UTJ Viewpoints

According to Rav Hayyim Soloveitchik, the raven was sent by Noah from the ark in order to find dry land, thereby informing the ark’s passengers that it is safe to disembark from the ark. By returning to the ark, the raven, according to Rav Soloveitchik, did not answer the question, did not complete the mission, and did not complete its agency

The Hebrew idiom “urva parach”, meaning the “raven flew,” became an idiom that indicates a non-answer to a question. When one asks a question and the response is a rhetorical question, the response is inappropriate, rude, and involves an assumption of moral superiority

If a person is asked a question and does not know the answer, the answer to the question should be “I do not know.” By asking a rhetorical question as a non-responsive response, the responder is showing disrespecting to the questioner and himself to be a boor.

A story is told of a certain rosh yeshiva who was asked by a student, “why do you wear a hat when you pray?” The response given to the student by the rosh yeshiva was “I do not care to answer the question, it is sufficient to report that my father wore a hat when he prayed.”

If the student’s tone of voice was rude, then the reply would have been in place. But if the question was asked sincerely, a different syntax and different content would have been more fitting. But if the student asked out of curiosity, noting that there is an etiquette beyond the law that defines the Orthodox Jew, another kind of answer is appropriate.

If the rosh yeshiva said, “I prefer in the fashion of my father out of a sense of loyalty to his teaching and example, the answer would have been appropriate. If, however, he communicated the doctrine that we live in the past, we copy the past usages of our ancestors, and authentic “Tradition” are the folkways of our forbearers, he did not speak wisely or appropriately. Jewish Tradition is public law, not transmitted culture. The god of Mordecai Kaplan is the god of culture and is no god at all. Styles change. We do not show respect today by wearing hats indoors. At the seder we learn “that our ancestors served idols.” Our parents are right because and if they teach Torah; they are not right because they have the power of the stick or power of the purse. And Lamentations teaches that “our ancestors sinned and are no more, and as for us, we bear [the consequence] of their iniquity. Torah Judaism is God worship, and ancestor worship.
Ancestor worship went out of Israelite style with the Canaanites. The enwrapping of the head is not done with the European hat but with the sheet or talleit, like the Ishmaelite.

Torah is a religion of commandments that purify the soul. Paganism, in all its fashions, use rituals as loyalty gestures made to people who claim to be holier, higher, and mightier. When we are asked questions, may we merit the insight not to incite, to answer with truth, integrity, gentility, gently, with clarity, and with love.

The Biblical word for miracle, nes, is originally Sumerian and it means “sign.” The other Hebrew word for “sign” and “letter” is ot. Signs stand for something that we grasp with intuition, that makes meaning meaningful. The miracle of the human mind is that it is capable of thinking symbolically.

1. How have miracles been understood and misunderstood,
2. what does the Torah teach regarding miracles,
3. and how is the Torah teaching regarding miracles essential to the message of Yom Kippur?

In common language, a “miracle” is a violation of natural law. Miraculous claims violate common sense, the expected and accepted, and we assume that we cannot accept miracles because we cannot or are not programmed to see miracles. Rationalists tell us that only fools believe in miracles. Would a metal ingot float in a bathtub? We see tankers float in the water and jets fly in the air. Our eyes are not sufficient to see miracles. Miracles cannot be studied by historians, but human reports regarding miracles express meaning and these reports are subject to study.

In pagan thought, the gods, while beneath nature, can occasionally change nature. The ability to change nature is an expression of power. Magic provided the Egyptian elite of Moses’ time with power, and hence, authority. Christianity’s founder claimed the power to do miracles and, because of this power, one should believe in his authority. But Christianity’s founder walked on the byways. He is not seen in the Galilee urban areas Nazareth, Tibereas, and Tsippori, cities of culture where people would be less gullible than the common folk he addressed. Christian scripture concedes that “the prophet is not accepted in his home town.”

The pagan claims regarding miracles are that the elite

1. may change and control nature
2. the elite and not you possess power
3. therefore submit to the elite
4. which will entertain you with drama and allusion and give you fantasy

The real miracle is that some people, endowed with reason and divinely fashioned intelligence, never outgrow the fantasy land of a falsely enchanted universe. To convince people to believe in the delusion of allusion and power of the princes, we invent rituals. We make icons, the better to see them; images, come let us adore and adorn them; the right attire, so that we realize the right address of our salute. These iconic people, are favored by God [they generously tell us so] so one would be wise cross them. They alone have the right to declare that others are wrong. After all, wrong has no rights. You must pray the way they say, no one talks to the Divine Father but by they.

There is one miracle that one must must concede to paganism. People actually believe in the power of nonsense. But is it nonsense. Long ago our rabbis taught that the golden calf, celebrating the sexuality of the Bull Baal, is the ideology that sees religion as “having fun.” Ray Lewis, Magic Johnson, Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Vick, Brittany Spears, Desi Arnez, Bob Barker, Lindsey Lohan, the talented adulterer of the New York Yankees, stationed at 3^rd base, Alex A-rod Rodriguez, Wilt Chaimberlain, Gary Hart, the various Kennedy’s of Massachusetts, and Bill Clinton could get away with anything and we forgive them. Rules do not apply to those on the top of the human social food chain.

The pagan elite with the power to do miracles can never be wrong, guilty, or subject to disapproval or peer review. After all, this elite is without peer.. Those on the bottom, the little people, adore the culture icons who live miraculous lives. The culture elite invents rituals of control, of fantasy, of magic. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, they proclaim, “Let me entertain you.” Like the pagan god Gilgamesh, the Pharaohs of Egypt, and the Canaanite pantheon, the gods are only wicked humans with a lot of power but with little self-control and absolutely no conscience.

When God, the Author of the Torah and the world speaks to ancient Israel after the Exodus, 1) miracles occur and 2) Israel remains flawed . Modern Jewry has inherited not long noses but stubbornly stiff necks from our ancestors. When Moses speaks in Deuteronomy, there are not only no miracles, Moses announces that power is found in the law and in the society fashioned by the law. And this second generation of Israel, not seeing as adults the miracle of the Exodus, acted more faithfully and maturely than the generation that saw the Exodus miracles with their own eyes.

Appeals to the power of miracles have no status, place, or validity in Jewish law. The ability of a miracle worker, called Baal Shem, carries no weight religiously. If a miracle worker tells you to disobey a law in the Torah, that powerful allusion and delusion worker is stoned, which in the Torah is the punishment for treason against God and the social order.

What if a great rabbi says “believe me?” We hear him and his reasons, and come to our own reasoned conclusions. Infallible Torah opinion appears in the holy library and is not found on the lips of individuals taken to be holy people.

There was a Rabbi so great that he was called Rabbi Eliezer the Great. He never forgot a tradition. He had a main frame computer in his head. He failed to convince his colleagues, and to prove that he had power to demonstrate that he was right, he performed three miracles: 1) a carob tree was uprooted, 2) the creek changed its direction, and 3) the walls of the academy house almost tottered. The sages were willing to concede, for the sake of argument, the actual efficacy of miracles. But the claim to miracle power does not, cannot, and may not translate into moral, social, or political power. R. Eliezer the Great then called upon God for an oracle, “I have the power, my intuition is right, justify me by showing that I read God’s mind rightly.” God then appears and justifies Rabbi Eliezer. Thereupon , the rabbis tell God to mind His own business, the law is based on rules, not intuition, and R. Eliezer was excommunicated for the audacity of claiming, in this one case rightly, the ability to mind of God. Judaism’s lesson is that we have holy books; holy people do not have special power, only personalities that have, by dint of thought and action, become sanctified.

Judaism in its authentic form puts value in the moral will of humans, not in natural events or changes, signs, wonders, or miracles.The miracle of Judaism is that we are convinced by reason but not duped by delusions, outsmarted by allusions, or seduced by confusions.

There are two miracles that Jewry accepts. God created the world in six and not seven days. God acted on will, and took the last day off so humans can become godly, using will for good. In the Torah, God gives the recipe for redemption. In order to get to Heaven, we make Heaven here on earth. How to do this? It is so hard.

I once had a student at an Orthodox High School for girls whose father left her mother when her mother became more religious. He moved in with a non-Jewish woman a little older than his oldest daughter. I told this daughter that she had to invite her father, whose genetic code she carries and is therefore obliged to honor him, to her wedding. She says, “I can’t do that, I can’t help it, I hate him!” My response was that if there is a commandment, you cannot say “I cannot help it and I must do wrongly.” If she could not help it, her emotions and her impulse, she would not be religious. The miracle of Yom Kippur is that we remind ourselves that alone can control ourselves to choose life and make the right choices.

My advice was to invite the wayward father but not his non-Jewish consort to the wedding. While obliged to respect her father, she is not obliged to honor his friend. The right to make choices applies both to the father and the daughter.

A recently retired rabbinical colleague was once berated by his doctor. The doctor told him, frankly, baldly, frontally and insultingly, “Reb Chaim, you are too fat.” Rabbi Chaim responded, “what else is new?” The doctor retorted, “you love food more than the command to preserve your self, how can you tell teens to control their impulses if you do not control yours?” On Yom Kippur, we do not eat. We have the power to say no to our impulses and impulsiveness. God showed us how with the Torah’s commandments. The miracle of Yom Kippur is we can change ourselves and the world by reviewing, renewing, reciting and reliving the divine recipe.

Are we addicted to nicotine? We do not smoke on Yom Kippur. We are able to avoices cigarettes after Yom Kippur as well. WE asked for a year of life. Make the miracle, make the choice, no more smoking, no more “buts” about it.

We are addicted to money. Funeral directors do not put money in coffins; they place money in pockets and in accounts. Scripture teaches that “those who love money will not be satisfied by money.” The miracle of creation can happen to us. God tells us to reinvent ourselves with a human will applied to the eternal template. We return to the template of our childhood, and remember. Parents and grandparents, siblings and children. When we remember, we reflect, when we reflect, we see the need to change. We feel that we cannot. God gave the recipe, do not eat on Yom Kippur, abstain in the bedroom, no fancy shoes today. You can gain eternity if you make the miracle and get a grip on yourselves. The Torah is the tree of life, but one must grasp and grip that tree. God told us to choose life, and God wrote the recipe. The Yom Kippur miracle is that “eternal life is implanted within us to those who hold fast to it.” God gave us a will that ought to be used for good. May we merit to see the day that is all good, all holy, never ending. We have seen the way, may we muster the will.