Ethics – The Embodied Torah of Jewish Behavior

Admitting a Mistake

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You probably know that I am not a Detroit Tigers fan.  I don’t care follow the Tigers and I pay no attention to whether the Tigers win or lose, unless it  affects the position of my Minnesota Twins in the standings.

It is impossible, however, not to feel for Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga, whose perfect game was taken away from him two days ago by 1st base umpire Jim Joyce’s bad call in what should have been the final out of the game.  What we saw as the incident unfolded, however, was not the typical aggressive behavior and defensive posturing that happens when an umpire blows a call.

As my friend Rabbi Jason noted on his blog (Perfection is Hard to Come By), in an era of overpaid, spoiled, grandstanding sports figures, Galarraga accepted the call with a smile, went back to the mound, and finished the game like a gentleman.  This is the kind of sportsmanship that is sadly lacking in much of professional sports.

Following the game, Jim Joyce knew he made the worst mistake of his career.  He didn’t try to defend it.  He didn’t make excuses.  He said that he had a good angle and just missed the call.  His apology to Galarraga was immediate and from the heart.

How refreshing, and what a terrific sports lesson.  Parents, talk about this with your children.  This is a lesson in the Embodied Torah of Ethics.  This is what it means to behave, at all times, as if you are a walking, talking, embodiment of God’s instruction book.

Judaism and Zionism

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An article in the New York Review of Books by Peter Beinart entitled “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” makes a strong case that American Jews are abandoning Zionism in favor of liberal values.

The article alludes to, but doesn’t directly deal with what may be the primary reason for the disconnect between American Jews and Israel.  We are spending far too many resources building Holocaust museums (which are an entirely negative reason to remain Jewish, as in Emil Fackinheim’s 614th mitzvah, “Don’t give Hitler a posthumous victory.”) and birthright trips to Israel.  Birthright has been a wonderful program, but the fact is that you cannot create a bond to Israel in 10 days unless there was something there before the trip.

We have failed to give our young generation a Judaism that is sophisticated and modern, but also maintains a connection to traditional Torah principles.  Reform has embraced liberalism as a religious principle, ignoring the centrality of the practices of Torah as the glue that hold together Jewish community; Orthodoxy ignores modern political realities in favor of a messianic approach nibbling the edges of racism, that if we only hold on long enough God will reward us richly.  I think the Conservative Jewish approach is perfect for finding the middle ground, although I see far too many of my colleagues falling into the sensationalist rhetoric of comparing Obama to Chamberlin, and the Middle East to 1939 Nazi Germany.

Don’t get me wrong — I am not a left wing peacenik.  The security concerns are real – Israel is fighting for its life, and Iran is a dangerous enemy.  The United States is pushing for a peace agreement as if both sides (Israel and Fatah/Hamas) were equally at fault and equally trustworthy.  Israel without Judaism is a state without a moral center.  However, the Judaism that is increasingly found in Israel lacks morality.

I want to see a Judaism deal honestly and openly with the texts of our tradition that disdain the “other,” while at the same time relying up them to do the work of maintaining our State on Shabbat, providing us with organs when we need transplants, and employing them as our menial laborers.  I want to see a Judaism that believes that belief and practice are more central to our identity than genetics; a Judaism that is open to strangers; a Judaism that actively encourages seekers.  This kind of Judaism will be able to speak compassionately to Palestinians while still building a security fence.  This kind of Judaism will be able to treat the Moslem and Christian Arab citizens of Israel with dignity and equality.  This kind of Judaism can teach young people how to be both passionate Jews and passionate Zionists.

I am open to comments, disagreement, questions.  I realize that in a relatively brief essay, I have challenged Reform Jews, Orthodox Jews, Federation Jews, and Jews whose lives are defined by the Shoah to address the hard question of how they would respond to Beinart’s article.  I am not arrogant enough to think that I personally have all or even most of the answers – but I passionately believe that without a compassionate Torah center, the answers are not to be found.

Yet Another Embarrassment in the Israeli entanglement of Religion and State

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Jewish tradition treats the body as a sacred vessel for the soul.  After death, the body is treated with the same respect as when it was alive.  It is carefully washed and dressed before burial.  Burial takes place as soon as possible – it is not respectful to leave the body unburied.  Autopsies are not permitted, unless doing so will directly save the life of another identified person.  Mutilating the body for the purposes of profit, experimentation, or education is not permitted.

Yet, it is widely accepted that halakha permits organ donation, even in the Orthodox world.  The Conservative movement believes that signing on organ donor card is a positive mitzvah – an obligation.  You can read a teshuvah on the topic here.

Organ donation, however, generally requires accepting the cessation of brain activity as a criteria for death, rather than heart death.  The reason is simple and obvious.  It is generally considered to be the case that once the heart stops beating long enough to pronounce the patient dead, the organs have been deprived of oxygen long enough no longer to be suitable for transplantation.  I have read some material suggesting that in some cases, a criteria of non-heart beat for a period of less than 5 minutes might be enough to declare death and harvest organs, but this is controversial.

Nevertheless, many Jews believe that organ donation is not permitted – that a body must be buried completely intact in order to be resurrected in the messianic era.  My response to this is if God could create my body from joining together two cells, then God can recreate my body even if it is missing a few organs!

Consequently, the rate of organ donation in Israel is embarrassingly low.  Only 8-10% of Israelis are registered as organ donors, compared with an average of 35% in other Western countries.  The Knesset has passed a law giving those who agree to be a donor a higher priority if ever they should need an organ.  The deputy health minister, however, is a follower of Haridi rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who does not believe in a brain death criteria.  His followers are not allowed to donate organs.  They are, however, allowed to accept donated organs (is this the definition of hypocrasy, or what?)!  The deputy health minister is apparently going to refuse to implement the new law because he and the rest of the 100,000 followers of Elyashiv would be bumped to the bottom of the organ queue.  You can read stories about the law below.

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/28295/israeli-organ-policy-may-be-d-o-a/

Israeli Organ Policy May Be D.O.A.

Innovative idea could discriminate against sect

BY MARC TRACY | 4:21 pm Mar 15, 2010 |

n an effort to raise its quite low 10 percent organ-donor rate, Israel has been planning to give those who agree to be donors a leg up when it comes to receiving organ donations. They would move up in the queue, in other words, should it ever come to that.

While bioethicists say this is perfectly kosher—“reciprocal altruism” is the apparently not-oxymoronic term—the plan has come under fire for allegedly discriminating against some ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe they are religiously barred from being donors. (Never mind that they’re not, assuming the organs are being used to save a life and not for profit.) Specifically, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv’s 100,000 Israeli followers believe they are not allowed to donate their organs until after cardiac death (at which point the organs are dead, too). In case you were wondering, yes, they are allowed to accept donated organs.

The Knesset has passed a law enacting this whole thing. Implementation, however, is up to the health minister … there is no health minister currently, so instead it is up to the deputy health minister … the deputy health minister is—of course—an Elyashiv follower. So, we’ll see.

Does Radical New Way To Boost Organ Donation Discriminate Against Ultra-Orthodox Jews? [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]
Earlier: Israel’s New Organ Donor Policies

To Be or Not To Be … A Bridesmaid

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Question:  A friend of mine is engaged to a man who is an alcoholic and regular drug user.  She has invited me to be a bridesmaid, but I don’t think getting married to this man is what’s best for her. Prior to her relationship with him, she was opposed to drug use.  Now she is also a more than occasional user, and is also on anti-depressants.  She wants to be a teacher and but I feel like going through with the marriage and continuing on this path would be a great loss. I’ve never been real close with her, but having indirectly expressed my concerns about what was going on she doesn’t call me to talk about what’s going on anymore.  Do you feel it is ethically better to step down from being in the wedding party? Should I decline the wedding invitation entirely?  Should I tell her what I think?  Truthfully, it may not sway her from doing what she’s going to do, and worst case, she could get married and if she’s not happy get divorced. They want to have a child together.

Answer:  My understanding of what it means to stand up for someone’s wedding is that you are supporting the marriage.  If you think it’s an unwise marriage, you should not stand up.  You probably shouldn’t attend either, but if it was a close friend I might say that you should attend in order to preserve the relationship, so you’ll be there to catch her when she falls. The Jewish principle involved is based on the verse, “You shall not … place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19.14).  Read broadly, this verse teaches that one should not place moral or ethical or behavioral stumbling blocks before those unable to recognize them.  Don’t give a drink to an alcoholic.  Don’t forward alarming email unless you have verified that it is true (and ‘I got this from the close friend of the cousin of someone I trust’ doesn’t count).  Don’t tell a person that a certain food is kosher when it is not. Don’t tell a person that a certain way to avoid paying taxes is legal if it is not.  Don’t help a person enter a marriage if you believe (and have evidence to support the belief) that they marriage will be seriously detrimental to her physical and/or emotional health. The question of how explicitly you should talk to your friend about the reasons why you will not stand up and why you are not attending the wedding (if you are not going) is a bit more complicated. The Jewish principle is “Reprove your neighbor so that you will not incur guilt on his account” (Leviticus 19.17).  Basically, the instruction is that you have an obligation to tell your friend if she is doing something wrong.  If you see something happening that is wrong and you keep silent, you are complicit.  It’s like the old slogan about fighting AIDS in the mid 1980’s, “silence=death.”  However, the Rabbinic tradition inserted a large caveat —  If the person is not likely to listen to the reproach, and in fact is likely to get mad at you for the advice, then you should keep your mouth shut. In this case, you have already told you friend indirectly that you think the marriage is a bad idea,  I think you should say one more time, in the gentlest possible voice, that you cannot stand up at the wedding because you think the wedding is a bad idea due to the alcoholism and drug use.  I realize that this might cause you to lose a friend, but you say you’ve never been very close anyway.  You say worst case, they get divorced.  Not true.  Worst case, they get divorced and a child has to suffer for the rest of his life with the pain and separation of divorced parents and an alcoholic drug using father and drug using mother.  There may be nothing that you can do to prevent the marriage, but you don’t want the burden of having supported that worst case on your conscience.

This article is one of an occasional series of posts bring Jewish ethics to life using real world dilemmas.  Would you share with me moments when you were at a crossroads and weren’t sure what to do?  Moments when you might not have turned to Jewish sources for an answer, but made a decision and after reflection you are now curious whether Jewish wisdom might have suggested a different answer?  You may post your moments on the blog in response to this post or you may email them to me at Rabbi@AhavasIsraelGR.org.  If you want them to remain private please indicate this, and I will change enough details so that you cannot be identified.  If I am not sure whether I have sufficiently disguised your identity or if you want to see what I’ve written before I publish it, I will email my response to you before publishing anything.

Remember — The purpose of this blog and the mission of the synagogue is to explore what it means to make our lives embody Torah.  How does our eating, our Shabbat practice, our prayer experience, embody Torah?  How do we internalize and embody our Torah study?  How do we embody Torah in our ethical decision making?  Please join me in this exploration — I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Embodying Torah at the Ethical Crossroads

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For Judaism to be a fully embodied religious behavior, we need to be aware moment by moment of the actions we are taking and the decisions we are making, and how Jewish wisdom might inform us.  Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, in “The Halakhic Man,” [sic] poetically explains how everything we see, hear, and touch, all of our input, as it were, should pass through the filter of halakha.  For example — the sight of a leafy pear tree might engender thoughts of the appropriate berakha for fruit, the suitability of his branches to use for s’khakh to cover a sukkah, and the impermissibility of building the sukkah under the tree.

As I remember his book, Rabbi Soloveitchik was primarily thinking about traditional Jewish practices such as Shabbat, kashrut, celebration of holidays, prayer, etc.  However, his philosophy also applies to Jewish ethical behavior.  In the course of an average day, how many moments do we experience when we are faced with some kind of ethical decision?  I kept track of a number of those moments over the course of a weekend – questions that did prompt – or should have prompted – thought about the Torah’s response to my situation.

  • • Following services at Ahavas Israel, I was asked to help make another minyan – I declined.  Are we obligated by Jewish ethics to be the 10th person in a minyan?  Does it matter if the minyan is populated by people who would not reciprocate?  Might we ever ethically decline to help another Jew in need of a minyan?
  • • May one publish a possibly embarrassing incident online, if we change the name of the subject of the story?
  • • At what point does a parent helping a child with homework cross the line from teaching the child to doing the child’s work?
  • • Does using profane language violate Jewish ethics?

I’d like to devote occasional posts to Jewish ethics using real world dilemmas.  Would you share with me moments when you were at a crossroads and weren’t sure what to do?  Moments when you might not have turned to Jewish sources for an answer, but made a decision and after reflection you are now curious whether Jewish wisdom might have suggested a different answer?  You may post your moments on the blog in response to this post or you may email them to me at Rabbi@AhavasIsraelGR.org.  If you want them to remain private please indicate this, and I will change enough details so that you cannot be identified.  If I am not sure whether I have sufficiently disguised your identity or if you want to see what I’ve written before I publish it, I will email my response to you before publishing anything.

Remember — The purpose of this blog and the mission of the synagogue is to explore what it means to make our lives embody Torah.  How does our eating, our Shabbat practice, our prayer experience, embody Torah?  How do we internalize and embody our Torah study?  How do we embody Torah in our ethical decision making?  Please join me in this exploration — I welcome your comments and suggestions.