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The most strict viewpoint, and the reasons for it, are given by Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, Laws of Theft and Lost Objects, Chapter 6, laws 7, 10, and 11:
7. The sages forbade many things as kinds of robbery .... For example ... those who play with dice.
10. What does "playing with dice" mean? It means playing with wood or bundles or bones and such things and making an agreement that whoever wins the game will take a particular amount from the other; That, indeed, is theft according to the rabbis even though it is by consent, since one takes the money of another for nothing .... Similarly, anyone who plays with ... animals or birds and makes an agreement that the one whose animal wins or runs faster will take a certain amount from the other, all such things are forbidden and are considered theft according to them.
11. Gambling with a non-Jew isn't forbidden by reason of theft . It is believed because they are not reciprocally bound by the same strict rabbinic ordinances defining forms of theft], but is forbidden by reason of engaging in worthless activities, since the only fitting ways for a person to engage all their days is in the pursuit of wisdom and in "settling the world [i.e. constructive activities that make it possible for people to live in the world].
So, for Maimonides, if you win, you're a thief, and if you lose, you're wasting your time, as Rabbi J. Schwartz posits.(Although Maimonides didn't council asceticism, he didn't consider fun to be a worthy goal for its own sake. However, fun that contributes to physical and mental health is fine.) Many Medieval Jewish communities adopted this general prohibition of gambling to greater or lesser avail.
On the other hand, many rabbis permitted occasional gambling, especially on the "minor" festivals, such as Purim and Chanukah; In fact, in some places, Chanukah was called "The New Year of Gamblers!" There are responsa that record with approval that rabbis won lotteries, and there is even a ruling that one who wins a lottery must recite "Shehekheyanu ."
An interesting particular aspect concerns the use of gambling (Bingo/casino nights, etc.) for synagogue fundraising. There have been two CCAR responsa dealing with this subject (American Reform Responsa, nos. 166 and 167), one from the thirties and one from the seventies. Both responsa indicate that raising funds in this way is not definitively prohibited by the letter of Jewish law, but that it also not a good idea. The earlier responsum raises concerns that "such Jewish affairs, especially if much publicized, may lower the respect for Judaism in the eyes of non-Jews." The later responsum, in commenting on the "concessions" that Jewish law has sometimes made with regard to occasional gambling, opines that "it is one thing to accept the human frailty, but another to approve it or to encourage it through the synagogue. Although funds from dubious sources may be accepted by a synagogue, it would be wrong to make such funds a basis for synagogue life, " Schwartz reports.
Indeed, the CCAR passed a resolution in 1949 and reaffirmed it in 1979 that stated:
The CCAR deplores the use of gambling devices to raise funds for Jewish religious and communal institutions, as being contrary to our faith and tradition. The CCAR calls upon its members to discourage such practices.
CCAR resolutions are not, however, apparently, de facto, binding, because they do not consider the halacha of rabbis wiser than their present rabbis binding. Hence the CCAR cannot force a congregation to behave ethically.
But I do urge you to gamble. As Rabbi M. Torczyner suggests, Indeed take audacious risks. Gamble with money, gamble with relationships, gamble with Judaism.
Perhaps the most important gamble in human history occurred on the very first Rosh ha Shanah - and the gambler was God!!
On that first Rosh ha Shanah in history, 5769 years ago (on the Traditional Jewish and Governor's Palin's calendar) , Adam and Chavah ate the fruit they had been warned not to eat, the fruit regarding which God had said, "On the day you eat this, you will die." But they didn't die that day. What happened, Torczyner asks?
God opted to forgive Adam and Chavah. God took a chance on their future righteousness.[Ibn Ezra]
In fact, the Midrash records that even before God created humanity, God was already gambling on us. As God determined to create us, the Divine attribute of Truth protested, arguing that human beings would tell lies - and God refused to listen, opting to gamble on us instead, arguing that, as the Kotzker Rebbe explained, אמת שאומר אל יברא אינה אמת, ''Truth which refuses to create, to take a chance, to lose once in a while, is not truth.'' Beresheit Rabbah 8:5
Ponder on this. If God is known as Dayan Emet, God must Gamble, God must occasionally loose!!
Gambling is required, and losing is acceptable, because this world is not meant to be a place of perfection; God designed this world as a laboratory, and laboratory experiments fail.
We are taught in Pirkei Avot, העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור, This world is a hallway, a preparation area, a lab for the next world.
Certainly, we take this world seriously, we try to mend the world and improve it. And if we fail, the consequences for ourselves and for other people are real. But the message of Pirkei Avot and the Torah is that in this Research & Development lab, as Torczyner posits, mistakes are part of the learning process.
Unlike the greedy banks and lenders, we take risks for the sake of noble values, for the sake of helping others - and then, if we fail, we can accept that, and God can accept that. God does not rig the table; He deals the cards, bets on our success, and lets the chips fall where they may.
This is why God can create Humanity and forgive Adam and Chavah, all the while knowing that they and their descendants will fail again: Because in the lab that is this world, it's all right to take a risk and fail. We just get up again and keep on going.
Today, as Hanukah approaches, we ignore the calamitous market and we are inspired to take chances - financial, social, and spiritual and rededicate ourselves to God and to Torah.
First, a financial gamble.
This is a time of year when Jews traditionally pledge tzedakah . Shlomo haMelech/King Solomon wrote, וצדקה תציל ממות, Tzedakah rescues us from death.
In this market, though, I'll bet many of us are planning to reduce our tzedakah. That with the economy teetering, by all accounts, on the brink of collapse, with an ongoing recession and the new threat of a crash, with unemployment and shrinking retirement funds and lost scholarships and skyrocketing costs of staples, many of us - most of us even, Torczyner predicts, - feel we just can't do it anymore.
Hanukah cards and ecards will come from Jewish organizations asking for donations. It's a safe bet that some people who used to put in a check or email back with a credit care will have to think long and hard before doing that again.
And won't we be smart, won't we be prudent, when we reduce the tzedakah we give? After all, our assets are in danger!
To which Judaism says "No." Despite the market and the banks, despite our fears for the future, it is still time for us to gamble. We have been promised, and it's actually recorded as law in Shulchan Aruch, לעולם אין אדם מעני מן הצדקה, We will never go broke giving tzedakah. Yoreh Deah 247:2.
As the Talmud tells us the best salt, preservative, for our money, is to give some of it away in tzedakah. This was discussed in a past Talmudic discourse.
Giving tzedakah is not the same thing as gambling on sub-prime loans. The bankers, the lenders, were gambling for the sake of lining their pockets. Jews, on the other hand, gamble on helping other human beings. Supporting a shul, a school, a Jewish Family Service, a Jewish study hall, a needy family in Israel.
We are not speaking glibly about something Rabbi Torcznyer or I are asking others to do, about some challenge for others to face. Over 90% of our incomes, earned or unearned goes to tuition, mortgage ,real estate taxes. gas , groceries, medicine , health insurance, and clothes and you realize that, yeah, we have a pretty good handle on what economic crisis means.
But we believe that we will never go broke giving tzedakah, and we are going to act on that belief for Israeli tzedakot, for Torah and Talmud study, for Jewish Family Service, for the various synagogues.
Please understand: I am not saying, nor is Torcznyer, nor the sages, that a family should take bread out of its own mouth in order to give tzedakah; the first and most important tzedakah is to one's self and one's family. The Talmud makes this clear.
There are more ways to help other people, piety should not be linked too closely to the pocketbook. .
But if there is something left over after the immediate needs are met, then before locking down the savings account, remember the words of the prophet Malachi - ובחנוני נא בזאת, Test God on this:'' If you will separate out your tithes, then Ha Shem will open for you the storehouses of the heavens and rain down unlimited blessing upon you.''
Tzedakah is one gamble we should make, even in this risky world.
Here's another one: It's time to gamble on our families, on our most fundamental relationships.
There is not a single family that doesn't harbor a broken relationship - siblings who have not spoken in years, a husband and wife who have become bitter over each other's offenses, children who cannot stand the thought of speaking to their parents, parents who feel betrayed by their children, aunts and uncles who boycotted your wedding, cousins you wish had boycotted your wedding, you name it. This is normal in human relationships; relationships grow, and break. But they can also heal, and it's amazing what an outstretched hand can do toward that end.
In a Jewish Spiritual Renewal essay I wrote about the reconciliation between Avraham and his exiled son, Yishmael.
There was good reason for this relationship to break, and remain broken.
*Avraham kicked out his seventeen year old son, giving him nothing of his vast estate but a loaf of bread and a jug of water. Avraham gave more to three anonymous passersby than he did to his own son!
*Yishmael, for his part, endangered the life of his brother, Yitzchak, and God personally approved of Avraham's eviction of Yishmael.
If ever there was a reason for a relationship to break, and to remain broken, this was it!
But it did not remain broken; as the midrash tells us, Avraham pursued a reunion with his son Yishmael, and, eventually, not the first time but after a while, he got it. And when Avraham passed away, Yishmael was there - honoring his younger brother, Yitzchak, putting him first in the burial procession.
Avraham took a chance, reaching out to a son whom God had described as פרא אדם, a wild man, who in his youth had wandered off into idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder, a son who had lived a life far removed from Avraham's דרך ה', his path of God.
Yishmael took a chance, too; he could have rejected Avraham's advances. Yishmael could have berated Avraham for kicking him out of the house.
Avraham put his heart on the line and reached out - he was willing to risk losing, and because God taught us in creating and forgiving humanity that taking a chance is not only permissible, it is imperative.
And Yishmael responded.
And a third gamble: When it comes to our spiritual lives, we need to take chances in this laboratory world as well, as Torcznyer calls it.
We spend so much of our religious lives working off of old ideas - stories we learned in grade school or Hebrew school and have not examined since, beliefs our parents conveyed to us and we never really questioned, empty stereotypes of Judaism, practices we perform regularly or ignore regularly. Of what value is a religious life unexamined?! Of what value is a Judaism that substitutes ritual for thought, scenery for substance, rote for re-examination?
Prayer which is unexamined rote needs risk-taking to shake it up. Shabbat without thought, whether spent in synagogue or at home or at the mall, needs risk-taking to shake it up. Every mitzvah is available for us to re-examine and re-invent at every opportunity, so that it is new every time.
It is time for all of us to have Jewish Spiritual Renewal.
All of us - those who are learning for the first time since we sounded the shofar at the end of last Yom Kippur, and those who study each day - all of us can take chances today. We are taught that God gives us the Torah היום, today, each and every day, בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים, each day these laws, these ideas, should be new in our eyes, like the first day we heard them, like the moment we stood at Sinai.
Of course, religious re-examination is hard; it's a threat to the status quo. It might lead us to do more, it might lead us to do less. We might read the Torah and come away believers; we might read and come away heretics. That kind of unpredictability is uncomfortable. We love our stability.
But this is precisely why we must take chances - because the status quo is seductively comfortable, and profoundly unacceptable in its seduction. Yes, doing so risks making the wrong decision - but in creating humanity and in forgiving Adam and Chavah, God taught us that failure is acceptable, so long as we take a chance. The only falsehood is the decision of אל יברא, the decision not to gamble at all.
Some 2800 years ago a prophet named Eliyahu stood astride a mountain and challenged the priests of the Canaanite idol, the Baal. Right in the middle of their territory and under the nose of their royal supporters, Eliyahu dared the priests to bring a public offering to their god, and to summon fire from heaven, in front of the assembled nation, to consume the offering.
As the priests carried out their rituals Eliyahu taunted them, asking if they should not pray louder; maybe Baal was sleeping, or chatting with someone, or in the bathroom. Torcznyer says he was Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart and Billy Crystal in one, commenting on the Baal rituals for the amusement of all - and putting himself further and further out on a precarious limb, if he should fail to deliver in his own offering.
When the priests of Baal had failed, Eliyahu built an altar and had water poured all over it, once, twice, three times. Then he cried out, beseeching God to reveal His authenticity to the nation - and a fire came down from Heaven and consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt - and even the water.
Eliyahu took a massive risk. He lived at a time when prophets of Judaism were being slaughtered by the queen. He was in the distinct minority just for believing in Ha Shem! And he turned to his nation and said, "Look, folks, it's time to decide what you believe: If you believe in Baal, go follow Baal. If you believe in God, come, follow God."
Eliyahu bet his beliefs, he bet the beliefs of the public, he bet his very life, on a distinct longshot - because it wasn't a selfish gamble for his own sake, it was a gamble for the sake of the nation. He was willing to bear defeat - and he didn't lose, he won.
Even as we shoulder the burden of Wall Street's profligate gambles, remember that their mistakes should not dictate our future. A selfish gamble will never be rewarded - but using God's forgiveness as a model, we endorse selfless gambling. Losing is acceptable, as Torcznyer opines, and part of the enterprise that is this world.
William Arthur Ward wrote a poem called "To risk" in which he summed up our message beautifully:
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
God gambled in creating us, and God did it again on Rosh ha Shanah 5769 years ago in forgiving Adam and Chavah; next week, remember the Maccabees as they gambled, 2175 years ago, to rededicating the Temple to God. Let us gamble to rededicate our lives to Torah, God, Talmud, Judaism, our fellows thru out the globe and our fellow Jews, this Hanukah.
Happy Hanukah!
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
Special thanks and acknowledgement to Rabbis M. Torcznyer and J. Schwartz.
