Shabbat-B'Shabbato – Parshat Ki Teitzei

No 1390: 11Elul 5771 (10September 2011)

AS SHABBAT APPROACHES

"Sorer U'Moreh" – The Rebellious Son - by Rabbi Mordechai Greenberg, Rosh Yeshiva, Kerem B'Yavne

"If a man has a rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother..." [Devarim 21:18]. What does the unique term "sorer u'moreh" mean. Exactly what does the phrase "the voice of his father and the voice of his mother" mean?

In the Talmud we are told about the process of the creation of a new child: "There are three partners in the creation of a new person: The Holy One, Blessed be He, the father, and the mother. The father provides the white material from which the bones and the brain in the headare formed. The mother provides the red material from which skin and flesh are made, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, supplies the spirit and the soul." [Nida 31a]. This can be taken in a straightforward way to imply that the Almighty provides the soul, while the parents build up the "garment" for the soul: The mother is the source of the material element, the body, while the father is the source of the spiritual side, related to the Torah.

However, the task of the parents is not really limited only to the physical body. "Listen, my son, to the morals of your father, and do not abandon the Torah of your mother" [Mishlei 1:8]. It is the responsibility of the father to teach the child Torah, here described as "the morals of your father." The mother teaches proper behavior, which is called "the Torah of the mother." Thus, the "sorer" is a person who rebels against the morals of the father (similar to the word "mussar"). And "moreh" is a person who does not listen to the "Torah" of the mother – that is, to her teachings. In summary, a Ben Sorer U'Moreh follows neither the formal Torah nor proper codes of human behavior.

The above model is based on a division of labor between the father and the mother. The father teaches the Torah and the mitzvot. The mother, on the other hand, teaches proper behavior, and all of this is included in the physical elements provided by the mother. This then implies that the role of the mother was relevant before the onset of time, since as we know "derech Eretz" – proper natural behavior – preceded the Torah.Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote that the Torah did not give direct commands about behavioral traits since they are the human basis for the Torah, and it is impossible to build up the level of the Torah without first having a basis of natural morality. The sages see a hint of this in the Torah in the verse, "This is what you should say to the House of Yaacov" – referring to the women – "and tell the children of Yisrael" – referring to the men [Shemot 19:3]. "Thus, the women who are righteous are the first ones to provide material merits, so that the child will then be ready to achieve the intellect of the Torah" [Maharal].

With respect to the rebellious son, we have been taught, "If his mother and father are not equal in their voices, in their appearance, and in their height, the child is not declared a 'sorer u'moreh.'" [Sanhedrin 71a]. When the parents are not coordinated in matters of education and each one speaks in a different voice, it is no surprise that their son is a rebel. When the parents do not live in peace and if they do not show respect for each other, the children will feel a negative influence. Such a son is therefore not punished.

In addition, when the mother and father are impatient with their own parents, we should not be surprised to see that the children treat their mother and father the same way. A story is told about a father who had no patience to sit with his own father to eat. He gave his father a wooden bowl so that it would never be able to break, and he made him sit in the corner of the room. One day the father saw his young son carving something out of a piece of wood, and he asked the boy what he was doing. The answer was, "I am making a bowl for when you grow old..."

POINT OF VIEW

Don't Let the Turks Scare Us- by Rabbi Yisrael Rozen, Dean of the Zomet Institute

The Turkish Flotilla

I assume that the relationship between Israel and Turkey will occupy us for the near future. The current Prime Minister of Turkey has drawn his country into giving enthusiastic support for the Palestinians, thereby in effect declaring that his country is an enemy of Israel. For the moment, the controversy between Israel and Turkey centers on the flotilla which attempted to break the Israeli naval blockade of the terrorist entity in Azza. The attempt to penetrate the blockade was thwarted by an IDF commando unit. Nine Turkish citizens were killedDuring the operation, eight of them who declared that they were members of an organization that openly supports terrorism.

A United Nations committee has just published a report which justifies the blockade on Azza, but which also demands an apology and compensation from Israel for the use of exaggerated force in taking over the provocative ships.

Flattery Leading to Punishment

For the time being, our Prime Minister supports the position of the Foreign Minister – that we have nothing for which to apologize, and that we have the same right of defending ourselves as all other countries. The following is written in support of this approach, in spite of political and security-minded voices in Israel to the contrary, even from people who are prominent in the government. Theyseem to feel something along the lines of such statements as: "Let us make some sort of apology, as long as it will put the subject in the past. It is a pity to lose diplomatic, military, and economic relations with an important country in our area because of a one-time event. We have something to lose in the international arena as opposed to the stubborn and vengeful approach of the Turks. We should be smart and not try to appear right." And so on...

However, I assume that I am voicing the opinion of the vast majority of the Israeli public, who feel that if we are right – and we indeed are right! – we must not degrade our national pride and the truth of our security in order to placate the neighborhood bully, even if the subjectinvolves political and economic interests. This is certainly true with respect to the Turks, whose Prime Minister has evidently entered a phase of irrational anti-Israeli activity but who has not succeeded in dragging his nation after him (at least according to Israeli tourists who have been there). In addition, Turkey prides itself on being a democratic and secular country, and it cannot afford to appear in the world as a defender of Islam. I am therefore quite sure that the threatening and critical attitude of the Turkish Prime Minister is nothing more than a personal whim which will fade away with time.

Any surrender to this whim, even an apology couched in very diplomatic terms, will draw after it more and more apologies and greater strikes against us. This is similar to the world of crime, which strikes out at the heads of the weak, the defeated ones, and the downtrodden. Our Foreign Minister has aptly and openly expressed this position, and we can only send him our support.

Similarly, we must not set foot into the international court in the Hague or in any other international judicial institution. In fact, Israel should be the leaders of a move, to "shout out" in every international forum and at every opportunity, that there is a dire need to update and upgrade the international treaties in the face of international terrorism, especially that which stems from the monstrous approach of Islam. The time for the diplomacy of the nineteenth and even the twentieth century is over. We are living in the era of globalization, and this includes the world of the terrorists.

* * * * * *

The Turks and Us

And this is a good point to remember the (relatively) good relationship between world Jewry and the Turkish Jewish population and the Turkish government – both during the Turkish era and in more modern times.

"The kindness of youth" can be seen in the era when the Turkish Ottoman Empire opened its gates to welcome the refugees from Spain. In the Middle Ages and in most of the modern times the Jews of Turkey did not suffer from persecution or from restrictive laws. Just the opposite – they had economic freedom, and they held official positions, taking part in the broad range of officials in the Ottoman Empire. For generation after generation, the rabbis of Turkey enriched the Torah literature, and the volumes of responsa from Istanbul and Izmir fill large spaces in the Jewish bookshelf.

The Ottoman era in Eretz Yisrael, until the British conquest of 1917, is remembered as a time of new development, construction, building of an infrastructure, and devoid of enslavement. The Zionist movement owes the Ottoman Empire a vote of thanks for its support during the early days of pioneering settlement. Another kindness that will be remembered forever is the fact that the Holocaust skipped over the Jews of Turkey, due to the policies of the Turkish government, in spite of the fact that Turkey cooperated with the Nazis. The Jews of Greece and Saloniki were destroyed in the Holocaust, but their nearby neighbors, across the border in Turkey, were saved.

One "Turkish affair" which darkens the history of the Jews in the land reaches out all the way to Azza. This is the issue of the "Mashiach" Shabtai Tzvi and the "prophet" from Azza,Natan. The two men joined forces, in a complex relationship where it was not clear who was the leader and who was the disciple, and they succeeded in instigating a disaster for the Jews in their generation (in the middle of the seventeenth century). The flowering of mysticism at the time, and the opening of mystic studies to the level of "Kabbalah for the masses" and "courtyard masters of the Kabbalah" led to the rotten fruit of a false messiah, which ended in no less than the prophet's conversion to Islam. The prophet who gave him support also lost his status,and the man from Azza moved to Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the Balkans. He was put to rest in Macedonia. In my opinion, this unfortunate chapter in our history was nurtured by the atmosphere of the traditional Turkish tolerance towards its Jews.

RESPONSA FOR OUR TIMES

Repentance - by Rabbi Re'eim Hacohen, Rosh Yeshiva and Chief Rabbi, Otniel

Question: What is the essence of the mitzva of teshuva (repentance)?

Answer: After describing the punishment of exile as a result of the sin of idol worship, the Torah describes the return to G-d. "When you feel distress... You will return to your G-d and listen to His voice" [Devarim 4:30]. The concept of repentance and the return to Eretz Yisrael is also described later on: "And it will happen, when all of these things happen to you... And you will return to your own heart... And you will return to your G-d and listen to His voice... And you will return and listen to G-d's voice..." [30:1-3]."For you will return to your G-d with all your heart and all your soul. For this mitzva... is not beyond you and not far away from you." [30:10-11].

In his commentary, the Ramban explains that the phrase "this mitzva" is a reference to repentance. The Torah adds, "For it is close to you... it is in the power of your mouth and your heart to do it" [30:14]. The Ramban notes as follows: "They should confess their sins and the sins of their fathers with their mouths, and in their hearts they should return to G-d, and they should accept the Torah on this day in order to observe it during the following generations." Ba'al Haturim, Abarbanel, and Sforno agree with this interpretation.

In his list of the mitzvot at the beginning of the Laws of Repentance, the Rambam writes that there is "one positive mitzva – that a sinner should repent from his sin before G-d and confess." This seems to imply that the Rambam also feels that repentance is a mitzva. But it contradicts what he writes at the beginning of the book of laws itself: "With respect to every mitzva in the Torah, if a person violates any one of them... When he repents from his sin he is required to confess before G-d... And this confession is a positive mitzva." That is, the repentance itself is not the mitzva but only the confession. The verses that the Ramban explains as a command to repent are explained by the Rambam as a promise for the future (Hilchot Teshuva 7). Minchat Chinuch and others feel that the Rambam disagrees with the Ramban – that the Rambam feels that the confession is the essence of the mitzva, and that the act of repentance is a description of the situation but not a mitzva in itself. This approach seems to be supported by the words of the Rambam in Sefer Hamitzvot (73): "He has commanded us to confess our sins that we have committed before G-d and to describe them as part of our repentance. And that is the act of confession."

However, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik disagrees (based on the words of his father, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik). He proves that according to the Rambam a mitzva of repentance does indeed exist. He has several proofs for this. In the list of mitzvot quoted above repentance does appear as a mitzva. And even when the Rambam explains the verses quoted above as a promise, he writes, "All the prophets gave a command about repentance" [Hilchot Teshuva 7:5]. He also writes, "Therefore everybody is commanded to repent and to confess on Yom Kippur" [2:7]. Rabbi Soloveitchik explains this apparent discrepancy in a deeply analytic way typical of the learning style of Brisk: He says that the Rambam's count is related to the "observation" of the mitzvot while in his code of laws the Rambam is referring to the "action" of the mitzva. That is, repentance is an integral part of the mitzva of confession, and there can be no confession without repentance.

It would seem that the way Rabbi Soloveitchik differentiates between observing the mitzvot and thedescription of the mitzva can be applied to other laws too. For example, it is relevant to what Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook wrote in the last chapter of his book about Shemitta (Shabbat Ha'aretz) with respect to the mitzva of Shemitta. Rav Kook discusses the apparent contradiction in the words of the Rambam in his count of the mitzvot, "that the land should rest from its labor during Shemitta," as opposed to what he wrote in Hilchot Shevi'it, "There is a positive mitzva to rest in the seventh year." Rav Kook explains in his precise language that in the list of mitzvot the Rambam is involved in the "description" of the mitzva, while in his book of halacha the Rambam is describing the actions involved in the mitzva. That is why in the list of mitzvot the Rambam emphasizes the land while the emphasis in the halacha is the human action. A similar distinction applies to the words of the Rambam about prayer. In the list of mitzvot the Rambam writes that we must "worship G-d every day by praying," while the mitzva given at the beginning of the halacha is "to pray every day."

Evidently this is more than a semantic difference, and it is meant to convey the two simultaneous elements of a mitzva – describing it in abstract terms and also the specific actions that are required. With respect to teshuva, we can see that the Rambam demands from mankind and from society as a whole to be in a constant spiritual process of repentance, keeping in mind all the time that the way to accomplish this is by reciting the confession. We note that in his book, Orot Hateshuva, Rav Kook viewed repentance as a process of return to G-d even if no sins have been committed.

HALACHA FROM THE SOURCE

"Ashrei" as the Center of Pesukei D'Zimra - by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon, Rabbi of Southern Alon Shevut and a teacher in Yeshivat Har Etzion

As we have seen, the Talmud explains that "Ashrei" is important because it is in alphabetical sequence and because it includes the verse, "Open Your hand" [Tehillim 145:8], to provide for all creatures. Is this verse still so central to our prayers in modern times, when there is often an abundance of food and when the main problems of a livelihood no longer revolve around the question of food?

When a person reaches economic stability – general satisfaction, a good house, available money – there is a real danger that he may forget G-d and declare, "My own power and the strength of my hand have given me all of this wealth" [Devarim 8:17]. At such a point, it is necessary to have constant reminders that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is the one "who gives you the strength to acquire wealth" [8:18].