Monthly Archives: September 2020

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Back when the counterculture was more sexually radical than the mainstream, a popular Orthodox countermeme cited Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook as advocating “free love.” It was of course clickbait. The ahavat chinam that Rav Kook called for wasn’t about removing constraints on physical relationships. Yet the terms may not be complete homonyms. 

One can interpret the “free love” movement cynically, as an effort to abolish all objective sexual restrictions. But one can also understand it more idealistically, as an effort to prevent any person from being constrained by another person’s love for them. Free love meant that it was given without making any demand on the beloved.

In hindsight, it seems clear that this kind of freedom has a price, which is that the beloved cannot demand commitment from the lover. It is a transactional waiver of rights and privileges rather than a transcendent expression of relationship.

Moreover, human sexuality as a mode of relational expression may be incompatible with this kind of freedom. Aside from the practical challenges raised by the possibility of reproduction (which admittedly can often be evaded or reversed), we have not yet been persuaded, and perhaps we cannot be honestly persuaded, that commitment is not a crucial measure of the emotional depth of a sexual relationship.  

But is this necessarily true outside the realm of sexuality? Alternatively, can freedom and commitment be reconciled?

Putting the phrase ahavat chinam into the Bar Ilan Project’s database yields only one result anteceding Rav Kook (and that one result disparages it).  Perhaps it was just an idiosyncratic, utopian fantasy. 

But ahavat chinam is likely the counterpart of sin’at chinam, the intraJewish hatred that Talmud Yoma 9b blames for the destruction of the Second Temple. Is sin’at chinam also a fantasy?  

The truth is that it’s hard to understand sin’at chinam in this framework. What obligations can hatred impose on the hated, and what commitments can it impose on the hater?  We should note that other definitions of chinam are also difficult to apply here. For example, Second Temple Jewry was rife with substantive political and religious disputes: what better justifications are there for hatred? This question has led commentators through the centuries to suggest other sins as justifications for the second Destruction. At the very least, we can’t easily figure out the boundaries of ahavat chinam just by reversing sin’at chinam.

Another possible source for Rav Kook is Mishnah Avot 5:16’s differentiation of dependent love (ahavah shehi teluyah badavar, perhaps eros) and independent (ahavah she’einah teluyah bedavar, perhaps agape) love. Dependent love lasts only so long as the thing it depends on stays the same. It is not true ahavah, because as Shakespeare wrote, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” By contrast, independent love is everlasting.  

The Mishnah illustrates this difference by contrasting the relationship of Amnon and Tamar on the one hand, and that of David and Jonathan on the other.

Amnon believes himself to love Tamar. When his lust is sated via rape, he has nothing left but hate for her. We might say that he never loved her at all, only lusted after her; and/or that his claim of love was an attempt to rationalize his desire.

But these do not seem good fits with the Mishnah’s categorization of him as being in “love that depended on something.” What did his love, such as it was, depend on?

David and Jonathan should be zero-sum political opponents. Each embodies the impossibility of the other establishing a royal dynasty. Yet they never act against each other. Their mutual attachment transcends any notion of self-interest. 

But it seems a reach to claim that David and Jonathan’s love was utterly independent. If Jonathan had betrayed David, would David still have loved him? 

If we translate the Mishnah and Shakespeare into philosophic terms, we can suggest that true, independent love does not alter in response to any change in the beloved’s accidental attributes. So long as the beloved retains their identity, they remain beloved. However, a change in essential attributes, i.e. those attributes which define the beloved, is tantamount to the beloved ceasing to exist. 

The difference between dependent and independent love is whether the lover correctly understands which attributes of the beloved are essential. Those who love another for their physical beauty, or their ongoing flattery, or their powerful intellect, do not love the actual person. Often they expand the accidental attribute they love into a false image of the person. David loved Jonathan as he actually was, whereas Amnon loved a Tamar whose attitude toward him existed only in his fantasies.     

Does that mean that Jonathan could never have betrayed David? I am leery of this idea, which suggests that in a sense Jonathan did not have complete free will. That seems too high a philosophic price for me. 

It is true that Rav Dessler famously argues that not all moral choices are “live options,” to use William James’ term. Every person’s “point of choice” (nekudat habechirah) is different.  But Rav Dessler concedes that every individual’s point of choice is movable. Every choice we make affects which future choices are live options.

So we need to decide whether a Jonathan who betrayed David would have changed so radically as to be a different person, or else explain why such a betrayal would not demonstrate that David had misperceived his essence.

A similar question emerges from the great Israeli dayyan Rav Shlomo Dichovsky’s essay “Ahavat Chinam veSin’at Chinam” (Torah Sheb’al Peh vol. 40 (5759).  Rav Dichovsky excerpts parallel accounts of hatred from the Rebbe RaShab of Lubavitch and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Here is the Rebbe Rashab:

Sin’ah results from a man’s inability to endure the (existence of the) other. The cause (of this inability) is his own being, which is significant in his own eyes . . . because of his own being, he gives no space for the (existence of the) other, because the other necessarily limits his own existence, and therefore he cannot endure it.”

And here is Rav Hirsch in Chorev:

Sin’ah is the feeling as-if the existence of some other created being stands as an enemy and an obstacle to our own existence.”

and in his Commentary on the Torah:

Ahavah seeks the sustained existence of the other . . . Sin’ah seeks to distance it until it ends.

The Rebbe and the Rabbiner each seem anachronistically familiar with Jean Paul Sartre’s idea that “Hell is others.” But they assume that hell is not inevitable. One can instead live in The (Truly) Good Place by diminishing the significance of one’s existence as an ego-self, or else by coming to see one’s individual existence as expanded rather than diminished by the existence of others.

Rabbi Dichovsky takes the second approach. Ahavat chinam is a love that sees the other’s existence as a bonum per se, as a good independent of anything the other does.

So we must ask, as we asked regarding David and Jonathan: Does ahavat chinam mean that the relationship cannot be affected by any moral judgement of the other’s choices? If my attitude toward someone else can be affected by their choices, does that demonstrate that my love for them is teluyah badavar?

The same question arises out of the haftorah for Shabbat Shuvah. Hoshea 14 begins with the prophet in his own voice urging the Jewish people to return to G-d (shuvah Yisroel ad Hashem Elokekha . . . veshuvu el Hashem). The prophet then ventriloquizes ideal Jewish statements of repentance. Finally, he ventriloquizes G-d’s response:

Erpa meshuvotam = I will heal their strayings;

Ohaveim nedavah = I will love them nedavah;

Ki shav api mimenu = for My anger has receded from me.

What is ahavat nedavah? A nedavah is a voluntary sacrifice, and in general lehitnadev means to volunteer. Rashi accordingly comments: “Even though they are not fit for love (ראויים לאהבה), I will voluntarily commit to loving them (אתנדב לאהבם).”

It seems to me (and perhaps to the author of the Daf al Daf anthology to Shabbat 151b) that there is a direct line of descent from the Biblical ahavat nedavah to the Rabbinic ahavah she’einah teluyah badavar to the contemporary ahavat chinam. Yet Hoshea represents G-d as declaring ohaveim nedavah only after the Jewish people repent and return to Him, which seems very much to make this love dependent on our choices. (Some midrashim even read nedavah as reflecting the Jews’ willingness to sacrifice themselves for G-d, so that G-d loves us because we are willing to volunteer.)

Rashi responds to this problem by suggesting that, having sinned, we cannot make ourselves worthy again of G-d’s love, so that even after we repent, He must choose freely to love us. 

But with enormous hesitation, I suggest a different approach, which I believe is rooted in Yoma 86b’s understanding of this verse related to a situation in which we “repent out of love,” meaning without regard for consequences, rather than out of fear of punishment. Perhaps the verse intends to emphasize that G-d’s love for us was always nedavah, and that it is G-d’s underlying, unchanging love of us that enables Him to accept our repentance.

In Rav Kook’s ideal world, free love exists among all Jews, and among all human beings. Like G-d, Who voluntarily brought all other beings into existence, we should see the existence of others as necessarily expanding rather than constricting our own. 

But this does not mean that we cannot hold each other accountable, or that our outward actions must always be clear expressions of love. “There is a time to (express) love, and a time to (express) hate.” Hoshea acknowledges that there are times when G-d’s expresses anger at us, so that His love is revealed only when His anger recedes.

The challenge, in private life, in religion, and in politics, is to ensure that even the most profound moral disagreements do not overwhelm our own recognition that our existence is enriched by the existence of all other human beings, and to convey convincingly to our baalei plugta that our deepest wish is reconciliation rather than victory.  

by Rabbi Aryeh Klapper

Question:

Dear Rabbi,

I grew up in a family of Orthodox Jews, although not all of us were observant. My uncle used to joke that “the shul he didn’t go to was Orthodox.”  I thought that was odd, but now, because of COVID and my being high-risk, that’s me! The shul I don’t go to is Orthodox.

My sister is in the same position as I am, and because neither of us wants to be alone on Rosh HaShanah, I’m going to stay with her in a city several hours drive away from where I live.  Here’s my question: I remember being taught in seminary that if you can’t go to shul, you should daven the Amidah at the same time that your shul does. My sister’s shul starts and ends a lot earlier than my home shul does. Which shul’s timing should I try to match?

Sincerely, Janie Doe

Teshuvah:

Dear Janie,

Thank you very much for asking! I suspect that your question is relevant to many people this yom tov. I hope it also gives us the opportunity to explore the vital question of what “shul community” means in the age of COVID.

Your very accurate seminary memory comes from a story on Talmud Berakhot 7b. Rav Nachman was absent from shul one day, and Rav Yitzchak challenged him aggressively. “Why weren’t you in shul?” “I wasn’t able.” “Why didn’t you at least gather a private minyan?” “It was too much bother.” “So why didn’t you have someone come tell you when the tzibbur was davening, so you could daven at the same time?”

Here Rav Nachman was puzzled: Why would davening at the same time as the tzibbur matter? Rav Yitzchak responds (rabbis bring various Biblical prooftexts) that one should pray in an eit ratzon, a time of Divine favor, which Rav Yochanan citing Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai interprets as “at the time that the tzibbur is praying.”  

Which tzibbur? Netziv in Meromei Sadeh argues that the story indicates that a local tzibbur is necessary – otherwise, why would Rav Nachman need special notification? Somewhere in the world a tzibbur is davening!  This position is also adopted by the Steipler Rav in Kehilot Yaakov. He finds a precedent for the idea that a local tzibbur is critical in the position of Rabbi Yehudah in Mishnah Berakhot 4:7 that “wherever there is a chever ir (=citywide prayer fellowship), individuals are exempt from praying mussaf.”

However, on Talmud Avodah Zarah 4b, Rav Yosef warns individuals against praying mussaf during the early morning hours of the first day of Rosh HaShanah because it is an unfavorable time. The Talmud asks: If so, how can individuals pray Shacharit during those hours?! The response is that the individuals will be praying Shacharit at the same time as the tzibbur.  Rabbeinu Tam in Tosafot understands this to mean that whenever during those three hours the individual prays Shacharit, they will be praying at the same time as a tzibbur somewhere. 

The numerous attempts to reconcile these sources center on a distinction something like this: One can pray with a congregation without joining in the prayer of the congregation. Praying with a congregation is enough to avoid the negative concern of Rav Yosef, but not enough to meet the positive requirement of Rabbi Yochanan. Praying with a congregation can happen even if the congregation is distant, but one can only join in the prayer of a local congregation.

If we accept this approach, then it seems that the right answer is for you to pray at the same time as the shul in your sister’s town, which will allow you to pray with that tzibbur and to join in its prayer.

However, I prefer a different approach.

The last unit of Mishnah Rosh HaShanah records a dispute as to whether a shaliach tzibbur can fulfill the prayer obligations of individuals.  The anonymous first position says no, while Rabban Gamliel says yes. Many interpreters understand them to be arguing only about people who are able to pray on their own; even the first position agrees that the shaliach tzibbur can fulfill the obligation of people who are unable to pray independently. The consensus halakhah follows Rabban Gamliel only on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur (possibly only Yom Kippur of Yovel), because prayers on those days were too long for individuals to handle on their own, especially before printing made machzorim widely available. 

The obvious problem is that because “All Jews are guarantors for one another,” any obligated individual can fulfill the obligation of any other individual to make a mitzvah -blessing. Why is prayer different?

RAN answers that “it seems reasonable for each person to pray for themselves.” Okay, but then why does Rabban Gamliel hold that a shaliach tzibbur can fulfill an individual’s obligation?! Why should the presence of a minyan overcome RAN’s rationale?

One possible answer is that the mechanism is different once a tzibbur is involved. The shaliach tzibbur does not substitute for the individual; rather, the shaliach represents the tzibbur, to which the individual belongs.        

With this distinction in mind, let us turn to the remarkable understanding of Rabban Gamliel’s position offered on Talmud Rosh HaShanah 34b by Ravin, citing Rabbi Yaakov bar Idi citing Rabbi Shimon Chasida. Ravin contends that according to Rabban Gamliel, the shaliach tzibbur fulfills the obligation only of the am shebesadot (=the masses in the fields), because their work is so all-consuming that their absence from shul is involuntary (anoos). In other words, the shaliach tzibbur fulfills the obligations only of individuals who are not in shul!  Tur OC 591 reasonably extends this category to those too elderly or too sick to come to shul. 

Ravin’s position is cited by RIF and ROSH, but not by RAMBAM. According to Rav Yosef Caro’s self-declared principle that the halakhah follows the position held by the majority among those three decisors, we would expect that Shulchan Arukh would cite Ravin – but he does not. Even more confusingly, Shulchan Arukh OC 128 cites the principle that “the people in the fields are consumed with work” to allow them to be included in the Priestly Blessing despite their not being present!

Since by his own rules Shulchan Arukh should follow Ravin, and since he does not explicitly reject Ravin, I suggest that he simply thought that the category “masses in the fields” was no longer relevant on Rosh HaShanah, since the Jews were no longer primarily agricultural in lands where every second was critical around Rosh HaShanah, so that one stayed in the fields to restart work the moment yom tov was over.  If this is correct, Shulchan Arukh (and perhaps even RAMBAM) would agree with Tur that the principle applies to the elderly and sick. This is also how Rav Schneur Zalman of Liady rules in his Shulchan Arukh HaRav.  On that basis, I am comfortable saying that according to halakhah, those who are prevented by the pandemic from attending synagogue, and cannot pray on their own, have their obligation fulfilled by the shaliach tzibbur. Even if they can pray on their own, they are nonetheless also included in the prayer of the tzibbur, certainly if they make the effort to pray at the same time as the tzibbur.   

This brings us back (finally) to your question – which tzibbur? Here I think a beautiful idea emerges from a thesis of Rav Moshe Shternbuch in his Teshuvot veHanhagot 5:43:

One needs to designate not only a place/makom to pray, but also a community/tzibbur . . .  

In the Talmud at the end of Rosh HaShanah (35a) they say that the masses in the fields, who are compelled (not to be in shul), fulfill their obligations via the prayer of the shaliach tzibbur.

It seems correct that this is when they bind themselves together to pray together regularly, that then the prayer of the shaliach tzibbur is effective for someone who is compelled not to come, because he is attached to his tzibbur, and the shaliach tzibbur prays on behalf of the entire tzibbur.  Therefore, if he has no regular tzibbur, if he does not come – he does not have the prayer of the shaliach tzibbur to elevate his prayers, and he loses much.

In my humble opinion, Rav Shternbuch is correct that the core issue is not location, but attachment to community. I think that is why Rav Yitzchak insisted that Rav Nachman pray at the same time as his usual tzibbur, not because he happened to be in that place. 

So, bottom line – I think you should pray at the same time as your home shul.

But I want to offer a cautionary note. 

Rav Shternbuch offers a thin sense of community – the prayer of the tzibbur is only for those who pray together regularly as a tzibbur.

Our shuls today are, at their best, communities that pray, not merely prayer communities. The sense of community is built up by many things: volunteering, studying, chesed, and many other human interactions. 

COVID means that many people belonging to those communities – men and women, some of whom were previously regular minyanaires, and some who were not – are compelled not to pray with their tzibbur. I believe that nonetheless, the shaliach tzibbur remains davka their representative, davka on the Yamim Noraim, when we pasken like Rabban Gamliel.

But this is true only while they remain a part of the community.  In a shiur I gave at my home shul, Young Israel of Sharon, my learning community came up with at least two possible standards for belonging to a community: being someone who is missed in shul (as Rav Yitzchak noticed Rav Nachman’s absence), and bring someone who other people in the community would instinctively identify as belonging. By those standards, many COVID davening-exiles will rapidly cease to belong unless we consciously develop thicker communities that can endure the absence or enforced attenuation of davening together. People who were socially marginal, and whose human interactions occurred largely around davening (Shabbat and/or weekday), will be the most vulnerable to disappearing. This would be a terrible Jewish and moral failure.

The opening of Parshat Nitzavim demonstrates that a covenantal community includes both those who are present and those who cannot be. Let us pray together, and work together, to ensure that our prayer communities live up to that model and emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever.