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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:PATUR,MUTAR,CHAYYAV
A Short Snap Shot of Rabbi Arthur Segal
Again Shalom Aleichem
The below post from one of our Talmidim pushed some Judaic buttons from some others. Since Judaism to supposed to be about principals and not personalities, I've distilled the essence of them, trying to keep them in a kind manner, with no makloket. This is coming from the discussion: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH CHAPLAIN:GOSET
"Sometimes you have to flat out lie. I remember a child who was happy he would finally get to go see a major league baseball game. I did not ruin it by telling him his rabbi had raised the money for the trip because his cancer had come back and was no longer treatable.Or like our High School discussion of "Les Miserables". Is it wrong to steal bread to feed your family? Sometimes discernment is the thing.T____''
The unanimous consensus of those that wrote was that it is not a lie to NOT tell a child who is going to a baseball game, that the tickets were given to him because he is dying of cancer. NOT telling the child at the time is 100% Judaic and kind and merciful. Telling a child on the way to a baseball game that he was given his tickets because folks felt sorry for him because he was dying of cancer, is just mean, cruel, and 100% not Jewish.
The time to tell a Jewish child of such a prognoses in not on a bus with a traif Ball Park hot dog in his hand, but in a hospice setting with a Rabbi, a Jewish Chaplain, his doctor and his parents.
While one can debate the question of stealing to feed one's family in a middle school ethics class using Les Miz as the proof text, those that wrote would like to use the Talmud as the text to get our answers.
Judaism demands that one uses discernment. Yet Judaism teaches that our discernment comes from Guidance, from God, after tephila, meditation, and a daily chesbon ha nefesh. Indeed the beginning of all wisdom, Proverbs 1:7 says, as does Psalm 111:10, comes from the fear of God. Not just the love of God, but the fear of God.
Judaism is a way of life. It doesn't work in a vacuum and each mitzvoth is dependent on other mitzvoth also being done. If we all gave to Tzedakah and let the poor, metaphorically ,glean the corners of our fields, one would not have to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family.
The question in Les Miz is not whether one can steal to feed his family, but if the French Aristocratic courts should jail or punish a person who did such.
The answers to both are found in the Talmud and are clear after one parses the Gemora.
Please go to your book shelf and pick up Talmud Tractate Shabbat. We were learning from it a few classes ago. Flip to daf 3a and also quoted again on 107a:'' Rabbi Shmuel teaches us that any act referred to as exempt in the context of Shabbat is exempted from punishment, but forbidden.''
Now what does this mean?
Our Sages divided all work performed on Shabbat into three categories:
- Chayyav (liable). If a Jew is aware that he/she is performing melakhah (Torah-forbidden labor; lighting a fire, for instance) on Shabbat, and he/she does so willingly and deliberately, he/she is liable for punishment. If the melakhah was performed accidentally, he/she would have been required to bring a sacrifice to the Temple in Jerusalem.
- Mutar (permitted). This is work that is totally permitted on Shabbat, like taking a walk, reading to a child, or setting the table.
- Patur (exempt). This is the gray area. If a Jew performs these acts on Shabbat, he/she is exempt from punishment or the obligation to bring a sacrifice, yet the act is forbidden. These are generally acts that our Sages forbade because they have the potential to lead to performance of melakhah. For example, transacting regular purchases falls into this category because both parties are likely to record the transaction in writing, a definite melakhah. Interestingly, there are some credit-like exchanges of foodstuffs needed for Shabbat that our Sages allowed, precisely because an actual transaction is not melakhah.
Taking a loaf of bread , if one is starving, if you read the first post of this topic on rigorous honesty from Talmud Yerushalmi, RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:SHIMON BAR KAHANA just as we mentioned, taking and using a Talit of someone else's, is in the gray Patur area of life. No Jewish court would condemn anyone to prison or to lashes or to a fine. In fact, they would find him a job, and have a portion of his first wages go to repay for the bread. And they would find a way to care for his children.
''It is forbidden to steal even the slightest amount. Yet if it is something that no-one is bothered about, it is permitted... But the Talmud Yerushalmi forbids this, as an act of piety. Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 369:1 .'' So if one took a loaf from a wagon of 500 loaves, and admitted such, it may be something so small than no-one is bothered about. On the other hand, if someone stole a loaf of another who only had one loaf, the theft would be serious.
One does not have to lie in Judaism. One can say :"My family was starving and I took a loaf of your bread."
The only time we can lie is for Shalom Bayat and the Talmud gives some examples of Aaron doing such to bring about Shalom among people. One can lie if one's wife asks for the fifth time: ''Are you sure I don't look fat in this dress?," by saying, "I love you and the color brings out the beauty in your eyes.''
In recent years there are some Orthodox rabbis who would have us move back to Hebraism. For instance, some sages in Jerusalem are being so strict in their understanding of the rule of not enjoying produce of the land in the seventh year that they are making impoverished Jerusalemites pay 10 time more for produce. The that wrote can't help but think that the great rabbis of the Talmud, such as Akiba, would have more compassion on the poor than obsessing about the Torah's literal understanding.
In the end, as the prophets also taught, the people's legitimate needs come first. We are reminded of the scene in the movie The Frisco Kid (with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford) in which Wilder's Orthodox rabbi tries to save a Torah scroll instead of his friend. Later, he refuses to accept a rabbinical position in San Francisco because he feels he has failed the test of putting people before a book, albeit a holy book.
In the end, as the prophets also taught, the people's legitimate needs come first. We are reminded of the scene in the movie The Frisco Kid (with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford) in which Wilder's Orthodox rabbi tries to save a Torah scroll instead of his friend. Later, he refuses to accept a rabbinical position in San Francisco because he feels he has failed the test of putting people before a book, albeit a holy book.
We Jews are to live by the law, the spirit of the law, and not die by it. We are not French Aristocrats. We are Yahudim, grateful to God, and if there is one among us, just one, that needs to steal bread to feed his family, it is an indictment of we as a people, not following God's mitzvoth to take care of the poor, the widows, the orphans, the handicapped, the sick, and other misfortunate in our society.
This is what brought on the French Revolution and why our Prophets ranted at us. Perhaps its finally time we listened to them.
Shalom:
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
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