UTJ Viewpoints

בס”ד

Avot 1:7

(ז) נִתַּאי הָאַרְבֵּלִי אוֹמֵר,             3

1  הַרְחֵק מִשָּׁכֵן רָע,                   3

2 וְאַל תִּתְחַבֵּר לָרָשָׁע,                3

3 וְאַל תִּתְיָאֵשׁ מִן הַפֻּרְעָנוּת:         4

R. Yose of Arbel taught:

1. Distance oneself from a bad neighbor
2. We do not become one, tied, to an evil person
3. We do not despair of payback

It is not sufficient to talk table talk about being good.  Note that the first verb is active, remove oneself.  The second two verbs are reflexive, indicating when we are unable to change the world, we are responsible for changing ourselves. The first bava, or stich, of the Mishnah teaches us that the first act we do is make moral social choices:

1. ­Distance oneself from a bad neighbor.

The verb here is active; we remove ourselves from bad neighbors. While we cannot control who lives next door, if the one living next door needs to get a  life, they will not be intimate with us.  Maimonides, Deot 6:1, tells us that for most people, morality is mimicry.  When bad models abound, make the right choices for oneself.

1. We do not become one, tied, to an evil person.

While we cannot control those who live next door, we can control our choices of friends.  For some, the friends are “beautiful people,” for others, sheiner Yidn. To be accepted for some as a friend, to be liked by the other you have to be like the other.  You must go to the right night club, read the right books, avoid reading books friends would not like. Wear loud clothes, wear a flaming red wig or shiny black Borsolino fedora.  If you cannot dance the dancing step, you are outside the social step; if your hat is not sufficiently black, it is assumed that your house is insufficiently kosher.  Rather choose friends because they are principled, spend time, with those whose ultimate concerns deal with ultimate issues, and who take God seriously, not socially.

1. We do not despair of payback, that God keeps accounts.

God rewards the good by the book, perhaps not in this world. And by allowing ourselves to be influenced by bad people, no good will come of us. After all, woe befalls both the wicked and their associates. [mNega’im 12:6]

Recalling Prof. Neusner’s interpretive rule, see each state on it own, and then in  context, we find that we do what is in our power to create a moral environment; we cannot choose neighbors, but we can choose how to relate to them;  our choice of friends tells legions about  our moral choices and what is important to use. Even though there are realities beyond our control, some choices are not. The call not to despair of payback is not only directed toward others, the undesirable friends and neighbors. We are being judged as well for the community we create, the friends we value, and the values, that define us.

The Biblical Moses was smart, modest,  and courageous. As the greatest of prophets, he had to be smart.  While bereft of ego, Moses was an uncompromising advocate for justice. He was not afraid to conflict with consensus, to challenge convention, or to right wrongs as he saw them.

While Moses is a Jewish hero, we often discourage our children from living whole Jewish lives, like Moses.  We are afflicted with narcissism, we are committed to convention, and covenanted to consensus.  Most Orthodox affiliating Jews will go with the flow and not with what they know because Orthodoxy has become a social rather than theological movement.

My late Uncle Ben Yuter would tell me about his Orthodox military chaplain, Rabbi Manny Poliakoff.  My uncle new him as a military hero; I knew him as a Jewish hero.  He argued, on pure reason, that a transistor microphone is acceptable according to Jewish law. Song making instruments are forbidden, not sounds in general.  He could have been right or wrong. At the time I chanced upon his responsum, which is cited in Tomeich ke-Halakhah I,  I was not then aware that  sages as great as Rabbi Shelomo Goren, Shelomo Zalman Auerbach, and Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of Aruch ha-Shulchan, ruled leniently on electricity use, but because their views do not reflect the current consensus, they have been virtually censored.

If electricity would be fire, it would leave an ash. If electricity would be forbidden because its use completes a circuit, we observe, contra Rabbi Avraham Karelitz, that the completed circuit is mostly empty space and Jewish law does not apply to microscopic reality. If Jewish law applied to microscopic reality, God would have required the filtering of air and liquids. And if Jewish law does not apply to microscopic reality, it assuredly does not apply to the   reality measured in Angstroms.   By arguing that electricity is forbidden on Shabbat because of “construction,” Rabbi Karelitz makes two claims:            1) electricity is not fire 2) he wants it forbidden anyway.

Rabbi Moses Feinstein, of blessed and sainted memory, adamantly forbade the microphone on Shabbat, and considered the offender to be so wretchedly evil that the offender would be  ineligible to be religiously valid witnesses.  Now, Rabbi Feinstein allowed disagreeing with him if it is done respectfully [Igrot Moshe 1:101] The Talmud is full of dissent, collegial conversation, and piety-driven probing. Rabbi Poliakoff was honest to God and he therefore has, like Moses, the courage to be Orthodox and modern. There are those who attacked him for his independence, according to his wife’s testimony.  We now hear that one ought not to be “controversial.” I have failed to find this delict, that one ought not to be controversial, in any of the classical list of the commandments,  it has escaped my surfing the Bar Ilan 13+ CD ROM, and it does not seem to be preserved in Maimonides’ or R. Caro’s codifications.  While one ought not to be indiscriminately controversial, like a “rebel without a cause,” a religious Jew will lbe truthful, even if telling the truth flies in the face of political pressure, communal consensus,  or popular practices that just happen to violate Jewish law.  One has   a right to claim that Rabbi Poliakoff’s rendering of the issue is misguided, bad policy, or down right  wrong; by attacking him for his independence, conscience and opinion, because he disagreed with a godol, or great sage, is the real heresy. He did nothing wrong for advancing a suggestion; demeaning  one in search of meaning  is the real heresy. One is not allowed to issue a practical ruling against the decision of the Great Sanhedrin. If we tolerate customary practices which violate the letter of Talmudic law, we must allow dissenting views to be aired, subject to review, but not to suppression.  One may or may not agree with R. Poliakoff’s ruling [I happen to agree with his position];  he reminds us  that God’s covenant is broken by the idolatry of convention and creed is corrupted when  consensus  conformity is reified into an article of faith.  The sin of bullying disqualifies the offender from the world to come.  Intimidators are the real heretics.  And  if we fear bullies, we show disrespect God. Therefore, Rabbi Manny Poliakoff is one of Orthodox Judaism’s most pious practitioners.