Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

9 Tammuz 5762 - June 19, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
NEWS

OPINION
& COMMENT

OBSERVATIONS

HOME
& FAMILY

IN-DEPTH
FEATURES

VAAD HORABBONIM HAOLAMI LEINYONEI GIYUR

TOPICS IN THE NEWS

HOMEPAGE

 

Produced and housed by
Shema Yisrael Torah Network
Shema Yisrael Torah Network

Opinion & Comment
Respect for Sages

by Yochonon Dovid

Yair got on the bus and found himself a seat. He took out a newspaper from his briefcase and glanced at the headlines. Several large notices were emblazoned on the front page, protesting the abuse of Torah scholars and the desecration of Torah, while calling for "a public outcry," and as he studied them, he was unaware that his seat mate was reading them along with him.

Just as he was about to turn the page, the latter turned to him and said, "Excuse me, sir, but I couldn't help noticing your paper protesting some insult to the honor of a great rabbi and registering outrage against it. I can't understand such a violent reaction. I am also religious and I believe in giving rabbis their due respect, but it seems to me that they've exaggerated in their use of such strong language. They use such descriptions as apikores, chillul Hashem and undermining of Torah. These are very acerbic terms which lend the impression that the world is about to go under. In my opinion, it is extreme over exaggeration, totally out of proportion."

Yair folded the paper and turned to his seat mate, "I see that you are a religious person, a believer, in which case I needn't convince you that Hashem created the world for the sake of Torah, that it be studied and its commandments kept. This is hinted at in the very beginning: Bereishis -- for the sake of reishis, referring to Torah, which is called `reishis' -- Hashem created the heavens and earth. We find this concept elsewhere as well, `Were it not for My covenant . . . I would not have established the [natural] laws of heaven and earth.' Any undermining of Torah, which is the purpose of Creation, actually threatens the stability of the world! This, you must admit, is a serious thing!"

"I see that you're speaking in grandiose terms as well," the stranger burst out. "Do you mean to tell me that if someone does not speak to a rabbi with the proper civility he is going as far as to shake the very basis of Torah? Leave Torah aside and the due respect to a rabbi aside -- and don't mix the two!"

"But you must realize," countered Yair, "that the rabbi fills a key position for all of us. It is he who interprets the Torah for us and conveys to us the will of the Creator regarding practical issues in our lives. To be sure we are obligated to respect every single person, but a slur to the honor of a great Torah scholar has much greater significance. It is, indeed, a sabotage of the very existence of Torah amongst the Jewish People. The rabbi is the virtual representative of Torah in our daily lives, and any attack on him is a blow to the Torah, itself.

"In every civilized country in the world, for example, any interference with the execution of a law officer's duties is regarded with extra severity since even a simple policeman represents law and order."

"You are again leaning towards all-inclusive generalizations. Do you mean to tell me that without that rabbi we wouldn't know what the Torah wants and expects from us? Can't we read Hebrew? Are we illiterate? I don't mean to detract from the due respect of any rabbi, but you are lending him the status of sole intermediary between the Torah and us common folk. But the Torah was given to the entire people, to each and every Jew, and every individual can read it and know what he must do in order to live according to its precepts."

"Your words can easily be tested to see if they stand up to reality. Give me, please, a brief summary of what your kitchen is like, how it looks and how it operates. The way it functions is based merely upon one short phrase in the Torah, repeated three times, `You shall not cook a goat in its mother's milk.'

"Keeping Shabbos properly requires comprehensive knowledge, while in the Torah itself, little more is mentioned than the prohibition of lighting fire and perhaps refraining from plowing and harvesting. Ask any philolog expert to show you where all this knowledge is hidden in the double injunction of zochor veshomor, remembering and guarding the Shabbos to keep it holy. He will likewise find it difficult to show you the extensive laws of shechita in the Torah text, without which meat is considered treif. The Chofetz Chaim filled an entire volume with the laws of proper speech, the details of which you will never find by simply scanning the words referring to this in the Torah."

"You are right on that point," conceded the seat mate. "True, a simple knowledge of reading is not enough -- but this is why we have the Oral Tradition. I know that this is vast and that one must study a great deal in order to know it, but the written Torah is accessible to one and all, and every person has the personal obligation to know what the Torah requires of him."

"`Thou shalt not murder' is certainly an explicit commandment," noted Yair. "So, as an intelligent man, tell me what can you derive from this verse regarding abortion, heart transplants from terminally ill donors, `pulling the plug' from resuscitators that enable patients to breathe, or not connecting them to such pulmonary aids? What position must we take on suicide, capital punishment, high-risk surgery, organ donation and similar questions? There is hardly a commandment in the Torah which can be understood fully and observed in practice by merely reading the text of the Torah.

"We laymen need an intermediary to explain and interpret the commandment and to guide us in its practical application. I once heard of a person who bought himself a comprehensive medical encyclopedia and announced that from hereon in, he had no need for doctors. All he had to do in case of illness was to look up the symptoms and treat them accordingly."

"I don't think such a person would live very long," admitted the man. "It is not for naught that doctors are trained for years and years before they are permitted to practice medicine, even though all the knowledge they acquire is already written in books. They need the practice in real life to get the training and experience to interpret what they've read and learned, before they can treat a patient according to the book knowledge. Our gemora teacher also had a degree in literature and history, and he really impressed us with his broad expertise. I think that a person like that is a true go-between in interpreting the Torah to Jews who wish to keep it properly."

"The Torah teaches us otherwise," said Yair pointedly. "In Devorim, it commands us to turn to the accepted, authoritative chachomim of each generation, who tell us what the Torah requires of us and whom we must follow. The mishna in Pirkei Ovos opens with: `Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Yehoshua,' and so on, down the line. This is the Oral Tradition which has been handed down from generation to generation.

"To this very day, the Torah is still being personally transmitted from master to disciple with regard to the spirit of Torah, its principles and its internal workings. Only one who has attended his masters and served them, observing them in their daily practices, is worthy of joining the chain of tradition, of Torah transmission which began at Sinai, and becoming another link. A mere knowledge of Hebrew, or the possession of literary or legal talents cannot endow the owners with the authority to interpret Torah on its daily practical level. These are in no way a substitute for shimush chachomim.

"Nor are they sufficient! The sixth chapter of Pirkei Ovos enumerates for us forty-eight ways by which Torah is acquired. Superhuman toil and effort is necessary to acquire only several of the attributes that comprise that list. On top of that, if a person lacks even one of the attributes by which Torah is acquired, his Torah acquisition falls short of that Torah which originated in Sinai and was wholly transmitted through the generations.

"This can be compared to a cordless electronic device which has forty-eight electrical connections. If even one of them is not soldered in properly, the device will not operate.

"This list provides us with a means of control or testing to know if any John Doe or Yochonon Dovid can serve as a proper intermediary between the will of Hashem as expressed in the Torah and the masses. Lack of shimush chachomim, on- the- scene practical observation of Torah sages, and implicit faith in Torah sages, is enough to disqualify him from guiding other Jews in the ways of the Torah. Add to this attributes such as asceticism, sobriety of mien, rejoicing in one's lot, shunning honor and so on, the lack of any which denies him the ability to acquire Torah in its pure form.

"The number of those answering to these qualifications is small. Such people have been immersed in Torah from the cradle onward and are totally engrossed in it from every aspect. They do not indulge in entertainment, vacations, laxity or leisure of any kind. Their talents and their personalities, their essential being is harnessed to Torah and only Torah. These are the sages of Torah, the Torah leaders of the generation and the guiders of its path.

"Any blow to their honor undermines the very stature of Torah amongst Jewry and places a gross, crushing foot upon the lifeline connecting Hashem and His People. And it does, indeed, present a grave threat to the stability of the world.

"No protest can be strong enough!"


All material on this site is copyrighted and its use is restricted.
Click here for conditions of use.