Weekly D'var

PARASHAT VAETCHANAN
Harold Zarkowsky

The Torah portion begins with a plaintive Moses----“I pleaded with God, saying ‘Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan’.”

According to Midrash Rabbah, it was not a one-time prayer.  Moses prayed 515 times for permission to enter the Promised Land.  The sages came up with 515, using the numerical value of Biblical and celestial events, and a mathematical algorithm  AI would envy.  And if you are into gematria, it is also the numerical equivalent of the name of the parsha---va’etchanan—“I pleaded.”

We know that his 515 prayers were not answered. Can you imagine being told “no” 515 times?

Moses tells the people he will not cross over with them saying,
“Because the Lord was wrathful with me on your account and would not listen to me.”

We can imagine Moses thinking about all the times during the 40-year journey, when God was wrathful with the people.  Moses pleaded with God on their behalf.  And those pleads assuaged the anger and averted the punishment.  But it did not work for him. And it must have been particularly vexing that the people did not protest in his favor.

Midrashic sources picture Moses telling the Israelites:
“I hoped the entire community would raise an uproar on my behalf, just as I was ready to give my life for the community. You should have said to Hashem, ‘We will not go without Moses.’ Unfortunately, your feelings for me did not match my love for you.”

Moses then goes on to remind them that their going comes with obligations and commandments.
“And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

Moses warns against idol worship, recites the ten commandments and repeatedly refers to the commandments, decrees and laws.  They are told to observe what our president might call a big, beautiful bill of laws.

But even a big, beautiful bill of laws cannot cover everything or convey the spirit of the law.  So, they are further instructed to:
“Do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord.”

Nechama Liebowitz wrote:
“What new obligation does this admonition imply?  We must, of course, assume that the Torah does not multiply injunctions merely for rhetorical effect.  We have, therefore, to seek specific contributions of this verse to the whole, one which we could not have deduced from any other dictum in the Torah.”

She goes on to say: “our rabbis explained this verse to refer to relations between man and man in which the individual is called upon not always to stand upon his rights but rather to act in the interests of a higher morality.”

The Talmud gives this scenario to illustrate the verse.

Rabbah bar Hanna’s porters broke his jars of wine and the contract between the porters and Rabbah made them liable for breakages.  He took their cloaks as a pledge for compensation.  They pleaded for the return of their cloaks.  Rav told Rabbah to give back the cloaks.  The poor porters then pleaded for their wages and Rav said---go and pay their wages.  Rabbah had no such obligation--both rulings were adhering to doing the right and good thing.

The principle of doing what is right and good also can be a restraint on an action permitted by the letter of the law.  Rabbi Yeshaya Shapiro wrote,
“There are many things which are permitted by the letter of the law and are only forbidden from the point of view of “thou shall do that which is right and good in the eyes of the Lord.”

That point of view was ignored by many Jews during a period in US history.

A few months after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and with the forthcoming strife on the horizon President James Buchanan summoned the American people to assemble according to their several forms of worship to observe a day of humiliation and fasting---not to work, to travel or to eat.  It was to be a day of repentance, a national Yom Kippur, in the hope of averting an impending civil war.  On January 4, 1861, churches and synagogues were filled with congregants.

In Manhattan commerce slowed and streets were empty.  At traditional synagogue, Bnei Jeshurum, the Swedish born rabbi, Morris Raphall gave his sermon.  Rabbi Raphall was a prominent rabbi, who in 1860 was the first rabbi to give the opening prayer to the US House of Representatives.

During his sermon on the national fast day, he proclaimed:
“I am no friend to slavery in the abstract, and still less friendly to the practical working of slavery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel; not to place before you my own feelings and opinions, but to propound to you the word of God, the Bible view of slavery.”

He concluded his sermon:
“slaveholding is not only recognized and sanctioned as an integral part of the social structure … [but] the property in slaves is placed under the same protection as any other species of lawful property.”

In the South one-fourth of Jews owned slaves----a similar proportion to the general population.  Few Jews owned plantations so the average number of slaves in a Jewish household was small.

For the Jews of the South owning slaves was part of fitting in with the majority population.  Not wanting to call attention to themselves by objecting to the Southern way.

Perhaps the Jews who owned slaves or who accepted slavery for mercantile interests could take cover in the Biblical interpretation offered by Rabbi Raphall---but clearly, they were not doing what was right and good in the eyes of the Lord.

The mandate to do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord applies in yet a third way.  As Nachmanides explained:
“It is impossible to record every detail of human behavior in the Torah, embracing man’s relations with his neighbors and friends.”  

We have this general principle to guide us in those situations.

But we must keep in mind the admonition of Rabbi Shapiro,
“One must not only think of that which is good and upright in your own eyes, but that which is good and upright in the eyes of the Lord.”

One can exercise this principle grounded in the knowledge and understanding of the values and ethics of Judaism.  It is not a license to justify your own self-interest.

Use it wisely and with compassion.

In closing, I will do what is right and good by wishing my beloved wife, in front of this congregation, a happy birthday.  Her birthday is tomorrow, but today is Shabbat Nachamu which always falls just before or after her birthday.  And how fitting that is.  In the haftorah, Isaiah is told---nachamu, nachamu,-----comfort, comfort my people.  During her professional career, Vita gave a double dose of comfort to her young patients with leukemia or cancer and to their families. Doing what was right and good in the eyes of the Lord.