OzTorah

Q. If a Jew appears to have committed a crime, such as possible sexual abuse, why doesn’t the Beth Din deal with him/her?

Over the centuries Jewish communities often enjoyed relative judicial autonomy (handling even criminal cases, laying down punishments and maintaining their own Jewish prison system), and on the whole the results were highly impressive.

However, we have a rule of dina d’malchuta dina (“The law of the land is the law”) which means that in matters in which the state has an inherent concern, e.g. taxation, we do not purport to override or circumvent the state legal system.

These days we have no hesitation about leaving criminal matters to the secular courts. We place no credence on emotional outbursts like “Do you really want to hand over a fellow Jew to the goyim?” Such statements reflect bitter experience of gentiles, but in a modern, democratic state they have no relevance. The police and the authorities who deal with criminal law are not “the goyim”; they are the citizenry and the due processes of law, with Jewish lawyers amongst the legal brains.

Q. Since the Torah tells us to remember the going out of Egypt all the days of our lives (Deut. 16:3), why do we need a special festival of remembrance?

A. True, we should remember the Exodus every day, not just on Pesach. But remembering is not our only duty.

There is also the duty of telling, which is what the name “Haggadah” literally means.

The remembering is for every day: the telling is especially for Pesach.

Rav Chaim of Brisk used to say there were several differences between the two duties.

Remembering is an individual act: you can remember the Exodus by yourself. Telling, however, is a community act: you put the story into words and share it with others.

Remembering is a process of thinking about the general nature of an event; telling requires you to recognise the sequence of the development of the story.

Two further points can be made. Remembering can be academic, but when you tell the story you become personally involved, so that you feel you are there, feeling the pain of the enslavement and sharing the joy at the redemption.

In addition, after remembering and telling, you instinctively want to praise God for His miracles and his deliverances.

This suggests a new translation of a well-known passage in the Haggadah, “The more one tells of the going out from Egypt, harei zeh meshubbach” – though these words are usually rendered, “the more he is praised”, they could be translated, “the more God is praised”.

Building the tabernacle was an urgent priority. The work had to proceed with energy and alacrity.

But there was one proviso: Shabbat had to be a rest day: “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you must have a holy day” (Ex. 35:2). Work had to be suspended for the Sabbath day.

A day had to replace a building in the consciousness of every Israelite. Not that there would not have been grumbles. “I have so many things to do,” Moses must have been told; “how can God expect me to drop everything for 24 hours?”

The modern rabbi hears the same complaint: “Rabbi, you don’t know how fierce the pressure is; Saturday just simply has to be business as usual!”

But nothing should allow Shabbat to be pushed aside or compromised, and it is not because Judaism is harsh or inhumane.

The “business as usual” syndrome is possibly good for business, but it is disastrous for human relations, for peace of mind, for personal sanity and the human spirit. People tend to have no time for the family: Shabbat gives them the opportunity.

They have no time to think: Shabbat gives them this precious gift. They have no time to breathe the air and look up from the frantic scurrying that keeps them chained: Shabbat clears their lungs, restores their equilibrium and calms their mind and heart.

Shabbat also turns a person into a mensch: life is so competitive that everyone else is a potential rival, but when Shabbat comes, the other person is a human being like oneself, a friend and not an enemy.

How right the sages were when they said that Shabbat is a foretaste of life in the World to Come, “the day which will be all Shabbat”.

The sidra is called P’kudei, “accounts”. It reports the audit of the funds used towards the tabernacle.

Moses, as the leader of the people, was entrusted with considerable sums, and he had to account for them all.

Would anyone have accused him of fraud or embezzlement? Probably not. But even a Moses has to show that all he does is totally above board, beyond all criticism or question.

The same applies to anyone who has money to administer. No-one is exempt from giving din vacheshbon, “account and reckoning”.

Metaphorically we all have to face an audit and give a din vacheshbon every day of our lives. How we live, what we do, how we relate to other people, how we relate to God – nothing escapes scrutiny on some level.

The sages even hint that in the World to Come we will be required to account for how we handled all the opportunities that life presented us with.

Let us hope that the Chief Auditor on high will declare Himself satisfied.

Q. Why are Talmudical colleges called yeshivot? When did yeshivot begin?

A. The term comes from a verb that means “to sit”. It indicates that intense study requires deep concentration.

According to rabbinic tradition, yeshivah study began in ancient Biblical times under the auspices of Shem and Ever.

There were famous academies in the days of the Talmud, not necessarily for full-time students but for anyone who wanted to discover the inner meaning of the tradition.

Twice a year, during Adar and Ellul, when agricultural work had slowed down, the academies were crowded for adult education courses. These were known as kallah months, possibly because kallah is made up of the initial letters of k‘nesset lom’dei haTorah, “assembly of students of Torah”. Thereafter, in every Jewish community, the local rabbi would conduct a school for advanced students.

The purpose was not to train rabbis – the professional rabbinate did not emerge until the late Middle Ages – but to produce learned laymen. Some of these yeshivot attained a very high reputation. The yeshivah system ensured that intense Torah study would remain a top Jewish priority. (For more details, see Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 16, s.v. “Yeshivot”).

It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that we see the modern yeshivah emerge, attracting students from out-of-town and sometimes developing an international reputation.

This was especially due to the followers of the Vilna Gaon, especially Reb Chayyim Volozhiner who established a great yeshivah in Volozhin (near Vilna), Lithuania, in 1802. His example was followed in other parts of Lithuania and elsewhere, in due course accompanying Talmud study with mussar sessions aiming to develop piety and ethical character amongst the students.

For a long period the yeshivot were mostly non-Chassidic, but eventually the Chassidic movement also built up an intellectual tradition; all groups within orthodoxy felt the need to counter the secularist trends of the Haskalah. Some yeshivah students were illuyim – intellectual prodigies; others could not take study at such a high level and some dropped out of orthodoxy altogether.

There were brave attempts to create yeshivot in central and western Europe, the United States and Britain; some, such as Gateshead in the north of England became world-famous.

In Israel a few great yeshivot came into being before the Second World War, sometimes transplanted from eastern Europe. An example is the Slobodka yeshivah which suffered greatly in the Hebron riots of 1929 and later moved to Jerusalem.

After the Holocaust, transplanted yeshivot in Israel bore the names of Mir, Ponieviezh, Pressburg, etc.; great yeshivot came into being in the United States; and the Talmudic tradition began to flourish in many other countries. In 1945 some critics wrote off orthodoxy and Talmud study, but their grim predictions have been confounded by the facts.

Early in the history of the State of Israel, David Ben Gurion agreed to grant generous conditions to yeshivot and Talmudic students in order to assist the revitalisation of orthodox tradition, though today there are complaints from some that the yeshivot and their students are proliferating to such an extent that thousands of students are shielded from the realities of economic life and national duty.

Whatever policies the Israeli government decides upon in this area, it is however undeniable that there are more serious students of Torah in Israel today than ever existed anywhere in Jewish history, even in eastern Europe and even in Babylon in Talmudic days.