Light Mitzvah, Long Life

Chullin, Daf 142

Our Gemara on amud aleph reasons a kal v’chomer about the rewards for mitzvos: “If with regard to the sending away of the mother bird, which is a mitzvah whose performance is simple, as it entails a loss of no more than an issar coin, i.e., the value of the mother bird, the Torah says: ‘That it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days’ (Deuteronomy 22:7), it may be derived by kal v’chomer inference that the reward is no less for the fulfillment of the mitzvos in the Torah whose performance is demanding.”

It states in Pirkei Avos (2:1): “Be as careful with a light [that is, easy to perform] mitzvah as with a serious mitzvah, since one does not really know the ultimate reward or benefit of any of the mitzvos.” The Maharal (Tiferes Yisrael 61) asks: If so, the kal v’chomer in the Mishnah in Chulin is refuted. A kal v’chomer is based on an inference that if something applies to a less severe matter, surely it applies to a more severe matter. However, the assertion that the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird is a so-called lighter mitzvah is based on a false premise. Mishna Avos states that we cannot actually judge which is a lighter or more severe mitzvah. So how is there a kal v’chomer?

The Maharal answers with the following distinction. There are two dimensions by which we determine or describe the difficulty or severity of the mitzvah. There is the intrinsic reward or value in the mitzvah, which has to do with how it accomplishes the purification of the person’s soul and character and attachment to G-d. In that aspect, we really do not know or cannot evaluate and compare mitzvos. And so too with sin. There are some sins that could have much more of a deleterious effect than others. We cannot know, because we do not know the full meaning and purpose behind each mitzvah. However, there is a different scale, and that has to do with how easy or hard it is to do the mitzvah. Clearly, a mitzvah that is harder will generate more reward because of the sacrifice involved and the degree of devotion that it shows to G-d. On that level, it is legitimate to say that one mitzvah is lighter and the other one is more serious, because what is really meant is that one mitzvah is easier to do than another.

Now we can understand the intent of the teaching in our Gemara. If there is such a great reward of long life for a relatively easy-to-accomplish mitzvah, such as sending the mother bird away, surely there is even greater reward for much harder mitzvos.

The Maharal does not say this, but I believe he also means to suggest that even subjectively, based on the individual person, one mitzvah or sin could have greater impact than another. Each of us has different needs and may benefit from different mitzvos or prohibitions in different ways.

Partnering with the Zeitgeist

Daf 2

Our Gemara on amud beis discusses the prohibition of creating business partnerships with a pagan gentile: “It is prohibited for a person to enter into a partnership with a gentile, lest their joint ventures lead them to quarrel and his gentile partner will be obligated to take an oath to him and he will take an oath in the name of his object of idol worship; and the Torah states: ‘Neither let it be heard out of your mouth’ (Exodus 23:13), which includes causing a gentile to take an oath in the name of an idol.”

Partnership with a pagan is not just a technical legal matter, but is also seen as a metaphorical spiritual matter. That is, there is a need for caution to avoid co-opting – that is, partnering – with alien values and sentiments that are not aligned with Torah morality. Magen Avraham (46:10) quotes the Arizal that the morning blessing to G-d for “having not made me a gentile” is not merely about physically being a gentile or a Jew. It is thanking G-d for allowing, exposing us to, and imbuing within us attitudes that are not strangers to the ways of the Torah.

When one lives in a culture that is hostile, as many of our ancestors did, it is easier to reject the culture. In the modern Western world, even though there is ugly antisemitism, the principles and credos of the modern world are embracing and friendly. A focus on civil liberties and individual rights and the pursuit of science and knowledge are appropriately of interest and worthy of respect. And yet there are seductive and distorting elements within that same culture which, as Jewish people who have longstanding and deep-rooted morality and ethics, we must be on guard against, so that we are not fooled and do not trade away our birthright for the lentil soup of wokeness.

Just one example among many that I find disturbing is that when I speak to young people of a particular generation, say age thirty and younger, they take it for granted that homosexuality is intrinsic and that a person is born that way. Even observant and yeshiva-oriented people treat it as a fact, though they might still maintain loyalty to the Torah principles, saying how unfortunate it is for that person, or finding ways to show compassion while maintaining that it is a prohibited lifestyle. All of that is fine and good, and still there is absolutely no conclusive evidence about being born a particular way. It is undebatable that for some people, sexual preferences can be deeply rooted and difficult to change. However, it is unscientific and militant political propaganda to maintain that a person is “born that way,” or, for that matter, born any particular way. This notion has been almost completely lost because of powerful special interests which have pushed a particular agenda.

When you state a person is “born that way,” it reduces moral accountability, which, for whatever reason, is a trend today that is highly destructive. That is a shame, because it closes off avenues for repair and exploration and makes something that is already difficult and challenging into an absolute fact, when in reality it may be difficult to change but not conclusively immutable. The power of suggestion and culture in the dynamics of psychosocial internality cannot be underestimated. One generation suffers from anorexia, another from gender dysphoria, and in a different generation, there will be something else. (In medieval and Talmudic times, people truly suffered from lovesickness, to the point of danger to their life. See Sanhedrin 75a.) Culture generates and reinforces psychological defenses and perceptions, and to some degree none of us can help that.

Similarly, there is an insanity in believing that men and women are essentially the same. It is contrary to human nature, and our tradition reinforces the opposite. True, in the wrong hands, differences in power and role can be used to abuse people. That is unacceptable. But the answer isn’t propaganda or rejecting gender roles. The answer is humility, negotiation, and openness to the complexities of human nature that, though eternal, are manifested and managed differently by different cultures and religious systems. When you have a religious system that has developed over thousands of years, it is worth understanding how it preserves and supports people through life’s processes (as we saw in our discussion on Chulin 141), and not seeing them as irrelevant, antiquated laws and rituals.

I am not claiming that we have all the answers, because although the Torah is Divine, how we interpret and enact it is certainly subject to human foibles and biases. As a young idealistic yeshiva bochur, quoting one of my rebbeim, I said to my father, “Chazal were great psychologists.” My father, zt”l (whose yahrzeit is actually today, at the time that I am writing this article; may his soul be elevated), responded to me, “True. However, you have to be a great psychologist to properly understand Chazal.” We certainly must challenge our beliefs when confronted by new ideas and consider them for their value. As Rambam famously wrote in his introduction to Shemonah Perakim, “One should hear the truth from whoever says it, regardless of who the person is.” Yet the gift that we have in a system of ethics and beliefs that come from millennia of exploration and accumulated wisdom and tradition can give us the perspective to challenge unhelpful and false notions and unscientific propaganda that distort and damage the institutions of life, such as family, love, peace, and personal fulfillment.

First Sparks of Creation and First Born

Daf 3

Our Gemara on amud aleph cites a verse (Shemos 34:19): “From the first that break out of the womb (petter rechem), from all your livestock you shall take the males (tizachar).”

The Baal Shem Tov (Ki Tisa 29) looks at this verse in a mystical way. The Hebrew word for womb, rechem, has a gematria of 248 – which is, according to the Sages, the number of limbs in the human body and symbolic of the 248 positive commandments. Then there is another gematria coming from the Hebrew word to break out, petter, which equals 289. This number starts with the 288 sparks of holy light that were lost at the time of Creation. That is, in some way, Divinity became hidden and lost in material matter, and by doing mitzvos we elevate that material matter and bring it back to G-d. The number 288 is alluded to in the verse (Bereishis 1:2), “And the spirit of G-d hovered over the water.” The Hebrew word for hover is merachefes, which can also be read as a contraction for “R-P-CH mes”: that is, the Hebrew letters reish, peh, and chet (total gematria of 288) mes, have died. Two hundred eighty-eight holy sparks became muted and lost their Divine life-power. If one adds the human soul that draws out the Divine, it is the extra singularity which brings back the sparks, in effect from 288 to 289.

Now we can read the verse as follows. All of the 288 sparks, with the human adding the Divine (288 + 1 = 289, the petter), are restored via the rechem (the 248 mitzvos). This is done by mindfully noting (“tizachar”also can be read as remember or note) G-d and subduing human, physical lusts and selfishness, to elevate the physical into the Divine.

Someone might look at this numerology as trivial mathematical tricks, but that is missing something important. The ancients, such as Pythagoras, saw mystical power and truth in numbers. To this day, even though we do not attribute anything mystical to it because of arbitrary bias and fear of the unknown, the world of physics is only understood through mathematics. The secrets of the universe, which surely are Divine, cannot even be expressed without the language of mathematics. This says something about the power of numbers. Even though I personally am terrible at math and have a hard time grasping what it means, it shows you that something is going on: Numbers may deeply correspond to and represent truths that are harder to explain in mere words.

Regardless, we can get the idea without resorting to numerology or mysticism. The idea that the firstborn – i.e., the immediate energies that come at the moment of life – represent a potential to transform the physical into the spiritual is intuitively true because it mimics the Big Bang (breaking out and petter) of Creation itself. And this is true not only for literal, physical firstborn animals, but for any endeavor that represents a beginning, a new effort, and a spontaneous creation taps into that Divine energy that is entrusted within us to elevate the world.