The Value of Money

ויירא יעקב מאד ויצר לו (בראשית לב:יב)

To Kill or Be Killed?

 In the opening section of this week's parashah, we read about how Yaakov sends messengers to inform Esav of Yaakov's impending return.  The messengers return and inform Yaakov that Esav is coming with a party of four hundred men.  Yaakov is seized with fear.  The Torah tells us:

ויירא יעקב מאד ויצר לו – Jacob was very afraid and he became very anxious.

The midrash in Bereishit Rabbah records:

אמר ר' יהודה בר' עילאי לא היא יראה לא היא צרה, אלא ויירא שלא יַהֲרוֹג ויצר לו שלא יֵהָרֵג (ב"ר עו:ב)

He was afraid that he would kill; and he was anxious lest he be killed.  The order of the midrash seems odd (Rashi, in fact presents this midrash inverted) – one would have thought that the first and foremost concern would have been being killed; killing Esau should not has been as great a concern, especially since it would justified as self-defense.  Why does the midrash, seemingly, present matters backwards?

The addendum to the last Mishnah in Masekhet Kiddushin (82a) comments about (the spiritual value/impact) a number of professions.  Regarding butchers, the Mishnah says טוב שבטבחים שותפו של עמלק, the best of the butchers is the business partner of עמלק.  Rashi explains that the reason for this characterization is that ספק טריפות באות לידו וחס על ממונו ומאכילן – when he encounters doubtful cases, rather than doing the right thing and treating it as not kosher, he worries about his bottom line and feeds the problematic meat to others.  What is difficult about this interpretation, however, is the connection to עמלק – it would probably would have better to say רשע, but why שותפו של עמלק?  The characterization of עמלק in the Torah is ויזנב בך כל הנחשלים אחריך – preying on the vulnerable, which is the trait of cruelty.

The mishnah in Berakhot (33b) states: האומר על קן צפור יגיעו רחמיך משתקין אותו, we silence the Chazzan who states in his prayer that God had mercy upon the mother bird, and that is why he gave us the commandment of שילוח הקן, sending away the mother bird before taking the eggs or the chicks.  The Talmud explains the reason as מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקב"ה רחמים ואינן אלא גזירות.  For he presents God's measures as a reflection of His mercy, but they are only decrees.

Ramban, in his commentary on the Torah (Deut. 22:6), discusses this statement and cites the opinion of Rambam in the Guide to Perplexed that this Mishnah is following the school of thought that mitzvoth are not logical or rational at all, but merely reflect the will of God.  But according to the other school of thought, that the commandments are all rational, the reason for the commandment of שילוח הקן is exactly as suggested by the mishnah – i.e. because God had mercy on the mother bird.  Ramban, however, strongly disagrees.  He claims that the objection to the formulation in the mishnah is not the notion that mitzvoth have a reason, but rather because the chazzan has given the wrong reason.  In Ramban's words:

לומר שלא חס הא-ל על קן צפור ולא הגיעו רחמיו על אותו ואת בנו, שאין רחמיו מגיעין בבעלי הנפש הבהמית למנוע אותנו מלעשות בהם צרכנו, שאם כן היה אוסר השחיטה, אבל טעם המניעה ללמד אותנו מדת הרחמנות ושלא נתאכזר. כי האכזריות תתפשט בנפש האדם, כידוע בטבחים שוחטי השוורים הגדולים והחמורים שהם אנשי דמים זובחי אדם אכזרים מאד, ומפני זה אמרו (קידושין פב א) טוב שבטבחים שותפו של עמלק.

God's mercy does not extend to animals so as to prevent us from using them for our needs, for if that were so he would have prohibited slaughtering animals.  Rather the reason for the prohibition is to inculcate in us the trait of mercy and so that we don't become cruel. For cruelty can permeate a person's character, as is well known regarding butchers who slaughter large animals and donkeys that they are are men of blood, killers of people, extremely cruel.  It is for this reason, Chazal tells us that the best of the butchers is the business-partner of Amalek.

Ramban here identifies the notion made popular in the work of the Sefer HaHinukh, that הלבבות נמשכות אחר הפעולות – people's character is shaped by their actions.  Some of you might be familiar with this from part of a line of Margaret Thatcher in the movie "The Iron Lady" (although not actually hers), "watch your habits as they become your character."  For Ramban, it is the repeated slaughter of large animals, the spilling of blood in a visceral way, that typically induces the trait of cruelty into butchers – their habits become their character, and hence טוב שבטבחים שותפו של עמלק.

In this vein the Zohar, on parashat Naso (p. 124a) comments that the priets were particular in not allowing a priest to perform the ritual slaughter on the sacrifices in the Temple as a non-priest was valid for ritual slaughter, and the act of slaughter was incompatible with the character that the priesthood was supposed to symbolize.

And if we consider the popular expression, "you are what you eat", it's worth noting that while we often assume that the kashrut of a bird species is simply of matter of what is listed in the Torah – i.e. that those birds listed are not kosher and all others are – the halakhah actually records that we have an oral tradition of simanim – signs, or characteristics which determine the kosher-status of a bird.  One of them is דורס ואוכל; literally, it tramples and eats.  By definition, a predatory bird (and many if not most of the birds in the Torah's list are indeed predatory, eating small mammals or fish) is not kosher.  The Torah's message here is that we eat the prey rather than the predators – in accordance with the notion that it is better to be from the נעלבים ואינם עולבים, those who are oppressed rather than the oppressors.

Thus, it is possible to comprehend the hierarchy of our Patriarch Jacob's concern – first he was concerned that he would have to kill, and only then was he concerned about being killed – he was worried first about his soul and then about his body.  Expressing the same idea, Golda Meir ("A Land of Our Own") states: "When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."

I believe that there are many areas in life where Yaakov Avinu's teaching about actions impacting character is something we ought to consider.  Let me briefly point out three:

1)     The political situation in Israel, specifically our being forced to being "occupiers".  I do mean at all to criticize Israel or take any political position.  From my vantage point, none of the options Israel has are great choices, and they have mostly been forced upon it.  In this vein I should cite the end of the earlier quote of Golda Meir, which is: "Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us".  Nonetheless, when we discuss the pros and cons of any approach, often missing from the discussion is the impact that repeated acts of force that "occupying" demands has on the souls of the nineteen and twenty year olds who are forced into that position.  If the current approach is the least bad of all of the choices, one still needs to be mindful of the impact on our children's souls that הלבבות נמשכות אחר הפעולות – that must be part of the calculus.  (I say this as a parent of a חיל in צה"ל whose mother probably sleeps better at night knowing that he will not be serving in combat, but whose father doesn't sleep as well thinking that as a lawyer for צה"ל he may have to defend things he isn't comfortable defending; these considerations sometimes seem to elude to those who do not have children serving or having served in צה"ל.)

2)     The issue of those who ask us for money on the street.  Chazal tell us that one is מעלים עיניו מן הצדקה, conceals his eyes from those asking for tzedakah,  is like an idol-worshipper.  On a rational level, we can make all sorts of calculations in our head – is this person really poor, what are they actually going to do with the money, does this really help them, why isn't society dealing with this problem on a macro-level?  All good questions, and maybe even true.  But I much prefer to try to be prepared (I'm not always sufficiently mindful of this, but I try) to have on my person, something which I can give.  Because even if I were to correctly rationalize why I shouldn't give (and it is to this that R. Elazar observes that we give thanks to the cheats for saving us from sinning every day, because the reason we often do look away is because we suspect the beggar as being deceitful [Ketubot 67a]), I have come to realize that it is bad for my neshamah, for my soul and character to be מעלים עינים.  Undoubtedly, from a rational calculation, there are times I shouldn't give, but I have decided that when I get off the George Washington Bridge at 178th street and see the look in the eyes of the man who is walking by each car, the cost to my soul for closing my eyes to those eyes far outweighs any other consideration.

3)     The way we speak about people whom we disagree, often vehemently.  There are, as I envision it, two ways to critique – a person or a behavior.  When instead of critiquing and labeling behavior we start to label people, we not only do something to the object of the labeling, but we also do something to ourselves.  We start to become angry, dismissive, disparaging and haughty people.  We place ourselves apart from and above other people.  To be sure, there may be occasions where such labeling is merited, but when it becomes habitual, it not only potentially dehumanizes others, but does something to the labeler.  It struck me recently that the Torah frequently uses a very strong word of disapproval – תועבה.  But what is interesting is that there is only one clear cut case and possibly one other case where the Torah labels a person an abomination – the clear case being that of one who cheats in business, כל עושה עול (Deut. 25:16), and the possible one being that of sorcery (Deut. 18:12).  Idolatry, various kinds of prohibited sexual acts – bestiality, adultery, incest, anal intercourse between two males, eating certain kinds of non-kosher food, bringing blemished animals as sacrifices – are all described with this word, but not one of them is a description of a human being – either an object/animal or an activity, but never a person.  The Torah is teaching us something here about how we should critique others.  Failure to heed this lesson results in a coarser society, and we become coarse people.

And so perhaps it actually does make a lot of sense that Yaakov Avinu was more worried about the impact of having to kill than of being killed.  In the discussion I cited earlier of Ramban and Rambam on the commandment of sending away the mother bird, Ramban cites a line from a midrash that the mitzvoth were given primarily for the purpose of purifying our character – לא ניתנה אלא לצרף בהן את הבריות.  We ought to keep that in mind in every walk of life that we worry first about שמא יהרוג and then about שמא ייהרג.