Karate Mussar

I recently watched an amazing mussar series.

Karate isn't exactly my thing. But, like many people who grew up in the 80s, I watched and loved The Karate Kid. The nice kid - awkward, poor and scrawny Daniel Larusso - is bullied by the mean kid; handsome, wealthy jock Johnny Lawrence. But then Daniel learns karate from wise mentor Mr. Miyagi, and defeats Johnny in the All-Valley Karate championships! It was an immensely satisfying tale for teenagers.

Recently a sequel series was made, called Cobra Kai. It features the original actors - Ralph Macchio and William Zabka - and is thus set an astonishing thirty-four years later! But what's really incredible is what they did with the storyline. 

Naturally, Daniel and Johnny are training the next generation. So you'd expect that Daniel, as the hero, is training the good kid, and Johnny, as the bully, is training the bad kid. But the series flips that. Johnny is the one training the good kid, and Daniel the bad kid!

But Cobra Kai goes much further. It spends most of the time presenting things from Johnny's perspective. 

For thirty-four years, one thing that we've known for sure is that Daniel was the good guy and Johnny was the bad guy. But the sequel flips that on its head. Sure, Johnny is no tzaddik, but he's a sympathetic character. He had a rough home life. He became a bully because he himself was bullied by his stepfather. And his version of what happened back in 1984 is very different from Daniel's version. The way he saw it, Daniel was trying to steal his girlfriend, and often provoked him. 

Since then, after struggling with alcohol and employment problems, Johnny is making a sincere effort to get his life back together, including training bullied kids who need self-confidence. Daniel, meanwhile, has a successful personal and professional life, and is basically a good guy, but is way too smug and vindictive, and not willing to see that Johnny might be a better person than he remembers. 

The mussar lesson here is powerful. First, there's the way in which we can be certain about a person for literally decades, and then turn out to be wrong. Second is how Daniel and Johnny, despite both being basically decent people, are still stuck with their childhood prejudices and are each convinced that the other is awful beyond redemption. The show portrays how each of them views everything that the other does through the lens of their experience as teenagers. Instead of being able to get along as old acquaintances, and to grow together, they keep spiraling downwards due to their conviction that the other is evil and must be taken down.

This is a point that I've been trying to make in this forum for several months now. As a non-American, I have the benefit of a certain detachedness from US politics, like the viewer of Cobra Kai. It makes it possible to see clearly how partisanship and tribalism influence people to interpret everything that the other side does in the worst possible light. I've been trying to encourage people to try to look at things from the perspective of others, but with limited effect. 

The main argument that I use is as follows: If many people that you otherwise regard as basically good people see things so entirely differently from you, then surely there must be some merit in their perspective, even if they are ultimately wrong? I mean, I am sympathetic to why charedim are opposed to IDF service (it's not because they think that Torah protects, it's because it fundamentally threatens their way of life) and I can even understand why the charedi Gedolim banned my books. Surely if tens of millions of people view things very differently from you, including plenty of people from your own background and social circles, then one should try to understand their perspective and not condemn them as utterly foolish/ evil? 

If nothing that I wrote convinces you, then maybe try watching Cobra Kai. 

As 2020 ends, I hope that you appreciate the time that I took to write the many dozens of posts that appeared here this year. It would be nice if you could make a donation to support our work at The Biblical Museum of Natural History, at this link. Failing that (or in addition), please spread the word about our live online tours. Thank you!

Kollel, 1943-2020

As I discussed in my monograph "The Making of Haredim," the modern concept of the kollel began in 1943. There was the Kovno Kollel and others that began in the nineteenth century, but they were rabbinic training schools, with a program lasting three to five years.

In marked contrast to all these was the type of kollel first established by Rav Aharon Kotler in 1943, in Lakewood. There was no time limit placed upon studying there, because its purpose was fundamentally different from all those kollels that preceded it. Its goal was to have the study of Torah being performed “for its own sake,” as per the innovative definition of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. The students were specifically not to be preparing for a role in the rabbinate or the wider community. But the wider community was expected to provide financial support for this and similar institutions, based upon the new concept of the innate value of the Torah study.

The ultimate step in the evolution of the kollel, which spread in the latter part of the twentieth century, was its presentation as an expectation of every young man in the charedi community. In more moderate charedi circles in the United States, this is only expected for a year or two following marriage, while in the rest of charedi society in the US and Israel it is expected to continue for at least a decade or two, if not indefinitely. This is enabled by philanthropy in combination with government welfare.

Of course, such a system is not financially viable on a large scale for a long period. But Covid-19 accelerates its crash.

For many months now, unemployment in Israel has been around a shocking 20%, with nearly one million people unemployed. The economic aid is hundreds of billions of shekels, and the pandemic is not even over yet. The government is just not going to have the funds to help the voluntarily unemployed. And with Bibi's days being numbered, the charedim will lose a lot of political power, which is what they need to extract money from the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, the funds being donated by Jews in the Diaspora are also drying up. I'm on a mailing list for nonprofit fundraising and the message is very straightforward and bleak: Crisis. My own fundraising for the Biblical Museum of Natural History - an institution that our donors very much appreciate - has been immensely challenging this year. Most people just don't have the kinds of funds that they used to have. 

I'm not predicting that every kollel is going to immediately shutter its doors. But there is a crisis the likes of which is unprecedented, which will gradually force many people to have to leave kollel and search for a job - in numbers that will (hopefully) force a large-scale charedi rethink of the entire kollel-for-all concept.

But these people leaving kollel will find themselves competing for jobs with hundreds of thousands of others desperate for employment. Tragically, the people leaving kollel and searching for a job have no secular education and not much in the way of marketable skills. The price and suffering will be severe. One can only bemoan the systematic ignoring of Chazal's dictum that parents have the responsibility to educate their children with the ability to earn a living.

As I've been warning for years: the longer this broken system is propped up, the greater the crash when it finally inevitably collapses. Perhaps it's for the best that it's collapsing even sooner than I anticipated.

Mistakes of AntiVaxxers

I came across the following post from a determined anti-vaxxer:

My immediate thought was, what an idiot!

Shafan is a hyrax, not a rabbit!

Joking aside, there are serious mistakes being made here. First is that nobody is being asked to be a guinea-pig/ rabbit/ hyrax. Over a million people have already received the Pfizer vaccine. The guinea-pig stage is over.

Is it possible that the vaccine has unknown long-term harmful effects? Sure, it's possible. But that's not the relevant question. The relevant question is: Given the harm that coronavirus is continuing to cause around the world, would it be better if people took the vaccine? And the answer to that question is certainly yes.

There a further important point to consider. There were some people that were guinea-pigs. They received the very first vaccines. And they chose to be guinea-pigs. It wasn't because they were scared of Covid - they were not in high-risk categories. It was because they recognized that taking this unknown personal risk would be of tremendous benefit to mankind as a whole.

Don't just consider whether the vaccine is good for you. Consider society at large. Most of us don't risk our lives in army service. This is something very simply that we can and should do for the benefit of society.

The Battle for Shechitah

Bad News For The Jews. The EU now permits member states to ban shechitah, in the name of animal welfare. Incredibly, I have seen some traditional Jews express sympathy for this ruling, saying that they can understand it from non-religious perspective. I'd like to explain why this is gravely mistaken.

Some Jewish groups defend shechitah by arguing that it is painless. I don't know if that is true or not. (Some of the "scientific" defense of shechitah seems rather dated and biased. On the other hand, I have seen various quotes from Temple Grandin saying that shechitah can be done without undue pain, and that the main issue is how the animal is treated immediately beforehand.)

But what I do feel is that an alternative strategy should be considered. Because I know of no theological reason why shechitah should necessarily be entirely painless. Furthermore, if you defend shechitah on the grounds that it has "scientifically" been proven painless, then you are effectively conceding that if science proves otherwise, then shechitah should not be done.

Instead, shechitah can be robustly defended on the following grounds: that the small degree of animal suffering is fully justified for religious benefits.

No country in the world rules that no pain may be caused to animals. When there is substantial benefit to humans, all legal systems permit causing pain to animals. Medical experimentation is one example. Farming animals for food usually involves a considerable level of distress to the animals. Modern broiler chickens have been selectively bred to grow as fat and as fast as possible on as little food as possible, but such extreme growth causes skeletal malformation and dysfunction, skin and eye lesions, and congestive heart conditions. chickens, selectively bred to maximize growth and meat yield, endure serious hardship for their entire lives. Egg-laying chickens have their beaks cut off so that they do not attack each other in the crowded conditions under which they are raised, a surgery which is likely to cause acute and chronic pain. The possible suffering of animals in how they die pales into insignificance compared to the suffering of animals in how they live. Yet all this is legal in every country, for human benefit. Belgium - the country at the forefront of the opposition to shechitah - even permits sport hunting!

Given the amount of animal suffering which is perfectly legal in every country in the world, one can only conclude that the targeting of shechitah has less to do with compassion for animals and more to do with hostility to religion.

Shechitah is the only means by which Jews can eat meat. Eating meat is a legitimate activity (animals also eat animals!), and Judaism is an ancient way of life which deserves respect. Even if shechitah does cause some brief pain to animals, it is justified - especially since the suffering is not of long duration. I think that this is ultimately the correct defense (although I will admit that I am not certain if, strategically speaking, it is the best defense to use).

At the same time, this means that the kosher meat industry certainly could improve a lot in terms of how the animals are treated before shechitah. I'm always amazed at how people who are makpid about every minutiae of rabbinic chumra are often entirely unconcerned with the d'Oraisa of tzaar baalei chaim. As Rabbi Aryeh Carmell ztz"l wrote:

It seems doubtful… whether the Torah would sanction “factory farming,” which treats animals as machines, with apparent insensitivity to their natural needs and instincts. (Masterplan, p. 69)

Many halachic authorities are of the opinion that minor benefits and financial benefits, such as those obtained via factory farming, do not warrant causing pain to animals. It is true that the majority opinion is in the other direction. Still, considering that many people are fastidious to meticulously fulfill the laws of kashrus according to all opinions, such punctiliousness should surely also apply to the laws of tzaar baalei chayim. That is to say, since there are opinions which state that financial benefits (such as those enabled through factory farming) do not justify the suffering thereby caused to animals, those who are meticulous to follow all opinions should surely be consistent and refrain from consuming animals farmed in such a manner. 

Rav Eliezer Melamed discusses the topic of hens that are starved in order to then make them enter a new cycle of laying eggs. He quotes none other than Rav Yitzchak Weiss - of Manchester and then of the Edah Charedis - who says that even though there is no technical problem of tzaar baalei chaim here, someone who wants to conduct himself via middas chassidus will refrain from this. 

There should be a "glatt" push for heritage chickens rather than factory chickens. Additionally, they should be working to ensure that farmed animals suffer as little as possible, whether they are farmed for food or fur. Aside from the innate importance and value of that, I'm sure it would assist in the general campaign to defend shechitah. If the Jewish community demonstrated greater sensitivity for animal welfare than the general population, it would be a tremendous kiddush Hashem and a powerful shield against attacks on shechitah.

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And Here We Go

Many years ago my wife and I adopted a beautiful custom from one of her teachers. Every Shabbos, we go around the table, and people take turns to relate their highlights of the week. Last Shabbos, everyone thought that my biggest highlight would be that the government finally gave permission for museums to open, albeit with restrictions on the number of visitors. But, while that was obviously a tremendous highlight for me, I was surprised that nobody had mentioned something vastly more amazing: the approval and import of the vaccine! Finally, the end to this horrible pandemic is in sight. We should be dancing from the rooftops!

Many people are, of course, very happy. But many people are also scared, or fired up in anger. They believe that the vaccine is dangerous, and that it is being pushed by Bill Gates and Big Pharma who want to make money at the expense of peoples' lives. Recently there was a car making the rounds in my home town of Ramat Beit Shemesh, with a loudspeaker blaring about how the vaccine is terribly dangerous and must not be taken. Ministry of Health officials met with community leaders in Bnei Brak to convince them to back the national vaccination program, but were unsuccessful.

To what extent is this anti-vaccination a characteristic of the charedi community? Actually, you can find opposition to the vaccine in every sector of the population. You don't have to be charedi to be against the vaccine - but it helps.

There's been a much-publicized pashkevil declaring that the vaccine is highly dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. This Daas Torah is proclaimed in the name of Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky, Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, Rav Malkiel Kotler and others.

Now, it turns out that this pashkevil appears to be a hoax. A yeshivishe friend of mine pointed to all kinds of indications which reveal that it is not genuine. But do you know what does not reveal it to be a hoax? The notion of these rabbis opposing a vaccine!

As my friend Aqibha Weisinger noted, if such a letter was posted in the name of Rav Hershel Schechter, everyone would know instantly that it was a hoax, because Rav Shechter would never, ever say such a foolish thing. But the same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the charedi Gedolim named in this letter.

Nearly four years ago I wrote a post titled "When Rabbis Quack." In that post I critiqued an anti-rationalist, anti-scientific, anti-medicine book on alternative medicine by Rabbi Rafoel Szmerla, which received glowing approbations from various charedi Gedolim. I warned that such a mindset could lead to people opposing MMR vaccinations. Subsequently I was proved correct when several Gedolim backed a group called "The Vaccine Coalition" which was actually an anti-vaccine coalition. (You can see my coverage of that in a post titled "The Lakewood Suicide Squad.")

It comes as absolutely no surprise to learn that the charedi Gedolim who endorsed Szmerla's book are the same charedi Gedolim who backed the anti-MMR-vaccine coalition, and they are the exact same charedi Gedolim listed in the pashkevil against the coronavirus vaccine.

So the fact that these charedi Gedolim supposedly did not actually write this letter is not so relevant. Even the fact that Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky issued a letter stating that he never said any such thing, and that he recommends that people consult their doctors, is not as effective as it should be. Because the fact is that all these charedi Gedolim have spent years laying the groundwork for their communities to be opposed to vaccinations.

Israel has had 3000 deaths from Covid; the US has had 300,000. (There has also been the incalculable harm to physical and mental health, and the economic loss.) We finally have a chance to bring this to a halt. It is a tragedy that there are renowned charedi Gedolei Torah who are responsible for dragging out this pandemic, resulting in additional harm and deaths. I'm generally quite tolerant of non-rationalism, but there are times when its consequences are just too horrible to bear.

UPDATE: It was just announced that Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Edelstein have announced that people should take the vaccine. But meanwhile, Rav Shmuel Eliezer Stern, one of the leading chassidishe poskim, stated that people should not take it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out; let's hope that this is a case in which the authority wielded by Rav Chaim Kanievsky will have a positive effect.

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Dealing With Conspiracy Theorists

I'm surrounded by conspiracy theorists. Literally. Within several hundred feet of my house, in several directions, are vocal conspiracy theorists.

Originally, it was simply funny. When one of them was trying to convince me that diet soda was part of Obama's plan to test toxins, and that you can play people's speech backwards to discern their true intent, and that Michelle Obama is actually a man, it was just pathetically hilarious.

Now, of course, it's much more sinister. Because now it's all about how Covid-19 is a hoax, and there is no reason to take precautions, and the vaccine is a plan by the Evil Not-So-Secret Powermongers to make lots of money while simultaneously reducing the world population.

Today I was forwarded a video on this theme, with the following text appearing at the top of the video: "Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci are paying trillions of dollars to Big Tech to stop this video going viral!" It is just astonishing that people believe this stuff unquestioningly. Trillions of dollars? Really? Gates only has about 100 billion. And he's spending twenty times that amount to suppress harmful videos? And Dr. Fauci, a career physician his entire life, suddenly has trillions of dollars to spend on protecting his secret interests? And out of all the conspiracy material out there, it's this one short stupid video that they are spending all this money to suppress? But it's so appealing for people to think that they're getting to watch something that someone powerful tried to suppress, that it blinds them to questioning whether this, or any of the claims made in the video, are actually true.

Is there any point in arguing with conspiracy theorists? Not really. But it's important for everyone to be aware of the flaws in conspiracy thinking, to prevent them from recruiting more to their ranks. The basic logical flaw in all conspiracy thinking is that it negates Occam's Razor. Conspiracy theories look for the most complicated explanation of events instead of the simplest explanations. But the reality is that most events can be very simply explained by ordinary causes, whereas conspiracies require levels of organization and cooperation which human beings are just not very good at.

And there are all kinds of psychological mechanisms which make conspiracy theories appeal to people. As noted above, it's appealing to think that you have access to "suppressed" or "secret" information. And it can actually be psychologically reassuring to believe that events, including harmful events, are not random or unplanned, but are the calculated result of a plan - even if it being planned by evil forces. And in the modern world of social media and email, it's very easy for people thus inclined to hook up with many other such people to reinforce their attitude.

If nothing else works, perhaps we can point out to people how conspiracy theorists usually flirt with a whole range of conspiracy theories - and many of these involve antisemitism.

Why I Can Never Be A True Rationalist

At the start of the millennium, I was in a pretty low place, in a variety of ways. I had recently been tasked by a certain outreach organization with the mission to research the topic of proving the Divinity of the Torah from the camel, the hare and the hyrax. This was in order to refute various objections that were being thrown at them from people who claimed that the topic actually disproved rather than proved the Torah's divinity. Much to my surprise and great dismay, I discovered that the objections were partially correct, and that while the topic could not be used to disprove the Divinity of Torah, it also couldn't be used to prove it. I was devastated.

Then, I was further shaken when certain (but not all) outreach organizations reacted with great hostility to my presenting them with my final report. Feeling the heat, I tried to ensure that my report would not reach anyone beyond those organizations. And then I was further distressed to find that one of my confidential correspondents had sent it to several further people. All this put me in a state of abject funk.

Meanwhile, in my personal life, things were also going badly. Nearly all my friends had long gotten married, but despite having gone out with many dozens of girls, I was still single. I was a rather out-of-the-box type of yeshivah student, and I had been scarred by certain dating experiences, and frankly, I was at a point when I thought that I would never get married.

Then, one day, I was contacted by one of the people to whom my "Camel, Hare & Hyrax" report had been leaked, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein. He said that he liked it very much, and he was coming to Israel, and would like to meet me. After we met, he told me that I should go out with a former student of his from Los Angeles. 

There's not many connections between Mancunians and Los Angelinos, but I discovered that my neighbor, a very insightful psychologist who knew me extremely well, also knew this girl. I asked her if she thought it would be a good match, and she said that she didn't "see it" at all. Manchester and Los Angeles are not just geographically very far apart; they are also culturally very far apart. But I decided to go out with her anyway.

Twenty years ago today, Tali Samson and I got married.

Anyone who knows me from both before and after I got married knows that getting married is the best thing that ever happened to me, in all kinds of ways. My wife, a psychotherapist, is a truly wonderful person who exists to make the world a better place. Virtually every good thing that I have received or achieved is directly or indirectly as a result of getting married to her. My wife and I have been blessed with five wonderful children. We've faced challenges together and gotten through them.

The hyrax, which caused me so much grief, turned out to be the conduit via which I received so much blessing. It's probably not very rationalist of me to believe that I merited exceptional personal divine providence (Rambam and others did not generally believe in such personalized providence, and contemporary rationalists would dismiss it as perceiving significance where none exists), but I just can't help how I feel. I thank Hashem every day for what I consider to be one of the Great Miracles of the 21st century. May He continue to bestow blessings upon us.

 

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Too Outrageous To Be True?

Here are advertisements for two events. One is outrageous and is merely a satire of the other, which is outrageous and is actually taking place. Can you guess which is which? Of course you can, because there's only one type of gaslighting which is socially acceptable.

Please share the latter with whoever might be seeing the former.

The Extremists At Both Ends

I just made a largely futile attempt to make peace between two people. They have a lot in common, and deep down they love each other, but they fell out about something. Each was convinced that the other person was acting absolutely terribly. It was deeply frustrating to me that neither was trying to see the situation from other person's perspective. But I shouldn't have been surprised; it was just a microcosm of what is happening to society in general, at least in the US.

As a Brit living in Israel, I had the luxury of not having to decide who to vote for in the US elections. Nor do I take much interest in the domestic affairs of the US. I was able to somewhat detachedly observe the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. Which, of course, instantly put me at odds with the vast majority of Americans, who only see strengths in their own side and only weaknesses in the other, due to the enormous psychological power of confirmation bias.

I didn't think that the divisions in the US could get any more extreme. But I was wrong.

On the one hand, you have a CNN anchor comparing the actions of Trump to the start of the Nazi Holocaust (fortunately, she has since apologized). And I got into an argument with someone who insisted that everyone is obligated to hate every single one of the 69 million people who voted for Trump, with no forgiveness ever (if they don't repent). There was absolutely no willingness to be open to the possibility that there could be good people who sincerely believe that Trump and the associated Republican party is overall beneficial for the US (or less bad than the alternative).

At the other end of the spectrum is Trump himself, destroying the 240-year-old legacy of both Democrats and Republicans in trying to tear apart the country rather than concede defeat. And some of his supporters have very strange beliefs. I got into an argument with someone who shared a photo of Trump with the description, "Loving Dad, Husband, Greatest President Donald Trump." I'm not going to get into an argument with someone about whether Trump is a good president (I'm too distant to make such evaluations), but what on earth would lead someone to say that he is a "loving husband"?! Are they unaware that he divorced his first two wives, and has actually bragged about multiple extra-marital affairs? The eventual response was that he is an amazing president and Biden is awful. Which only strengthened my objection: Why would his actions as a president mean that he is necessarily a loving husband?!

It seems that the ultimate manifestation of tribalism is that not only is "your guy" the best person to serve as president; he is the best person, period. He is a perfect person in every respect. I saw someone else write that he is "a truly selfless great man, who hides it so well." (Indeed, he hides it amazingly well!) He is someone to be lionized and idolized. (And there are others who idolize him in most bizarre ways.)

It is crucial for everyone to learn about how Confirmation Bias shapes both your thoughts and those of other people (so that you don't condemn them as evil or insane). It is crucial to learn about the power of tribalism over both your psyche and that of others. The alternative is for society to tear itself apart.

(Cue: comments from people saying that as a non-American I just don't get it, because it's obvious that the other side is just totally evil.)

 

See too this post: The Black And White Problem

How To Be A Frum Criminal

In March 2001, FBI agents raided Kiryas Joel, rounding up 14 suspects on suspicion of a string of financial crimes. Members of the group had falsified social security numbers and used the details to fraudulently obtain tax refunds, life insurance payments, and bank loans. Chief among them was Mordechai Samet, who was convicted on 33 counts of racketeering, money laundering, and fraud that netted about $5.5 million dollars. He was finally released a few weeks ago, after spending twenty years in prison.

Mishpacha magazine just published a feature story on "Reb" Mordechai Samet. When I started reading it, I was initially sickened. The article portrays him as an inspirational man on a mission to teach powerful messages about emunah and bitachon. I began to feel a strong sense of deja vu. It was reminiscent of how the yeshivish community, with few protests, lauded Shalom Rubashkin, the "Baal HaNes," as a heroic martyr, and a baal bitachon par excellence. Yet, to quote Rav Hershel Shechter's comments on Rubashkin, "It's scandalous - the man is a criminal... [but] they're turning him into the next Lubavitcher rebbe!" Rubashkin never speaks about having done anything wrong or about the need to be law-abiding - and in fact, claims to have been the victim of libel. His message is only about his heroic ability to trust in Hashem to help him with his plight - never about his mistakes and wrongdoings that got him there in the first place.

But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the article about Samet reflects a very different approach, in two highly significant ways. 

First is that, unlike with Rubashkin, Samet is not only out to teach people about bitachon, but also to urge them to stay away from white-collar crime. Although not adequately stressing the immorality and dishonesty of it, he does stress the foolishness of attempting it, and the chillul Hashem that it causes.

Second is that, at the very end of the article, it becomes clear that Samet is not giving the distorted bitachon message of Rubashkin. As I wrote last year, emunah and bitachon means that Hashem is in charge of our livelihoods; and the practical ramification of such a belief is that there is nothing to be gained by engaging in dishonest activity. The only speech about emunah and bitachon that Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin should be giving is about how he didn't have it, and suffered as a result. Fortunately, Samet makes precisely this point:

In retrospect, Samet admits that if he’d had the wellsprings of bitachon and emunah that he developed and built up during his long years in prison, he would never have gotten into the whole dangerous and dubious enterprise that entangled him so badly.

“Anyone who has strong emunah knows that HaKadosh Baruch Hu provides parnassah to all — from the tiniest creations to the largest ones — without a person needing to employ questionable methods, and especially when those actions are against the law,” Samet says today. “No tricks. And it’s not only because I sat in prison for nearly two decades, but because HaKadosh Baruch Hu says not to do these things. And our job is to make a kiddush Hashem in This World and not, chalilah, the opposite.

“Ultimately, we don’t gain anything and we pay a heavy price. I suffered so much, I caused so much heartache and pain to myself and others. I ask my children forgiveness because they had to suffer so much because of my lack of caution. I ask mechilah from my wife, a tzadeikes, who waited for me all these years. Today, I hope and pray that my sins have been atoned for, and that, as Hashem promises, my transgressions have turned to merits. But please, no one should take the path I did to get there.”

What a refreshing different message to hear!

There's one more very significant point in the Mishpacha article, though I fear not enough people will notice the significance of it. It explains that Samet was not a shrewd con-man out to make a killing, but rather someone simply trying to make ends meet: 

“I never aspired to be rich,” he said in his prison interview. “All I wanted to do was scrape by, pay tuition, mortgage, kehillah dues, and make bar mitzvahs and weddings without needing to accept charity. 

And there we have a perfect illustration of the truth of Chazal's words, and the terrible failure of the charedi community for determinedly ignoring them:

"Whoever does not teach his son a trade... it is as though he has taught him to steal." (Kiddushin 29a)

 

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A Giant Among Rabbis

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has passed away.

The loss is absolutely incalculable. Rabbi Sacks was only 72, and still had so much to give. I do not believe that it is an exaggeration to say that he was one of the most important rabbis of our generation. I don't mean that he was the greatest Talmudist or the greatest halachic authority or had the most disciples. I mean that in terms of teaching Judaism, and furthering the national interests of the Jewish People, his accomplishments, qualities and influence were unmatched. He was a leader and teacher and ambassador for the Jewish People in the path of great figures in our history such as Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, Rambam, and Ramban.

It was nearly thirty years ago in 1991, when he was appointed Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, that I (and many others) first heard of him. Back then, I was living in Manchester, and he came to speak on several occasions. He was a masterful orator, and it was clear that his appointment to this prestigious position was superbly appropriate.

Being Chief Rabbi of the UK is not an easy position. It requires delicate maneuvering between diverse communities, including charedim, traditional Orthodox, and non-Orthodox sectors, as well as representing the Jewish community to the outside world. It's impossible to do so without ruffling any feathers, but Rabbi Sacks managed to ruffle very, very few. He spoke at my ultra-charedi former yeshivah, Shaarei Torah, and to non-Jewish audiences with more than a few people who harbored antisemitic attitudes. How many rabbis would be able to speak to both audiences?!

Rabbi Sacks promoted and defended Orthodox Judaism with dignity. He was knighted and appointed to the House of Lords. He was the ambassador of the Jewish people to governments and leaders worldwide - and was amazingly good at it. England is rife with distaste for Jews, but Rabbi Sacks earned enormous great respect. He had great dislike for getting involved with politics, and so when he made a rare exception to criticize Jeremy Corbyn, it had important impact.

Rabbi Sacks authored twenty-five bestselling works on Judaism, as well as translations of the siddur and machzorim. His books are not mere vortlach - they are profound insights, reflective of deep thought. This past Sukkot, I read his essay on Kohelet in Ceremony and Celebration, and it blew me away in how it tied together all the themes of Sukkot with incredible perspectives on human nature. It boggles the mind that he was able to produce so much material of such high quality. 

One of Rabbi Sacks' lesser-known but highly important works is his brilliant essay, "Creativity and Innovation in Halakhah," published in the critically important Orthodox Forum publication Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy (Aaronson 1992). The essay attests to his profound understanding of the halachic process and its application to modern society. I very much hope that it will be made available online, but meanwhile, here is the penultimate paragraph: 

"To my mind the most serious issues confronting contemporary halakhah is not lack of creativity, but the sociological divorce between the centers of pesak - nowadays, largely the yeshivot - and the centers of congregational life. Pesak involves applying Torah in its unchanging totality to Jewish life in its present specificity. A law-interpreter, no less than a law-maker, must have a clear objective understanding of the lives he is called on to instruct. R. Joshua once suggested that Rabban Gamliel's capacity to lead the Jewish community was compromised by his ignorance of the economic conditions in which they lived (Berakhot 28a). The same surely would be true of a posek who was ignorant of their intellectual and cultural circumstances."

On a personal note, I was privileged to spend Pesach together with Rabbi Sacks a few years ago. (Note that his rabbinic beach-wear was much more respectable than mine!). He was incredibly gracious; he was telling my wife about how bad he feels for wives who have to suffer their husband's books being banned, and he added that if we are ever feeling down, we should just write to him and he will call and offer whatever chizzuk he can! He also graciously recorded a blessing for the Biblical Museum of Natural History. 

Rabbi Sacks' sudden passing from cancer came as a great shock, but it was actually not the first time that he battled this illness. Here is an extract from an article about Rabbi Sacks by Yair Rosenberg that was published in Tablet magazine, several years ago:

"Though he seldom mentions it, Sacks battled cancer twice, once in his 30s, and later in his 50s. Yet unlike many other rabbis and scholars of religion, from Rabbi David Wolpe to James Kugel, who incorporated their bouts with cancer into their theological reflections, Sacks makes no reference to it in his voluminous output. I asked why.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “I saw my late father in his 80s go through four, five major operations. This was not cancer, it was hip replacements and those things. And when you have operations in your 80s, they sap your strength. He got weaker and weaker as the decade passed. He was walking on crutches at my induction—he was alive for my induction, and that was very important to me.”

“Now, my late father, alav ha-shalom, didn’t have much Jewish education, but he had enormous emunah [faith],” Sacks continued. “I used to watch him saying Tehillim in the hospital, and I could see him getting stronger. It seemed to me that his mental attitude was ‘I’m leaving this to Hashem. If he sees that it’s time for me to go, then it’s time for me to go. And if he still needs me to do things here, he’ll look after me.’”

“And I adopted exactly that attitude. So on both occasions I felt, if this is the time Hashem needs me up there, thank you very much indeed for my time down here; I’ve enjoyed every day and feel very blessed. And if he wants me to stay and there’s still work for me to do, then he is going to be part of the refu’ah [healing] and I put my trust in him. So there was no test of faith at any point—just these simple moments at which to say, ‘b’yado afkid ruchi’ [‘In his hand, I place my soul’]. That was my thought. And since we say that every day in Adon Olam, I didn’t feel the need to write a book about it. It was for me not a theological dilemma at all.”

“I had faith,” said Sacks, “full stop.”

Our nation was blessed to have had such a rare gem. Rabbi Sacks' many works will be inspiring and educating both Jews and non-Jews for centuries to come. He will be sorely missed. 

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Know Your Brain

Modern science has revealed some extremely valuable, albeit somewhat upsetting, truths about the human brain. Many, many experiments have conclusively proved that our brains work far less rationally than we think they do.

For example, a famous experiment showed that, under the right circumstances, someone can dress up in a gorilla costume, walk right into your field of vision, jump up and down and beat their chest, and you won't even see them. All it takes is the right kind of mental distraction. (This has important ramifications; it means that nobody can ever be certain that they wouldn't forget their baby in the car, and it is incumbent on all young parents to implement some sort of automated checking system.)

It's also been repeatedly proven that you can be 100% certain that you saw something which you couldn't possibly have seen. Millions of people are certain that they saw Tom Cruise jump up and down on Oprah's couch, declaring his love for Katie Holmes. But it never happened. Similarly, in a survey of people's responses as to where they were when they heard about 9/11, it turned out that many people completely (but with certainty) misremembered.

There are many other ways in which our minds do not work as well as we believe them to. Several have been discussed in two fascinating books, The Invisible Gorilla and Predictably Irrational. One of the most pernicious of these inbuilt human mental flaws is Confirmation Bias. This refers to how we search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our preexisting bias. 

In one experiment at Stanford, students were divided into two groups according to whether they believed that capital punishment does or does not discourage crime. Each group was given two sets of scientific papers, one set of which brought evidence that capital punishment does discourage crime, and one set of which brought evidence that it doesn't have such an effect. (Unbeknownst to the students, both sets of papers were fabricated for the purpose of the experiment, and were equal in the strength of the "evidence" that they offered.) When questioned, the students who were originally in favor of capital punishment being effective found the papers to that effect to be much more convincing, and were even strengthened in their belief. Whereas the students who were originally of the view that capital punishment does not help, found the papers to that effect much more convincing, and were strengthened in their belief.

In the modern era of mass media and social media, we are bombarded with thousands of reports and articles and perspectives, and we choose which ones we rate as convincing. We might think that we are being objective, but it is very likely that we are simply succumbing to Confirmation Bias. We search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our preexisting bias.

Of course, not everyone is equally subject to Confirmation Bias. While we are all vulnerable to a certain degree, there are those who are less affected, and those who are more affected. How can you tell if you are particularly affected? I think that there is pretty straightforward way to know, at least with regard to elections.

Elections are (frequently) binary choices between two people. However, these binary choices are between two people with a large number of associated people, who differ in a thousand ways, with a million different ramifications. And many of these ramifications can have long-term effects which cannot be predicted with any certainty, and may even have conflicting effects. To be sure, it is possible that one of these choices is overall vastly superior to the other. But with such a staggering array of factors, what are the odds that every single one of them fits neatly into the same binary column of what is good and bad?

So if you believe that every single article, every report, every argument, in favor of your preferred candidate is convincing, and every single article, report and argument in favor of the other guy is not at all convincing; if you believe that there is every reason to vote for your guy and not a single reason to vote for the other guy; if you believe that anyone who votes for the other guy is absolutely, irredeemably stupid or evil - then it is overwhelmingly likely that you suffer from severe Confirmation Bias.

(And there may turn out to be some further evidence to convince you. If you suffer from severe Confirmation Bias, you probably also believe that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of your candidate winning by a substantial majority. In the eventuality that your candidate fails to do so, you will have clear evidence that you indeed suffer from Confirmation Bias. And you can extrapolate from that that all your deep certainty that the Other Guy is absolutely utterly terrible, is probably likewise not so well-founded.)

It's also helpful to realize that other people suffer from confirmation bias, too; and therefore the reason why they are voting in a way that seems entirely incomprehensible to you is not because they are absolutely evil or utterly stupid, but rather because they had a certain inclination in a certain direction regarding certain aspects of person or policy difference, and interpreted everything else in light of that.

We are all human, and we are thus all flawed. But at least we have the capacity to learn about our flaws, and to be aware of them. That is the first step to compensating for them.

How Aesthetic was the Ark?

I would like to thank everyone who commented on the previous post, Building Noah's Ark, with ideas about how best to create a scale model of Noah's Ark for the Biblical Museum of Natural History. In the previous post, I discussed the factors of proportion, scale, form, superstructure, and animals. Since then, I realized that there are further factors to consider.

One is carpentry. Now, it seems that nails were invented about 5500 years ago, in Ancient Egypt. The ancients also knew how to use mortise joints to fasten beams together. But another, perhaps more common construction technique in ancient Mesopotamia involved lashing beams together with rope (see this paper on Ships and Shipbuilding in Mesopotamia). This in turn required lots of pitch for waterproofing - which is why God told Noah to apply pitch both on the inside and outside.

The other aspect to consider is aesthetics. Most contemporary models of Noah's Ark involve beautiful carpentry. But there's a fascinating video about the making of Noah's Ark for the 2014 film Noah with Russell Crowe. As I noted in the previous post, that version was accurate in terms of presenting the Ark as a box rather than as a boat. But the production designer also explains that they decided to show it as being constructed in a roughshod manner. This is not a sleek, beautifully designed luxury vessel. It's a purely functional emergency refuge constructed by a single family. 

(While this and other aspects of the 2014 film are impressive, overall I absolutely hated the film for its utterly miserable tone and its depiction of Noah as a homicidal maniac. And they hardly showed any animals!)

Putting these two factors together, the result is that rather than the Ark being a beautiful work of carpentry, the Bible is describing a giant crate made of logs roughly lashed together, coated in black pitch. Not a very attractive model to build! It might be educational, but it won't be very inspirational.

Perhaps we should exhibit multiple models and artwork? I'm also leaning towards making it resemble the ark-like architecture of the museum building itself, with curved corners and vertical strengthening pillars/beams. Since our model Ark will be situated near the donors' plaques, it might be fitting symbolism for those people helping us build a modern Ark!

Building Noah's Ark

The Biblical Museum of Natural History

focuses on the identities and symbolism of the animals of the Bible. As such, the story of Noah's Ark is less relevant to the museum than one might suppose. So far, we have had no exhibit relating to Noah's Ark. But since the words "animals" and "Bible" obviously conjure up Noah's Ark, and it does carry the powerful symbolism of conservation, I would very much like to create a Noah's Ark exhibit, to be displayed in our entrance hall. 

My idea is not to get at all into the scientific issues discussed in the previous post - the museum stays far away from such controversial topics. Instead, the signage would talk about the Ark as a symbol of conservation. (Note that rather than destroying all the animals and creating new ones, God wanted Noah to look after some animals and preserve them - perhaps teaching that civilization must be built upon kindness.) The exhibit would be based around a large model of the Ark, along with the animals entering it. Deciding upon the nature of such a model involves numerous factors, which are not at all straightforward. There's a Noah's Ark Model Store, but all of the models sold there run into problems. Here are the aspects that I am considering:

1. Proportions

I certainly want the model to reflect the Biblical dimensions of the Ark. These are not at all the dimensions of the popular drawings and models. In popular depictions, the Ark is about two or three times as long as it is wide and tall. But the Biblical Ark was ten times as long as it was tall! It's quite jarring when one looks at a scale image or model, because it's so different than what we're used to.

2. Scale

Given the extreme length of the Ark, it's quite difficult to scale it down and have animals that are not microscopic. The small but highly detailed model animals that one sees in museum and quality toy stores, and which we have in our Hall of Shofars alongside each shofar, are at a scale of 1:24. But at this scale, the Ark would be nearly twenty feet long! Our Entrance Hall is very large, but still, I'm not sure that we want to take up that much space with this exhibit.

A more reasonably sized model Ark would be around five feet long. That is the 1:87 scale of certain tiny model railways, the manufacturers of which also make model animals to match this scale. But then it's only about six inches tall, and the animals are absolutely tiny - less than half an inch high, and thus less detailed. 

Perhaps we should do an intermediate scale of around 1:45 (the "O" scale of model railways), resulting in an Ark that measures ten feet long? I'm not all sure which scale to go for.

3. Form

Popular depictions of Noah's Ark present it as being a large boat. Boats have rounded hulls, to reduce drag as they move through the water. But the whole significance of Noah's Ark (in contrast to Gilgamesh and other such stories) is that Noah was not a sailor and the Ark was not a boat. It was not designed to move through the water, merely to float in it. It was an ark, a box, not a ship. In that respect, the horrible 2014 film Noah with Russell Crowe was more accurate, depicting the Ark as a crate-like structure. Still, the Torah does not say that the Ark didn't have a rounded hull, so perhaps we should make the model look a little more aesthetic and in line with people's expectations.

4. Superstructure

The popular depiction of a house-like superstructure above a deck is not in the Biblical description. The Torah speaks about the Ark being "finished to a cubit above," the meaning of which is highly unclear. So do we hazard a guess as to what is being meant (which is perhaps some kind of sloping roof), or do we cater to the popular image?

5. The Animals

Which animals do we show going into the Ark - lions and hippos and other animals from Biblical lands, or animals from the entire planet, such as elephants and giraffes? This is a very stark difference, and requires taking a position on the potentially controversial issue of whether the account of the Ark is intended to describe a flood covering the "world of the Bible" or the entire planet. (We will certainly not be including the dinosaurs that many Christians place on the Ark!)

So, how should we do it? I would welcome people's feedback and suggestions - and please try to consider it from the perspective of what is best for the museum, not what you would personally like to see! Meanwhile, I hope you will all be able to visit the museum - either physically, or in one of our live online tours!

The Noah's Ark Challenge

Question: Which home of Biblical creatures measures 100 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height?

The most common wrong answer to this question is Noah's Ark. It's wrong because Noah's Ark was 300 cubits long, not 100 cubits.

The correct answer is: The new home of the Biblical Museum of Natural History! Amazingly (and completely unplanned), the new museum is the exact width and height of Noah's Ark!

Meanwhile, since it's that time of year again, here is the slightly expanded version of my original post regarding scientific challenges to the Noah's Ark account (which is, ironically, a topic that we do not touch upon in the museum).

Over the years I've received numerous questions about reconciling the traditional view of Noah's Flood with modern science. There are two sets of problems. First are those concerning the scientific impossibility of such an event - how the animals survived without their normal environments, how they traveled from and back to their various locations, where the water for the Deluge came from, etc. These can all be answered by simply positing numerous miracles - the animals flew or teleported to and from the Ark, etc., - but this is not satisfactory for those who follow the approach of Rambam and others which seek to minimize supernatural miracles. 

The second set of problems is based not on the scientific impossibility of such an event, but instead upon the evidence that even a supernatural event of this nature did not happen - i.e. the evidence of uniform geology (the result of which enables geologists to make a living) and records of continuous human civilizations throughout the entire period. Of course, there are anti-scientific polemicists, such as Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, who dismiss all the problems by claiming that supernatural processes took place in such a way as to conceal their occurrence (which includes undoing many of its devastating effects and sorting all the different kinds of fossils into neatly differentiated strata) - and Rabbi Meiselman condemns everyone who considers the Deluge to be a challenge as having "a mindset tainted by kefirah and skepticism." But those who understand the historical evidence realize that even this ridiculously far-fetched answer does not remotely deal with the evidence regarding human civilization.

There are a variety of different ways of approaching this topic. I tried discussing some of them online back in the summer of 2004, which may well have been one of the factors leading to the infamous ban on my books, and my comments were subsequently widely and wildly (and sometimes deliberately) misquoted. So instead of discussing it, I will just provide references to further reading material which shed light on various different approaches. Many people will condemn these approaches as unacceptable, but until they have a credible response to the scientific difficulties with the simple understanding, they would be wiser to remain silent.

First and foremost, I strongly recommend that people struggling with this difficulty read The Challenge Of Creation, preferably the third edition and onwards. I only explicitly deal with the flood in footnote 2 on page 302 (third edition), but there are many other parts of the book which are actually more relevant in terms of determining which options are available and acceptable - in particular, chapters 6-8, and 14-15.

Other relevant sources (remember, not all of these present the same approach), listed in no particular order, are:

• 
  Joel B. Wolowelsky, "Divine Literature and Human Language: Reading the Flood Story," in Bentsi Cohen, ed. As a Perennial Spring: A Festschrift Honoring Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm (NY: Downhill Publishing, 2013), pp. 521-534. (This is a revised version of his earlier article “A Note on the Flood Story in the Language of Man,” Tradition 42:3 (Fall 2009) pp. 41-48.)
• Rabbi Gedalyah Nadel, BeToraso Shel Rabbi Gedalyah, pp. 116-119.
• Umberto (Moshe David) Cassuto, From Adam to Noah (Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1961).
• Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman, commentary to Genesis, pp. 140-141.
• Rabbi J. Hertz’s “Additional Notes to Genesis” at the back of The Pentateuch.
• Nahum Sarna, "Understanding Genesis" (New York: Schocken Books 1966). (Note that this is not an Orthodox book, but it contains valuable insights.)
• Rav Kook's letter on literalism, translated here.
• Marc Shapiro's postings on this topic (I, II, and commentary by Rav Moshe Shamah here).
• Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks' essay on the Deluge and the Tower of Babel (here)
• Natan Slifkin, "Historical Records Vs. Dramatic Accounts"
• Tremper Longman, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate
• Lorence Collins, "Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth."

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Ten Questions On Evolution And Judaism

(It's that time of year, so here's a re-post of an article that I originally published in The Jewish Press)

Evolution is feared by many as being heretical. But is this really the case? Here are ten questions about evolution and Judaism, along with brief answers. This does not substitute for the detailed discussion that this topic requires; it is merely intended as an introduction.

1) Evolution is alleged to have taken place over millions of years. But doesn't the Torah teach that the universe was created just a few thousand years ago?

There is a strong (albeit not universal) tradition in Judaism that "the account of creation is not all to be taken literally," to quote Maimonides. Rav Dovid Tzvi Hoffman (1843-1921), a member of Agudath Israel’s Council of Torah Sages, suggested that the Six Days of Creation were lengthy eras rather than 24-hour periods. Maimonides himself, as the commentaries on the Guide to the Perplexed reveal, was of the view that the Six Days represent a conceptual rather than historical account of creation.

2) Why should anyone accommodate evolution? Isn't evolution just a theory, not a fact?

"Evolution" is a confusing term, because it covers two very different concepts. One is common ancestry, the concept that all animal life arose from a common ancestor - simple organisms gave rise to fish, fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds and mammals (without getting into how that could have happened). This is supported by a wealth of converging evidence along with testable predictions. Common ancestry is considered by all scientists (except certain deeply religious ones) to be as well-established as many other historical facts, and is thus often referred to as "the fact of evolution." It is of immense benefit in understanding the natural world - for example, it tells us why whales and bats share anatomical similarities with mammals, despite their superficial resemblance to fish and birds.

The second and very different aspect of evolution is the mechanism via which one species changes into another. This is called the "theory" of evolution. It is, however, important to bear in mind that the word "theory" has a very different meaning in science than in everyday conversational English. It does not refer to wild speculation, but rather to an explanatory mechanism. Most, though not all, biologists believe that random mutations, coupled with natural selection, broadly suffice to explain this mechanism. The issue is, however, of zero religious significance, as we shall explain in the answer to the next question.

3) How can we accept scientific explanations for how animal life came about? It was God who made everything!

We have a science of meteorology, but that does not stop us from saying that God "makes the wind blow and the rain fall." We have a science of medicine, but this does not stop us from saying that God "heals the sick." We have documented history of the process involved in winning the '67 war, but this does not stop us from talking about God's miraculous hand. God can work through meteorology, through medicine, through history, and through developmental biology. This is why it makes no difference if the neo-Darwinian explanation of the mechanism for evolution is true or not.

4) Doesn't the Torah say that animals and man were created from the ground, not from earlier creatures?

Indeed it does. But what does that mean? The blessing recited over bread is “Blessed are You... Who brings bread out of the ground.” But what actually happens is that God created wheat, which man sows, nature grows, and man transforms into bread. Yet the blessing simplifies this in describing God as bringing bread out of the ground. By the same token, the description of God bringing animal life out of the ground can refer to His creating the raw material of nature and the natural processes that lead to the formation of animal life.

In any case, it is widely accepted today that we do not learn science from the literal meaning of Scripture - after all, Scripture describes the sky as a dome, the hare as bringing up its cud, and the kidneys and heart as housing one's mind. All these descriptions were interpreted literally by the Sages of old, and yet almost all recent Torah scholars interpret them non-literally.

5) Doesn't the notion of randomness in evolution contradict with the idea of a purposeful creation directed by God?

Judaism has always acknowledged that there are events which, in the physical world, appear to be random and happenstance. But it maintains that this does not rule out God's role behind the scenes. Indeed, this is the entire message of the Purim story! As it states in Scripture, "When the lot is cast in the lap, its entire verdict has been decided by God" (Proverbs 16:33).

6) Doesn't the Biblical concept of man being created in the image of God contradict the notion that man comes from animals?

Absolutely not! Classical Judaism has long maintained that man is not qualitatively different from animals in his physical aspects. Man's unique identity is in his spiritual soul, not in his physical body and most certainly not in his physical origins. The great medieval Torah scholars stated that man was created physically as an animal, but was given the spiritual potential to rise beyond that level. The Mishnah notes that on an individual level, we all come from a "putrid drop (of semen)," which is even less than an animal; yet we are defined not by what we come from, but rather by what we become.

7) Don't most rabbis state that evolution is heresy?

Very few leading rabbis have studied the science and have ever given the matter serious thought (and rabbis in the charedi world are not operating from the rationalist perspective that is the legacy of Maimonides and the great Torah scholars of Spain). The few rationalist-oriented rabbis who did study the topic, such as Rav Kook, Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik, Rav Gedalyah Nadel (a leading disciple of Chazon Ish) and Rav Aryeh Carmell, concluded that evolution is compatible with Judaism. Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch was personally skeptical of evolution but saw no theological problem with it: "...If this notion were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world... Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one, sole God Who, in His boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence, needed to bring into existence no more than one single, amorphous nucleus, and one single law of “adaptation and heredity” in order to bring forth, from what seemed chaos but was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures." ("The Educational Value of Judaism," in Collected Writings, vol. VII, p. 264)

8) Doesn't evolution go against tradition?

No more so than the notion of the earth orbiting the sun. That was also rejected by many leading rabbis from the era of Copernicus through today. Yet most religious Jews have managed to come to terms with it. The same is true of evolution, which has become widely accepted by religious Jews with a strong background in science and/or rationalist Jewish theology.

9) But aren't there many secular evolutionists who use evolution to try to attack religious principles?

Yes, unfortunately there are. But this is an abuse of science; it doesn't reflect on the science of evolution itself. This, however, is why it is important for anyone teaching evolution to understand it properly.

10) You didn't answer all my questions and objections!

Of course not! Evolution is an immensely complicated topic, to which it is impossible to do justice in a brief article. Please see my book The Challenge Of Creation (available in Jewish bookstores and at www.BiblicalNaturalHistory.org) for a very detailed discussion

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The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs

"One day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. He found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it. But inside, he found nothing; and no longer did he have a goose to lay golden eggs."

When Aesop composed this fable, he must surely have had the Kanievsky family in mind. Rav Chaim Kanievsky, renowned for his extraordinary dedication to Torah study, is promoted as a miracle worker. People are desperate to receive his magical blessing of "Booah!" (short for Bracha V'Hatzlacha), which they interpret as prophetic guidance and divine blessing. His family, especially his dishonorable grandson Yanky, milk him for all he's worth. After all, manipulating him is extremely easy (due to his advanced years), and it's lucrative. Controlling Rav Chaim brings the golden eggs of both power and money.

Kupat HaIr, a charitable organization famous for its manipulation of people, recently hit upon a new scheme involving Rav Chaim. As they write on their website, the pandemic has made everyone very fearful for their health. "Many of us would pay any sum of money for a tested, confirmed protection from this terrible situation." Well, they are offering such protection for just 277 shekels! It's a leaf from the aravot that Rav Chaim beats with on Hoshana Rabbah!

(Of course, this does raise some questions, such as how can the Kupa can be aiming for 1000 such donations when there are surely not that many leaves on his aravot bundle. Not to mention that the fact that there is absolutely no reason to believe that an aravah leaf confers any benefits at all, let alone being a "tested, confirmed protection." And it's a bit rich to make such a claim when Rav Chaim's special qualities weren't even adequate to save he himself from corona! Not to mention that it's a very bad idea to get a leaf that was held by someone confirmed to be carrying the virus!)

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the desperation and fear that it created made Rav Chaim's magic guidance and blessings all the more valuable. Rav Chaim's family wanted to get as much gold as possible. While most people sought to protect their elderly, at-risk relatives from coming into contact with potential virus carriers, Rav Chaim's family kept on exposing him to potential carriers, all the while spreading promises of protection.

Inevitably, Rav Chaim eventually contracted Covid-19. You'd think that at this point, his family would finally treat him appropriately. But no! They trotted out this 92-year-old Covid-19 patient to sit at a two-and-a-half hour Simchat Beit HaSho'eiva, with a live broadcast. Rather unsurprisingly, he collapsed in the middle. We can only hope that he will survive his family's attempts to extract as much gold as possible.

As I've said before, you can't only blame Yanky Kanievsky for this terrible exploitation of an elderly man in order to wreak damage upon the Jewish People. He's only able to do it because there's a willing audience for it. The responsibility lies with everyone who places Rav Chaim's "guidance" and blessings upon a pedestal on which they do not belong.