Shoftim: More Police

Parshas Shoftim is bookended by the command at the beginning fo the parsha to appoint judges to decide the law and police to enforce it, and at the end by the mitzvah of egla arufa, the ceremony involving breaking the neck of an unyoked cow when a murder victim is discovered between municipalities and the guilty party has not yet been identified.

An indispensable element of the ritual is that the elders of the town measured to have been closest to the corpse are to wash their hands and declare “our hands did not spill this blood and our eyes did not see” [Dev. 21:7].

Essentially there are two angles to the import of this declaration, answering the possible question of why there is even a premise regarding the ostensible culpability of the leadership of the town: as delineated in M. Sotah 9:6: “Does it ever occur to us that the elders of the local court are murderers? … rather (they are declaring) that we were never approached by this individual and we never deliberately sent him away without food; we never saw him setting out on a journey and are not to be blamed for allowing him to travel without a protective entourage”.  This would seem to indicate that there was a chain of failures in the social order that led to this killing; in fact, one theory is that the person killed was a starving individual engaged in mugging a traveler who killed his attacker in self-defense.

Much is made of this social welfare talking point in chinuch and other circles, especially since it provides an invariable opportunity to instruct about how those “on a higher spiritual level should be acutely aware that their actions do not take place in a vacuum…The Darchei Mussar [says] that had the Elders been flawed in a way that faintly resembles murder, then there would have been a ripple effect to the other people in the city. This is because the behavior of the greatest people in a community filters down to everyone else. Had the elders had a minor flaw in their relating to the value of life then everyone else would also weaken in their respect for the value of life. This could affect those on the lowest level to the extent that it could even be possible that one of them stoop to the level of actually murdering a person.”

However, the emphasis on that mussar angle might possibly detract from the most basic lesson, one sorely in need of forceful repetition in a day and age where there are some who think ending policing is a good idea—nay, a righteous mandate.

Sforno sets it out: “we have not left a stone unturned in (making public) locating the murderer; we are certain that the murderer did not commit this act where he could be seen. Had he been seen, he would have been challenged and prevented from committing the deed. At the very least, such witnesses would have come forward.”  This implies that there is at least a semblance of a robust system of law enforcement, or at least that there is a desire to maintain same and to expend the effort to make it work.

That brings us back to the beginning of the parsha, where Ibn Ezra explains how far this system should extend: “Although you go three times a year to see the Kohanim who serve in the Sanctuary, there to ask them questions about our statutes and laws, you still do not fulfill your duty unless you have judges in each of your city gates…The judge dispenses justice, whereas the officer enforces it.”

One could also posit that egla arufa is a Divine recognition that any system of law enforcement—even a/the Divienly mandated one—is run by humans, and as a result will inevitably incur human failures, sometimes—if not often—with deadly results.  Yet this never is to lead one to believe that the cure is either doing away with the system entirely.  One Mishnah often cited by progressives is Makkos 1:10, where one finds the argument about a Sanhedrin that ostensibly executes even once too often: “A sanhedrin that executes once in seven years, is called murderous. Rabbi Eliezer b. Azariah Says: once in seventy years. Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say: “Had we been members of a sanhedrin, no person would ever be put to death.”  Progressive types never seem to quote the final clause of that same Mishnah: “Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel remarked: “They would also multiply murderers…”

Avot 3:2 tells us: “pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear it inspires, every man would swallow his neighbor alive.”  It might seem incongruous that the Mishnah uses the term “shlomah” for welfare and then notes that the government in question needs to inspire “morah”, or fear.  And yet this is what we are precisely praying for: a stable system of law enforcement that inspires at least fear of the consequences of attempting to upend the social order.  It’s no accident that demographics who ostensibly have reason to fear overpolicing and inequitable policing still strongly desire that local police presence be maintained or even increased--by an overwhelming majority.

TB Brachot 28b relates that when Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai was on his deathbed, his students asked him to bless them: “He said: May it be His will that the fear of Heaven shall be upon you like the fear of flesh and blood. His students were puzzled and said: To that point and not beyond? Shouldn’t one fear God more? He said to them: Would that a person achieve that level of fear…Know that when one commits a transgression, he says to himself: I hope that no man will see me.”  

We need to pray for that fear.  

We need more police.

Tisha Ba'v: Kamtza/Bar Kamtza--Punk'd?

"A certain man had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza. He made a banquet and asked his servant to invite Kamtza. The servant mistakenly invited Bar Kamtza" [TB Gittin 55b]

So begins the narrative about the Second Churban and the endless chinch talking points about sinas chinam and public shaming.

There comes a point where you wonder whether the the host's messenger didn't really make a mistake, but rather was punking both the host and Bar Kamtza, although to what end would be hard to fathom. 

Either way, one has to believe that Bar Kamtza was just looking for a pretext, and it was ostensibly handed to him: ultimately, his playing the victim leads to the belief that he gets off way too light both in his lifetime and in the narrative.

While the Gemara at the end of that part of the Churban narrative [57a] indicates that the proximate cause of the second Churban was the public shaming of Bar Kamtza, his obvious overreaction indicates several things about him:

• he was as much a hater as the unnamed host;
• he was an entitled whiner who had no compunction about going places where he wasn't welcome--probably because of his (subsequently revealed) position against both his own people and their leadership;
• as he offered to pay for the whole mesiba in question, he clearly had ample means AND connections...you don't just gain an audience with the Emperor because someone tossed you out of a party, unless you have some kind of political cred;
• while the Gemara indicates that HKBH Himself stood up for as it were for Bar Kamtza's shame, one should remember from Num. 22:33 that He spared Bilaam's shame as well by slaying the talking donkey.  A comparison between Bar Kamtza and Bilaam is not out of order, especially since--as I see it--way too much chinuch capital is spent on Bar Kamtza as a victim rather than analyzing his treachery. 

In fact the story of Bar Kamtza (and the other narrative paradigm of "libun berabim", the ma'aseh of Yehuda/Tamar) both indicate it might be that these cases of never being melaben your sworn enemies are the exceptions that prove the rule:

Haba lemelabenecha, hashkem lemelabno.

As much as BK's shame caused the Churban, R' Yochanan's declaration earlier in the narrative that ill-timed "humility...destroyed our Mikdash, burned our Heichal and exiled us from our land" indicates that pietist quietism was at least equally if not more responsible.

Bar Kamtzas need to be publicly called out.  

You know what they’ll do if they’re not.

Vaera: Lip Snip

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein has written: "Rambam conten[ds] (Guide 3:8) that the sanctity of Hebrew was either derived from or reflected in the paucity of its sexual vocabulary..."

This point can be illustrated in the enigmatic Mosaic self-referential phrase that appears twice in this weeks parsha, "'aral sefasayim", ostensibly translated literally as "uncircumcised [of] lips", but usually translated (by us) as "impeded speech", or (by others) as "faltering lips". 

Rashi on 6:12 provides a series of examples from throughout Tanach which indicate that the primary translation of the root ערל is, in fact, "obstruction", and, in line with the Maimonidean observation, "foreskin" is at best a secondary translation: the association of ערל with numerous parts of anatomy other than the membrum--hearts, ears, and even trees/plants--indicate that "foreskin" as the salient image might be counterintuitive.

Which is why Philologos' recent urgings that "the need to excise profanity from the Bible is fundamentally inane" when discussing how to translate mashtin b’kir; he much prefers the 1599 Geneva Bible's "pisseth against the wall" and Robert Alter's "pisser against the wall" as opposed to "other Bible translators and commentators[/]medieval rabbinic exegetes who have held that sacred scripture would never speak so profanely of the human body".

One can safely assume that Philologos [and, by extension, Alter] doesn't take this approach to make the Bible accessible to those who would desacralize it, even if he does protest that "[a] book that is chock-full of stories about murder, rape, plunder, and assorted acts of human depravity cannot be deemed too dignified for coarse language", a statement which might betray a stunted understanding of Tanach beyond a superficial level.  However, the fact that even he notes that mashtin b’kir appears six times in Tanach, the other five times used by G-d himself in prophetic messages, further undermines his insistence: srely an "edge of vulgarity" doesn't need to be "perfectly right for G-d's anger", whether or not it was right for David's.

If you'll excuse the expression: it takes the piss out of Philologos' argument; rather, the real "inanity" is the compulsion to see vulgarity where there doesn't need to be.  (No matter how many times the word "ass" is used in no matter how many translations.)

Of course, this appraoch can be taken to an extreme, the best example being with the Artscroll translation of Shir HaShirim.  Rabbi Harry Maryles likely explains why better than most:

"Shir HaShirim is an instance where I believe the Charedi obsession with Tznius has lead them astray. Because of it they manage to completely ignore the actual words of Shir HaShirim in translation. Although they are upfront about it and say that it is not meant to be literal and that it is based on Rashi’s allegorical interpretation - I believe it undermines the author’s intent which is to convey God’s love of his people in an allegorically human way...It is one thing to say that Shir HaShirim is an allegory. It is. But to ignore the beauty of Shlomo HaMelech’s actual narrative in my view completely misunderstands why R’ Akiva thought this book is the holy of holies - and why it remained in the canon. Nowhere does it say that we are to distort the translation to fit the allegorical interpretation. And yet this is exactly what ArtScroll did."

Rabbi Aryeh Klapper and the Center for Modern Torah Leadership's translation of Shir HaShirim was developed in part to counter Artscroll's bowdlerization.

Which is also why Rabbi Efrem Goldberg's recent plea against what he calls "the growing problem of profanity" also misses a few crucial points leading one to believe the he doth protest too much.  

The first is that he repeatedly conflates vulgarity and obscenity, to the point that he feels it might be dangerous to listen to a speech delivered by the current President of the United States.  This inaccruate conflation has both cultural and halachic ramifications: the President can never curse on the air, so the notion is self contradictory.

The second is that he dismisses out of hand research he sites: "Shouldn’t we believe the research that says cursing has positive benefits? The answer is no.  Giving in to the urge to use a profanity is to forfeit our very humanity and indulge an animal impulse."  This misses the opportunity for a foundational teachable moment: instead of decrying the effects of vulgarity/obscenity and insisting it can never be beneficial, rather employ the kosher food analog: "it might be tasty, but what can I do, I have been commanded to not partake."

The third point is that subjectivity is injected into what should be an objective analysis: "Whenever I hear someone curse to try to make a point, I can’t help but think if they were more intelligent they would find a more effective way to communicate that point without needing to distract with the shock value of using an obscenity.  I am always less impressed..."  Aside from the subjectivity, the goalposts have been moved: the standard is whether he will be impressed or not by the expletive.

The fact that there exists a "pi'el" and "pu'al" in Hebrew grammar indicates that sometimes there is a need for the emphatic, even if not necessarily the vulgar.

Or, as the eminent sportswriter Paul Zimmerman put it when explaining why NFL coaches swear:

"There's a big difference between an idiot and a @&$%ing idiot."

In fact, one might even ask if in some cases whether using "fighting words" might be appropriate as a matter of personal defense: it might serve to deter a potential attack, or might diffuse a phyiscal altercation into a verbal, an altogether better result.  The cases where such language may be used are likely very rare; but it should be looked into.

Where Rabbi Goldberg might have a salient point is if he feels that speakers feel the need to be vulgar, as if it was almost a "mitzvah" to both be vulgar and for an audience to be foreced to accept that vulgarity.  This would also seem to be the problem with the Philologos/Alter approach to mashtin b’kir:  that one almost must accept that David had to be vulgar in that situation and that the Bible would report it favorably.  If someone insists on vulgarity as a positive necessity--then you start asking questions about both the message and the messenger.

Would give a whole new meaning to "'aral sefasayim."