Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

Judaism is not a religion that generally expects ‘perfection’. It anticipates imperfection and accommodates it. Built in to Jewish Law and Jewish theology we find escape routes for the less-than-perfect. For example, if by mistake, one has an accident and a few drops of milk fall into your bowl of chicken soup, the rabbis may be able to help you out of that tricky situation. Ask a rabbi and he will explain. If a person has always fasted on Tisha B’Av or Yom Kippur but then encounters infirmity, the rabbis, depending on the seriousness of the condition, may make allowances for that person’s imperfect health. Similarly, if a person wakes up one day after a lifetime of stealing, lying, slandering, going to sport on Shabbat afternoon or eating only in the best non-kosher restaurants, and expresses the wish to become a strictly orthodox Jew, the halakha (Jewish Law) offers a program of return (known in Hebrew as teshuvah) through which a person can somehow put all their imperfections behind them and start all over again.

Nonetheless there is one area of Jewish life where perfection is expected and apparently no exceptions are allowed. If you purchase a pair of tefillin, a mezuzah or a Sefer Torah, each of which is the product of painstaking work by a trained sofer (a religious scribe), their usage depends entirely on each one being produced letter and word perfect. Each comes with a certificate that testifies that the hand written parchment has been proofread and that each and every letter has been written correctly.

As a result, many Jews take their mezuzot and tefillin to be checked regularly by qualified scribes to ensure that none of the letters have weathered, faded or cracked and that they remain in pristine condition.

Interestingly however, in respect to tefillin some are more lenient and rely on the rulings of authorities, such as the Rambam, who suggested that under certain circumstances, for example where one bought one’s tefillin directly from an expert sofer, one need not worry about checking them again as long as the casing around the tefillin remains complete. Maimonides explained that in such circumstances the tefillin have the hazakah (the on-going status) of being fit for use – and this remains so unless there are reasons to suspect otherwise.

This ruling was followed by Rabbi Ya’akov ben Asher, author of the Tur, who wrote: ותפילין שהוחזקו בכשרות אין צריכין בדיקה לעולם ‘Tefillin which have a hazakah of being kosher, do not require further checking.’ (Tur Orah Hayyim 39)

In the case of mezuzot however, the Talmud (TB Yoma 11a) suggests that a mezuzah owned by an individual should be checked twice in seven years while a mezuzah in the public precinct, should be examined twice in fifty years. (The rabbis chose these periods of time because they relate to the seven year cycle of the Sabbatical years, known as Shemittah, and the fifty year cycle of Jubilee years known as the Yovel.) Mezuzot being more exposed to the elements are considered by the rabbis to be at greater risk, hence Rashi explains that a mezuzah is checked “lest it rotted or was stolen”. He also explains that a public mezuzah refers to one placed at the entrance to a city or a courtyard (you can see such mezuzot at the various gateways to the Old City in Jerusalem). These only need to be checked twice in fifty years because, said Rashi, the sages did not wish to impose stringent demands on the general public, who for whatever reason might not feel it is their responsibility to check and replace mezuzot in the public square, expecting others, such as the municipality, or local residents, or the rabbinical council etc. to take responsibility for them.

This has become the general practice, although there is a custom, which developed in Eastern Europe that pious Jews check their mezuzot and tefillin annually during the month of Elul in the lead up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was quoted as a ‘good custom’ by Rabbi Efraim Zalman Margaliot (1762-1828) the author of the Mateh Efraim and it was endorsed by Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried (1804-1886).

אַנְשֵׁי מַעֲשֶׂה נוֹהֲגִין לִבְדֹּק בְּחֹדֶשׁ זֶּה תְּפִלִּין וּמְזוּזוֹת שֶׁלָּהֶן וְכָל אֲשֶׁר יִמָּצֵא שָׁם בֶּדֶק בִּשְׁאָר מִצְוֹת יְתַקְּנוֹ.

Pious men are accustomed to examine their tefillin and mezuzot during this month (of Elul); in fact all of one’s personal mitzvot should be examined and where necessary corrected and improved upon. (Kitzur Shulhan Arukh 128:3)

Rabbi Yehiel Michael Epstein (1829–1908) the author of the Arukh Hashulkhan explained that where a place is particularly damp, such as Russia, checking annually is the preferred option. It does make one think that here in Sydney, which experiences, from time to time, exceptionally wet weather and in the summer very high humidity that we would do well to check our tefillin and mezuzot regularly.

As for a Sefer Torah it should be read from regularly to prevent the ink from fading and cracking. In a synagogue such as Central where there are many Sifre Torah we alternate between Sifre Torah for that reason. Using a Torah scroll infrequently or exclusively for the reading of just one portion, such as the readings for Rosh Chodesh or Fast Days is likely to result in more damage rather than less. Moreover, when a Sefer Torah is read regularly from different sections of the Torah, the Baal Koreh can readily assess the state of the writing. If even the slightest mistake is found, the Sefer is replaced in the Ark and repaired as soon as possible after Shabbat by a qualified Sofer. A Sefer Torah that is so old and damaged that it can never be used again for Torah reading – is either replaced in the Aron Kodesh with the binder on the outside of the mantle to remind everyone of this fact, (it may however still be used as part of the celebrations on Hoshanah Rabbah and Simchat Torah), or it is buried in a Jewish cemetery in an earthenware jar with as much honor and respect as when we bury a fellow Jew.

With this in mind, Rabbi Sacks wrote a book entitled Letter in the Scroll. Movingly he quoted the Baal Shem Tov, the eighteenth century founder of the Chasidic movement, who noted that “the Jewish people are like a living Torah scroll and every individual a letter within it. If a single letter is damaged or missing or incorrectly drawn, a Torah scroll is considered invalid. So too in Judaism, each individual is considered a crucial part of the people.” Just as the Torah must be complete, so we cannot afford to let a single Jew fall by the wayside. So we see, a Torah scroll must be perfect in every detail.

Nonetheless there is one exception to this rule – and it is found at the beginning of this week’s sidra of Pinchas.

At the very end of last week’s sidra we find one of the Bible’s most violently graphic scenes when Pinchas, grandson of Aaron the High Priest, executed an Israelite man and Moabite woman for their gross immorality. While many questions are raised by the sages concerning the motivation and justification for Pinchas’ behavior, the Biblical text appears to offer unambiguous praise:

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר: פִּֽינְחָ֨ס בֶּן־אֶלְעָזָ֜ר בֶּן־אַֽהֲרֹ֣ן הַכֹּהֵ֗ן הֵשִׁ֤יב אֶת־חֲמָתִי֙ מֵעַ֣ל בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּקַנְא֥וֹ אֶת־קִנְאָתִ֖י בְּתוֹכָ֑ם וְלֹֽא־כִלִּ֥יתִי אֶת־בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל בְּקִנְאָתִֽי: לָכֵ֖ן אֱמֹ֑ר הִנְנִ֨י נֹתֵ֥ן ל֛וֹ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם: וְהָ֤יְתָה לּוֹ֙ וּלְזַרְע֣וֹ אַֽחֲרָ֔יו בְּרִ֖ית כְּהֻנַּ֣ת עוֹלָ֑ם תַּ֗חַת אֲשֶׁ֤ר קִנֵּא֙ לֵֽאלֹקָיו וַיְכַפֵּ֖ר עַל־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pinchas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by being as zealous among them as I was. So I stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my zealous anger. Now tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, I give him and his descendants a permanent right to the priesthood, for in his zeal for me, his God, he purified the people of Israel, making them right with me. (Numbers 25: 10-13)

All looks normal – but not quite, for when writing the word שָׁלֽוֹם (lit. peace) in verse 12, the third letter, the letter vav is written defectively. The scribe deliberately leaves a small gap in the stem and in close up it looks like this –

If any other letter had a break in this way, we would immediately declare the Sefer Torah pasul or unfit for use and it would be sent off to a scribe for repair. But this is not a mistake, it is a tradition – and the question is – why? Known as a Vav Ketiah, we find a reference to this tradition in the Talmud Bavli (TB Kiddushin 66b). The rabbis discuss the nature of priesthood and the requirement for the kohanim to be whole in body as well as in spirit. The defective vav is taken as a hint that a blemished Kohen is prohibited from performing his duties.

This response is rather technical and I prefer to seek an answer elsewhere. Some have suggested that the Masoretes who laid down all the rules regarding the writing of our holy scriptures were somewhat conflicted in their approach to Pinchas. Was he a hero who stood for Jewish values and stemmed a terrible plague, or was he a ruthless assassin who took the law into his own hands? The fact that the word shalom was written defectively is perhaps their way of teaching that peace can never be complete when accompanied by violence. Little wonder that the sages on investigating this matter in the Talmud (TB Sanhedrin 82a) appeared to have some serious reservations about Pinchas. In the words of Rabbi Sacks, Pinchas, legally speaking, was skating on very thin ice.

In fact, Rabbi Sacks wrote an entire book on religious violence entitled Not in God’s Name. There he writes that too often in the history of religion, people have killed in the name of the God of life, waged war in the name of the God of peace, hated in the name of the God of love and practiced cruelty in the name of the God of compassion.” To this he added: “Wars are won by weapons, but it takes ideas to win a peace. No soul was ever saved by hate. No truth was ever proved by violence. No redemption was ever brought by holy war. The crimes of religion, wrote Sacks, have one thing in common – they involve making God in our image instead of letting Him remake us in His.

If this is the reason for the vav ketiah, its message continues to resonate as we struggle to comprehend the barbarism of October 7, an attack inspired by fanatical religious hatred. In essence however, the significance of the vav ketiah goes further for it signals that not only are war and peace, violence and harmony, completely irreconcilable, but as Benedict Spinoza wrote, peace is not an absence of war, but a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.” (Theologico-Political Treatise, 1670).

The truth of that statement can be found in the history of World War 2. If asked when precisely the Second World War concluded, most would answer that VE Day was on May 8, 1945 and VJ Day took place on August 15, 1945. Both answers would be wrong by a long way. These dates simply record when Germany and Japan surrendered. But in reality the end of WW2 occurred much later.

The state of war in the Far East formally ended when the peace treaty of San Francisco came into force on April 20, 1952. This re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers. As for the war against Germany, this surprisingly was much later. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed following the 1990 German reunification, whereby the Four Powers, the United States, France, Britain and the Soviet Union, renounced all rights they formerly held in East and West Germany. The treaty came into force on 15 March 1991. So we see that peace was much more than just the cessation of armed conflict.

Thomas Hobbes understood all of this when he wrote in Leviathan that the nature of war consists not in the actual fighting; but in the known disposition for it, during the continuance of which there is no assurance to the contrary.

The starting point is the absence of war.

Where there is war, there is no peace. But the absence of war in a given place does not always mean that there is peace. Peace is understood here as a process in which the absence of war is the beginning of a path. Even if there is no agreement on what constitutes positive peace in the end, elements of a process of peace that have general validity can be found.

The rabbis also understood this when they insisted upon the vav ketiah – for they knew that Pinchas’ pathway to peace was much more complicated than appeared at first sight in that single verse in this week’s sidra.

Perhaps we would all do well to remember the words of Willy Brandt, former Chancellor of West Germany: “Peace is not everything, but without peace everything is nothing.”

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Freedman