Category Archives: israel

Pesachim 87-88 Hashem’s love for Am yisroel, and sexual imagery in Tanach and Chazal

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A Special post in loving memory of my father zt’l, containing some of his teachings based on Navi and Chazal.

One of the parts of Tanach my father zt’l loved teaching was the early chapters of  Sefer Hoshea, and the teachings of Chazal on it, which are found on these daf.

While reading these, one is struck by the unusual nature of Hoshea’s first prophetic mission.

In short, Hashem tells Hoshea to marry a prostitute and have “children of prostitution” with her.

They have 2 sons and a daughter together, and Hashem tells Hoshea to call them names which denote his anger with the people of Israel.

Suddenly, the second chapter opens with a short positive message of how numerous the people of Israel will be and how Hashem will accept them back, before going back to predictions of destruction.

Whereas this is not the first example of a valid prophecy telling a Navi to do something that is usually forbidden (the עקידה  being the most famous example,) this is certainly bizarre enough to beg some explanation.

Chazal pick up on this and fill in the background- Hashem told Hoshea how the people had sinned.

Rather than begging for mercy for them, Hoshea suggests that Hashem replace them with a different nation.

Hashem then tells Hoshea to marry and prostitute and have children with her.

He then tells him to leave her and her children.  Hoshea protests that he cannot just leave his wife and children, and Hashem reveals the Mussar in the allegory.

Hoshea wouldn’t abandon his wife and kids despite their  sinful  and doubtful status, yet he expected Hashem to abandon his chosen people who had a long and proven unique relationship with him?!

Although Hoshea’s initial response might seem harsh and out of place for a leading Navi, it is not the only  case we find of such an attitude.

Chazal (Shabbos 89b ) tells us how in the future, Hashem will approach Avraham Avinu and tell him that his children have sinned, and he will reply that Hashem should destroy them. He then approaches Yaakov who has the same reaction. Only Yitzchak asks Hashem to spare them.

One cannot but notice the irony by which Avraham, known as the man of kindness who begs for mercy for the worst of sinners, seemingly gives up on his descendants, whereas Yitzchak, known as the man of absolute justice who is hardly recorded in the text as begging for mercy for anyone, is the one who comes to the rescue.

Be that as it may, it seems that there is a certain threshold beyond which even the most dedicated of our leaders lose their patience with us and stop even attempting to save us from ourselves.

As my father zt’l would often point out, this happened eventually to Eliyahu haNavi as well, who in his encounter with Hashem on Chorev spoke extremely negatively and dismissively of the Jewish people  (Melachim 19), and Hashem’s reaction was to inform him that his time as leader was over and he needed to anoint his student Elisha in his place-  A leader who gives up on his people and can no longer see the good in him gives up his right to lead his flock.

Yeshayahu  also calls the people a “nation of impure lips” and is punished by being burnt on his lips. (Yeshayahu 6)

At a certain point, after  a lifetime of fighting for his people, even Moshe Rabbeinu lost his temper and hit the rock, after which he lost the chance to lead the people into Eretz-Yisrael (Bamidbar 20/10.)

However, unlike Avraham, Eliyahu, and Moshe who reached this stage at the end of a long career of serving the people, Hoshea  and Yeshayahu display this attitude at the beginning of their prophetic careers, and rather than depriving them of their planned prophetic future, Hashem chooses to correct their attitude and give them another chance, by way of a very traumatic experience which puts their thinking right.

מעשה אבות סימן לבנים  (the actions/events of the fathers are a sign for the children-[see Tanchuma Lech Lecha 9]) and this error and subsequent correction was not limited to the founding fathers and the prophets, but can be found in Chazal themselves as well, and up to this very day.

The Gemara (Pesachim 88a) tells how when the Amora עולא came to the Babylonian center of פומבדיתא  , he was given a basket of the dates that Bavel was famous for.

When told how cheap they were, he expressed his amazement at how despite the easy availability of such incredible sustenance, the Jews of Babylon did not study Torah at night.

Later, after eating them, he got a stomach-ache.

After that, he expressed his astonishment at how despite the availability of such unhealthy food (סמא דמותא,)  the Babylonians still studied Torah at night!

We discussed in the beginning of the Masechta (see my post on Pesachim  3 ) how the Torah goes out of its way to use לשון נקיה  (clean language.)

In fact, the Rambam  (Moreh 3/8)  takes this even further and in a controversial statement highly disputed by the Ramban (Shmos 30/13), he explains that the reason why the Hebrew language is called לשון הקודש  is because among other degrading words, it has no explicit nouns for the sexual organs, nor verbs for the sexual act, using only euphemisms.

Yet any Yeshiva kid should be able to tell you that both the Tanach and Chazal are full of sensual imagery, and on our daf, multiples examples of this can be found from Shir haShirim, Hoshea, and in Chazal’s comments on them.

It is interesting to note that whereas Chazal seem to interpret the explicit imagery in Shir haShirim completely allegorically, they  significantly enhance the sexual meaning of the episode in Hoshea, painting a rather graphic picture of the career of the prostitute Hoshea marries.

It seems rather clear from this, consistent with the thesis we developed in our earlier quoted post, that despite the mandate to attempt to use euphemistic language where it is possible to do so without blurring the message, when the clearest way of teaching a message is by use of explicit imagery, the Torah and Chazal do not hold back.

The above attempts to follow the approach of Rambam- of course, it is possible, more along the lines of Ramban,  that the Torah and Chazal simply see nothing “unholy” about the use of sexual imagery in the first place, and use it rather freely, in some cases allegorically, and in some rather literally.  (see though Mishna Sanhedrin 8/1 where the term “clean language” seems to be used in this context as well as the words of the above-quoted Ramban himself who seems to admit this. It is also possible that the entire incident with Hoshea is also to be understood allegorically despite how graphically Chazal describe the details. )

Much to talk about this subject, but it will take a tour of shas to test either thesis, so l have attempted to at least start laying the foundations from our daf and continue building as we go.

These posts are intended to raise issues and stimulate further research and discussion on contemporary topics related to the daf. They are not intended as psak halacha.

Pesachim 67-68 טומאה הותרה בצבור , bringing sacrifices in our day, and visiting Har habayit

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One of the main (though not the only) halachik impediments to visiting the Temple Mount as well as offering up the קרבן פסח  in our day is the fact that in the absence of a פרה אדומה (red heifer), whose ashes are biblically  required for purifying a טמא מת , we generally assume that we have this status and are thus not permitted to enter or offer or eat  the קרבן פסח  and risk the severe penalty of כרת  for doing so.

It should be noted that it is clear from the discussion on daf 68 that a טמא מת is not prohibited from entering the entire הר הבית, which has the halachik status of the מחנה לויה  (Levite camp), but only from entering the area of the עזרה  (Temple courtyard) itself, which has the halachik status of the holier מחנה כהונה (Priests camp.)

This contrasts with a זב  who is forbidden to enter the מחנה לויה  and a מצורע (leper) who is forbidden to the enter the entire camp of Israel.

Although the status of זב is not applied in our time, the related albeit less severe type of impurity known as טומאת קרי (impurity due to a seminal emission) also disqualifies one from entering the מחנה לויה  and thus the entire הר הבית  but can be removed by going to Mikva according to halacha before entering.

This is the practise of those who permit visits to the parts of הר הבית  known to have been outside the עזרה  itself, while the plurality of poskim who forbid or at least caution against doing so base their view mainly on the lack of certainty as to the precise place of the עזרה  and בית המקדש itself, a topic I hope to address in the future.

I would like to focus on a different but related question, that being whether it is permitted to offer up a קרבן פסח in our times, something which might theoretically require neither a rebuilt     בית המקדש  (see Zevachim 107b) nor a פרה אדומה, as we shall see.

It goes without saying that this would be provided all other halachik issues have been resolved , such as the status of today’s kohanim, the possible requirement for a kohain gadol, the need for the special garments to be worn, etc. (for a detailed discussion on the topic, see the article by  מורי וידידי haGaon haRav Gavriel Saraf   שליט”א on https://www.kby.org/hebrew/torat-yavneh/view.asp?id=7234

It also assumes that this is physically and legally possible, without endangering lives, as however seriously this קרבן  is taken in halacha, it does not override the laws of פקוח נפש  (the question of שעת הגזירה and whether this applies to our situation is beyond the scope of our discussion.)

Having shown that the תמיד  (daily communal burnt offering) and קרבן פסח  (Passover offering) are both performed on shabbos, overriding the prohibition of melacha, the Gemara turns to another powerful property of these sacrifices, namely their ability to override the rule of טומאה  (impurity) provided that  the majority of the community is impure.

Usually speaking, a person who is טמא מת (impure due to contact with a corpse) is not permitted to bring the קרבן פסח, just like other קרבנות, and rather brings his קרבן  one month later  on פסח שני  when his טומאה  has passed.

However, the Mishna (Pesachim 76b) tells us that the קרבן פסח  may both be brought and eaten in impurity if the majority of the community is impure, and of course entering the עזרה  while impure in order to perform the offering must thus also be permitted for the kohanim.

As such, the fact that we are all assumed to be טמא מת  and unable to leave that status due to the lack of a פרה אדומה should theoretically not stand in the way of bringing a קרבן פסח  in our time!

On daf 66b,the Gemara derives via the same גזירה שוה that Hillel used regarding shabbos, that the תמיד  may also be brought under those conditions, though being an עולה, it obviously is not eaten (see Tosfos 66a ד”ה “מה” who discusses other possible sources for this.)

On daf 67a, The Gemara concludes that the source that theקרבן פסח   itself may be offered while impure if the majority of the community are impure comes from the law of פסח שני  itself.

Regarding פסח שני, the פסוק  ( Bamidbar 9/10) states “איש איש כי יהיה טמא לנפש ”  – (any man who will be impure from a life .)

From the phrase “איש איש”  , we derive that only an individual who is impure needs to put off his קרבן  till פסח שני  but if the community in whole or majority is impure, the קרבן פסח  is offered as usual on Pesach itself!

From the word לנפש, it derives that this concession applies only to טומאת מת  and not to other forms of impurity.

Although there are other forms of impurity that affect many or most of us today, the most common being טומאת קרי (impurity due to a seminal emission), these impurities can be resolved through mikva without the red heifer’s ashes and need not stand in the way of קרבן פסח.

As such, should all the other issues be resolved, neither the lack of a Beis haMikdash, nor the issue of impurity seem to stand in the way of bringing a קרבן פסח  today, and given the severe penalty for not doing so, it seems at first glance that we should obligated to do whatever we can do make this possible.

Many of us feel extremely uncomfortable with the idea of returning to what might seem like a primitive and barbaric form of worship, and there might even Torah sources that seem to back up such discomfort, a topic for another occasion.

Yet, as Moreinu haGaon Rav Asher Weiss שליט”א  once said to me over a barbecue in Africa while we were discussing this subject, its is rather hypocritical to sit eating a steak and criticize sacrificial worship- after all if one is comfortable with slaughtering an animal for one’s own pleasure, why would one be uncomfortable with doing so as part of the Torah mandated divine worship?

Of course, one could argue that whereas human beings NEED sustenance, and meat  has been viewed through most of history as an important form of sustenance, Hashem certainly does NOT need it, and there should be better ways to show our dedication to him than killing his creatures and offering them to him.

Yet it is axiomatic that Torah practices tend to be very symbolic and use methods of divine service which people can relate too-The fact that Hashem has no need for anything does not stop us from showing our appreciation of him by offering up that which is valuable to us and seeing as meat is  a major source of sustenance and pleasure for most of us, the above argument is rather mute.

When it comes to the קרבן פסח, this argument falls away completely , seeing as this unique korban is primarily about us eating it .

Almost all of us enjoy our lavish meat meals on Seder night, so why would we be opposed to first dedicating the very meat we are about to eat to Hashem?

Those people who are “religiously” vegetarian and are against killing animals at all even for food, or claim that meat is no longer needed for sustenance might indeed hold the moral high ground needed to at least start this discussion, but it seems like the rest of us should really grow up and prepare for the time when we will at least be able to fully dedicate our lust for meat to Hashem before eating it, a time which might virtually be here already, at least once a year!

יהי רצון מלפניך שיבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו ותן חלקינו בתורותיך ושם נעבדך ביראה כמי עולם וכשנים קדמוניות. “וערבה לה’ נמחת יהודה וירושליים כימי עולם וכשנים קדמוניות.”

These posts are intended to raise issues and stimulate further research and discussion on contemporary topics related to the daf. They are not intended as psak halacha.

Eruvin 17 The army and spiritual challenges

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We have pointed out various times during our posts how everything in Torah is related, and that very often that relationship stands out so clearly that one is absolutely awestruck.

The direct connection between our daf and this weeks parsha is certainly one such example.

The parsha opens with the highly unusual law of אשת יפת תואר, the beautiful captive girl taken in war.

In an unprecedented ruling, the Torah permits the soldier who falls for an enemy captive to begin a process whereby he will be able to marry her and even gives him permission to sleep with her once before this process begins, in order to satisfy that lust.

The explanation for this most unusual capitulation to human sexual desire on the part of the Torah is that לא דברה תורה אלא כנגד יצר הרע – “The Torah only spoke against the evil inclination. “

In the heat of war, the Torah understood that if a soldier was not permitted any outlet for his desires, he would carry them out anyway, and thus came up with a permitted way that allowed him to do so if necessary, while never encouraging it.

There is much to discuss about this idea, and the first question that jumps to mind is why is this extreme lust treated any differently to other extreme situations of lust?

The Torah always insists that people have free will and are responsible for their actions, no matter what the temptations, yet here, suddenly it acts completely differently.

Is the lust of a soldier at war really so much stronger than a man whose wife is a Niddah, a homosexual man who has no permitted outlet for his passions, or a single man who isn’t even permitted to masturbate to satisfy his urges, let alone carry on a sexual relationship with someone outside marriage?

Even if we argue that this is a question of פקוח נפש, given the emotional pressures that a soldier is under, we have found that a person is not permitted to practise forbidden sexual relations even to save his life (Sanhedrin 74a,) one of three great transgressions which one may not even transgress with a gun to one’s head.

In the case where the danger to his life comes from his emotional state caused by his desires, this could apply even to a non-married Jewish woman!

We see this from the case (Sanhedrin 75a) where a certain man fell so badly for a woman that he became desperately ill from desire.

The doctors opined that he would never heal unless he got to sleep with her.

The Rabbis ruled that it is better to let him die than to allow him to sleep with her, or even “talk with her from behind the fence.”

Clearly, the fact that a person gets himself into an emotional state that endangers his life does not justify illegitimate sexual behaviour.

It might be possible to distinguish between the two cases in a few ways, among them:

  1. The reason given by the Gemara why such a harsh ruling was given even in the case of un unmarried Jewish girl (who was not even a Niddah) was either because of פגם משפחה (damage done to the girl and her family) or שלא יהו בנות ישראל פרוצות בעריות (so the daughters of Israel would not be engaged in sexual immorality. )

The former reason focusses on the individual girl and her family whereas the later focusses on societal needs – The good of society takes precedence than the good of this individual, as we need to uphold a moral society at all times.

The case in our parsha is different given that the girl is an enemy captive, and neither of those two concerns apply, at least on a technical legal level.

The fact that the soldier is away from society also lessens the impact on society.

  1. In the case mentioned in Sanhedrin, the threat to the person’s life came from his lust itself. We cannot allow our girls to become the “medicine” for every person who is unable to control himself. In the case of the solder, the danger is from the war, the lust simply increases that danger, and the permission given by the Torah simply removes that extra danger allowing him to focus on the prime directive of survival and most important, victory for the nation as a whole.

Despite the above, given the extreme stringency with which the Torah usually treats these matters, there is little doubt that the situation of war should be treated as the exception rather than the rule, and however we try our best to understand it, it is likely that it cannot be applied to any other situations and אין בו אלא חדושו .

On our daf, we see that this is not the only allowance made for people at war.

Our Mishna tells us that there are 4 areas in which Chazal were lenient went it comes to soldiers in an army camp:

  1. They may collect wood from anywhere, even if it does not belong to them.
  2. They are exempt from washing hands before eating bread.
  3. They are permitted to eat דמאי (produce bought from an ignorant person who might not have taken tithes.
  4. They are exempt from putting aside an ערוב חצירות (though they still need basic מחיצות in order to carry within a designated area.

With the exception of the first which involves the biblical prohibition of stealing (probably permitted through the rule of הפקר בית דין הפקר,) these are all rabbinical laws that are waived, but the facts that such allowances were made also makes it clear how much of a need Chazal saw to allow soldiers to focus on the sacred task at hand of achieving victory without having to allocate too much energy to other things that were not practical at the time.

In an even larger concession, the Gemara (Chullin 17a) says that during the wars to conquer the land, the soldiers were permitted to eat forbidden foods if they are hungry, even pig!

What all these things have in common is that the Torah and Chazal have waived certain very important halachik requirements in order to allow soldier to focus on the battle and not use all their energies battling hunger, the evil inclination, or circumstance.

In the context of all of these things, it seems that the although the Torah only spoke against the evil inclination in the case of the captive girl, this is not because the Torah allows people to sin “legally” in order that they not come to sin “illegally,” but because of the unusual situation soldiers face in war where survival and victory has to be their only goal and the Torah therefore chooses not to make them spend their energy fighting their evil inclination in almost certain losing battles.

One of the major objections raised by many in the Torah world against religious youth going to the Israel army involves the spiritual dangers that they face there, given that much of the army is irreligious.

One of the strongest arguments against this comes from the many extreme allowances that the Torah itself makes for those at war, to the point of permitting some very serious transgressions- what it does not do is in any way discourage soldiers from going to fight, whether the war is obligatory or voluntary in nature.

If this is the case in situations where religious life is not possible, how much more so, we could argue, should it be in a Jewish army where so many allowances are made for religious soldiers, such as kosher food, Shabbos observance, and even time to pray and study.

On the other hand, one could counter that there is a difference between leaving one’s own camp to go into battle or to enemy territory, where the religious threat is from the outside, and being in a Jewish camp where the religious temptations come from the inside, from one’s own side.

The former is more likely to be a temporary setback, whereas the chance of long-term assimilation into secular society poised by being part of an irreligious unit is on a completely different level.

One can argue back and forth on this issue, but one thing that we see for sure on our daf is that certain leniencies were applied by Chazal even INSIDE our own camp.

The army certainly does not seem like a place for imposing extra stringencies above the basic requirements of the law, and even certain laws themselves, namely the 4 mentioned in our Mishna, are pushed aside even while in the מחנה itself.

These posts are intended to raise issues and stimulate further research and discussion on contemporary topics related to the daf. They are not intended as psak halacha.