Vayeshev—The Not So Gentle Art Of Verbal Self Defense

Last year, ancillary to another topic in these pages, the author made this assertion:

“In fact—at the risk of violating a certain level of moreh halacha lifnei rabbanim—anyone who uses Tamar as the paradigmatic example of avoiding embarrassing someone even at the cost of ones own life—STOP IT; making the ostensible halbanah [the] sole locus [of] the Yehuda-Tamar narrative and then generalizing it as a teachable moment for tinokos shel beis rabban ensures that understanding the ma’aseh never gets past that level.  

“It’s frankly….embarrassing.”

The debate about whether halbanah is yehareg ve’al yaa’vor notwithstanding, a closer look indicates why the Yehuda-Tamar narrative may be the exception that proves the rule when it comes to halbanah, the rule being: more often than not, halbanah as a defensive tactic is eminently justifiable.

(Side topic: how the ostensibly all encompassing prohibition on bearing grudges and retaliation might be a lot narrower than one might have been told.  Specifically, one might want to use the Chafetz Chaim (Peticha lavin fnt. 8) that responding to an insult immediately with another insult isn't considered revenge since it is immediate and out of pain; that in and of itself might help some more omega talmidim feel less bullied instead of being instructed to shashtill.)

Why was Tamar reluctant to “name and shame”? 

Tamar had two major X factors to consider as she was being dragged to the stake. 

The first was that she bore some responsibility for what had happened: Yehuda was guilty of what had happened because she had very effectively deceived him; he may have given consent way after the fact, and he may have put her in an impossible position because of his and his sons’ moral failures, but at the time of the assignation, he was not a willing party.  

The second had to do with the Messianic mission that was impetus behind the assignation and the pregnancy: adding a “personal” element by naming and shaming Yehuda even at the cost of her life and the fetuses would have compromised the spiritual nature of the mission, and therefore the entire mission, especially since part of the mission was to get Yehuda to acknowledge his “contribution”, so she could only call him out indirectly.

(As another side point, one might consider that the possibility that the unborn would be destroyed here indicated for another point to consider in the abortion debates: note that as Tamar was NOT guilty of a capital crime here—and therefore the fetuses were not to be considered already dead and subject to execution—the mission seems to actually have taken precedence over their ostensible viability and continuing the pregnancy.  And—it was her “choice”, with which the midrashim seem to concur.  But again: different topic.)

So what would be the actual baseline of an actual halbanah from this narrative?

TB BM 58a—where the Yehuda-Tamar narrative is discussed—tells the story of Mar Ukva who would leave coins behind a poor man's door daily; the poor man wanted to find out who had been leaving coins for him, so when Mar Ukva noticed he was being followed he ran with his wife and hid in a hot furnace as to not embarrass the man.  

One of my marei d’asra told the following story at one his Rosh haShana derashos:  Rav Yisroel Salanter arrived in a town where he was unknown an went to daven mincha in a crowded shul.  Not having access to a siddur, he looked over the shoulder of a fellow in front of him, who then proceeded to berate R’ Salanter loudly and publicly for “shterring my kavvanah.”  

(As a loosely analogous aside, the story is told about a guy at a Friday night “tish” who complained that his “spiritual high” was ruined by hearing a woman sing zemiros.  One can certainly question how “spiritual” his high was, especially as he made it particularly about him, which was also something Tamar was trying to avoid: her mission was too important to personalize.)

My mora d’asra then defined from the R’ Salanter incident what Chilul Hashem was: hurting someone deliberately in order to do a mitzvah.  Tamar and Mar Ukva were attempting to avoid that specific situation: spiritual elevation at the expense of someone’s personal humiliation.

However—both of those are distinct from using verbal weaponry for self-defense in the face of delegitimization.  In the current zeitgeist, when debating tactics aren’t about parsing the truth but actually suppressing it, one might be remiss in shying away from employing an antagonist’s tactics—even adhominous labeling, even gaslighting—if they can be used effectively first.  It might be a stretch, but there comes a point where—like in TB Kesuvos 14b—one might be gaslighted into delegitimation if one doesn’t counter it: in other words, haba le’delegitimecha, hashkem le’deligitimam. אם לרמאות הוא בא גם אני אחיו ברמאות.

Especially when they’ve already made it personal.

Vayishlach—Handling the Truth

You have the Truth.

Can you handle it?

TB Chullin 91a gives an ostensible play-by-play of Yaakov wrestling the angel.  While the most enduring image conjured up is the kicked-up dust rising all the way to the Throne of Glory—where, it is said, G-d keeps an image of Yaakov, who embodies “Truth”—some of the other details from the story itself indicate not only for the struggle involved for even Yaakov attaining the Truth, but that at times this Truth remains inaccessible to one who has it, never mind if that Truth needs to be conveyed.  In fact, the wrestling match presents the climax of Yaakov’s search for truth, not only because of the overarching metaphysically of the event, but because the other events of Yaakov’s life as recorded in Chumash indicate—at first glance—that this relationship with Truth is ostensibly complicated, sometimes because of actions of his initiative, sometimes as a result of others’ efforts.

A partial list:

• Yaakov pilfering the brachos as a result of his mother’s imprecations as well as her own prophetic visions that she herself does not share with her husband Yitzchak; 
• Yaakov’s obvious discomfort with the plan to the point that Rashi pace the midrashim is compelled to parse “Anochi…Esav bechorecha”; 
• Rivkah not sharing her other prophetic vision of Esav’s murderous intentions towards Yaakov with her husband; 
• Yaakov accusing Leah of being like her father because of the bait-and-switch, only to be immediately pot-kettle-blacked by Leah—“and what about the brachos?”;  
• Yaakov needing to take both a warlike and diplomatic stance in approaching his brother, and being taken to task for being too pliant in his diplomatic approach (calling himself “your servant” and downplaying the effect of the brachos); 

...all indicating that finding what might be the “best” answer might call for “bending” the Truth.

Even the guise of the angel Yaakov wrestles is up in the air: he may have resembled an idolater; he may have resembled a talmid chacham.

One can discern a progression, even if not a linear one, from where a possessor of Truth then proffers it in a way that at the very least gets lost in translation, beginning with Yitzchak trying to convey it to Esav more than he does Yaakov, while fooled by Esav’s pretentions to piety; Rivkah is more successful, but at a terrible price, even if one she herself prophesies (Gen. 27:45—“Let me not lose you both in one day!”).  This has to complicate Yaakov’s chinuch prerogatives with his family, for lack of a better term, in a ways that are readily evident: 

• Yaakov wanting to divorce Leah, but staying together for the children (GR 71:2), even after (pace the Artscroll chumash citing R Aharon Kotler) that "his acute spiritual antennae detected nothing wrong" on his wedding night after the swtich, because Leah was his true "spiritual partner"; 
• Yaakov’s ostensible insensitivity to Rachel’s infertility (Gen. 30:2, to the point of anger: “Can I take the place of G-d?”, and her fear that now SHE would suffer divorce and fall into the hands of Esav); 
• Yaakov hiding Dinah in a box to keep his brother’s prying eyes off of her because he’s actually afraid she might bring Esav to teshuva; 
• Yaakov's silence in the face of Dina’s abduction and then his disapproval when action is actually taken; 
• and finally, Yosef’s coat, which Yaakov uses simultaneously as a token of favoritism and as a motivational tool vis-a-vis the brothers, which backfires spectacularly: the fact that the brothers attach a cherem to the secret of Yosef’s abduction and sale that even binds their grandfather Yitzchak seems to confirm the generational tendencies towards secrecy and miscommunication.  

In theory, two bold statements that this author might have been otherwise afraid to utter but came across a in WebYeshiva essay about this topic while researching this piece which might have more forcefully made the salient points regarding Truth, particularly: 

• “Human truth isn’t to be dismissed…There is objective Truth, there is human truth, and there is the combination of the two that we find in halachah.”

• “Avraham is known for the trait of chessed, kindness, and—since Torah is also called a Torah of kindness- that was why he was able to fulfill the entire Torah intuitively… Ya’acov, on the other hand, is known for the trait of truth[,] and therefore could not intuit the Torah, since Truth is the seal of God, and that trait doesn’t fully exist in this world.”

The broader epistemology notwithstanding, one can just view the disparate elements of the narrative to discern the pitfalls of “Truthtelling” as an educational approach, particularly when only one option is presented as “Truth”.  This author has described elsewhere how the Dina-in-a-box incident indicates for an educational failure on Yaakov’s part; but also, the Torah's depiction of the early deaths of Er and Onan indicate for some lessons in Yehuda’s household either not having been taught, but certainly not having been learned, especially on the heels of the lessons not being learned from Yosef’s sale, as described in Rashi on 38:1.  (It’s also possible that the extreme reluctance of Yeshivos to teach Chapter 38 at all indicates that maybe on some level there exists a fear of exposing all of the Truth all at once.)

Even when one “has” the truth (never mind if one isn’t even certain of possessing it), one is not necessarily qualified to communicate it, or the time may not be right for it to be communicated; or: just because you see something, doesn’t mean you say something.  Sometimes there is just as much a mitzvah to say nothing.  Sometimes it isn't the Truth being handled.  Only in tennis is "99% out 100% in"; elsewhere, the claim that one possesses 100% of the truth is 100% untruth.

Chayei Sarah—From Inside The Tent

At the end of Chapter 24, when Yitzchak meets Rivkah, marries her and bring her into “Sarah’s tent”, Rashi pace Bereishis Rabbah notes:

"While Sarah was living, a light had been burning in the tent from one Sabbath eve to the next, there was always a blessing in the dough (a miraculous increase) and a cloud was always hanging over the tent (as a divine protection), but since her death all these had stopped. However, when Rebecca came, they reappeared” (GR 60:16)

The literature is replete with the significance of Sarah’s tent, just even with regard the basics.  Two weeks ago, Rashi on 12:8—where אָהֳלֹ֑ה is written in the feminine but read in the masculine—notes that Avraham made sure Sarah’s tent was pitched first; last week, when the angels-as-guests inquire after Sarah (18:9) and are told הִנֵּ֥ה בָאֹֽהֶל, Avraham—who doesn’t know yet of the Heavenly provenance of his guests, to the point that he assumes they are idolaters—gives this reply to set boundaries: unlike the standard protocols of hospitality at that time, he was making it clear that his wife was off limits.

Yet R’ Soloveichik [in “Family Redeemed”] posits that the angels were asking: “Where is she? Why do people not know the truth? Why does she mot march in front of you? Why has she been trailing behind you?”  While Avrahams answer of “in the tent” is supposed to speak to the role she plays which is yet unnoticed to all but those sensitive enough to perceive it, the fact that the question issues from the angels indicates that, while Avraham’s answer about self effacement remains salient, one still has to contend with the fact that the world remains insensitive to both the role being played and the perceived passivity.

The continuity symbolized by the Rivkah in Sarah’s tent, in conjunction with the more visibly proactive role Rivkah takes, at least just from the text—most particularly, her meeting with Shem about her pregnancy, her directives to Yaakov about the brachos, and then engineering his escape while influencing Yitzchak to bless the journey on a need-to-know basis.  These might indicate that the theoretical offstage, “modest” role that Sarah played wouldn’t always provide the paradigmatic modus operandi for Jewish female spirituality.  In fact, it might provide a model for what is called “Orthodox feminism”.

However, that story was told to tell this one: the “tents” paradigm that argues for Orthodox feminism at the same time would forcefully argue against the trend in some streams of Orthodoxy towards the adoption of social justice tenets as defined by intersectional prerogatives.  The main reason for this is very simple and straightforward: one movement is about participation within the tent; like Rivkah assuming the mantle from Sarah, it’s a family matter.  The other redefines our overall mission with regard to those outside the tent.  

While one can certainly argue that on occasion there have been unnecessary and even counterproductive external dealings between “us” and “them”—not to mention those which are truly religiously inappropriate, even if sanctioned by ostensible religious authorities—the premise that notions of “tikkun olam” not only take precedence over the Jewish national project, but actually now define how it deals with the outside world to the point that the Jewish mission is endangered, is—well, Jewishly unsupported.  Enough ink has been spilled about how “tikkun olam” is a distortion of Judaism.  Suffice it to say that, “tikkun olam”-driven Judaism expertly gaslights: enough people believe that it is the most authentic expression of Judaism, some of whom actually know better.  

Unlike “social justice”/“tikkun olam” Judaism, religious feminism never tried to do that.  In practice, religious feminists wanted more participation in our internal way of life;  “social justice”/“tikkun olam” Judaism drags us outside our unique national narrative and insists that our “universal” obligations to others precede those to ourselves—putting the “k’shani l’atzmi” before the “im ein ani li”.  HIAS, the agency dragged into the spotlight by the Pittsburgh attacks, is a perfect example: holding a “refugee Shabbat” while in the meantime dropping the “Hebrew” from their name as “exclusionary and outdated”…

Is this, then, really a “Jewish” initiative, or do you only pretend to one to score political points?  Is this a “family” matter when convenient?

Inside the tent, or out?

Matos/Maasei—The Company You Keep

If the post biblical literature didn’t tell us, we might not know how evil Bilaam is until we get to 31:8 in this weeks parsha—and maybe not until 31:16.

Throughout parshas Balak, we get a rather translucent view of his character; he seems to be both slippery and conniving, but at least somewhat well meaning, enough that his ostensible blessings make it both into the text of the Torah and sep parts of the liturgy.

We don’t get a hint that he is in effect a spiritual companion to Amalek until the Jewish armies find Bilaam in the company of the five Midianite kings during the revenge campaign against the Midianites.  Rashi pace the midrashim notes that Bilaam seeks renumeration for the Israelite body count from mass idolatrous orgies that resulted from his sotto voce advice, which, in verse 16, precedes his renumeration as getting slain alongside them in verse 8.

Numerous reasons are proferred.  For one, he overreached in seeking material recompense for having his Judeomisic fantasies realized: “the camel asks for horns and had its ears cut off”.  For another, he used the Israelites’ power of speech/prayer, using their own weapon against them, so they used the Edomite weapon—the sword—against him.

Furthermore, Bilaam is grouped both with the four “commoners” who have no share in the world to come in TB Sanhedrin, and as one of the three implacable enemies of Judaism suffering the most nefarious eternal punishments in TB Gittin.  Yet of all the antagonists listed here, one could argue Bilaam comes off as the most deserving of opprobrium, to the point that one is Talmudically enjoined to draw any negative inference from a verse regarding Bilam that can be drawn.

Part of this is because the textual narrative actually indirectly conveys Bilaam’s outward projection of righteousness. Rav Avigdor Nebezhal points out, not least because of the “blessings” and his own ostensible prayer “May my soul die the death of the upright and may my end be like his” (23:10).

Further amplifying the aggravating factors, one can discern a pure hatred of all things Jewish both because of and in spite of Bilaam’s pretensions to righteousness by comparing his motivations to the other miscreants on the two lists; none of them reach his level of Judeomisic rage.  To wit: 

*Gehazi was driven by lust and wealth, and his own Rebbi [Elisha] regretted possibly making him go off the derech; 

*Doeg was motivated by jealousy borne of a distorted “kinas sofrim”;

*Achitofel was motivated by vengeance for his granddaughter Batsheva’s ostensible violation;

*Titus was drunk on power and bloodshed that drove his Judeocidal inclinations, as opposed to the other way around;

*and ”Jesus” was driven by a distorted theology (that is, if he isn’t a stand-in for Bilaam, or vice versa).

Bilaam, on the other hand, is driven first and foremost by hatred—one may even say, saddled with it (22:21)—to the point that he wants to turn Balak’s defensive initiative into an offensive one (22:11), using the inside knowledge he does about Judaism and G-d, while not having any of the possible grievances and/or motivations of the other listed antagonists.

he undoes one of the last vestiges of chastity that had ostensibly held since the mabul in furtherance of his Judeocidal goal, in both this world and the next.

Add together his penchant for “prayer” (“using Moses’ strength”) white weaponizing libertinism (having undone one of the the last vestiges of chastity that ostensibly remained since the time of the Mabul), all under the guise of a “lose data’s Elyon”, and you have the paradigm of one who preaches “freedom” with religious or moral veneer, even if one knows better and yet disingenuously pursues nefarious and destructive ends. 

The world is replete nowadays with “prophets” who morally lecture Jews about their Jewish [!] shortcomings (some Jewish , some not), all as a means to gaslight, at best.

Therefore, like the Gemara says about Bilaam:

Any negative inference that can be drawn—should be drawn.

Balak—Mission Creep

From the peaks of rocks I see them, from the heights I gaze upon them;

this is a people who dwell alone, not reckoning themselves one of the nations. (Bam. 23:9)

The characteristic Rabbinic back and forth about this Balaamic prophecy touches upon the question of the statement’s status as a blessing, a curse, or possibly both: 

Rashi’s eschatological formulation: “as Targum explains, they will not suffer destruction as other nations will, as it is says (Jeremiah 30:11), “for I shall annihilate all the nations” and Israel will not be counted amongst them”, that the Jews will not suffer the national extinction that is the fate of so many; 

The Netziv’s derivation, as a warning against assimilation: “If it is a people content to be alone, faithful to its distinctive identity, then it will be able to dwell in peace. But if Jews seek to be like the nations, the nations will not consider them worthy of respect”;

and a unique dual interpretation by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, focusing on “badad” and its concordance: “badad, 'alone', in the Hebrew Bible [] is used about a leper: 'He shall live alone [badad]; his dwelling place shall be outside the camp' (Lev. 13:46)[;] by Isaiah: 'The fortified city stands desolate [badad], an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert' (Isa. 27:I0) [; and,] [m]ost famously, it occurs in the first line of the book of Lamentations: 'How solitary [badad] sits the city once full of people.’”

Rabbi Sacks further explicates how he sees the curse: “There is the psychological phenomenon, I said, of the self-fulfilling prophecy…That, I concluded, was the-perennial Jewish danger. If you define yourself as the people that dwells alone, that will be your fate. You will have decided that this is the Jewish fate that nothing can change. It was ever thus and always will be. Jews have enemies, but we also have friends, and if we worked harder at it we would have more.”

Yet he also writes: “We should never abandon our distinctiveness. It is what makes us who we are. Nor is there any contradiction between this and the universalism of the prophets. To the contrary – and this is the life changing idea: In our uniqueness lies our universality. By being what only we are, we contribute to humanity what only we can give.”

Based upon the ostensible parameters, one could suggest the following:  Judaism was never meant to be isolationist; one cannot broadcast it’s message in a vacuum.  However, Judaism universality is contingent upon and ancillary to its parochialism and provincialism.  In other words: Judaisms message and messaging is always its own.

What would that mean in practical terms?

In recent times, a lot of ink has been spilled and bytes fried to pigeonhole Judaism’s tenets in order to prove that they might align in aggregate with certain political programs, left or right.  

There are times when those who predominantly populate one side of the political fence seem to be more sympathetic to Jewish concerns; at the moment at least in this country, one can hardly argue credibly that the left is more Judeophilic, but not so long ago the roles were reversed: the 1992 Democratic National Convention has suppressed the pro-Palestinian emanation from Jesse Jackson’s acolytes that had been rampant in Atlanta four years prior, while the George HW Bush admin and the James Baker Dept of State were barely disguising their intentions to continue pressing the Jewish State into one-sided concessions while the President was dog whistling about “lobbyists”.  Asserting that Judaism is, or should be, “Left” or “Right”, is counterproductive and self-destructive.

There are times we need to make policy alliances, but the possibly has even more pitfalls: both outsiders and all too often our own start to assume that Judaism, again, aligns with a political program.  Until recently, the possibly more dangerous alliance looked like it might be with the religious right, who shared concerns about freedom of conscience, educational policy, cultural pollution, and traditional values, not to mention Zionism, but who all too often would betray their evangelizing and eschatological tendencies.  Some still assume that there have to be political and philosophical dovetails in places where there really aren’t.  

(Also, there have been stated worries on occasion that religious Jews can’t be seen to be less religious in comparison to religious non-Jews.  Aside from the aforementioned issues, it also led to an ecumenical stance against the Markey bill, and questioning the Trump border policies because we can’t be seen to be less rachmanim bnei rachmanim than the other religious groups that were ostensibly disturbed.  It isn’t necessarily the best method of policymaking.) 

However, the bigger problem by far now is the misappropriation and distortion of Judaism based on “Tikkun Olam” as its First Principle.  This is a thin veneer for the aggressive promulgation of “social justice” prerogatives as determined by intersectional tenets.  No matter how many classical Judaic sources that the ostensibly religious social justice warriors can cobble together to prove that classical Judaism supports—or even “commands”—progressivism, the entire edifice falls because of its faulty premise: a progressive universalism that is as supersessionist—if not more—than Christianity in at its most Judeophobic—is ipso facto no longer Judaism.  It is telling that the keynote speaker at the recent graduation ceremony of possibly the flagship progressive Jewish institution exhorted its most recent class to self-erase through mass intermarriage as if it were a Jewish duty.  Even Gandhian musings about Jews committing collective suicide were less abhorrent.

Also, in contradistinction to Rabbi Sacks’ salient point, Rabbi Shimon Schwab once remarked that “the Americans are not our enemies, but they are not our friends”.  Irrespective of the possibility that Rabbi Schwab’s hahkafic inclinations are/were more isolationist—for lack of a better term—than Rabbi Sacks’, there is a more specific point to remade beyond assimilation or America.

Despite Rabbi Sacks’ asserting that “if we worked harder at [making friends], we would have more”, at times we might not be alone, but we might wish we were.

There was a time when Jews theoretically aspired to be “white people” and were rejected as another iteration of the “other”.  More recently, Jews have been belatedly granted that wish, only now all white people are considered in some circles to be congenitally morally defective because of privilege and imperial history.  The conundrum that Jews are considered to be simultaneously both economically rapacious oligarchs and anarchic extractive revolutionaries never really went away, but it has gained a life it was missing for decades.  Now the most traditional Jews have been pigeonholed as Trump supporters, which ostensibly presents a PR issue for some.

Leaving aside the question of where Jewish concepts saliently fall on the political continuum, this might be where the Balaamic “curse” comes into play: we seem to lack the unfettered ability to choose who our “friends” are.  In this way, anticipated Heavenly “snapback” might be expected if our unique, exclusive message is in danger of dilution, even—or especially—if some of our own are at the forefront of committing adulteration.

If nothing else, it prevents mission creep.

Korach—In Neutral

R’ Ysoscher Katz writes:

The Chassidic Rebbe the Yetev Lev (1836-1904) said that he heard from his grandfather, author of the Sefer Yismach Moshe, who believed in reincarnation, that the first time he lived he was part of the generation that left Egypt and sojourned in the desert. He, in fact, claimed to have vivid memories of the tent in which he grew up.

He also recalled that during the Korach rebellion, the elite and religious leadership sided with Korach, while the hoi polloi sided with Moshe Rabbeinu.

As he was recalling the fight and the way the community aligned with Moshe or against him, his grandson asked him: Zeidy, whose side where you on, Moshe’s or Korach’s?  His Zeidy responded that he was neutral, not siding with either of them.

How come, the grandson asked, incredulously?

If you knew what a great person Korach was, you would not have asked such a ridiculous question!

Leaving aside questions of reincarnation for the moment (touched upon here, if one wants to know the author’s position), there are two patterns in the narrative here that might be further discerned by this story:

The first is the tendency to lock oneself into a position because one is certain they can’t be wrong, or because they have made an irrevocable religious commitment.  

The second is the tendency to being led and misled based upon a person’s ostensible stature.

In the first case, vis a vis rectitude: 

Korach—having visions of his descendant Shmuel equated with Moshe and Aharon—assumed a prophetic imprimatur for his intransigence, so it never occurred to him that could be wrong.  In contrast, the Gemara relates R’ Yochanan’s deathbed terror of having made the wrong moves in asking for Yavneh and not saving Jerusalem at the time of the churban.  (R’ Norman Lamm writes in "Faith and Doubt" drawing on R’ Kook about “pachad”: allowing for the possibility of being wrong—even very wrong—while simultaneously firmly committing to a necessary course of action.)

Furthermore, one of Korach’s erstwhile followers—On ben Peles—also thought he was locked into what his wife let him know was a useless gesture because he had been “sworn in”, as it were, until she found a way out for him.  

Lesson: pretentions to absolute rectitude lead to—er—wrecktitude, and that using a sunk cost fallacy to justify an ethical conundrum doesn’t make it any less a fallacy.

In the second case, vis a vis great personalities:

The meraglim were great men before their chet: one of the possible motivations behind the distorted report was the fear that Bnei Yisroel, once they entered the land and stopped eating the Manna, would move from a more to a less spiritual existence: they wouldn’t be “frum” enough.  The mass panic and ensuing gezera putting Bnei Yirsael in neutral for 40 years might have given the “hoi polloi” cause to reconsider following the elites: everyone might have had the same insight as Mrs. On ben Peles, that this wasn’t their fight to have because they had nothing to gain either way, because ultimately for them the machlokes was going to be agavra, not acheftza.

Lesson: sometimes neutrality is the worst option, except for all the others.

Still, the notion that neutrality was the mandated course of action here conjured up, Avram being tossed in the kivshan ha’esh, and Haran waiting for a confirmation to decide which side he was on; why would Haran suffer for ostensibly choosing the right side based in a miracle, whereas there would be no parallel in the case of Moshe vs Korach, theoretically also decided by an overt miracle, that of the pi ha’aretz?  Even if one discounts Ibn Ezra’s rendering of Nimrod as a “great man”, why would Haran suffer for waiting to choose sides?

The distinct motivations might be instructive, however subtle.  The Yetev Lev’s reluctance to challenge either personality possibly stemmed from a legitimate fear, based on having made a grievous error the last time a side was chosen.  In Haran’s case, there was no precedent, but if one looks at the language of Rashi/Midrash Tanchuma, Haran was already figuring out how to choose sides before Nimrod’s people even got around to asking him:  

Haran waited and said to himself, “If Abram proves triumphant I will be on his side; if Nimrod wins I shall be on his”. When Abram was saved they said to Haran, “Whose side are you on?” Haran replied, “I am on Abram’s side”.  They therefore cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burnt to death.

Furthermore, Haran might have intimated that Avram was right—why else would he expect that Avram might “prove triumphant”—but feeling compelled to give himself an "out", he declined to commit until he had evidence.  At the very least, the dor hamidbar had evidence that allowed them inaction, having made "two" wrong commitments: following the mergalim, and then trying to undo that with the ha'apalah.  

(It’s also possible that in a manner of speaking Haran did, even if post-facto, die “al kiddush Hashem”—there’s no textual indication of him being condemned for his action; he just might not have been worthy of the miracle that Avram was, for a number of reasons).

The lesson of Haran in a way doubles down the lesson of Korach: a pretension to rectitude that becomes about personal stature—in other words, turning what might be a she’ll lishma into an unequivocal machlokes agavra—can be deadly.

Shlach—Bricks in the Wall

This had to be about the President. 

The D’var Torah at Shachris brought out the Rashi (s.v. החזק הוא הרפה) quoting the Midrash Tanchuma (Shlach 6) presenting Moshe’s counterintuitive Mosaic instruction to the meraglim: “if they live in open cities they are strong, since they evidently rely on their own strength, but if they live in fortified cities they are weak”.

This had to be about The Wall.

It wasn’t.

The speaker instead referred to R’ Sacks’ exposition on this Rashi/Medrash, the gist being: “what is the appropriate mode of engagement between Jews and the wider society?…The story of the spies tells us that our fears are sometimes exaggerated. Judaism is strong enough to withstand any challenge. The question is now as it was then: do we have the confidence of our faith?”

Fair enough: but how does one reconcile this with notions of “om ani chomah”, and the attendant midrashim indicating for the near-imperative to build “spiritual walls”?

A closer look at Shir haShirim 8:8-10 might indicate that the wall directive isn’t as universally imperative as assumed—and further underscore R’ Sacks’ points, on both individual and collective levels.

Verse 8:8 asks: “We have a little sister, Whose breasts are not yet formed. What shall we do for our sister when she is spoken for?”  The verse seems to be using an archetype of physical immaturity as a metaphor for a lack of preparation for both intellectual and emotional challenges, and a number of commentaries refer to the “spoken for” reference as a possibility that “little sister” will be taken either by a King, or by a power alien to Judaism.

R’ Sacks observes that “Jews were, in John Murray Cuddihy’s telling phrase, “latecomers to modernity.”…Two centuries ago, segregation and the voluntary ghetto might have been the right response. Jews were not ready for the challenge of Europe and Europe was not ready for the challenge of the Jews. But now is not then. Ours is not the age of the spies but of their descendants, born in freedom.” 

There might be/have been a time to “put up walls”, as it were: 

*Early childhood education: even secular educators have decried the abandonment of teaching basic morals to the point that some have said “if we want to educate our children to be liberal, we need to teach them conservatively.”  The “little sister” will hopefully not remain “little” forever, intellectually or spiritually.  Unless an educational program looks like this: 

“I recently spoke to a group of school principals in Borough Park and urged them to accept that students may be different and recognize that not every student will “fit into the one size fits all box” which our system has evolved into. …  A few weeks after my lecture, one of the principals met me and in front of a group of women, made a point of telling me that she disagreed with what I said and walked out of the room during my speech to display her rejection of my hashkafos…This principal reminded me of what we learned about the inhabitants of Sedom who were notorious for forcing everyone’s uniformity.”

*In a similar vein, note that that the far left are building their “walls” to force inclusivity and restrict expression.  Not for naught did Communist societies feature “reeducation” camps.  Even the most brutal Western facilities are “correctional”.  Sometimes a wall eventually resembles Migdal Bavel; or, in the light of this weeks parsha and the question about Canaanite fortifications: maybe the Canaanite walls were an early attempt at social engineering mirroring the efforts of today’s hard intersectional progressives.   The Canaanite and Nimoridan programs couldn’t catch on unless they were coerced.  

The salient point remains that there are times where a restrictive approach might be needed, but not in perpetuity.  There comes a point where we have to act like we’ve grown up and start placing doors in the walls, if we need to leave them up at all.