Today is particularly appropriate for a discussion of the Jewish Meaning of Wealth. First of all, we have just read the special Biblical chapter of Parshas Shekolim, the chapter concerning the donation to the Temple, by all Israelite adults, of the famous half-shekel; the charity tax, as it were. The shekel, the standard form of currency in ancient Israel, is the Jewish symbol of wealth, much as the dollar is its American counterpart. Second, ours is an age when the acquisition of riches is a sure sign of success and an admission ticket into high society. Third, ours too is a time when wealth in this country is factually within the reach of most men. It is proper, therefore, for us to do some constructive thinking along Jewish lines and attempt to discover the Jewish Meaning of Wealth.The first clue to understanding what wealth, in the Jewish sense, is all about, comes from one of those lofty and beautiful legends which our people wove about the tradition of shekolim. The Talmud relates that in instructing Moses concerning the Laws of shekolim, G-d actually demonstrated the lesson, and He showed him shekel shel esh, a shekel of fire, which He had brought up mi’tachas kisei ha’kavod, from under G-d’s Throne of Glory. A shekel of fire from under G-d’s Throne. What an image – and what a message. There is absolutely nothing immoral about wealth, our Rabbis mean to tell us. Judaism, unlike its “daughter religion,” does not make a virtue of poverty, and does not shut the door of Heaven in the face of the rich. The rich and the poor alike can both gain entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; there is no economic discrimination. A man need not be ashamed of his shekel. He can hold it aloft, if honestly earned, as shining as a torch of pure fire. But – and this is the essence of what they want to tell us – never forget the source of your shekels. Never forget the origin of your good fortune. Remember at all times that if you were blessed with many shekels, with a decent living…

It is one of the most difficult tasks to explain to a modern layman the paramount importance of Jewish Law in Jewish Life. Jewish Law is known as the Halakhah, and it is derived from the word halikhah which means “going,” and the very name indicates that Jewish Law is both dynamic, moving, and that it is a “way,” that is: Jewish Law is the Jewish way of life. I say that it is difficult to explain the importance of Halakhah because of the contemporary prejudice as to what is meant by “law.” There are probably many who suspect that Jewish Law, like ordinary common law, is a highly specialized legal profession and is the private, sacred and exclusive domain of Jewish “lawyers” who happen to be called “Rabbis.” How far that is from the real truth. I wish I could reconstruct for you the attitude of our Jewish laymen of old towards Halakhah. I wish I could sufficiently well describe to you a typical Bet ha-midrash where Rabbis, students and laymen of all sorts delve into the great tomes of the Talmud with love, with holiness, with brilliant logic, and even with a sharp sense of humor. I wish you could hear the traditional sing-song in which the Talmud is studied. I wish some of you could enjoy the warm radiating beauty of a Halakhic argument; the Halakhah which encompasses every aspect of all of life; the Halakhah which analyzes even intimate prayer with the sharp eye of legal logic, and which makes of sharp, legal logic an intimate prayer.But barring these opportunities for personal experience with the Halakhah, let us discuss, tonight, in a very sketchy manner, some of the basic aspects of Jewish Law with which we should be acquainted. For tomorrow we shall read that portion which contains most of the civil legislation of the Torah first revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. And let us do so with the mental reservation that this is only a rough beginning, that we shall come back to this important topic many a time in the future.May I, with your indulgence, discuss three m…

With startling simplicity and disarming nonchalance, the Torah records an event in this morning’s Sidra which is astonishing almost to the point of being shocking. The elders, together with Moses and Aaron, ascend Mt. Sinai to seal the covenant of Torah. At that time, we read, ya-yeḥezu et ha-Elohim, they saw the glory of God, va-yokhlu va-yishtu, and they ate and they drank.The juxtaposition of these two activities, so disjointed, so antithetical, so inappropriate to each other, presents us with what is probably the most painful paradox in all the Torah. Hence, it is not surprising to find two interpretations of this passage by our Sages which are diametrically opposed to each other: one commends the elders, and the other condemns them; one congratulates and one criticizes.The Midrash, quoted by Rashi, is quite harsh on the elders. It points to the first part of our verse, in which we read that “and to the nobles of Israel he did not stretch forth his hand,” i.e., God did not harm the elders. From this we learn, the Midrash deduces, that in reality the elders deserved to be punished. Why? Because hayu mistaklin bo be’lev gas, mi-tokh akhilah u-shetiah, they had the effrontery to gaze directly at the glory of God with a heart that was crass, crude, and vulgar, experiencing this supernatural phenomenon while they were stuffing themselves with food and drink.Onkelos, the Aramaic translator, however, gives us a reverse judgment. When the elders experienced this vision, he declares, they offered sacrifices, and were so thrilled and overjoyed that their offerings were accepted that they felt as if they themselves had eaten and drunk. They cherished their unusual vision, they “ate it up” and “drank it in.”Now it is presumptuous of me to decide between two giants of Israel who disagree as to an interpretation. But, as Maimonides taught us 800 years ago, “the gates of interpretation are not closed.” I therefore commend to you an explanation, based upon a certain psychologi…

Historians tell us that when they find a law in a document, they assume that the mode of conduct which this law prohibits is the one that generally prevailed before the law was passed. With this in mind, let us turn to a Talmudic law enunciated as a commentary on one of the verses in this morning’s Sidra. We read, as part of the Torah’s civil legislation, אם כסף תלוה את עמי את העני עמך, “If you lend money to any of My people, even to the poor with you…” (Ex. 22:24). It is the verse which, in addition to the prohibition of usury, is the source of the commandment that we must lend our money to those in need. The Rabbis, troubled by the queer construction of the verse – “My people, the poor, with you” – deduced the following order of priority as to who shall be the beneficiary of our generosity in lending money: עני ונכרי, עני קודם; עני ועשיר, עני קודם; ענייך ועניי עירך, עניי עירך קודמין; עניי עירך ועניי עיר אחרת, עניי עירך קודמין.If two people solicit your loan, and one is a fellow Jew and one a gentile, then all other things being equal, if you have sufficient to lend only one of them, the Jew takes precedence over the non-Jew. If the two people appearing before you are otherwise equal, but one is a poor man and one a rich man, the poor man comes first. If you are approached for a loan by a poor man who is a relative and a poor man who is a neighbor, the relative is to be preferred over the neighbor. If one of them is a poor man who lives in your town, and the second is a poor man who lives in another town, the poor man who is your neighbor takes precedence over the poor man from afar. (Bava Metzia 71a) Note well that the Talmud does not bid us neglect the gentile, the non-relative, or the stranger. It does give us a list of priorities. What the Talmud is telling us is that a totally altruistic ethic, which does not recognize intimate human bonds and affiliations, is unnatural, and impractical – and hence, ultimately morally valueless. An ethic which does not consid…

In preparing for the revelation at Sinai, Moses read the “Book of the Covenant” (from the beginning of the Torah up to that point) to the children of Israel. ויאמר כל אשר דבר ה’ נעשה ונשמע, “And they said: ‘all that the Lord hath spoken we shall do and we shall obey.’” Our tradition saw in these two words, naaseh ve’nishma, not just an indication of consent but a whole philosophy of religion. For the Tradition did not translate naaseh ve’nishma as “do and obey,” but as “do and understand.” It is the particular order of that expression, the priority of action to understanding, that was acclaimed by our Sages. They tell us that even God was overwhelmed: יצתה בת קול ואמרה מי גילה רז זה לבני שמלאכי השרת משתמשין בו? A divine voice issued from heaven and cried out, “Who revealed to My children this secret which only the ministering angels know of?”But we must be honest. If the Jewish tradition admires the response of naaseh ve’nishma and God was astounded that the secret is out, clearly we moderns are shocked for the opposite reason. The modern temper sees in this attitude a symptom of blind religion, of lack of understanding, of irrationality. Surely an intelligent person seeks to understand before he practices, he seeks to know before he commits himself.How then can we go along with Judaism’s enthusiastic approval of naaseh ve’nishma?We must understand that we here face two radically different approaches. The modern temper can be characterized as autonomous. Man himself must determine each act, each decision, each challenge. A demand must appeal to his intellect and to his emotion before he commits himself to it. He, man, is the measure of all things. What he does must issue from internal consent, and not be imposed upon him externally. Judaism, however, is theonomous. Naaseh ve’nishma implies not man as the center of all things, but God. It is the nomos of Theos, the law of God, to which we submit in humility. Judaism regards autonomy in religion as an act of intellec…

When, as recorded in today’s dramatic Haftorah, the prophet Elijah ascended Mount Carmel in what today is the city of Haifa, he faced the hundreds of priests of the Baal and the crowds of the people of Israel, and flung a challenge at the dissident and confused masses to make up their minds and decide where their loyalties lay. “How long halt ye between two opinions?” – Why are you as indecisive as a small bird hopping from one branch to another, unable to make up its mind on which branch it wishes to perch? “If the Lord be G-d, follow Him; but if the Baal, follow him.” You can’t have it both ways. You can’t escape the necessity for choosing, painful though it be. Indeed, Elijah speaks to all men of all times when he presses us to make a choice between G-d and the Baals of all ages. Especially interesting in his historic challenge is the piquant description of idolatry when he presents the alternatives from which the choice is to be made. His searing sarcasm contains a nugget of wisdom about idolatry both ancient and modern which is most important for us. “And it came to pass at noon” – at a time when all a man’s actions are open and revealed and he can hide nothing –” that Elijah mocked them and said ‘Cry aloud, for is he not a god? – either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is in a journey’ – and most important – ‘or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened.’” The nature of idolatry, Elijah declares in the measured accents of mockery, is that of sleep. When you most need him, he is most fast asleep. I would add that the difference between a man asleep and the sleeping god is this: A sleeping man looks lifeless but he is alive; a sleeping god looks alive, but is very much dead. The idol appears real enough: it has eyes, ears, nose, hands, but as King David said, “They have mouths but they speak not, they have eyes but they see not, they have ears but they hear not.” What Elijah called the sleeping god refers not only to the idolatries of the ancient …

The whole Torah, said the Kotzker Rebbe, is a commentary on the verse מדבר שקר תרחק, “keep thyself far from a false statement.” Judaism teaches not that “God is love,” or that “God is pity.” Pity and love are attributes, not definitions of God. There is only one definition of God in Judaism, and that was formulated by the prophet Jeremiah and introduced into our daily prayers: ה’ אלקיכם אמת, “the Lord your God is Truth.”A careful reading of our key text will reveal two interesting peculiarities in this three-word verse: דבר and תרחק.Iתרחק means “keep thyself far.” Generally, it is the Rabbis who make a סיג לתורה, a “fence around the Torah.” So, when the Torah itself forbids, for instance, mowing the lawn, the Rabbis go a step further and forbid moving the lawn mower, lest one use it unthinkingly. They thus move us far away from a prohibited act. There is only one place in which the Torah itself establishes a סיג, or a “zone of safety,” and that is in the case of falsehood: מדבר שקר תרחק, “keep thyself far from falsehood.”There is only one way to say the truth; if one wishes to be philosophical, he can allow that there are a number of ways speaking the truth. But there is an infinite number of ways to tell a lie! Hence, תרחק, keep far away.It is instructive, and a beautiful example of Jewish law and ethics, to see how the Talmud scrupulously applied the principle of תרחק. The Sages understood the verse as directed primarily (although not exclusively) at judges. Thus, the Talmud (Shev. 30b, 31a) derives the following rules which together constitute part of the Jewish code of judicial conduct. A judge must not be defensive; if he makes a mistake, he must admit it and not rationalize – thus not only not lying, but keeping as far away from untruth as possible. A judge must not permit an ignorant student to assist him; he must keep him at arm’s length. A judge must refuse to sit on the bench together with another judge whom he knows is dishonest; תרחק! A judge who knows …