Nitzavim: The Love-Filled Commandment of Giving Rebuke

Based on an article by Rav Meyer Fendel.

In this week's Torah portion of Nitzavim (Deut. 29,9-30,20), Moshe Rabbeinu tells Bnei Yisrael in his parting speech as follows: "The hidden sins [of Israel] are for Hashem our G-d, but the known sins are [the responsibility of] ourselves…"  (29,28). The Talmud teaches that the dots that appear in Torah scrolls atop some of the letters in this verse indicate, according to Rabbinic tradition, that Israel was not punished for these sins until after they crossed the Jordan River into the Holy Land (see Talmud Tr. Sanhedrin 43b).

Rashi explains that the reason for the collective punishment referred to here is because of the concept of arvut: the mutual and collective responsibility of each member of Israel, one for another. It is a matter of Talmudic dispute (ibid.), however, how far this concept extends. R. Yehuda teaches that the nation was punished for concealed sins only after crossing the Jordan River, while R. Nechemia holds that they were never punished for concealed sins – for how can the hidden thoughts of individuals be known to others? – and were punished for revealed or known sins only after they entered the Land.

Well-known educator Rabbi Meyer Fendel <https://mishpacha.com/a-pioneering-spirit/>, who passed away earlier this year, writes, "We see that Israel's arrival in the Land of Israel put them on a very high national level, and upgraded their responsibility one for another. According to the holy Sh'lah, it is very telling that they entered the Holy Land at Arvot Moav – an allusion to the arvut that they were about to take upon themselves. That is, according to R. Nechemia, their arrival in the Holy Land meant that they were finally responsible for one another's revealed sins - while according to R. Yehuda, their entry into Eretz Yisrael upgraded their level of love, cohesiveness and unity so greatly that they became responsible even for each other's private sins."

But the question still begs to be asked: How can one be held responsible for the concealed sins of others, even in Eretz Yisrael and even after arvut applies? How can anyone be punished for a sin committed secretly by another?

An answer is provided by Rav Moshe Yechiel Tzuriel: "If the mitzvah to give rebuke is specific and individual, then in fact it cannot be expected to apply to sins committed by others unbeknownst to us. But if this command is actually an outgrowth of our national responsibility and arvut, then it applies to everything we and others do, whether they are revealed or not. For arvut means that we are all one body; if one limb in a body is stricken, it would be unthinkable for another limb to say it doesn’t concern him…"

The General Atmosphere

"To further explain R. Yehuda's opinion," Rabbi Fendel continues, "let us add that even if we do not know about others' secret sins, we do know of the atmosphere that we all contributed to forming – an atmosphere that apparently enabled such sins. As such, we and especially our leaders are responsible not because we knew about the transgressions, but because we helped, indirectly, facilitate them. This is the sublime nature of the arvut of Israel."

The Minchat Chinukh says that the mitzvah of giving rebuke when necessary and helpful has two aspects: the positive command to offer rebuke, and the negative charge "do not stand by your neighbor's blood" (Vayikra 19,16), in the spiritual sense. One who does not reprove his friend when obligated to, violates both commandments:

* The negative mitzvah of not standing by a Jew's blood is based on arvut, that is, one's general responsibility towards all of Klal Yisrael. As we learn in Tanna D'vei Eliyahu 11: "Whoever can protest against a sin and does not, or can cause Israel to repent and does not – all blood that is spilled in Israel is on his hands… for all of Israel is responsible one for another." Arvut is a type of national mitzvah, one that requires of all of us to work to ensure the welfare of the nation at large, including by rebuking or reaching out to sinners to ensure that our nation is not punished. The obligation is therefore not to give rebuke per se, but rather to safeguard the nation.

* But the positive mitzvah, that of giving rebuke, is more pointed. It is not based on the principles of arvut and nationhood, but is rather a specific, individual commandment incumbent upon a Jew to give rebuke when the occasion arises.

The Situation Today

How are we to give rebuke today, when sins are so prevalent? The Chafetz Chaim cites an opinion (Sh. Ar. Orach Chaim 608, Beiur Halakhah) that only when it is within our power to enforce our rebuke are we obligated to do so. He adds that those who have totally "denied and shirked the yoke of mitzvot" need not be rebuked. Furthermore, writes the Chafetz Chaim, even the authoritative Rav Moshe Isserles, who says that purposeful sinners must be rebuked, would agree that sinners who perpetually flaunt their Torah violations need not be rebuked.

We must always keep in mind that which the Chazon Ish, and many after him, said, based on Maimonides: Most of today's sinners are considered like tinokot she'nishbu, babies who were brought up by Gentiles and who therefore have no knowledge whatsoever of a Torah way of life. They must therefore be approached with love, not anger or resentment, in order to return them to Judaism – and that is the bottom line of all rebuke.

Ki Tavo: Different Approaches to the Holocaust, etc.

Based on an article by Rav Moshe Leib HaCohen Halbershtadt, Founder and Director of YORU Jewish Leadership, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Close to half of this week's Torah portion of Ki Tavo (D'varim 26,1–29,8) is devoted to the tokhecha, a detailed list of unimaginably terrible curses that will befall the people of Israel if they do not hearken to G-d's word. We know that tragically, many if not all of these curses came to pass during the course of our history: with the destructions of both the First and Second Temples, and in the centuries in between and mainly afterwards, during our long Exile. The shadow of the destruction of European Jewry in the terrible Holocaust is still ever-present in our minds and memories.

How are we to deal with the fulfillment of these dreadful curses, faith-wise? For many of our brethren, it caused a crisis of faith. They experienced the horrors, sometimes face on, and simply could not accept that such things could happen in G-d's world. 

Even among the great leaders of Israel, there were different approaches in the struggle of faith in confronting the horror. There were those who took a strict approach of rebuke, saying that the horror was a direct consequence of straying from the path of G-d – precisely as the Torah states here in Ki Tavo. They even pointed to specific sins and sociological processes that brought about specific punishments, measure for measure.

Others opposed this approach of seeking specific sins in order to explain the Holocaust. In their view, the tokhecha and punishments are inherent in the destiny of the Jewish people until the coming of the Messiah, and its ultimate reasons are up to the Creator's will, for reasons known and understood to Him alone. One would need to be a prophet or even just a Tanna (sage of the Mishnah) to claim to understand the specific causes of what happened to us. Anyone who falls short of this level yet still claims such an understanding, tramples in vain upon the bodies of the martyrs who died for the sanctification of G-d’s Name, and misuses the power of interpreting and understanding Jewish history. This confusion arises not only when we seek to "explain" the Holocaust, but also when smaller or more personal tragedies befall us, whether they be wars, terror attacks, illnesses, and the like,

In response to those who explain the Shoah as a measure-for-measure punishment, their opponents challenge: "Are you speaking logically? Why would the Al-mighty need to bring upon us such dreadful things? Could He not have found gentler means by which to bring us back to the right path? And what about all those infants who neither sinned nor transgressed?"

But in response to them, the others say: "Does not the Torah say outright [here in Parashat Ki Tavo, et al] that severe punishments await the people of Israel if they do not listen to the voice of G-d?" Not only that, but Maimonides states clearly that to search for specific sins for which we were punished is the recommended path when punishment befalls us. In Mishneh Torah, Laws of Fasts 1:2–3, the Rambam writes (paraphrased): 

"This is among the ways of repentance: When calamity comes and the people cry out over it and sound the trumpets, everyone will then know that it was due to their sins – and this repentance will cause the calamity to be nullified. But if they do not cry out, etc., but instead say: "Whatever happened is merely the way of the world and happenstance" - this is actual cruelty, because it causes them to cling to their evil deeds, instead of to "search their ways and repent," and thus the calamity will bring upon them further calamities."

Foundations of Faith

“The ultimate of what we shall know of You is that we shall not know You. And yet we shall know Your existence — this is what remains for us from all our toil of study."
(by 14th-century Torah scholar Rabbi Yedaiah HaP'nini)

Without presuming to decide which of the above approaches is more correct, let us merely seek to understand our agreed-upon foundations of faith, according to the above teaching of the great sage and poet, our master Rabbi Yedaiah HaPenini. He seems to have taught here two foundations of faith that appear to be contradictory: "We know Your existence, but the only thing we know about You is that we cannot know You." How are we to understand this? 

Rational reflection on both recent and distant history leads to the clear and simple conclusion that "we know Your existence," that "the palace has a master," and that the Torah is true and are fulfilled precisely: "If you do not hearken to the voice of the Lord … then all these curses shall come upon you…" And as King Solomon writes in Proverbs (21,30), “There is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord.” 

But at the same time, it is also true that "the ultimate of what we know of You is that we do not know You." No one truly understands the ways of G-d; no one knows the calculations of Heaven. The debate is only about how to fulfill the Rambam’s directive to identify our sins: Should we point to specific sins, or should we repent in a more general way? 

But no one is capable of "understanding" G-d – and this is the ultimate knowledge of Him.

The Parable of the Farmer
The holy rabbi, leader and Shoah-victim Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, may G-d avenge his blood, was asked during his final, terrifying days in Kovno, why such horrors had been decreed upon them. R. Elchanan told the following parable:

There was once a man who knew nothing of farming, who came to a farmer and asked him to teach him the work of the land. The farmer took him to his field and asked him what he saw. He said, “I see a plot of land, rich with greenery, pleasing to the eye.”

The guest then stood astonished as the farmer plowed under the greenery, turning the beautiful green field into heaps of low brown furrows. “Why did you destroy the field?” he exclaimed. “Patience, you’ll see,” said the farmer.

Later the farmer showed his guest a sack full of fine, nourishing wheat kernels, and asked him, "What do you see?" "Beautifully satisfying and appealing grain," he said. But he again looked on in shock as the farmer destroyed the valuable product, scattering the kernels along the furrows and casting them into the opened earth wherever he walked. He then covered the seeds with clods of soil.

“First you ruined the field," the guest demanded, "and now you’re wasting the grain! Have you lost your mind?”  

“Patience," said the farmer. "You’ll see.”

After some time, the farmer again brought his guest to the field. Now they beheld, as far as the eye could see, straight rows of green stalks sprouting and rising from the furrows. The guest smiled with relief: “I apologize. Now I understand what you did. The field is now more beautiful than ever. The farmer's work is truly amazing.”

“Not quite,” said the farmer. “A bit more patience, please.”

In time, the guest looked on with horror as the farmer cut down the fully-grown stalks; struck them and beat them until they turned into a mixture of straw and loose kernels; then loaded a wagon high with the grain and brought it to the mill where he ground it into powder. With each stage, the guest complained, and each time he was told to have patience. 

The same happened when the farmer brought the flour home, mixed it with water, and made a form of white mud. He then shaped it – and to the guest's horror, placed it into a burning furnace! 

At last, the farmer opened the oven and removed from it a fresh loaf of bread, golden and crisp, with an aroma that stirred the appetite. “Come,” said the farmer. "Enjoy the tasty and healthful bread. Now do you understand?!”

G-d is our Farmer, and we are the fools who have not even the faintest beginning of understanding of His ways or of the final outcome of His deeds. Only when the process is completed will the people of Israel know why all this has happened. When the Redemption process is complete, we shall understand all the steps that led up to it. Until then, we must gird ourselves with patience and faith that everything, even when it appears as destruction and suffering, is part of a process that will bring goodness and delight.