Nitzavim-Vayelekh (Rambam)

“You are all of you Standing This Day”: The Value of Public Prayer

“You are all of you standing this day before the Lord your God” (Deut 29:9). These opening words from our parsha may also serve as a suitable leit-motif for the approaching Days of Awe: Rosh Hashanah is the day when we see ourselves, collectively, as one body, standing before our Creator; and, together with Yom Kippur, it is for most Jews the day of public prayer or assembly par excellence. Many Jews who do not go to shul all year round do so on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In olden times, Jews living in small villages in Europe where there was not even a minyan would either import a “tenth man” from elsewhere, or go to the nearest town so as to pray with a congregation.

It is thus a suitable occasion to discuss the concept of public worship generally. A few weeks ago (HY V: Re’eh) we talked about the centralization of worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue is sometimes called mikdash me’at, a “little Temple”—that place in each town or neighborhood where Jews live in which worship is “centralized.” Of course there are tens of thousands of synagogues throughout the world, but the basic idea is that in each place worship is concentrated in a place sanctified for tefillah rather than each person in his own home.

Rambam’s “Laws of Prayer” are divided almost equally between the laws of prayer per se and those of public prayer. The first seven chapters are devoted to prayer as such, defined as inner worship, “service of the heart,” in which the individual person’s intention is central. On the Torah level such prayer is utterly formless, the essential thing being the person’s act of standing before God. But the second half, from Chapter 8 to 15, is devoted to public prayer in its various ramifications: public prayer (tefillah betzibbur) per se; the synagogue, as the place set aside for public prayer; the reading of the Torah, performed in public only; and the Priestly Blessing, which again requires a minyan. This section begins with the following introductory statement, in Hilkhot Tefillah 8.1:

1. The prayer of the public is always heard; and even if there were sinners among them, the Holy One blessed be He never rejects the prayer of the multitude. Hence a person must join himself with the public, and should not pray by himself so long as he is able to pray with the public.

And a person should always go to the synagogue morning and evening, for his prayer is only heard at all times in the synagogue. And whoever has a synagogue in his city and does not pray there with the public is called a bad neighbor.

It is clear from this presentation that Rambam considers public worship and worship in the synagogue as two separate matters, each one of which is important in its own right. It is best to worship in the synagogue with the minyan; lacking that, there is a certain value to praying even in an empty synagogue. There is a certain sanctity inherent in the place itself, created by the fact that it is a locus for public prayer.

This brings us to a more principled underlying idea: the importance of the public in general. On the face of it, there sometimes seems to be a contradiction between the highly individualistic, even elitist tone of much of Maimonides’ oeuvre (both here and in the Guide), his emphasis upon yehidei segulah, the small minority who are capable of achieving the type of knowledge and intellectual clarity that he sees as the ideal; the cultivation by the individual of both knowledge and a refined consciousness; the emphasis on hidbodedut, solitary contemplation, as a prerequisite for attaining the sublime God–consciousness that is the mark of the prophet; and, on the other hand, the emphasis he places on involvement in and with the community.

But in fact, unlike other mystical traditions, such as those of Christianity, Islam or the religions of the Far East, Jewish mysticism and spirituality have always operated within the community, within the framework of halakhah. One hardly encounters in Judaism the wild-eyed sectarian, schismatic movements of the type that constantly plagued Christian mysticism (with the notable exception of Sabbatianism). Hence, Jewish mysticism was not viewed with suspicion in the same way as it was in the eyes of the medieval church or of the Muslim establishment. Many of the outstanding mystical figures of Judaism—Beit Yosef, Rabad, Rashba, Ramban, to name but a few—were outstanding halakhists.

Alternatively, one may read Rambam as promulgating two levels or dimensions of religious life. Along with his concerns for pristine philosophical truth, and for the arduous intellectual work it entailed and the narrow social frame within which one could expect it to work, Rambam never neglected the broader Jewish public. He was deeply concerned with the sustained commitment of the masses of the people to halakhah, and to the communal framework that enabled the halakhah to “work.” This is a major issue in Maimunidean scholarship, that we’ve only hinted at here and there over the year: the relationship between the Guide and the Yad has been an issue for endless debate among scholars.

But more than that, he saw the public as bearing within itself certain virtues, and as the authentic heirs to the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Hence the individual, no matter how sublime and subtle and profound his religious consciousness, cannot abandon the public. In some way, God looks at every Jew differently in community than as an individual. In brief, Rambam sincerely believed, as he writes here, that God hears the public and their prayers differently and in a more natural way than He does those of the individual. (Note also the interesting parallel between public fast days and the Ten Days of Repentance: the fast days, when God is so to speak present to the community at all times, is analogous to his special proximity and availability even to the individual during the Ten Days. See Teshuvah 2.6, and contrast Taaniyot 1.1-3). (To be continued)

More on the Four Gradations of Atonement

Before turning to this week’s new text, I would like to add a few clarifications to last week’s discussion about atonement and repentance. We were left with the sense that kaparah, atonement, is a rather nebulous, metaphysical concept, concerned with utterly intangible matters having to do with the soul’s relation to God. Such concepts as “the day of Yom Kippur itself” atoning for certain sins, or death atoning for all sins—presumably of relevance to some kind of Heavenly judgment to take place after death, governing the proverbial decision as to whether the soul is to be admitted to Gan Eden or Gehinnom—invite the classical remark, hanei kavshei derahmana lamah li, meaning, roughly, “What have we mortals to do with delving into such secrets of the All-Merciful?”

In brief, the “four divisions of kaparah” are not really a halakhic subject in the usual sense of the word at all. (Interestingly, further on in Hilkhot Teshuvah, in Chs. 8-9, Rambam deals with the esoteric subject of the life of the World to Come, suggesting that he was not bothered by dealing with esoteric subjects).

It seems to me that there are two alternative ways of approaching these discussions of kaparah. On one level, one may argue that the passages studied are not the final word on the subject. There is a certain tension between the carefully graded, systematic approach to the various levels of teshuvah, and the view of teshuvah as all comprehensive and all-embracing, as gaining forgiveness for all sins. An interesting homily in the Jerusalem Talmud reads as follows (j. Makkot 2.7 [31d]):

“The Lord is good and upright, therefore he teaches sinners the way” [Ps 25:8]. Why is He good? Because He is upright. They asked Torah: What shall be the sinner’s punishment? She replied: He shall bring a sacrifice and be atoned. They asked prophecy: What is to be the sinner’s punishment? It answered: “The soul that sins, it shall die” [Ezek 18:4]. They asked David: What is the sinner’s punishment? He said, “Let sin disappear from the earth” [Ps 104: 35]. They asked Wisdom: What shall be the sinner’s punishment? He replied: “Sinners shall be pursued by evil” [Prov 13:21]. Then they asked the Holy One blessed be He: What shall be the sinner’s punishment? He answered: Let him do teshuvah and I will accept him. As is said, “The Lord is good and upright.”

Here, in contrast to the harsh literary prooftexts invoked, the Almighty Himself is portrayed as willing to accept the repentant sinner without any further ado. It is interesting that, in the Talmudic sugya on this subject, the “four gradations of atonement” are immediately followed by a series of short sayings extolling teshuvah, seemingly as a solution to the problem of sin in and of itself. As Urbach suggests in Hazal, Emunot ve-Deot, there were two schools among the Sages, one of which placed greater emphasis on the rigor and strictness of Divine Judgment (Middat ha-Din), and the consequent insistence on gradual, graded kaparah for the more serious transgressions; and another more attuned to the almost limitless forgiveness of Divine Compassion (Middat ha-Rahamim). This conflict also seems to underlay our discussion two weeks ago (HY V: Ki Teitze) as to whether one must repeat confession for sins year after year, or suffice with saying it only once.

Alternatively, one might suggest a psychological interpretation. Here, teshuvah is understood as an act of will—that is, a decision occurring on the outer shell of the personality, altering the direction of future behavior, whereas kaparah is more concerned with the depth levels of the personality. As modern people, we are well aware that our actions, our thoughts, even our inchoate desires, leave a deep impression on the subconscious levels, not easily eradicated. If I killed a man whom I hated with a passion, and am glad that he is dead; if I had illicit sex with a sensuous woman and enjoyed incredible erotic experiences with her; if I was involved with pagan or syncretistic forms of worship that provided a sense of spiritual ecstasy—even should I decide to cease from these behaviors, can their impression upon the soul be wiped out by a simple act of will? Perhaps, then, kaparah refers to a process of purgation, of purification, of “cleansing” of the depth-levels of personality that were affected (the concept is explained thus in Tanya, Iggeret Hakodesh)—and the more soul-searing the sin, the stronger the instrument of kaparah required. Indeed, kaparah and taharah are linked in the key verse describing the effect of Yom Kippur (“for on this day He shall atone you to purify you”; Lev 16:30).

As for the concept of suffering as having a unique atoning effect: the Talmudic sugya (although not Rambam) uses the word le-marek—to scour, to clean, to polish—to describe this effect. The idea is not one of punishment per se, but of suffering humbling one, breaking the excessive self-confidence of the person who has till then enjoyed a cushy, comfortable life, leading perhaps to a certain reflection upon deeper levels of life. Suffering encompasses all the basic areas of life: material loss, family, and illness (banei, hayyei, umezonei). All three befall Job in rapid succession (his camels, herds and flocks are stolen or destroyed; his children are killed in a freak accident; and he himself is stricken with a noxious disease); a major aggadic sugya in Berakhot 5a-b discusses the meaning and purpose of gratuitous suffering, again in reference to these three dimensions.

Why do certain sins carry karet or the death penalty (today, the two are effectively synonymous; in the absence of a Rabbinic High Court, all sins for which there is theoretically the death penalty become karet), and require deeper atonement? Karet is a metaphysical, spiritual concept, not a juridical one, and is variously defined as alluding to premature death; childlessness; a kind of metaphysical separation from the Jewish people; or the soul being “cut off” after death. In any event, these sins fall under four basic rubrics: 1) moral sin—i.e., killing another person; 2) sexual sin—all types of incest, adultery, etc. 3) theological sin—idolatry, or its inversion—acts of contempt or belittling towards God and His Holy Name, or towards the Divine service in the Temple and its artifacts—entering in a state of impurity, making the incense for secular purposes, etc.; 4) a small group of post-Temple religious observances that are seen as cardinal to Jewish life: Shabbat, Pesah, Yom Kippur, and circumcision. (Interestingly, to this day, even many Jews who lead a generally secular lifestyle are careful about these, with the exception of regular Shabbat observance.)

Teshuvah and One’s Fellow

All this, regarding the relations between God and man. The texts we shall now read have to do with the social aspect of sin and teshuvah. They are placed at the end of Chapter 2, because they bridge the aspects of both atonement and teshuvah. At the outset, we should mention that teshuvah is often popularly understood as focusing on “religious” aspects of life: praying with greater seriousness, studying Torah for more hours every week, various stringencies about both positive and negative mitzvot—but often ignoring the interpersonal human aspects. How often has one seen people who are quite pious, but insensitive or obtuse or even rude in their personal interactions, devoting efforts to ever greater religious perfection, while being oblivious to how others see them in the everyday life. They may even destroy intricate social-communal networks they have spent years building without ever knowing why.

Turning to our subject, we shall begin at Hilkhot Teshuvah 2.9 (for translation, analysis and comments of the first eight halakhot in this chapter, see below on thsi blog):

9. Neither teshuvah nor Yom Kippur atone except for transgressions between man and the Omnipresent, such as if he ate a forbidden thing, or engaged in forbidden intercourse and the like. But transgressions between man and his fellow, such as one who caused bodily injury to his fellow, or cursed his fellow or robbed him and the like, are never forgiven to him until he returns to his fellow what he owes him and pacifies him. And even if he returned the money he owes him, he should appease him and ask him to forgive him. And even if he merely belittled his fellow with words, he must appease him until the latter forgives him.

First, a comment about something that may not be self-evident: why are unlawful sexual relations considered a transgression between man and God, even though by definition they are an act performed by two people? The operative assumption is that the sex was consensual, and that presumably neither party was hurt. Obviously, if some injury ensued: if the act was an adulterous one, and word got out, destroying the marriage of one or another party; or one party gave a sexually transmitted disease to the other; or it was an act of rape (often the case in certain types of incest); or if the sex took place under false pretenses—again, a common enough scenario in our day and age. In all these cases, clearly, the responsible party must seek forgiveness of the other.

Another question: suppose the injured party forgives the other in his heart? There is a short prayer recited by many people at the beginning of Keriat Shema al ha-Mitah (the Shema recited before sleep): “I hereby forgive anyone who has injured me or insulted me or angered me…. and let no man be punished on my account.” Why is forgiveness still necessary?

For example: someone made a speech containing an implied insult, although my name was never mentioned. I forgave him in my heart, chalking it up to emotional stupidity and childishness. He is considered to have been forgiven, and punishment has been stayed—but that person can never achieve kaparah until he himself realizes the sin, does teshuvah, and asks forgiveness. This is so, because the process of kaparah requires not only teshuvah, the resolve to change, but also a certain cleansing of the sin, and removing its traces from ones personality.

If his fellow man does did not want to forgive him, he brings a group of three of his fellows and they request from him [on his behalf]. If he was not appeased, he brings them a second and third time. If he still does not wish to forgive, he leaves him and goes away, and the one who was unwilling to forgive is the sinner. But if he [the injured party] was his teacher, he must come and go even a thousand times until he forgives him.

The flip side of this halakhah is that a person must be generous and forgiving, and open his heart to be moved by a demonstration of sincere contrition. (But what if he instinctively senses that this is an act? The assumption of the tradition seems to be that nobody would be so knavish as to ask forgiveness if he were not sincere, particularly if it involves the ceremony of bringing a whole group of people.) Apologizing to others, admitting that one was in the wrong, is always a very difficult thing. Doing it in public, undergoing the humiliation of telling another person, “I have wronged you, I was in the wrong,“ is even greater in the presence of others.

10. It is forbidden for a person to be cruel and not to be appeased, but he should be easy to be pacified and difficult to anger [Avot 5.15], and when the sinner asks him to forgive him, he should forgive with a full heart and a willing soul. Even if he pained him and sinned against him greatly, he must not take vengeance or hold a grudge. And this is the way of the seed of Israel, and their straight hearts. But the idolaters are uncircumcised of heart are not thus, but they guard their anger forever. And it says thus of the Gibeonites, that because they did not forgive and were not appeased “and the Gibeonites are not from the children of Israel” [2 Sam 21:2]

In any event, a person who has the humility and compassion that are discerned as the hallmark of the Jew will be forgiving and not bear grudges (which is also a Torah prohibition! see Lev 19:18).

11. One who sinned against his fellow, and the latter died before he could ask forgiveness, he must bring ten people and have them stand by his grave, and he says in their presence, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and against so-and-so, that I did thus–and-such to him.” And if he owed him money, he returns it to the heirs. If he could not find any heirs, he deposits it with the court and confesses.

Sins against others are so serious, that even after death the book is till open, because the sinner needs kaparah. This relates to the second dimension of interpersonal sins: that one who hurts his fellow also sins against God. Why ten people, and not three? This is not a ceremony of calling up the spirit of the dead, as in An-Sky’s somewhat fanciful play The Dybbuk. Rather, because the injured party is dead, the public aspect of the act of contrition need strengthening. Ten are a minyan, a microcosm of the Jewish people; hence they are in some sense empowered to symbolically represent the deceased, who cannot grant forgiveness himself.

Rambam on Selihot

A brief concluding note. This Saturday night Ashkenazim begin reciting Selihot. While the present custom originated in the Middle Ages, it has ancient roots. It is interesting to briefly note Rambam’s reference to Selihot, in the same passage in which he discusses the meaning of sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah as an instrument of teshuvah (this, in addition to the entire treatise devoted to the laws of shofar in the technical sense). Hilkhot Teshuvah 3.4 concludes:

And because of this matter, the entire house of Israel are accustomed to increase alms and good deeds, and to engage in mitzvot from Rosh Hashanah till Yom Kippur, more so than during the rest of the year. And it is customary for all of them to rise at night during these ten days and to pray in the synagogue with words of supplication and words that conquer [the heart] until daybreak.

Ashkenazim, as noted, start Selihot at least four days before Rosh Hashanah, always starting on a Saturday night, but the original custom was limited to the Ten Days. Sephardim say Selihot throughout the entire month of Elul, but their “ur-minhag” was also only during the ten days. Joseph Mosseri, who periodically sends out a newsletter on Sephardic custom, mentions that Rab Hai Gaon and Rab Amram Gaon refer to the custom of Selihot only during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipour. The custom of beginning from Rosh Hodesh Elul goes back to the early days in Spain, to R. Yitzhak ibn Giat (ca. 1020- 1091) and to R. David Abuderaham.

This service is not one of normative prayer, but tahanunim & kibbushim. Tahanunim describes the attitude of approaching God as a humble petitioner, as one who is almost begging, beseeching a favor. Divrei kibbushin means “things that conquer the heart”—prayer that, it is hoped, will move the Divine heart. The same word is used for the type of speech used at a eulogy given in the cemetery or the house of mourning, or of sermons delivered on public fast days—things that penetrate the heart. In short: prayer here is seen, not as avodah, but as people quite simply pleading for their lives.

Having mentioned divrei kibbushin, I will add, by way of association, the old custom of delivering powerful, emotionally-moving derashot or “ethical talks” (musar shmuss) on the Days of Awe—in the synagogue and, especially, in yeshivah minyanim. This is done, especially, before Shofar on Rosh Hashanah and before Neilah on Yom Kippur, as well as before Maariv on the first night and at Kol Nidrei. For two years during my youth I was privileged to participate in the High Holy Day prayers at Yeshivat Har Etzion. Rav Yehudah Amital—may he have a long life, and continue to bear fruit in this world as in his younger years—delivered talks in a special melody, like that used by the “Maggidim” in Eastern Europe. The effect was electrifying.

And, Apropos of the Parsha

This morning I came upon the following passage from Robert Bly’s Iron John; A Book About Men, whose reference to the “moist” and the “dry” seemed uniquely apt to this week’s parshah, where the miscreant who thinks he can go his merry way, causes both wet and dry to be swept away (Deut 29:18). More on the book itself another time:

Every man and every woman on this planet is on the road from the Law to the Legends. … The Legends stand for the moist, the swampish, the wild, the untamed. The Legends are watery, when compared with the dryness of the Law. It takes twenty years to understand the Laws, and then a whole lifetime to get from there to the Legends. The Law stands for the commandments we need in order to stay alive, the rules that say which side of the road we drive on… the postulates that encourage prudence, politeness, and appropriateness; the precepts that help us control our madness…. We are each on the way… from dogma to the Midrash, from the overly obedient man to wildness… The closer a person comes to the Legends, then the closer he or she comes to depth, moistness, spontaneity, and shagginess. (pp 140-141)

There is much to like here, and also much to disagree with. For the moment, I read this passage as a metaphor for the insight that, beyond the Law, the words of Torah, the halakhah, there is an inner core—of vision, of Midrash, of hidden teaching, of “Works of the Chariot”—that can only be perceived through that part of the soul that is “moist,” wild, “shaggy”; that is, different from the dry, tamed, disciplined world of mainstream Judaism. And it can only be learned after certain earlier stages of life. One of the lessons we have seen all this year is that even the sober, rationalist Rambam knows of this place, and that it is the ultimate goal of his heart’s passion.