The Torah in this week’s parashah in the third aliyyah presents a sequence of three parashiyot, all of which involve avodah zarah (idolatry) of some form – first the navi (prophet) who claims that God has told him to command us to worship avodah zarah; the second of the meisit (instigator) who attempts to persuade an individual acquaintance to worship avodah zarah; and finally, the parashah of `ir hanidahat (city which went astray) where at least a majority of the community has been corrupted under the influence of  אנשים בני בליעל (godless men).  These parashiyot are not merely about avodah zarah, but about avodah zarah performed through “instigation”; in each case the instigating party says “נלכה” (“let’s go”), ostensibly joining in the worship.  But in none of these cases is it necessary, at least according to Chazal for the instigator to perform avodah zarah, and only in the last case, the `ir hanidahat, is it necessary for avodah zarah to be worshipped in order for the case to proceed.  In effect, the sin being discussed here is the one of instigation, not of avodah zarah per se.  And it’s worth noting that Chazal did not understand the navi for avodah zarah only as one who is encouraging us to abandon Judaism; but rather it also entails a navi who merely advocates for a temporary suspension of the mitzvah of avodah zarah (as opposed to the temporary suspension of another mitzvah - in such a case, if the navi is already established for us as a navi emet (true/reliable prophet), such as Eliyahu on Har Carmel, we listen to temporarily uproot any commandment except avodah zarah.)  The aveirah (sin) of the navi for avodah zarah, then, is primarily one of advocacy, of misleading, or better said distorting Torah, as opposed to its wholesale abandonment.

What is the Torah’s message here in the sequence of these parashiyot?  In particular, what is the connection between the first two which merely entail advocacy, as opposed to the third which entails the wholesale spiritual corruption of a society.

Let us step back for a moment, considering the first parashah, that of the navi sheker (false prophet).  What is the role of a navi sheker in a society?  Let us step back further – what is the role of a navi emet (a true prophet)?  In the popular imagination, a navi is one who predicts the future – whether it be future historical events or miracles and signs which come to pass.  And indeed, if one is looking to establish that a given person is indeed a prophet, this may be necessary.  But if you read the works of the classic nevi’im, that is the books of the nevi’im acharonim (the latter prophets in the Bible), you discover that the primary role of the navi is to give musar (rebuke, reproach), to rebuke a society for its shortcomings in the arena of Torah.  The gemara in the first chapter of Bava Batra (12b)) tells us that מיום שנחרבה בית המקדש, ניטלה נבואה מן הנביאים וניתנה לשוטים ולתינוקות (when the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to the insnane and the children).  What does this mean? 

In his famous work, “Night”, Elie Wiesel tells the following story which transpired on the train to Auschwitz:

Madame Schächter had gone out of her mind. On the first day of the journey she had already begun to moan and to keep asking why she had been separated from her family. As time went on, her cries became hysterical. 

On the third night, while we slept, some of us sitting one against the other and some standing, a piercing cry split the silence:

"Fire!  I can see a fire!  I can see a fire!"

There was a moment’s panic. Who was it who had cried out? It was Madame Schächter. Standing in the middle of the wagon, in the pale light from the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a cornfield. She pointed her arm toward the window screaming:

"Look!  Look at it!  Fire!  A terrible fire!  Mercy! Oh that fire!"

Some of the men pressed against the bars. There was nothing there; only the darkness.

And then there is the story of the Emperor’s New Clothing.  Everybody oohs and aahs at the emperor’s new clothing.  Only the young child blurts out, “The Emperor has no clothes”.

 The common feature of these stories is that all of the clear-eyed, sane, rational adults, are simply unable to see or to acknowledge the truth.  As adults, we are masters of self-delusion, of seeing what we want to see, of trying to fit in and go with the flow.  But the tinok (child) and the shoteh (insane) feel no compulsion to conform – they simply blurt out the truth as they see it, which in many cases should be obvious to all around them.

In the same way, the primary role of the navi is to look at a society with clear eyes and to tell a community or society what is wrong – hence he is not only called "navi" which refers to "בורא ניב שפתים" (Isa. 57:19), his role as an orator, but also a "ro’eh" or "chozeh", a seer.  The role of the navi sheker is to obscure; that of the navi emet to shine a light on the darkness.  The navi sheker proclaims שלום שלום (Jer. 6:14, “all is in order”) whereas the navi emet proclaims אין שלום (ibid., “all is not in order”).  The navi sheker is there to comfort the comfortable in their affliction of the afflicted, and to reassure all that everything is well; the navi emet has the job of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

 Very recently, Bret Stephens, one of the conservative columnists for the New York Times, published an interview (https://sapirjournal.org/education/2022/08/the-limits-of-meritocracy) with Michael Sandel, a noted political philosopher from Harvard about Sandel’s view on the issue of “meritocracy”.  In short, “meritocracy” is the notion that given equal starts (and to their credit, some advocates of “meritocracy” recognize that we fail to do this as a society for so many of the less fortunate), people who get ahead in our society do so because they work harder than others, and those who fall behind do so because they are not willing to work hard.  In other words, outcomes reflect the “merits” of the individual.  (Or put differently, we strive for equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.)

Sandel says:

When we speak of merit as a value, we’re making a strong claim; we’re saying that insofar as chances are equal, the winners deserve their winnings. This is the assumption we need to reconsider. The principle of equality of opportunity is important; no one should be held back by poverty or prejudice. I think this is the principle, Bret,that you rightly care about. But it is important to recognize that equality of opportunity is a remedial ideal. It is not a sufficient condition for a just society. Meritocracy, understood as a principle of deservingness, has a dark side. It corrodes the common good. It teaches those who land on top that their success is their own doing and the measure of their merit. And, by implication, that those who struggle must deserve their fate, too. This feature of meritocracy — the attitude toward success that it cultivates — leads to hubris among the winners and to humiliation and resentment among those left behind.

 He continues:

We need to educate the successful to notice the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way, and to appreciate their indebtedness. This recognition can prompt a certain humility, the ability to look at those who struggle and say, “There, but for the grace of God or the accident of fate, go I. That could be me.”

But the part that struck me most about the interview was the last exchange (note that Sandel grew up with a Conservative Jewish upbringing):

Stephens: What do you think that Jewish education has to offer to this conversation?

Sandel: Jewish education at its best can prompt a spirit of critical inquiry, interpretive debate, and humility. It can cultivate an appreciation of the possibility that we are not self-made and self-sufficient, despite what a market-driven meritocratic culture teaches us. So much of our public culture, especially among the privileged ranks of our society, teaches us that we are self-made and self-sufficient, that everything we achieve is our own doing. Engaging with Jewish texts, Talmudic debates, and biblical stories can induce a certain humility. It can recall a covenantal idea of community, belonging, and obligation — an idea that exceeds our will, our doing, our mastery, and our dominion over the world and our fate.”

 When I read this, I was thinking – “where have I heard this before?”  And the answer is: on numerous occasions in Sefer Devarim (Deuteronomy).  I say this not to criticize, but to note that both the interviewer and interviewed seemed to have missed the point (or perhaps just didn’t address it) that this approach is possibly the most central theme in Moshe Rabbeinu’s farewell speech:

השמר לך פן תשכח את ה' א-לקיך ... פן תאכל ושבעת ... ורם לבבך ושכחת את ה' א-לקיך המוציאך מארץ מצרים מבית עבדים ... ואמרת בלבבך כחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה.

 Success breeds arrogance, belief in oneself as the primary agent creating success – and this is nothing less than idolatry.

 That many of the wealthy and powerful in our society prefer the economic system as currently constructed should come as no surprise.  אין כל חדש תחת השמש (“There is nothing new under the heavens”, Eccl. 1:9).  But for many, controlling the system and tilting it in their favor is not sufficient – they also need to provide the “just-so” story so that we all can understand why they are right, why they are deserving, why the outcome is just.  And they do that by creating institutes and foundations and buying (up) the “intellectuals” who will produce position papers and opinion pieces to justify the world as it exists.

 But I am not coming to address those intellectuals.  I may disagree with them, and marvel at the convenient (well-funded) self-interest, but I have not the hubris to claim that I know any better on my own.  They have opinions and I have opinions – as to what a just society looks like.  Mine derive from Torah; most of them do not subscribe to my Torah, so our differences come as no surprise to me.  On the most basic level, we don’t subscribe to the same system of morality, so the conclusions we draw are obviously different.

 But I do believe that our opprobrium should be directed towards the nevi’ei sheker – that is the Orthodox (or claiming to be “Orthodox”) “intellectuals” who look at our society – with its economic system of predatory capitalism (“disruptor” is often a sanitized term for “predatory”) with winner takes all and ever widening inequality, and assert that this is consistent with Torah values.  They are bought and paid for (literally) by the wealthy and powerful.  If you wish to eat chazir (pork) go ahead, but please don’t try to put the seal of the Va’ad HaKashrut on it. 

 This “nevu’at sheker” (“false prophecy”) can take one of two forms – first, it can consist of outright distortions of the Torah’s views as I have just described.  But it also, can come in the form of critiquing the flaws of our society – sometimes justifiably – and joining forces with one end of the political spectrum, left or right, without acknowledging that a significant part of each side’s view is antithetical to Torah.  If your movement advocates for “social justice” in the economic and racial sense but fails to note that the left’s view on sexuality and gender issues (which, incidentally, seem to take up a disproportionate amount of airtime, despite affecting a proportionally smaller part of the population, compared to the issue of economic struggle which affects a much larger part of the population – please note that the former affects the wealthy also, the latter not so much) is categorically antithetical to Torah, you are presenting a distorted view of Torah.  And if you condemn the attitudes towards sexuality and gender issues but fail to note the incompatibility with the Torah’s vision of an economically just society (or even worse – you hold up its current iteration of capitalism as a Torah value), you are no less guilty of distorting Torah – it is as if there is no ribbit (lending with interest), no shemittah (Sabbatical year), no Yoveil (Jubilee); or you have blinders on when talking about the underlying values of those commandments.

 The Torah in this week’s parashah provides us with the sequence of events.  You begin with the idea of avodah zarah (supposedly commanded by God) which is preached publicly, where a few people, the nevi’ei sheker, broach an idea that it is antithetical to Torah.  The Torah teaches us that that is the time to nip the issue in the bud.

 If we fail to do that, we reach the next step – where these ideas have invaded the minds of individuals who become the connectors and spreaders of these ideas – כי יסיתך אחיך בן אמך או בנך או בתך או אשת חיקך או רעך אשר כנפשך.[i]  The Torah says that we have obligation to not accept these מסיתים (instigators), so as to prevent these ideas from spreading and becoming normalized. לא תאבה לו ולא תשמע אליו[ii].

 If we fail to do that, we wind up with the corruption of a society – an `ir hanidahat – which has rotted from within and for which redemption is impossible; like the original `ir hanidahat - that is Sodom and `Amorah.

 And this is the result not just of the powerful themselves– but rather it begins with their enablers, the nevi’ei sheker.

 These nevi’ei sheker are sometimes in the category of עם הארץ דאורייתא ודרבנן (complete and total ignoramus), but sometimes they are people who should know better, but for one reason or the other (be it for personal pecuniary gain, or on rare occasion le’sheim shamayim [for altruistic, sincere motivations] driven by something in their life experience which has led them to unintentionally) distort the Torah’s message.

 Our response to this, the Torah’s tells us, needs to be quite clear.  We are bidden:

לא תאבה לו ולא תשמע אליו – we should not listen or “like” these people.  Their distortions should be called out because this is nothing less than an attempt to be: מדיחך מעל ה' א-לקיך המוציאך מבית עבדים[iii].

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[i]  “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, that is as thine own soul.” (Deut. 13:7) (all translations from JPS 1917)

[ii] “Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him;” (Deut. 13:9)

[iii]  To draw thee away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of bondage.” (cf. Deut. 13:6)