This week, after a good two-month vacation, our children will return to their classrooms and again continue the development of their minds and spirits. It will be a momentous occasion, no doubt, for the children themselves. These past few days they have probably been busy purchasing school supplies, arranging programs, discussing new teachers and bubbling over with enthusiasm in anticipation of the new school year. I am sure that we all remember how we felt when we started our new terms back in elementary school. We felt as if we were setting out on a new path, full of hidden dangers and pleasant surprises, and we acted as if we expected a succession of mysteries and miracles at every step. Today’s children feel the same way about it. It is a challenge and an adventure.But while our children are going to be busy being enthusiastic about a hundred and one things, let the parents not forget to take a long look at themselves and their progeny. On the first day of the term, ask yourself what progress your child’s teacher will report on the last day. Will your boy or girl forge ahead, or remain just a dull average? Will he swim, or will he just float, carried by the educational tide? How many parents wonder why their child does no more than float in school, sometimes a “dead-man’s” float, he is passive in his studies, he goes through school without school going through him. They are prone to blame it on his IQ, and then discover that his IQ hits 130. They blame the school or Yeshiva, and then discover that their neighbor’s little boy attends the same school, nay – the same class, and is performing miracles in his work. And they are stumped. Why, after an extensive Jewish education, such parents might ask themselves, should my child remain apathetic to anything with Jewish content? What is it that he lacks? And if the parents are intelligent people, they will ask not “what does he lack” but “what do we lack?” “We have bought for him all the books he needs, a Jewish encyc…

One of the most perplexing problems currently being grappled with by some of our more serious educators, thinkers, and generally mature people, is the problem of teaching Communism in our public schools. The question is not a political one, since both proponents and opponents detest communism. If it were a political issue, it would not be discussed from this pulpit and by this Rabbi. The question is even more than a purely technical one to be discussed in the obscure jargon of professional educators. It is basically a moral problem and is therefore open to a religious evaluation.It is not an easy problem to solve. Both opposing points of view seem to have merit. It is our task to weigh the merits and the faults carefully, from the points of view of the American tradition of democracy and from the point of view of plain common sense, and then to draw upon the fertile resources of our faith to see what it has to say.Those who are against teaching Communism in our schools, and we speak here of intelligent opponents, not hysterical bigots, are concerned with the danger of our students being convinced by it. Play with fire long enough, and you are bound to be burned. Teach students Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, and they will wind up materialistic atheists with an allegiance to the Kremlin. Communism is an attractive theory, and it may claim many victims. The danger is too strong and the likelihood too great. Let them learn of other things. Don’t teach them communism.Those who maintain that the theories and actualities of communism should be taught, counter that argument by saying that all knowledge is, in one way or another dangerous. The knowledge of mathematics can lead to an atom bomb, the knowledge of philosophy to heresy, and the knowledge of chemistry to poison gases. Yet that does not mean that we should abandon these studies. It depends upon who studies, how it is taught, and the moral tradition in which the studying is done. Surely, speaking from a J…

The Torah’s concept of a limited monarchy, with a king subservient to the law and to God, is first outlined in this morning’s Sidra: כי תבוא אל הארץ… ואמרת אשימה עלי מלך ככל הגויים אשר סביבותי שום תשים עליך מלך אשר יבחר ה’ אלקיך בו. When you reach the Promised Land, and you will say, I wish to set over myself a king like all the other nations that are about me, then thou shalt set over thyself a king whom the Lord thy God will choose. Now the Rabbis faced a basic question in approaching this Biblical passage. Is this declaration of the Torah to be considered מצוה, an obligation, namely, that upon arriving in the Promised Land the people of Israel must establish a strong central leadership? Or is it to be understood as רשות, as a grant of permission, i.e. that in the event that the leaders of the people will decide upon a monarchy and request it, that the Torah does not object to such a strong government?This question was in issue between R. Judah and R. Nehorai (Sanhedrin 20b). R. Judah considered this a positive commandment, an obligation, while R. Nehorai regarded the statement as רשות, as permission, but not an absolute obligation. Most of our medieval commentators, the “Rishonim,” are of divided opinion as to the verdict of the Halakha; but the majority seem to favor the opinion of R. Judah who considers the passage concerning the king as מצוה, an obligation.Now, if indeed we consider the statement of the Torah obligatory, this raises a serious and perplexing historical problem. For we read in the Prophets (I Samuel, Chapter 8) that when the Children of Israel finally did request a monarchy, the Prophet Samuel was infuriated, and God Himself was highly displeased. The elders approached Samuel, and said to him, now that you are old and we can find no worthy successor to you from amongst your children, therefore עתה שימה לנו מלך לשפטנו ככל הגויים, set for us a king to judge us, like all the other nations. The Prophet was incensed and he prayed to God, Who answere…

Now that the highest courts in the land are studying the problem of President Nixon’s refusal to surrender the famous tapes, it is timely to inquire what other systems of law have to say about this historic confrontation between the executive and the judiciary. Can any wisdom be gleaned from the Hebrew tradition, one of the main streams that feed into Western culture and civilization? The Mishnah, the Jewish legal code redacted by Rabbi Judah in Palestine during the early part of the third century, teaches that a king may not judge and not be brought to trial; others may not testify against him and he may not be made to testify concerning others. The Talmud (the Babylonian commentary and extension of the Mishnah) limits this law to “Israelite Kings,” i.e. those who were not of Davidic descent. Kings of the House of David, however, are subject to judgment and may be compelled to testify.The Talmud then concludes that fundamentally the law requires that the king should submit to judgment and testimony, but that an exception was made in the case of the later Jewish Kings (“Israelite Kings”) because of a historic incident. In the first century of the common era Jannai was King, and the head of the Sanhedrin (supreme court) was the fearlessly independent Simeon ben Shetah. Now it happened that a servant of the King had been accused of committing murder. According to the law, the master had to be present during the trial of the slave. Jannai obeyed, and presented himself in court. But then Simeon informed Jannai that the law required the master to stand while the trial was in session. Aware of the sensitivities involved, Simeon hastened to assure the King that “you are not standing before us, but before Him who by His word created the world.” Here Jannai drew the line and hurled a challenge at Simeon: “not when you say so, but only when your colleagues will tell me so.” The shrewd monarch had made the right move. Simeon turned to his right, and his colleagues “buried the…

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…

Psalm 27: הורני ה' דרכך ונחני באורח מישור למען שוררי. Beautiful, but difficult. First, isn’t דרכך the same as אורך מישור? Second, and more important: למען שוררי. Most translators render: “because of them that lie in wait for me.” Dr. Birnbaum modernizes this succinctly as, “in spite of my enemies.” This follows the interpretation of most commentaries. The idea is that שוררי comes from the word שור, which means look, i.e., those who look at me with hatred and wait for me to fail. However, the verb is not necessarily evil! Moreover, למען does not usually mean “in spite of,” but “because of.”Hence, permit this interpretation: שוררי means onlookers – neutral, or even those who look to me for guidance. Hence, David said: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord,” my intentions are noble. But sometimes man misreads the divine directions, and though he wishes to walk in the way of the Lord he chooses a road that is crooked and distorted, one that is misleading. Hence, lead me on the אורך מישור. Why is that so important? In order not to mislead the onlookers – למען שוררי, because of the onlookers.I refer, in this respect, especially to apologetics or טעמי המצוות, which have a long and honored history in Judaism. There are three attitudes with regard to apologetics: a) that the whole function of a Jew is to explain himself to his non-Jewish peers, and to those of his brethren who are alienated. Apologetics becomes the supreme religious activity. What is most important is the articulation of Judaism in an idiom comprehensible to the non-Jews. b) the second attitude is diametrically opposed: the commandments and all of Judaism are theonomous, and require no explanations. We do what we do only because we are commanded... c) the middle position, to which I subscribe, is that fundamentally the second opinion is correct: the "service of the Lord" is its own excuse. We do because we are commanded, not because we bring God and Torah before the bar of our esthetic and moral judgment. However, we s…