Podcast #83: Parashat Shoftim

Welcome to the discussion about the Torah portion Shofetim. The recent tragedy of six hostages being killed by Hamas captives in Israel has raised questions about justice. The parasha focuses on justice and the behavior of kings. The superhero movies, rooted in comic books, provide a sense of justice and hope in a chaotic world. The verse "tamim tiyei imashe" is about being wholehearted before God, which can be seen as naive or gullible. However, living with innocence and wholesomeness can be a victorious way of life. The goal is to create value and live by values. Welcome Tov Shlomo, good morning to Lisha and good morning to our listeners, so here we are with a great parasha and at a very troubling time, this has been a very painful week with the six hostages who were brought back home dead, recently dead, killed, murdered by the Hamas captives and there's a lot of upheaval in Israel and a lot is going on and maybe it's very fitting that we have this parasha, parasha Shustin, judges kind of asking are there judges in the world like when Israel is being judged as the evil force in the region in the world today, judges? So Lisha this was one of the hardest weeks for the people of Israel, it hit us really hard because it seemed as if pure evil has triumphed, killing six beautiful innocent young people in cold blood and we felt that we were this close, Lisha, to getting them out and then this terrible tragedy occurs and the parasha is helpful, parasha Shustin because it is as you know about justice, it's the 48th parasha, we're getting toward the end of the Torah, 1500 words and a lot of mitzvot, 41 mitzvot and a lot of them are about the behavior of the king, so I think the book of Goring as we've mentioned before was discovered in 621 BCE in the reign of King Amad of Yoshiyahu and speaks a lot about kings, it seems to me that it was not written at Mount Sinai at a time when we weren't even a real people yet, let alone envision a king and a king who would have too much wealth, but it doesn't really matter. But Lisha, your drashah written in 2018, it's one of my favorites because you talk about taking your son Yonatan to a movie and the movie is a superhero movie called The Incredibles 2 and superhero movies are hugely popular and they're about justice, so there's terrible evil in the world, evil incarnate and these superheroes come along and they can see through walls, they have radar eyes, they can fly, they can do amazing things and they fix it in just one hour and it's not permanent because we need to have a sequel, but at least for one hour they triumph over the bad guys with really, really amazing effort and you find Polar in a superhero movie which I really loved in your drashah. And related to Karshat Shofim, which is about justice, you shall appoint for yourselves judges and police governing forces at all your gates in all the dwelling places that the Lord God has given you and they shall judge the people with due justice, justice in the world, righteousness. Right, and I think when I wrote this in 2018, I don't think we felt this amazing need for superheroes right now to bring justice because we felt pretty confident with the systems that governed even though I'm sure we felt restless at the time and I think it was a period where we had successive elections, if I'm not mistaken, so we did feel unstable somewhat, but it pales compared to reality today and compared to the injustice that is going on today and it brings up a huge question like what do we human beings do in the absence of superheroes where there's only one superhero and that is God and many people question, well six young beautiful young people were like innocent young people. I think all six, if I'm not mistaken, were all abducted from the Nova Festival. I think so, some may have come from Beirut as well. Right, right, there's one woman who came from Beirut, that's right, she actually came to visit her mom at Beirut and she was not from there, she was from there originally, she left, she came to visit her mom for the Chag, for Simchat Torah and here those beautiful young people are shot to death by their captors and you ask yourself where, where is justice and where is, where are the superheroes? So I think a big question is how do we read Parashat Shustin now, today, this week, after this incredible, terrible injustice, how do we, how do we read it? So Alisha, I want to give some background to the superhero issue which you bring up, having seen one of the movies, a lot of people don't know this, the superhero movies, their foundation is in comic books, in Marvell comic books. Marvell is a comic book company, I used to read Marvell comics when I was a kid. Marvell was founded by a good Jewish boy, what else, named Martin Goodman. Martin Goodman was from Brooklyn, he was the son of Jewish parents and immigrants from Lithuania and he founded the Marvell comic books with characters like Iron Man and Wolverine and Captain Marvel, Captain America who had super powers and then someone figured out they could make movies based on this and the all-time greatest superhero movie, The Avengers, made 2.7 billion dollars at the box office and Marvell movies with all the different superheroes have made 31 billion dollars and the question is, what the heck? We adult people are going and it's not just kids like Jonathan, it's adults Alisha who are flocking to these movies and it's so simple to understand. In this chaotic world, we are looking for simple solutions that bring justice. It's impossible to live in a world with entropy governing, we need justice to fight back against the darkness and the entropy and at least we can go to a movie and see it happen on the screen if it isn't really happening in real life and we can hope it will happen in life one day and we can be tamim, as I am, which in modern Hebrew means naive and words change, Alisha, tamim in the bible, tamim to you, we shall be tamim, not naiv, but whole or wholesome as you note, that word tamim has become negative meaning naiv, but that's not the meaning as you note in your drashah in parashat Shoftim and it's one of your favorite phrases and your drashah focuses on that word and on tamim in relation to justice. Right, so to give the background a bit to tamim, so it is indeed one of the verses in parashat Shoftim and it says tamim tiyei imashe be as we translate it, be whole, wholehearted, be wholesome before the Lord your God and you're right, tamim in modern Hebrew is both naive and even gullible. Someone who's gullible is like oh kurkach tamim, he's so gullible, which is interesting, it's interesting that that same word could mean both whole and wholehearted and gullible. What's the connection between gullible and whole and wholehearted? And I think that one possible connection could be that for people who are looking from the outside in, looking at someone who is tamim, whole, wholehearted, thinking to themselves, oh what are you thinking? This world, this is such a cruel world, there's no justice in this world, how can you be whole and how can you be wholehearted? You've got to be a warrior, you've got to be a fighter and don't let anyone take any advantage of you and trust absolutely no one, don't even trust yourself for that matter and therefore someone who's tamim, someone who's whole, I think very often comes across as innocent, as naive and even as gullible and I think one such character is Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump was, I think he was on the spectrum and he was autistic and there was something very whole, very whole about him and a brilliant, brilliant character and yet throughout the movie you're holding this tension between, is he either dumb, stupid or very gullible but then you see the movie, it's so wonderful now, it is a movie just like, just like that movie we discussed earlier, you see how he triumphs, he, how he succeeds in the world, how through being whole, wholehearted, how being, through being innocent and you know what, he's gullible, he is not truly being taken advantage of, he just lives his life wholeheartedly and he has pain and he goes through hard times but his wholeness is a huge source of inspiration and so I'm wondering if in a world that on the surface of things seems totally unjust, where terrible things happen, where good people are, get hurt, where good people are murdered in the in the tunnels of Hamas in Gaza, if we can remain whole and wholehearted and almost be naive about life, almost be gullible about life, is that an advantage or a disadvantage and I'd like to obviously suggest there's an advantage that we may in the short run seem to be taken advantage of but in the long run someone who's whole, someone who's wholehearted in the long run wins the game. Now you could say well did those six young people, some of them who were abducted from the from a peace dance party, did they eventually win, was that a victory? I think it's wrong to judge and decide that death is a sign of losing the battle, that death is not, death could also be, I'm not advocating death in any way, shape or form obviously, but if they were brought back in coffins it doesn't mean they weren't victorious and I think one example of it is people, Etty Hilson for example, that I mentioned her a lot and I quote her a lot, who was murdered in Auschwitz, a Dutch Jewish woman, she was victorious, she perished in Auschwitz, no doubt, but she was so wholehearted and so naïve on so many levels and even though she died at Auschwitz she was victorious and we all die one day, we will all die later God willing rather than sooner and older rather than younger, but it's not how many years we've lived, it really is how did we live and what were the values that we lived our lives with and I think at the end of the day being tamim, being whole, being wholehearted, being even, I mean I know the gullible has a really negative connotation, so let's say innocent, let's just use the word innocent, it's a bit more, somewhat more neutral than gullible, living your life innocently and whole is a victorious way of living your life. Absolutely Aisha and I teach entrepreneurs and the goal of an entrepreneur is not to become wealthy or as the Torah says to accumulate wealth and horses, the goal is to create value, you create value by having it your life driven by values, the value of creating values and it's a mindset and in your drashai Aisha you mentioned this that to you tamim, being wholehearted with God, this is a mindset, it's not a behavioral command, it is but that's a result, it's an emotional or a psychological command about how we should see the world and this is really problematic Aisha because behavior we can now say vanishma, we can just do it, we can keep kosher and then we'll find the meaning but how do you command people to you tamim, you shall be gullible, naive, you shall be whole, you shall be wholesome, how do we do that Aisha? You counsel people, so how do you counsel people to have this frame of mind? Well first of all how do I counsel myself? It's a good point you make, it's a state of mind, that's a very important point, it's not a tactic, it's not a strategy, it's a state of mind and it's a matter of faith and at this time I think that faith is probably one of the most important, important assets that we could have and when life is good, when everything is good, when things are relatively peaceful, then it's good to have faith, it really is very very helpful but at times like this faith is crucial and what is faith? Faith doesn't mean that these hostages will not be killed, that's not what it means. Faith assumes first of all God, that God is present in the world, God is present in everything and that everything, I don't want to say everything has a reason because that's too daring, I don't know if I could even justify that statement that everything has a reason to it, maybe some things don't have a reason. Faith in Hebrew, faith is knowing that at our core, at who we truly are, we are a spirit in a body and who we truly are, we are invincible, in a sense we are superheroes and we cannot be destroyed, the spirit cannot be destroyed, who we truly are cannot be destroyed, our bodies can and it's really important for the spirit to remain in the body and the body is really important, we discussed this in history, it's important, the body is the vessel for the spirit, but having that faith in what truly matters, in who we truly truly truly are and we are not that which perishes, we are not that which withers away, we're not that that's getting old, our body, our vessel, we discussed that too, our body, our vessel gets old, but our essence, who we truly are, is always vibrant, always alive and always whole, always intact and is indestructible and then it's really sad if our body dies young, it's sad, it's sad, it's unfortunate, but we know that people sometimes die young from diseases and not from from someone's evil, but their body, the vessel indeed died and it's sad, it is very sad and we believe in life, so we will do everything we can to preserve the body and make sure the body lives longer, but at the end of the day, we also know the true life is our true true essence and that never ever dies. So Alisha, in your Gershon, you point to a fascinating paradox and I want to ask you to amplify on it and the paradox is this, we are told to you to mean, we are to be whole or wholesome, but the only way we can become whole and wholesome is to recognize that we're not, we are not whole, we are not perfect, we are not masters of the universe, we have failings and only then, when we recognize the imperfection, can we become whole. So Alisha, how does this work? How do we become whole by recognizing that we aren't? Yeah, well, first of all, it was six years ago and even though I like the message here, I'm still I'm still taking responsibility for this Darshan, if one of my children, but I think I do see things a little bit differently today, but if I stay loyal to Darshan for a second, I would say that part of being human is knowing that we are deficient. We need food, water, air, oxygen, you know, on Maslow's like, Maslow's pyramid, like most basic level and then we also need love and we need and eventually we also need self-fulfillment and etc. So we need all those things. So we are, in a sense, we are deficient, but our deficiency is part of our wholeness. I think many of us, I think it's more of a male thing, I'm not too sure. In this lifetime I haven't been a female, so I don't know what it's like, but I think men or at least the masculine side of all of us has a really hard time being needing, being in need, admitting the word deficient, that we need something. So we're very much in denial. So part of us, that's part of our nature, part of our whole nature. We cannot survive without certain things. We cannot survive without other people. We cannot survive without companions, etc. So being in need, being deficient is part of our wholeness and therefore the two don't contradict. And anyone who wants to be whole by not needing anything or anyone, that's not wholeness. That's not communion. That's not wholehearted. That is, I think, idolatry. I think God created human beings deficient in order for them to come together, in order for them to trade together, to be friends, to create communities, to marry, to have children. I think deficiency, just like the electron needs a proton to form an atom, and that's the building blocks of the universe, so too each one of us. Now we can say about the electron that this one is not whole. The electron is 100% whole. But in order to become an atom, it needs a proton as well. And then the atom is also whole, but the atom is also always lacking an ion, an electron, and comes together with another atom and it creates something even better and bigger and more amazing, and that's the story of creation. Indeed, and these particles, by the way, Alicia, we used to think that protons and neutrons were whole, but they're not. There are smaller particles inside them. And in the Large Hadron Accelerator in Geneva, they smash protons together and they smash it apart and amazing little particles come through. And each particle, it seems like each particle is now, oh, now it's even less whole, because now it's even just a fracture from another, from a larger particle. But no, that particle is 100% whole, and it becomes, and part of its wholeness is its deficiency, so it can come together with another particle and create a greater wholeness. I want to talk about another theme in Parsat Shoftim, Alicia, and the theme is about how the king should behave. And the message is, and these are Mitzvot, the king should not gather wealth, should not have too many horses, king should be an Adav, the king should practice Anva. Humility. Humility. There's a quote from Dostoevsky that I found in The Idiot. Humility opens the gates of heaven. Humiliation opens the gates of hell. Beautiful. And this drives our politics, Alicia, because we once had leaders who were humble, and I'll give an example of that in a moment. And today we have leaders who have been humiliated, some of them. The reason Trump ran for president is because he was humiliated at a National Press Corps event, banquet, by Obama. And he decided when he became president he would cancel medical care, the wonderful medical care act that Obama sponsored called Obamacare. And this is driven because at this press corps, you know, Obama humiliated him, but Obama humiliated him because Trump had humiliated Obama, claiming that he wasn't American. And indeed he was born in Hawaii, and he showed his birth certificate. But humility and humiliation. Alicia, I'm troubled by something called Confeccion. Confeccion is the name of the Boeing plane that Netanyahu decided he must have in order to travel abroad. And it costs hundreds and hundreds of millions of shekels, and took a long time to prepare. And once in a blue moon, when Netanyahu goes to speak to Congress, he gets in this plane, and it's all his, the whole darn plane, and it costs a fortune, and each trip costs over $200,000. Alicia, there was a time when our leaders were different. I wrote a column in 2019, not long after you wrote your Dutch job, and the title is Alliteration. Words with the same letter, just start with the same letter. Peripatetic PM's Platinum Plane. It's as if this whole plane was made out of platinum, because it cost a fortune, Alicia. And the picture that ran with my column, and I'll show this to you, is a picture of Menachem Begin, and he is traveling abroad, Alicia, in a plane, and it's a long flight, it's 11, 12 hours to fly to Washington. And Begin is sitting in an aircraft seat, a regular seat, and a pillow behind his head, and he's sleeping. He's not sleeping in his own plane, he's traveling on an airline, in a regular chair, and sleeping, sitting up, and he wouldn't have dreamed of spending millions, hundreds of millions of shekels on a platinum plane that just sits around and costs us money. And this is in the Torah. We supposedly have religious people in the coalition. The Torah is absolutely clear about this. The king should be an anav, the king should be humble, and not accumulate wealth, and not build houses in Caesarea. Begin had a small apartment in Jerusalem, and he had that from the 50s. And he didn't spend money on it, and he lived in it for his entire life with Elisa, with his wife, and practiced what the Torah said. I want to mention what the Rambam explains about humility. Humility, Alicia, is not the opposite of pride. Anvah is not the opposite of galvah. The opposite of galvah is shiflut atzmit, self-abasement. And self-abasement is not approved by the Torah, just as it does not approve of pride. Anvah is a middle ground, a middle ground between pride and self-abasement. Balancing strength with strong abilities, strong belief in our own selves, but not believing that we are the be-all and end-all, and we are the center of the universe. And it's fascinating how relevant the Shoftim is about how our leaders should behave, and they absolutely do not, Alicia, they absolutely do not. And if we are a Torah nation, we deserve leaders who read the Torah. By the way, one of the mitzvot in Pashat Shoftim, the king is commanded as a mitzvah, one of 613, to write his own Torah school. Not only that, he has to do it in front of the Koran, the Koranim. And then watch how he's doing it right. And he writes every letter. And that purpose is obvious, right? When you write a Torah school, you look at every letter, every word, and you incorporate that into yourself. I think our prime ministers, Alicia, after they're chosen by the president to form a government, I think they should sit down for a year or two and write a Torah. Yeah, yeah. It's tragic how the most religious government we've ever, ever had is violating the Torah in such a fundamental way. There's a viral, there's a clip that's kind of going around, it's become viral, from one of the members of Knesset in approaching Gafni, the Haredi member of Knesset who heads the finance committee. And they usually sit in the finance committee, mostly, mostly, in order to guarantee the monies that go, the funds that go to the Haredi community. And she asks him, she says, you have given your vote to a government that has abused the Torah law regarding redeeming hostages, redeeming our own people, just in order to ensure more money for your people. How can you live with that? How can you live with, as long as you get your money and your clout, you don't care about those hostages, and you know what the Torah says. You know what the Torah says about saving your life. You know what the Torah says here, and you care more about your money and more about your wealth than about the laws of Torah. It's interesting, Elisha, he didn't respond. He didn't respond. He simply was absolutely silent. Right, yeah, it's a powerful, powerful little, and good for him not responding, but nevertheless, it doesn't redeem him from being part of this crime. And the position he holds, head of the finance committee, they have to approve every shekel that the government spends, Elisha. That is a crucial place that may be more important than the finance minister. And the Haredi parties, United Torah Judaism, they always make sure they have that job, as we say, sitting on the spigot where the money comes from. Yeah, yeah. This is not a good place to end, even though we have to end. But so I guess if we, you know, we do need to end, nevertheless. So if we have, on the one hand, we can see a world that really needs superheroes. On the other hand, we don't have superheroes right now. We don't have super judges. The judicial system is actually under attack by the government. And that requires each one, one of us to have a judge in your gates, in our own, in the gates of our own, of our own behavior, of our own being, for us to be, to be value-driven people, and to really know at the end of the day, deep, deep inside, there is judgment in the world. And at least there is good news, because we do have a roadmap. And the roadmap is the Torah, which is 3,000 years old. We know what we need to do. We just need to follow it, to study it, and follow it. It's so relevant for modern times, especially for these chaotic modern times. The Torah tells us what we need to do. We just have to do it. Yes. Yes, indeed. Shabbat shalom, everyone. Shabbat shalom. Thanks for listening, and hoping for good news. Amen.