OzTorah

It sounds like heavy sarcasm when the Torah declares that in wartime an army should not attack the trees, “for is the tree of the field a man that you should besiege it?” (Deut. 20:19-20).

The question is, “What has the tree ever done to you that you should attack it?” Fair enough, but why should you attack a human being either? What have the human beings on the opposing side ever done to you that you should want to harm them?

There is that famous story of the Xmas truce between German and allied troops in World War I. For a day both sides laid down their arms and celebrated Xmas by fraternising and showing each other photographs of their families. When the day was over it was of course business as usual, the guns started aiming and each side killed the other.

From the ethical point of view human beings and trees should both be treated alike. “Save the trees” is fair enough – but so is “Save the human beings”.

What the Torah has in mind is addressed by the classical commentators and much can be said on the subject. For today let us limit ourselves to a view that Ibn Ezra quotes and rejects, though one can take issue with him on this. He says, “What point is there in saying, ‘Don’t cut down a fruit tree because it is not like man who can flee from you’?”

When you attack human beings of any kind, you are compromising the dictates of ethics. But human beings can at least (sometimes) escape and run away and survive, whilst trees are fixtures. Their legs are deeply rooted in the ground. They have no chance of running away and are doomed the moment you target them.

This is an argument which has a bearing on the Holocaust. In the debate about whether the Sho’ah was unique, we should not forget that the viciousness of the enemy determined to cut off all means of escape for Jews.

All Jews, they decided, had to be eradicated. No escapes, no exemptions, no exits. Total destruction, absolute annihilation. It was not warfare in which a soldier has a chance. It was like an attack on the trees. Fleeing was impossible.

Baruch HaShem, some of European Jewry did survive, but that does not excuse one iota of the fiendish Nazi plan.

Q, How do you organise a gett if you live in Adelaide, where there is no Beth Din?

A. By means of a procedure called Kit’vu Ut’nu – literally “Write and Give”.

Once the details have been approved by the Beth Din, the husband, wherever he is, authorises in the presence of two observant orthodox witnesses the drawing up of the divorce document by a nominated scribe, the signing of the document by two nominated witnesses and its handing over by a nominated agent.

On the basis of the authorisation, the gett is written, signed and entrusted to the agent in the presence of the Beth Din, and the handing over is arranged either in Adelaide or at the Beth Din in Sydney or Melbourne.

Q. How can we really say the words, “Blessed are You”, suggesting that it makes God feel good if we bless Him?

A. There are many passages which suggest just that, e.g. the Yom Kippur poem, V’avita tehillah – “You desire praise”.

It is not that God is susceptible to flattery or that our praise makes Him a better God, but that focussing on His greatness we realise our own littleness and we learn to appreciate His boons and become humble and thankful.

However, grammatically, Baruch attah HaShem probably does not mean “Blessed are You” at all, but “You are the Source of blessing”.

Jacob Emden, an 18th-century authority on the Siddur, says baruch is not passive (“You are blessed”) but active (“You bless”). Words with the same grammatical structure (a-u) are rachum (compassionate) and channun (gracious).

Q. What are the reasons for the kosher laws?

A. The Torah does not specify the reasons for kashrut, but it associates it with holiness. Thus the careful process of shechitah aids holiness by sparing the animal all possible pain.

The methods of slaughtering and soaking and salting the meat promote the removal of the blood; Ezekiel associates the eating of blood with the sins of idolatry and murder. Thus removing the blood symbolises our abhorrence of bloodshed.

Not mixing milk and meat, and all the other aspects of kashrut, were regarded by the rabbis as a means of discipline and moral conduct.

A famous passage states, “A person should not say, ‘I do not like the flesh of swine’, but ‘It might well be tasty, but what can I do, seeing that my Father in Heaven has forbidden it to me?'”

Maimonides says the dietary laws “accustom us to restrain the growth of desire and the disposition to consider the pleasure of eating as the purpose of human existence.”

A loyal Jewish home is a kosher home. A kosher home expresses Jewish identity and ensures that even the most banal daily activities have a quality of Jewishness and refinement.

Further, by restricting the places where a Jew can freely eat, kashrut reinforces the importance of home and family life.

The gift of free will with which the sidra opens sounds so wonderful: “everything is up to you,” it proclaims.

“You have two choices, life and death, blessing and curse – the choice is yours!”

If only it worked like that.

We do not ask to be born, nor do we generally have control over our death. These are not matters of choice at all. They are imposed upon us.

Other things are foisted upon us too – our genetic inheritance and often our cultural milieu too.

We almost feel like echoing Omar Khayyam: “The moving finger writes – and having writ moved on”.

Is this free will concept some cruel joke?

Is it that we have free will in theory but no free will in actual fact?

That cannot be what the Torah has in mind.

The theologians offer countless answers. The most straightforward is probably that of Maimonides in the Eight Chapters on Ethics.

He says that physical facts like when we are born and whether we will be tall or short are beyond our control.

What is, however, up to us is our moral life. God determines whether we will be tall; we decide whether we will be good.

The quantity of our life is up to God: its quality is up to us.