before you in the wilderness for forty years, and we share the same fate!?

What is this like? A king wished to marry a certain woman. He sent messengers to see whether she was beautiful or not. They went and saw her, and came to the king and said to him: "There is none as ugly and desolate as her." His best man heard and told him, "Not so, my Lord, there is no woman more beautiful than her in the world." He went to marry her, and the girl's father told the king's messengers: "I swear on the king's life that not one of you shall enter here, because you scorned her in the king's presence." The best man arrived to enter, and he told him: "You, too, will not enter." The best man said to him: "I did not see her, yet I told the king that there is none more beautiful than her in the world. They said there is none uglier than her. Now let me be, and I will see which of us spoke truthfully."

So Moses said to God: "My Master, the spies spread calumny about the Land and said it is a country that devours its inhabitants (Bamidbar 13:32), but I did not see it, yet I praised it to your sons, and I said, the Lord your God brings you to a goodly land (Devarim 8:7). Now I shall see it and know whether my words or theirs were correct, as it is said, Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan (Devarim 3:25). He told him: you shall not go across (3:27). Moses told Him: "If so, all are the same to you - you destroy the innocent and the wicked alike."

 (Tanhuma Va'et'hanan 1)

 

 

When You Have Begotten Children and Children's Children:

The Limits of Control and Kindness

Ya'ir Furstenberg

 

Moses' speeches, in which he entreats the people to uphold the Torah when they enter the Land, are shot through with an intense concern for the relations between fathers and sons, parent and children. The complexity of such relationships is reflected in their many different facets that find expression in the parasha, all of them born of Moses' ruminations. Here we shall consider one of them.

Moses quotes the Ten Commandments in the central portion of the parasha. Suddenly, we find a description of God's providence slipped in between two commandments:

You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon their children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Shemot 20:5-6; Devarim 5:9-10)

These words publicly declare the goal of the observance of the commandments: Walking the straight and narrow is intended to protect one's children and descendants. One who does not follow the straight path bears responsibility for the harm caused by God's anger not only to himself, but also to his descendants. On the other hand, the behavior of one who loves God guarantees his children's safety. The very simplicity of this notion certainly helped it become a constitutive element of the religious mind-set. However, Moses himself is aware that it is insufficient both as a description of divine providence, and of the relations between parents and children. As a result, we find Moses offering alternatives to it in different contexts.

The public declaration made at Mount Sinai holds both the lover and the hater of God completely responsible for their children's futures. However, during his intimate encounter with God in the cleft of the rock, Moses heard more subtle distinctions. Intergenerational relations are described differently there. The split announced at Mount Sinai between, visiting the guilt of the parents upon their children... of those who reject Me as against showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me, is replaced in the cleft of the rock with a continuum wrapped in kindness:

Extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon and children's children, upon the third and fourth generations. (Shemot 34:7)

God maintains kindness even to transgressors; the sin of the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf was forgiven, and their punishment reduced. Yohanan Mops, in his book, Ahava Ve-Simha: Hok, Lashon va-Dat ba-Mikra u've-Sifrut HaZaL (Love and Joy: Law, Language, and Religion in Scripture and in Rabbinic Literature), pg. 14, mentions that according to the biblical view, the deferral of punishment to future generations is seen as a kindness. Only so can we understand why, after the sin of the spies, Moses prays to God, reminding Him of His attribute of visiting the iniquity of parents upon and children's children. Moses wants to put off the execution of the punishment, and so to soften it.

What kindness could there be in punishing a son instead of his father? What use is such a deferral if the affliction will be the same affliction? Paradoxically, and despite our difficulty identifying with a stance that endorses the punishment of innocents, it seems that this position can only make sense in the context of a fundamentally optimistic world-view. Our children will be stronger than us, we tell ourselves, and they shall cope with problems that would have beaten us. This attitude is more clearly exemplified at the national level. The death of 600,000 would have finished off the Jewish People in its youth. After finding its strength and endurance, such a punishment becomes survivable.

In this way, God also tries to redraw the relationship of parents to children in His intimate encounter with Moses in the cleft of the rock. From now one, a parent will not think only of his children's future when deciding how to act. His actions are no longer absolutely and directly responsible for the well-being of future generations. A psychological truth was revealed in the cleft of the rock: that while a parent does indeed care for his children and wishes the best for them, he also has faith in his children's own abilities, and is willing to let the next generation take upon itself the burden of sin.

In our parasha, when Moses addresses the people, he does not reveal in this way the secret he learned in the cleft of the rock. Rather, through his various treatments of the issue, he offers his own alternative picture.

In the end of the parasha, Moses makes a surprising statement:

Know, therefore, that only the Lord your God is God, the steadfast God who keeps His covenant faithfully to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments, but who instantly requites with destruction those who reject Him - never slow with those who reject Him, but requiting them instantly. Therefore, observe faithfully the Instruction - the laws and the rules - with which I charge you today. (Devarim 7: 9-11)            

With these words, Moses once again contradicts the announcement made at Sinai, according to which those who hate God condemn their children after them. Instead of visiting the guilt of the parents upon their children, Moses says God is never slow with those who reject Him, but requiting them instantly. According to the latter statement, coming generations may only be affected by their parent's actions in a positive way; the parent's righteousness gains mercy for the children. This deviation from the public pronouncement sheds light upon the existential condition of the people as a whole. The election of the Jewish People can only be understood against the background of the righteousness of the Patriarchs; it was because the Lord favored you and kept the oath He made to your fathers (Devarim 7:8). It is impossible for the sins of the fathers to be visited upon the sons - that would stand counter to God's constant love towards the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is why Moses says that God keeps the covenant and the kindness (of the Patriarchs) for a thousand generations, and those He despises among their descendants He punishes immediately.

Concurrently, the complexity of the problem is revealed. Along side the notion of each person's place in the causal chain of history, Moses unravels the deterministic ties between generations and recognizes their mutual independence. In order to see how he does this, we must turn again to the way Moses chooses to quote the Ten Commandments.

The way Moses describes the epiphany at Mount Sinai wavers from the unambiguous view that parents determine their children's fate found in the Ten Commandments:

The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, the living, every one of us who is here today (Devarim 5: 2-3)

In this passage, Moses emphasizes that the status of one's parents is not enough to ensure one's place in the covenant. There is also more than a hint here that a Torah given to parents alone cannot endure. These words, which recognize the independence of future generations, reflect Moses' sophisticated view - a view that is not without pessimism. When he begins his description of the sins that will be later committed in the Land, he says When you have begotten children and children's children and are long established in the land, you shall act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness (4:25). The process is almost predetermined - the commandment given to the fathers and mothers will lose its force in the new world of their descendants, and Moses knows that they will suffer punishment for it. Where, then, is room left for Divine kindness?

Dissatisfaction against the overly simplistic picture presented at Mount Sinai is also revealed in the style in which Moses relates his more realistic view. He replaces You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, any likeness... For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon their children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations (5:8, 9) with a different image, based upon the same language:

Take care, then, not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God concluded with you, and not to make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness...For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, an impassioned God. When you have begotten children and children's children and are long established in the land, you shall act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness (4:23-5)

According to Moses' formulation, we should not fear our absolute influence upon our children's futures, fearing that they will suffer for our sins. Rather, we are constantly burdened with a different, but no less heavy existential burden: our lack of control over our children's futures - the recognition of our own powerlessness.

To the awareness of Divine kindness gained by Moses in the cleft of the rock, where he learned to have faith in the ability of future generations to bear God's wrath is added here an awareness of the anxiety which always gnaws at parents who are learning to offer their children independence. They are two necessary sides of the same coin.

Ya'ir Furstenberg is a Talmud student at Hebrew University and a father of two children.

 

 

Readers Respond: Reactions to Shira Leibowitz-Schmidt's article, which appeared in the Balak edition.

 

a) Shira Leibowitz-Schmidt wrote that modesty is a condition for our sovereignty over the Land. One may, of course, believe that our presence in the Land will be guaranteed if we behave according to the norms of modesty. I am acquainted with other beliefs, which hold that our presence in the Land will be secure, for example, if we behave as a proper society, realizing social justice. Those opinions are founded upon the prophecies of our greatest prophets, such as Isaiah, Amos, and Micah.

Amos attacks the wealthy hedonists, who remain completely oblivious to the sufferings of the poor (and who were unmoved by the disaster which befell the Kingdom of Israel), and foresees their ruin. Consider the sixth chapter of Amos:

They drink straight from the wine bowls and anoint themselves with the choicest oils - but they are not concerned about the ruin of Joseph. Assuredly, right soon they shall head the column of exiles; they shall loll no more at festive meals. My Lord God swears by Himself: I loathe the pride of Jacob, and I detest his fortresses. I will declare forfeit city and inhabitants alike - declares the Lord, the God of Hosts. (6-8)

Or the third chapter of Micah:

I said: Listen, you rulers of Jacob, you chiefs of the House of Israel! For you ought to know what is right, but you hate good and love evil, you have devoured My people's flesh; you have flayed the skin off them, and their flesh off their bones. And after tearing their skins off them, and their flesh of their bones, and breaking heir bones into bits, you have cut it up as into a pot, like meat in a cauldron...Her rulers judge for gifts, her priests give rulings for a fee, and her prophets divine for pay; yet they rely upon the Lord, saying, "The Lord is in our midst; no calamity shall overtake us." Assuredly, because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the Temple Mount a shrine in the woods. (1-3, 12-13)

(If these prophets were living in our days they would be accused of being, God forbid, leftists…)

The RaMBaM also claims that redemption is dependent upon justice. He writes:

The throne of Israel can be established and the true religion raised up only upon justice, for it is said, you shall be established in justice (Isaiah 54:14). Israel can only be redeemed through justice, for it is said, Zion shall be saved by justice, and her repentant ones by righteousness (Isaiah 1:27). (Hilkhot Matanot Aniyyim 10:1)

I also know people who believe that our hold on the Land will be guaranteed if we treat the minorities who live among us and the neighbors who live beside us properly and fairly. Even without bringing in the words of the prophets, we should act as a moral society.

I do not intend to invalidate anyone's beliefs, let each person live in accordance with his or her beliefs.

b) Shira Leibowitz-Schmidt brings as a proof-text the verse from Micah (6:8), and walk modestly with your God. Are these words really directed towards sexual modesty? It may be demonstrated from many classical Jewish sources that the term modesty (tzniut) bears additional meanings.

Men who are exacting in their observance of the commandments, but do so in a private and humble fashion are called modest [tzenuim] (Mishnah Demai 5:6), "the modest ones of Beit Hillel" (6:6), etc. However, women usually merit being called modest when they behave modestly in the erotic realm, when they diminish their presence in public as much as possible.

c) I am not advocating, God forbid, permissiveness in the erotic realm, but I am objecting to the extremism regarding sexual modesty which has spread in certain circles. In my articles on the modesty of the National-Haredi circle, I did not at all touch upon the question of the connection between modesty and faith in the success of our settlement of the Land, nor did I intend to touch upon it. Rather, I analyzed the phenomenon of the growing importance of the value of modesty in those circles, and I showed how they introduced a new (!) dimension to the discussion of modesty, which is rooted in mystical conceptions of Jewish nationalism. This mystical brand of Jewish nationalism and its ties to modesty are new indeed. If my articles were critical, it was not because of the novelty of the ideas there discussed, but rather because of the conclusions deduced from those ideas, which involve the exclusion of women from the center of social and public activity, and the reinforcement of differences between Israel and the nations of the world - including the issue of how we relate to the value of life.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves in one of the editions of Shabbat Shalom what the prophets Isaiah, Amos, and Micah would have to say if they were to suddenly appear among us.

Yoske Ahiytuv

 

Additional responses will appear in the edition for parashat Ekev.

 

 

 

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