On Shmita

Shmita, or the Sabbatical year, is a biblical practice, with origins in the Torah. The concept of Shmita, as I understand it, is the practice of refraining to farm a given land every seven years, and of forgiving (or settling) debts every seven years. The origins or the practice have derived from the following passages of the Torah, and later expanded by the rabbinic sages:
Exodus 23:10 And six years you shall sow your land, and gather in the increase thereof; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat; and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.
From the above passage, it has been derived that:
1. Farmers must refrain from working in their farms every seven years.
2. Whatever fruits that happen to grow of their own accord would be consumed by the farmer, the poor and by animals.

The Torah further explains elsewhere the following:
Leviticus 25:11 And HaShem spoke unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto HaShem. Six years you sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof. But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath unto HaShem; you shall neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which grows of itself of your harvest you shall not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine you shall not gather; it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. And the Sabbath-produce of the land shall be for food for you: for you, and for your servant and for your maid, and for your hired servant and for the settler by thy side that sojourn with you; and for your cattle, and for the beasts that are in your land, shall all the increase thereof be for food.
From the above passage we learn that:
1. The law of Shmita is given at Mount Sinai.
2. The law of Shmita applies only to the land of Israel and not elsewhere (derived from the second sentence “when you come into the land…”
3. On the seventh year, much as the Sabbath, no work is allowed on the land.
4. The random produce of an untilled land should be food for the farmer and also for the poor as well as for wild animals.

Furthermore, the sages have declared that the law of shmita also applies to monetary debts such that at the end of Shmita year, all debts are nullified.
The concept of shmita is fascinating and it provides for much commentary. It provide lots to analyze for the skeptical such as I. I wanted to summarize the law of the Sabbatical year to the best of my ability first, before delving into the consequences of these laws. From the knowledgeable reader I ask to read the above summary and find inaccuracies. If I have failed to summarize the laws accurately, I would appreciate some guidance. In the coming blogs I will try to analyze these laws…

There was a young lady of title,

Who insisted on wearing a sheitel,

Of religion as such

She didn't know much

But thought that a sheitel was vital.

A sheitel is a wig used by orthodox Jewish women to cover their hair. These women use the wig to cover their hair for religious reasons. The wearing of a sheitel is an Ashkenazi tradition. But more and more, from time to time, in gatherings such as weddings or Bar Mitzvahs, I notice that Sephardic Jewish women are beginning to wear them too.

My friend and I like to play a game of identifying the sheitel. She is much better at it than I, and she is able to point out the most subtle sheitels amongst the crowd. I am told that these wigs can get quite expensive, some selling for over $10,000. In some circles in New York, the quality of a sheitel has come to be somewhat of a status symbol. A woman here in Great Neck is distinguished by the Louis Vitton bag that she carries, the Mercedes Benz that she drives and the sheitel that she wears!

But you, dear reader, might think fondly of a woman who wears a sheitel. After all, wearing a sheitel is to fulfill the Jewish Halachic law and a sheitel is a symbol of modesty, right? So what could possibly be wrong with the sheitel?

It is my purpose to review the Jewish laws that have led the orthodox community to embrace, indeed to require, the wearing of sheitels by women. I want to review the logic used in arriving at the conclusion that exposing one’s own hair is not appropriate. And I want to expose some of the orthodox rabbinic views on women and women’s issues.

If you asked an Orthodox Rabbi to point out the source for the Halacha of sheitels, he is likely to point to the biblical story of “The Sotah”. Now I am almost sure that the reader - even if educated in a Yeshiva - has not learned the biblical story of “The Sotah”. In fact, it is interesting to me how certain stories in the bible are very familiar, being repeated over and over by the rabbis, while other stories wane in the shadows of obscurity. How often, for example, do we hear that there are 613 ‘Mitzvahs’ or good deed yet we are never told that one of those 613 Mitzvahs is to hunt down a certain people called the ‘Amalekites’ and murder them? But I digress. Here is the biblical story of ‘the Sotah’ (Numbers 5:11):

Hashem spoke to Moses, saying:

"Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them - Any man whose wife shall go astray and commit treachery against him: and a man could have lain with her carnally, but it was hidden from the eyes of her husband, …
and a spirit of jealousy had passed over him and he had warned his wife… The man shall bring his wife to the Kohen.
"The Kohen shall bring her near and have her stand before Hashem: …
The Kohen shall have the woman stand before Hashem and uncover the woman's head, and upon her hands he shall put the meal-offering of remembrance -- it is a meal-offering of jealousies, and in the hand of the Kohen shall be the bitter waters that cause a curse: …
"The Kohen shall adjure the woman with the oath of the curse, and the Kohen shall say to the woman, 'May Hashem render you as a curse and as an oath amid your people, when Hashem causes your thigh to collapse and your stomach to distend: …
And the woman shall respond, 'Amen, amen.': …
He shall cause her to drink the water, and it shall be that if she had become defiled and had committed treachery against her husband, the waters that cause curse shall come into her for bitterness, and her stomach shall be distended and her thigh shall collapse, and the woman shall become a curse amid her people:
But if the woman had not become defiled, and she is pure, then she shall be proven innocent and she shall bear seed:
"This is the law of the jealousies, when a woman shall go astray with someone other than her husband and become defiled:…
“The man will be innocent of iniquity, but that woman shall bear her iniquity.”

It is clear that the above passage is describing what happens when a woman is accused of adultery. Her husband brings her before a Kohen, and the Kohen gives her an elixir made up of ‘bitter waters’ to drink. The Kohen curses her and forces the woman to say ‘Amen’. If she in fact is guilty, her thigh and uterus explode; if she is innocent, then she presumably becomes pregnant.

This is an interesting passage, isn’t it?

Now I have said that the purpose of this article is to talk about the religious concept of Sheitels. Believe it or not, this concept derives from this passage, and in due time, I shall relate the relevance to the reader. But I can simply not resist the temptation to digress a bit and comment about the passage itself.

Forget about the demeaning nature in which women are portrayed in the above passage, forget the outrageous fact that the man involved in this adulterous affair is considered innocent, and by all means forget the sexist nature of this passage. My question simply is why do we not do this presently? I see numerous television shows or courtroom reports where a husband is attempting to find out whether his spouse is cheating on him – why doesn’t he simply go to the local Kohen? The Kohen could simply have the woman drink this ‘bitter water’ and determine her guilt or innocence. Who needs DNA testing when we have the Kohen with his concoction that can distend a guilty uterus?

One might think that this drink would be very sought after indeed: What happened to this valuable drink? How did the Kohen come to lose this amazing bitter water? When in the history of Jews did the Kohen lose the recipe for this drink? Or if we have such a recipe, why do we not use it anymore? If you think that the story is a bit weird and difficult to swallow, remember that it is contained within the very scroll that you rush to kiss every Shabbat.

But let us return to the subject at hand. How do religious Jews justify the wearing of sheitels based on this passage? I do not see the word Sheitel mentioned, nor is there anything about wigs said. I must admit I was miffed.

It turns out that the great rabbinic sages actually read the passage of “The Sotah”, and used deductive reasoning. In other words, they ‘derived’ the Halacha of Sheitels from this passage. How, you ask? Let us see their reasoning:

The rabbinic sages point out that in the passage the Kohen uncovers the woman’s hair. They then derive that if the Kohen had to uncover her hair, then it must have been covered in the first place. If this is so, then women normally must have been covering their hair. If this is so, then woman MUST cover their hair!

Let us review the logic:
1. The hair of the woman in ‘The Sotah’ story was uncovered by the Kohen
2. If her hair was uncovered, then it must have been covered to begin with
3. If her hair was covered, then it must have been covered all the time
4. If her hair was covered all the time, then ALL women’s hair must have been covered at all times
5. Therefore all women must have their hair covered!

Talmudic Rabbis go even further. They state that a woman’s hair is akin to her private parts. Thus, just as a woman would not expose her breasts to the public, she cannot expose her hair either. The Rabbis declare further that men are not allowed to pray when a woman has exposed her hair in the synagogue. More modern rabbis have written instruction manuals on what to do if there is a woman in a room or synagogue while they are praying. Their advice to men is to either politely tell the women to leave, or at the least, not to look at the women.

Interestingly, unmarried women’s hair need not be covered at all. Even in the Talmud, exposed hair by unmarried women is allowed. I have not been able to understand why this is so, and I have tried! I once asked a Rabbi: if exposed hair is akin to an exposed breast, why are unmarried women allowed to expose their hair? He merely looked at me scornfully as if I were a troublemaker.

In any case, we can conclude that women (at least married women) must cover their hair because of the story of ‘The Sotah’. Never mind that the story is discredited in that there is currently no remnant of the mentioned ritual; that there is no “bitter water” available; and that there is no forum in which to perform this ritual. Women must still abide by this story nevertheless. It is as if the Rabbis are saying “forget about the reality that the story has proven false. Abide by it anyway!” Personally, if I were a woman, I would only agree to cover my hair if a Kohen could produce the uterus exploding water. “Keep your business out of my hair until you can show me that your water can collapse a thigh”, I would say!

But seriously, does it follow that just because a woman’s hair was uncovered in that act of judgment then all women’s hair must from then on be covered? Maybe the fashion of the time three thousand years ago was to keep hair covered. Does this mean that we must keep with that fashion even now? Should we wear exactly what they were wearing too? Thank goodness the story does not describe the color and the dress this woman was wearing, or else, the rabbis would have required women to wear that dress as well!

A more respectable argument for covering of hair could have been made on grounds of modesty. The rabbis could have said that modesty in dress includes covering hair. Certainly those women who wear hats or otherwise cover their hair tend to be less flamboyant then those who flaunt their hair. An argument could have been made that a dignified woman should cover her hair out of modesty. Unfortunately, when asked, Rabbis always point to ‘The Sotah’ story for justification for this law, and only add the modesty issue as an afterthought.

But for better or worse we have this Jewish law – that women should cover their hair. So where does a Sheitel enter the picture? Does covering one’s hair with someone else’s hair fulfill this Halacha? If god required us to cover our hair, do we believe that it would be acceptable if we covered our hair with someone else’s hair? Is this not cheating?

That Rabbis who liken exposed hair to exposed breasts, and who condone the wearing of a wig – would they then condone exposing a breast with a silicone implant? Or would they like to see women wearing bikinis that have realistic breasts painted on them giving the impression that the women are walking naked on the beach?

If realistic Sheitels mimicking women’s natural hair so well that a man is never sure whether he is looking at a woman’s real hair is justified, then why would realistic looking bikinis with private parts painted on them not be justified?

If modesty is the reason why women are asked to wear a wig, then why are the wigs made so realistic? What happens when the wig is deemed more attractive than a woman’s own hair? How is an imitation of a body part more modest than the body part itself?

Have I made my point?

At the outset, I knew that it was not going to be difficult to debunk a law that compelled women to shave their heads and wear wigs. At the gut level, this practice is so demeaning, that if it were not real and not occurring to my friends, it would be eerily comical. When I began to research the laws concerning Sheitels, I became convinced that these laws are holdovers from the era when sexism and perceived inferiority of women were commonplace.

What puzzles me, though, is that we continue to submit ourselves to these laws. We continue to snicker and murmur about these halachas, yet we continue to obey them. Or if we do not obey them, we comment on the so and so Jew who has taken things too far. But the root of many of these laws is the same. The same group of Rabbis who state that women must wear wigs also declare that we couldn’t have a microphone in the synagogue. They are the same Rabbis who state that we cannot sit in our cars and drive in order to visit our families. They are the same Rabbis who say that you may not eat at yours daughter’s house, lest her house not be Glatt Kosher. If they can produce an absurd law of the Sheitels, they can produce other laws too. The same Rabbis!

Is in not up to us to evaluate these laws – to check them against logic and common sense? Are we not ultimately responsible for our lives? Must we always wearily shrug and obey blindly? Is our faith so pervasive that we as men are compelled to ask our wives to shave their heads and place someone else’s hair upon them?

Burn your Sheitels!

Rosh Hashana


This year, on the Thirteenth of September, we celebrate the Jewish new year. There was a time when the Jews believed truly that the world was some 5000 years old. Numerous Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, had carefully reviewed the events recorded in the Torah and concluded that the world must be exactly 5768 years old. The Rabbis taught that 5768 years ago, God created the sun, the moon and the star systems, together with the earth and all that is within it. The Rabbis taught that the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, were created 5768 years ago essentially out of nothingness. They taught that the entire planet, with its myriad plants, animals, entire civilizations, and the human race are less than 6000 years old.

Happy New Year!

As humans have acquired more scientific knowledge, we have come to understand that indeed the earth and the solar system are much older than what the Rabbis taught. We have found remnants of humans and animals that are hundreds of thousands of years old. And we have come to realize that the age of the earth measures in the billions of years rather than thousands.

Revisionist Rabbis, confronted with the extensive evidence that the world is much older than what the Torah would have suggested now have changed their tune somewhat. They now claim that maybe the six days that comprise the first week of creation may in fact be much longer than actual 6 days. They say, “Since the sun was not created until the third day, who says that the first two days were 24 hour days?” When faced with fossil records dating millions of years, they claim that the evidence is fabricated and should not trusted.

The truth, for all who are willing to open their eyes, is plain to see: The world is not 5765 years old!

But calendars measure time, and the Jewish time is as good as any. Years must begin and come to an end, and for the sake of complicity, let us accept that our new year, this year, begins on September 13th.

Happy New Year!

And so we purchase our admission tickets, attend the synagogues, celebrate, and congratulate our friends and congregants. We gather at our friends’ and family’s homes, sit around the table together, sing songs, and eat.

We eat apple and honey so that in the coming year we can be happy and full of sweetness. We eat tongue so that we may be wise. We eat pumpkins so that our sins may be light….And at night’s end, when we are satiated and content, we usher in the New Year, full of good wishes and hope.

In the ensuing ten days, we remember our dealings of the past year, come to recon and reconcile our deeds, and prepare for the Day of Atonement. The wise amongst us sit in the synagogue on Yom Kippur, remember the sins of the past year, ask God for forgiveness and act contrite. The rest of us, unskilled in the knowledge of Hebrew or skill of the intricate readings of the sacred texts, sit in the synagogue, gossip, and with growling stomachs, yearn for a distraction.

We sit in the synagogue and witness or participate in the auctioning of the Torah readings to the highest bidder. We witness this year’s wealthy family who bids $25,000 for the Naalia portion and wonder how it is that they came to so much money. We gossip that so and so paid $6,000 for the Torah reading because his daughter has come of age and is in need of a suitor. And we contribute money to the synagogue in the mistaken belief that this money will buy favors in the heavens.

And we witness the obligatory event of a woman who rises from the back of the woman’s section, pledges thousands of dollars to the synagogue in the hope of restoring fecundity to her sterile daughter. Rest assured that the money bought nothing!

And we see the Gabbay of the synagogue who happily accepts a donation in the name of some sick boy, whose father donated money in desperation, in hopes of finding favor with God. Know that the Gabbay, like the snake-oil salesman, has sold nothing to the desperate father and taken his money.

Do we believe that God and his favors are for sale? That the representatives of the synagogue are God’s middlemen, sprinkling heavenly favors to the highest bidder? If you believe so, then you are not practicing Judaism.

We cannot eat apple and honey on Rosh Hashanah and expect next year to brim with sweetness. Our hearts must fill with kindness and joy first.

We cannot eat tongue and expect wisdom. We must purchase it in the labor of honest study.

We cannot eat pumpkins and lighten our sins. We must strive to do good deeds and refrain from harming others.

And we cannot rise vainly, for the entire congregation to see, and fill the Rabbis’ hands handsomely with money and expect redemption. The way to charity begins with desire on the part of a charitable heart and ends in fulfilling the yearning of the truly needy.

It is said that the last prayer of Yom Kippur, the Naalia, culminates into the hour of decision, when the books of judgment are reconciled before God, and the course of the coming year is decided. It is said that in that hour the Angels of God seal the Book of Life for the coming year. Who will come to wealth and who will be burdened with bankruptcy; who will enjoy health and who will suffer illness; who will be blessed with happiness, and who will be cursed with sorrow – it will all be decided on the day of Rosh Hashana and sealed on the night of Yom Kippur.

But will it? Does God on that night seal and remove our free will? Will our future be set before us like a train marching within its tracks? Will God cease to have us retain control of our future?

Lacking free will, should we stop obtaining drugs for our children because God sealed our children’s fate on that fateful Yom Kippur night? Should we stop striving? Should we shelf our ambitions because our fate has been sealed? Are we that helpless?

Or should we stop defending our beloved nation of Israel because a set of loathsome Rabbis have decided that Israel cannot be a nation until Messiah comes?

Nonsense!

My intention is not to discourage prayer. On the contrary. We must lift our heads, look to the skies, and ask for the strength and assistance in striving to commit justice and refrain from the temptation of evil. We must increase our resolve to treat one another justly and to defend our nation and people from harm. We must stop relying on religious symbolism to cover our misdeeds like thick syrup on bad bread. And we must refrain from contributing to the corruption of our rabbis by contributing corruptly.

May we all bask in the sweetness of a happy and joyous new year.

Happy New Year!

It has been over a year since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas Terrorists. His 21st birthday is coming up in August. Israel has not yet been able to secure his release. We have not forgotten him!

Milk and Meat

I recently visited an orthodox Jewish friend at his house and shared a meal. My friend is Persian, and needless to say, his wife cooked a meal fit for a king. We feasted for what seemed to be hours, while passing a wonderful Sabbath afternoon. While satiated, and intoxicated with the wonderful sleepiness of a gluttonous Saturday afternoon, my mind drifted to philosophy and religion.

I noticed that my friend and his wife had 2 refrigerators in the kitchen. They had two sets of plates, one for dairy and one for meat. They had separate utensils placed in separate cabinets. I joked with my friend and told him that his expenses are doubled with this life style of his. He laughed and said that he actually has three sets of dishes, the third set for Passover.

The following day, I decided to study the Jewish laws concerning the eating of dairy and meat, which are briefly as follows:

Dairy food (such as Milk or butter) cannot be eaten with meat products.
Meat products are those that are derived from animal flesh, so for example cow, lamb, and chicken are considered “meat”. Interestingly, fish is not considered to be meat.
There are some foods that are considered neither meat (“fleishik” in Yiddish) nor dairy (“milchik”), but rather are neutral (“pareve”) and may be eaten with meat or milk. For example, eggs are considered pareve and can be eaten both with dairy as well as meat products.
There are also some food products, such as fish meat that are “pareve”, but cannot be eaten with meat, though they can be eaten with dairy.
Time must elapse between the consumption of meat and dairy products. Most rabbis state that at least six hours must pass following the eating of meat before it is permissible to eat dairy. On the other hand, if dairy products are consumed first, one needs only to rinse his mouth in order to begin to eat meat.
Utensils such as pots and pans take the character of the meal that is being prepared in them. Thus, if you are cooking meat in a pot, the pot becomes “meat”. If you drink milk in a cup, the cup itself becomes “dairy”. Thus, you cannot mix the “meat” pots and pans with “dairy” pots and pans.
The smallest quantity of meat or dairy products in a dish renders the entire meal “meat” or “dairy”. Therefore, one can not eat meat in a “milk” pot and vice versa - hence the need for separate “meat” and “dairy” dishes, pots, pans, and refrigerators.


As is my habit, I asked my Rabbi to point me to the root of these religious laws. Proudly, he told me that the Torah orders all Jews to practice the above rules. He cited the following passages:

Exodus 23:19 “The choicest first fruit of your land shall you bring to the House of Hashem, your God; you shall not cook a kid in the milk of its mother”

Exodus 34:26 The first of your land's early produce you shall bring to the Temple of Hashem, your God. Do not cook a kid in its mother's milk."

Deuteronomy 14:21 “You shall not eat any carcass; to the stranger who is in your cities shall you give it that he may eat it, or sell it to a gentile, for you are a holy people to Hashem, your God; you shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk”

Unless I am seriously mistaken, the passages seem to say that a “kid” (meaning a young cow) should not be cooked in its own mother’s milk. The passages repeat three times so that there is no room for vagaries – We should not cook a cow in its mother’s milk. It could have said, “you shall not cook a kid (meat) with milk”, which would have prohibited eating meat with milk, but it didn’t.

Ok, then. I read these passages and remember that according to most Orthodox Rabbis, the Torah must be respected and its content - word for word - must be followed.

To the religious Jew who reads the Torah and decides not to eat cow meat cooked in the milk of its mother, I say “well done”. More power to such a Jew!

But what about meat that has been cooked in the milk of a cow not related to the “kid”? What about the meat of, say, lamb cooked in cow’s milk? Why have the Rabbis prohibited us from eating these?

These days, when we eat a cheeseburger, it is a very safe bet that the milk used to produce the cheese is not related to the cow whose meat became hamburger! Why then is a cheeseburger denied us?

What about chicken cooked with milk? Chickens do no even produce milk! We couldn’t cook a chicken in its mother’s milk even if we wanted to! Why then can we not eat chicken with milk?

What is this business with fish not being considered ‘meat’? Who decided that and why? I do not see the passages in the Torah that relate to this particular rule. Where did this rule come from?

And how does it come about that a utensil becomes “meat” or “dairy”? Does the meat’s spirit invade the dish?

Ridiculous!

To the reader who reads this and says that I am taking too literal a meaning from the words of the Torah, I say you are correct. To those who say that one must read the Torah as an illustrative or spiritual text, I say that they are also correct. Many a Rabbi has chastised me, saying that I apply a very strict meaning to the letter of the Torah’s text. These Rabbis say that we should pay attention to the meaning or spiritual message of the Torah rather than the strict application of its words. To those Rabbis I say they are also correct.

These are the same Rabbis who take the words of the Torah and twist them until all sense has been wiped from them, who complain that I take the words of the Torah too literally! These are the same Rabbis who take the edict “you shall rest on Shabbat” to such extremes as to dissociate themselves from society on Saturdays, who tell me that I am being too literal in reading the Torah. But ok, I am being too literal.

I agree that the Torah should not be taken literally when it states that we should not cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Instead, we should take a more spiritual meaning from this passage. What then is the Torah teaching us? What are we to learn from the passage?

Personally, I believe that the Torah is teaching that we should not require a close family member such as a mother to participate in the harm of its loved one. The Torah, I think, is saying that we should not require a mother to provide of its produce in the destruction of its children. In human terms, it is saying for example that we should not require a mother to put her child to death. A similar and modern version of this halakha is that a wife or mother cannot be compelled to testify against her husband or child in a court of law. I think the Torah is hinting at a similar concept.

What the Torah is not hinting at is the nonsense that we have come to endure from our Rabbis. From a beautiful concept that the Torah has expounded – the compassion toward a mother so that she is not compelled to participate in its child’s death – the Rabbis have derived that pots and pans are considered “dairy” if dairy products are eaten in them! From a thoughtful passage in the Torah that seems to display compassion towards the suffering of mothers for their children, the Rabbis have derived that meat can be eaten following drinking milk as long as the mouth is wiped!

Come on!

The Torah has nothing against eating milk and meat together. It states so clearly in the Genesis in describing the experience of Abraham, our patriarch. In genesis, the Torah tells us that three men were passing through and Abraham saw them from his tent. He hurried over to them and
Genesis 18: 3 He said, "My Lord, if I find favor in Your eyes, please pass not away from Your servant.": 4. "Let some water be brought and wash your feet, and recline beneath the tree: 5. I will fetch a morsel of bread that you may sustain yourselves, then go on – in as much as you have passed your servant's way." … 7. Then Abraham ran to the cattle, took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the youth who hurried to prepare it: 8. He took cream and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed these before them; he stood over them beneath the tree and they ate.

Clearly Abraham prepared milk and meat together, and clearly the men (whom the Rabbis say were angels) ate this meal. Furthermore, most Rabbis comment in this passage that God himself was in the tent with Abraham. Yet God did not raise any objections about Abraham’s preparing and the angels’ eating such a meal.

If by “you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”, God meant to say that milk and meat don’t go together, then God would not have written the above passage in Genesis. If on the other hand, God is teaching a lesson in compassion by prohibiting the consumption of the flesh of a child and mother together, then the passage in genesis would not be contradictory.

In short, I think, the Rabbis have it all wrong in ordering us not to eat dairy and meat together. Furthermore, by such rigid interpretation of the bible, I think the Rabbis are hijacking a religion that is beautiful and transforming it into a religion full of superstition, gratuitous rules and nonsensical customs. They should stop it. And we should stop listening to every word they utter as if they are conduits for God’s word.

The Story of Cain and Able

Genesis Chapter 4

10Then He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! 11Therefore you are cursed more than the ground, which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a vagrant and a wanderer on earth.”

Let me slow down for a moment and give due to each of these sentences:

He said “What have you done?”
I am assuming that questions like ‘what have you done?’ are rhetorical; God obviously knows what has happened and need not ask the question. God is asking the question perhaps to test Cain’s honesty. But He does not wait for the response, so we have to assume that God talks this way for effect. In effect, He is saying “look what you have done!” This is more an expression of rage rather than a query.

The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!

Here again, I am assuming that it is not implied that blood actually has a voice and that blood is crying. This phrase, in fact, has been interpreted in various ways. Orthadox rabbis state that by ‘blood’, what is in fact meant is the ‘soul’. They state that it was the soul of Abel that is protesting. Further evidence for this interpretation comes from the Torah’s assertion that the soul is contained in its blood. The Torah cautions against eating blood in several places and mentions that the reason for this is that the soul resides in blood (see for example, Leviticus 17:10 “Any man of the House of Israel or of the Proselyte who dwells among them who will consume any blood…I will cut it off from the midst of its people.11For the soul of the flesh is in the blood…”)

Now we have apparently come to a monumental finding: the soul of man is to be found in his blood. Well, then, at long last, based on this passage, we can begin to guide the multitude of scientists and truth seekers who have looked for a sign of the soul in the proper direction. We can tell them that the long sought soul resides in the blood of a man. Surely if we were to replace the blood of a person with someone else’s, then the soul of the blood donor would invade the recipient, no? Here, once and for all, the religious among us can wait for the results of such an experiment with baited breath for at last the existence of a soul would be well established. Alas, though, this is not the case. In fact, blood is routinely donated. Victims of trauma, for example, who have lost large quantities of blood are typically given blood. No ‘soul’ exchanges have been noted to date! Either the soul does not reside in blood, or it finds a place to hide when the body loses blood!

What then, does “the blood cries out from the ground” mean? Once again, the burden of explanation falls on the believing orthodox who take the words of the Torah to be wholly true and without fault.

11Therefore you are cursed more than the ground, which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a vagrant and a wanderer on earth.”

Previously, I argued that Cain aught not have been punished, as he apparently did not have the knowledge of the Ten Commandments, and thus did not know that murder was a sin. But, alright, for one reason or another, Hashem has decided that Cain should nevertheless be punished for what he has done. Hashem is sore with Cain for having killed his brother and he chooses to curse. He tells Cain that the earth will no longer bear fruit for him, so there is no point to his becoming a farmer. He, Cain, is sentenced to wander the earth.

But are we not told that the punishment for taking life is forfeiting one’s life? We will later come to Genesis 9:6, saying “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”. How is it that genesis 9:6 seems to clearly demand the shedding of the murderer’s blood and yet God has chosen to make a vagrant out of a murder in this case?

If we are to learn morality from the Torah, which of these lessons are we to take? Who decides which lesson is the correct one?

13Then he said to Hashem, “Is my iniquity too great to be borne? 14Behold, you have banished me this day from the face of the earth – can I be hidden from your presence? I must become a vagrant and wanderer on earth; whoever meets me will kill me!”

Recall that Adam and Eve had borne two children, Cain and Able. We have come to learn that the former has killed the latter. Thus, there are now 3 people left on ‘the face of the earth’. What then does ‘whoever meets me will kill me’ mean? Is Cain afraid that his parents will come upon him and murder him? Or is he thinking way ahead of the possibility that his parents will bare more children who will then grow up and come to kill him? Do you, dear reader, see that the author of this section of the Torah has apparently slipped and forgotten that there are no other people on earth at the time of Cain? I am sure that the Torah apologists will simply assert that Cain was fearful of his future prospects. I will leave it to the reader to decide the veracity of such assertions.

15Hashem said to him, “Therefore, whoever slays Cain, before seven generations have passed he will be punished.”

Here is another peculiar moral code. If Cain’s blood is shed, then God will punish the killer within 140 year (seven generations)! It is weird justice indeed to meet punishment on a murderer no later than 140 years! I guess even back in those days the appeals processes must have been exhausting!

And Hashem placed a mark upon Cain, so that none that meet him might kill him.

I am not certain what that mark was, but it must have been some version of ‘DO NOT KILL THIS PIECE OF SHIT”!

16Cain left the presence of Hashem and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

So we have just heard that God’s punishment for Cain having murdered his brother was to banish him from farming, and making him a ‘vagrant and a wanderer’. Thus Cain comes to Nod and promptly ‘settles’ there! So much for the punishment of God!
It is interesting how God meets Justice. He tells Eve ‘on the day that you eat of it’, meaning the forbidden fruit, ‘you shall surely die’. Yet she surely does not die on that day. Then he tells Cain that if someone were to murder him, God would exact revenge within 140 years! Finally, he tells Cain that he is to be a wanderer so he immediately leaves the presence of God and settles somewhere else. My hat’s off to the reader who has managed to retain even a remnant of credulity!

Messhiah is in the Mail

A long time ago, I sold a customer a service, and he promised to pay me. A few weeks went by and I still had not been paid. I called this customer and asked whether he had sent me a check. He told me that he had forgotten about it and he would immediately write me a check and send it.

Another month went by and I still had not received my money, so I called him again. He assured me that he had sent the check, and that the envelope is probably still in the post office being delivered. So I waited another month, and called him again. He expressed surprise that I had not received the check. I told him that if he did not mind, to cancel the sent check and to send me another one. He huffed and puffed as if I was asking him to do a great favor and finally said that he would.

Another month went by and I had yet to receive the check. So I called the customer once again, and asked him where my check was. He told me he had sent it to me and again suggested that the check might be in the mail. I told him that I had waited several months and it was unlikely that he had sent the check to me. He became angry and indignantly said “are you calling me a liar?” I told him that I was not calling him a liar but that I had been waiting for the money for over six months and had not received it. He replied that the inadequacies of the mail system in the United States are not his problem. I suggested then that I come in person to get the check. He said that would be fine, but he had to go on a trip and would not be back for another 3 months.

Like a fool, I waited another 3 months and called him again. He said that he would send the check to me by mail. When I said that we had tried that already and the check never arrived, he became angry with me, saying ‘if you do not trust me, I do not want to do business with you. Do not call again!’

It is now many years since that incident. In a wedding recently, I saw the gentleman who swindled me out of the money. I did not want to cross paths with him since I had long forgotten about the account and did not wish to start unpleasant conversations. Instead he came to me and said that if I had only treated him a little bit better he would have paid me my money! He blamed me for the whole affair, saying that he is a righteous man but that business is business.

Now, I realize this blog is not the forum to air bad business deals, and this is not the purpose for this. But it strikes me that our dealings as Jews with our rabbis are somewhat similar. When the Holy temple, the Beth Hamighdash, was destroyed approximately 2000 years ago, we were told that our savior, our Messiah, would shortly arrive to rescue us. Rabbi Akiva, arguably one of the greatest sages of all time, promised that the Messiah is just around the corner. In fact, he mistakenly identified Bar Kokhba, a Jewish military leader, as the Messiah, with disastrous consequences.

Following the disastrous invasion of the Romans into Judea, and following the slaughter of over 1 million Jews, we were told once again, that the Messiah is coming soon. It seems that Hashem took us out of Egypt and into more peril. Yet, we were promised Messiah. Any minute we should expect his coming.

We were then subjugated by the Romans, only to be persecuted by the Muslims. The Spaniards then rescued us only to torment us with the Spanish Inquisition. We then suffered at the hand of the Russians in Pogroms, and at the hand of western Europeans in the form of Purges. Time and time again, we suffered and our blood was shed. Again and again we were told that Messiah is around the corner. Then we experienced the Holocaust, and over half of our population was killed in firing squads and in gas chambers.

We are still waiting for this Messiah. When we say to our rabbis that it has been 2000 years since we were promised this Savior - where is he? – they reply that we have to ‘deserve’ his coming. The rabbis tell us that we are too wicked for the Messiah to come. They tell us that we don’t keep Shabbat else he would come. It is our fault that he is not coming.

And in the wait for the Messiah, I realize that his coming is no different than the check I have been waiting for. The Messiah is the proverbial check in the mail, perpetually being sent by the one who owes you money, and yet it never seems to arrive. The Rabbi is your debtor, always promising that the check is going to arrive any minute; if we can only squeeze a little more Halacha and a slight Tzadakah that Messiah will sooner arrive.Dear Moshe, my check never came and Messiah is never coming. The astute businessman would know to put that account receivable in the ‘bad debt’ column and move on!