Weekly Torah Portion - Conversations with Rabbi Avroom Wolff » Shoiftim Chapter


Posted by Rabbi Avraham Wolff

Last week, during a conversation with members of the community, the topic of the prohibition for a Jewish man to marry more than one woman again came up. The question of the prohibition of polygamy "prevents" many men from living, and I am often asked this question. Why is this law still in effect? one of the participants in the conversation asked me. Why isn't it cancelled? After all, this institution was given for five hundred years, and then extended for another five hundred years. 1,000 years have already passed, isn’t it time to abolish it?” I replied: “Maybe the shit was not canceled because no one particularly interested in its cancellation bothered to properly ask for it to be canceled? Try to contact me with a formal request, and we will discuss this proposal ”(but this, as you, of course, understand was a joke).


Interestingly, every Jewish man is familiar with the prohibition of polygamy, but other takonois (establishments) introduced by Rabbeinu Gershom Meor ha-Gola (this title, usually added to his name, means “Lamp of Exile”) are much less known. But for the violation of each of them, the punishment is herem - excommunication from the community! Rabbeinu Gershom established these taconois in the communities of Germany and France around 1000 AD. The most famous are the following three of them: the prohibition of polygamy; prohibition of divorce without the consent of the wife; prohibition to read someone else's correspondence without permission.


Also to Gershom's list of taconois rabbeinu can be added: the right of one who has lost something to demand that the public announce that everyone who knows anything about it should inform him; a resolution obliging the defendant to appear before the court in the place where the claim is filed against him; a Jew cannot forbid his enemy to pray in a synagogue, even if he built it himself; the minority must obey the majority; travelers should take part in the distribution of gifts to the poor on Purim; the prohibition to reproach persons who have changed their faith under compulsion for apostasy (this ruling is not mentioned in all sources, but it is quite consistent with the approach of Rabbeinu Gershom, who established that one should not remind a person who commits teshuva of his sins).


According to some sources, the duration of these decrees was limited to the millennium in which they were given, that is, they were valid until 1239 AD, when the fourth millennium ended and the fifth millennium began from the Creation of the world. In any case, most of the Jewish communities followed these regulations and after that - with the exception of the Yemeni communities, for a long time cut off from the rest of the Jewish world. However, although they did not accept the takonois Rabbeinu of Gershom at one time, today they are subject to these regulations, because they are recognized by the rabbinical courts of Israel...


It is obvious that Gershom established these taconois rabeinu for the communities of Germany and at the beginning did not claim that they were observed in all communities, in all generations and at all times. These laws were regarded as obligatory only because the communities themselves voluntarily accepted their implementation. However, today there is hardly a rabbi or a group of rabbis who would like to abolish them.


... The Jewish people had many different laws and regulations. Some of them have taken root, others have not stood the test of time and have been replaced. There were those that were established for a specific place, there were also temporary decrees that were written from the very beginning for a certain period of time. Among them, one can recall herem for violating the ban on setting foot on German soil. Some rabbis tried to introduce it immediately after the end of World War II. Where did they get this idea - a ban on driving to a certain place? Perhaps it came from today's weekly chapter, in which we read about the commandments to the Jewish king. One of them states: “Only let him not multiply horses for himself, and do not return the people to Egypt to multiply horses, and the Lord told you that you will not return this way again.”


Rashi explains that horses were bought in Egypt at that time. Therefore, if the king needed horses for his chariots, then this could bring the people back to Egypt. But during the Exodus from Egypt, when the Jews were standing near the sea, Moses told them on behalf of the Almighty: "As you saw Egypt today, you will never see it again." G-d forbade the Jews to return to Egypt, where Jewish blood had been shed for 210 years. Maybe our foot should not touch German soil either, where Jewish blood flowed like water, and insane and terrible murders were committed?! Therefore, the rabbis tried to introduce a complete ban on travel to Germany (by the way, my grandfather, may his memory be blessed, whose almost entire family was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, until the end of his days did not drive German-made cars and did not buy any goods made in Germany).


However, many rabbis were against such a law for several reasons. First, we do not have such power today to establish prohibitions for the entire Jewish people. Only in the time of the Talmud could the Jewish sages establish a law binding on all of Israel. An example of this is the ban on eating poultry meat with milk. The fact is that the Torah forbids mixing animal meat with milk. The sages introduced strictness and also banned poultry meat in order to reduce the risk of error (otherwise a person could, say, take beef for chicken and eat it with milk, thus violating the prohibition of the Torah). This decree of the sages must be observed by all Jews throughout the world. But the wise men of generations closer to us no longer have such authority to oblige all Israel to fulfill their decrees.


The situation is the same with the ordinance on the prohibition of polygamy, which was adopted by almost the entire people of Israel. The Torah allows a man to marry several women, while the Haloch allows up to four wives. However, Rabbeinu Gershom decreed that a man could have only one wife. This prohibition was adopted by the Ashkenazi and many Sephardic communities (but not by Yemenite Jews, as mentioned above).


As for the prohibition to live in Egypt, the Rambam in the "Laws of Kings" explains that it means the prohibition to live there permanently, but "you can return to the land of Egypt for goods and for business." So the rabbis who wanted to make it illegal to set foot on German soil were trying to be tougher than Torah law!


There is another reason why the ban on returning to Germany was not adopted. The ban on returning to Egypt is mentioned in the Torah in three places, but despite this, in fact, the Jews did not observe it and even lived there. So does it really make sense for us to establish new prohibitions that will certainly not be enforced?!


Why did the Jews not resist the prohibition of the Torah? In fact, Jews have lived in Egypt since the time of the First Temple, and the Jewish community there has grown and developed. And during the time of the Second Temple, there lived a kohen named Chonyo, who was not appointed high priest to the Jerusalem Temple and therefore descended into Egypt at the head of a large group of Jews. He built a temple in the city of Leontopolis, in which the Egyptian Jews made sacrifices to the Almighty. The Chonyo Temple was even larger and more beautiful than the one in Jerusalem, and stood for more than two hundred years, becoming the center of a large and wealthy community of Egyptian Jews.


The descendants of these Jews live in Egypt today. It is known that with their participation, the envoys of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Cairo printed the book "Taniya", lit Hanukkah candles near the pyramids and organized a celebration on the occasion of the completion of the study of the book of Rambam (my father, may his memory be blessed, as an envoy, the Rebbe took part in one of these activities). And if all this is so, then the question arises: why did the Jews for 2500 years not follow the observance of the ban on returning to Egypt?


The fact that Rambam himself lived in Egypt 850 years ago, after he fled from Spain and Morocco, raises many questions for everyone. He was the personal physician of the Egyptian caliph and leader of the Jewish community. Is it possible that Rambam lived where the Torah forbids Jews to live?


There are several answers to these questions. In the Torah we find several kinds of commandments. Among them, there are those that were given only for a certain time, and there are others that are given for all generations. For example, the commandment about the Passover sacrifice. In Egypt, the Almighty commanded that on 10 Nison the Jews took lambs, kept them in their homes for four days, and then slaughtered them, and smeared their blood on the lintel and door jambs. But this command applied only to Pesach Mizraim - Passover at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. For future generations, the commandment to bring the Paschal sacrifice has remained, and it is not necessary to do this four days before the holiday, and it is not necessary to smear the doors with its blood ...


Rabbeinu Behaye says that the commandment not to return to Egypt was given at that time - only that generation of Jews that left Egypt should not have returned there. They were the ones to whom the Lord said, "You will not return this way again." However, this prohibition did not apply to all generations.


At the end of the First Temple era, there lived an Assyrian king named Sancherib who conquered many countries. He moved peoples from one place to another so that no one could claim that the land on which he now lives belonged to his ancestors (Stalin apparently learned from him). And the Rambam writes: “The Egyptians in the land of Egypt are now completely different people.” The reason why the prohibition was given to return to Egypt was that the Egyptians of that time were great sinners, and it was impossible to live next to them. There are Arabs living in Egypt today, who are a different type of people than the Egyptians who lived there during the time of the Tanakh. So today you can live there.


But the real reason, obviously, lies in the "laws of the Pale of Settlement." The Jewish people did not have many opportunities to choose their places of residence. In most countries, Jews were forbidden to settle, and where it was allowed, it was not possible to feed themselves. Therefore, when the Jews found a place where they could live and earn a living, they settled there. Simply because there was no choice. As in the joke about the boss who suggested to his Jewish deputy, who has worked for him for many years, to go on a business trip to any place of his choice. The boss gives him the globe and says, “I'm leaving for a meeting. When I get back, tell me a place where you want to go, something interesting, pleasant, without anti-Semitism. And I will immediately arrange for you a ticket and a business trip there. The Jew looked at the globe for a long time, turned it in all directions, and when the boss returned, he asked him: “Tell me, please, do you have any other globe?”


And the reason that Rambam himself settled in Egypt was that there was already a large Jewish community there before him, which began to assimilate, and he felt that he had an obligation to go there and save this developed community from extinction. Only he, by the power of his personality, could successfully accomplish this...


And yet, why does the Torah write three times that it is forbidden to return to Egypt? What's so terrible about going back there, and what's so terrible about living there? Arizal gives a wonderful cabalistic explanation for this. It is known that the main goal of the people of Israel is "gathering the sparks of holiness." In every place where the Jews live, the Almighty is revealed to them, thanks to the fact that they pronounce blessings, fulfill the commandments, carry out sacred work in the service of the Almighty, and bring the Jews closer to the Creator. And the Jews also talk about Gd, tell the people around them about the requirements that the Almighty makes of them, and thus give special holiness to the place where they live. Arizal says that the Jews lived in Egypt for 210 years, and when they finished their work there of "collecting sparks", the Almighty instantly brought them out of there. Therefore, after leaving Egypt, there is no reason for the Jews to return there. As the Rebbe says in one of his Maimorim, “A Jew should not waste time and stay in a place where there is nothing left to collect.” Returning to Egypt is a waste of time for the Jews.


But it shows us the positive side of our centuries-old golos. We were expelled from the Holy Land not only “for our sins,” as we say in prayer, but also because we had finished the work of “gathering sparks” in the land of Israel and had to go and do it all over the world to prepare it for the coming of Moshiach. That is why Jews are expelled from one country to another, moving from place to place. When we do our work in any country, the Almighty makes sure that the Jews go to another. Sometimes we do it of our own free choice and desire - people move to other countries because there are earnings, new opportunities open up. When we did not do it ourselves, then we were forced to do it by other peoples who expelled us so that we could do our work in a new place.


Therefore, we, who have been honored to live in Odessa, in Ukraine, and you, who live in any other place on earth, must understand that while the Almighty keeps us in this place, He gives us a sign that there are many sparks that need to be collected. And this is our task: to collect and purify sparks, to say blessings and teach another Jew to bless, to pray ourselves and teach another Jew to pray, to go to synagogue on Sabbaths and teach another Jew to do it, and so on ...


As soon as we finish collecting sparks, Moshiach will come!