Sin-A-Gogue

by David Bashevkin

  All may not be lost. Even considering the objections alluded to by Rabbi Genichovsky, a ruling of Maimonides may still be applicable to salvage the effectiveness of insincere forgiveness. Maimonides (Laws of Divorce 2:20) writes that a divorce document secured through the coercion of a Jewish court is valid so long as the husband verbally commits that he wants the divorce. Even though a divorce document requires consent and the husband’s acquiescence is secured through coercion, it is still valid since, Maimonides writes:

  Someone whose evil inclination seizes him to annul the performance of a commandment or to violate a transgression and they are beaten until they fulfill their obligation or distance themselves from the prohibition—this is not considered coercion. Rather, this person is coercing himself with his wicked thoughts.

  According to Maimonides a Jew is assumed to have an inner desire to act in accordance with Jewish law.349 It is really his improper thoughts that are coercing him to do otherwise. So if verbal consent is secured, even with coercion, the presumed inner desire to live as a Jew is sufficient to consider the divorce document legally binding. This ruling could likely be applied to the situation where someone offers forgiveness half-heartedly. Presumably, in this situation as well we could rely on the assumption that a person’s inner will is to do the right thing and forgive the other party. Though internally a person may not want to offer forgiveness, a verbal agreement coupled with the inner desire to live as a proper Jew should be enough to make a half-forgiveness whole.350

  Creating Space for Repentance

  The first step in crisis management is recognizing that there is a crisis. Oftentimes companies and institutions are so narrowly focused on their day-to-day operations that early warning signs of crisis are missed. One management professor, John W. Collins, lists myopia and tunnel vision as two of the seven deadly sins of management.351 If companies are too focused on daily responsibility they will never develop the agility and vision to anticipate larger crises and opportunities for growth. Tunnel vision does not just plague organizations, it can also affect interpersonal relationships. Friends, couples, or family can get so caught up in their own individual routines that they do not leave enough space to recognize the other. Normally, when we think about “space” in the context of relationships it is accompanied with a shudder. “I need space” is often the death knell of a relationship. But space of a different sort may be the only way to restore a relationship. In order for two people to connect they each need to make sure their separate lives are not too cluttered to allow one another to connect. Pema Chödrön, an acclaimed author on meditation, expresses the importance of space this way:

  Really communicating to the heart and being there for someone else—our child, spouse, parent, client, patient, or the homeless woman on the street—means not shutting down on ourselves. This means allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not pushing it away. It means accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we don’t like. To do this requires openness, which in Buddhism is sometimes called emptiness—not fixating or holding on to anything. Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.352

  Forgiveness requires creating space for another. In fact, the word mehilah , usually translated as forgiveness, may derive from the word halal meaning space.353 The act of forgiving is the act of creating space. When we forgive we create space for another in our lives. And when we forgive we create space in ourselves by no longer clinging to our wounds and offenses. Whether it is half or whole, the sacred ritual of forgiveness creates space in ourselves and others so we can be absolved and purified.

  13

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: RABBINIC CORRESPONDENCE ON SIN AND FAILURE

  If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

  —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  Meeting Rabbis through Letters

  Lately, it seems we are meeting rabbis in all the wrong places. Too many rabbis are introduced to the general public through prohibitive rulings, disgraceful headlines, and controversial platitudes. Much of this, of course, is due to the arcane and desultory nature of rabbinic writing, which would otherwise be the appropriate place to discover rabbinic wisdom and personalities. Even seasoned yeshiva students who are “rabbinic natives” often never confront the personalities behind the dense tomes of rabbinic writing they spend their time studying. A neglected area of rabbinic literature that can address our all-too-impersonal encounters with rabbinic writing lies within the nascent body of rabbinic correspondence now available to the public. As opposed to dense Talmudic commentary, transcendent theology, or obsequious hagiography, rabbinic correspondence highlights an otherwise unavailable aspect of rabbinic wisdom: the personal. While most other forms of rabbinic writing are intended for the larger public, thereby carrying a more detached tone, rabbinic correspondence can show the intimate and oftentimes playful side of rabbinic thought.

  The joy of studying rabbinic correspondence has not quite yet taken hold within the Jewish community, though correspondence in general has received newfound attention in the secular world. Thanks to wonderful work of Shaun Usher in his book Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience, a fabulous collection of private correspondence with figures such as Albert Einstein, E.B. White, and Elvis Presley is available to the general reading public. In the book’s introduction Usher aptly advocates for attention to correspondence. He writes, “I can think of no better way to learn about the past than through the often candid correspondence of those who lived it.”354 While this is certainly true, I believe the imperative to study rabbinic correspondence relates just as much to a better understanding of our collective Jewish future as it does to a proper understanding of our past.

  Gordon A. Craig, the eminent historian of Germany, noted in his 1991 article “The Pleasures of Reading Diplomatic Correspondence”355 that the best rebuttal to those who overlook the study of correspondence is to present them with examples of letters that “give the sensitive reader deep aesthetic and intellectual pleasure.” Rabbinic correspondence is no different. While even the most sensitive translation certainly detracts from the intricate aesthetic of rabbinic writing, reading rabbinic correspondence gives a rare pleasure unequaled in other rabbinic forums. The candor of rabbinic correspondence is particularly evident in their approach to sin and failure. When discussing sin and failure, rabbinic correspondence highlights a rare blend of theological nuance that may have been less fitting in more public writings as well as personal empathy which, without the individual correspondent only the literature of correspondence affords, is rarely seen.

  The Peculiar Place of Penance among the Pious

  Why were rabbis corresponding about sin in the first place? Concepts of penance and confession are most often associated with Catholicism. What then is the place of rabbinic correspondence on sin?

  The story of sin in rabbinic correspondence has a startling beginning—one that some have argued is not even authentically Jewish. Beginning in Germany during the twelfth and thirteenth century, a movement known as the Hasidei Ashkenaz emerged that radically changed the Jewish approach to sin and failure. The Hasidei Ashkenaz were a group of mystic pietists that advocated a strict adherence to a broadly conceived notion of God’s Will. As characterized by Haym Soloveitchik: “To recover, to lay bare this Will in its fullness, to mold their lives in its accord and to guide others through its sinuous paths was the self-appointed task of Haside’ Ashkenaz.”356

  The expanded notion of God’s Will advocated by the Hasidei Ashkenaz made for some very strange prescripts that, until the advent of the movement, are not easily found in previous rabbinic writing, if at all. The work of Rabbi Yehudah of Re
gensburg (known as Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Hasid), Sefer Hasidim, is the most enduring text of the movement and contains many peculiar dictums that are absent in rabbinic writings outside of the movement. The most notoriously unusual aspect of the Hasidei Ashkenaz was their approach to sin.

  Rabbi Eleazer of Worms, a student of Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Hasid, wrote a work called Sefer ha-Rokeah, which details the approach of the pietistic movement to sin and repentance. The work advocates for what is called teshuvat ha-mishkal, which gives detailed directions for the penances required for each major sin. Ranging from sexual immorality to dishonesty and from regret to fasting to even self-mortification, there is a wide range of both sins and recommended penances found inside of the work.

  Just as the Hasidei Ashkenaz expanded the notion of the Will of God, they ritualized and expanded the penance needed to atone for violating His Will. As Soloveitchik explains:

  R. El’azar Ha-Roke’ah was both a Tosafist and a German Pietist, and, as a Pietist, he believed, together with his teacher/colleague R. Yehudah he-Hasid, that the canonical corpus did not give full expression to the Divine will in its plentitude. R. Yehudah felt this to be so in many areas; R. El’azar felt it strongly in at least one—that of penance. 357

  Of course, the parallels between the penance among the Hasidei Ashkenaz to the concepts of penance in Catholic thought have not gone unnoticed by scholars. Scholars have long debated whether the emphasis on fasting and self-mortification found Sefer ha-Rokeah are merely a collection of disparate and elusive traditions that existed within rabbinic writing or a product of Christian influence on Jewish atonement practices. Talya Fishman, in her study on the origins of the practices of penance in Hasidei Ashkenaz,358 acknowledges that there is some precedent in Jewish thought for the type of penance they discuss but concludes that it is unlikely that the penance of the Hasidei Ashkenaz is without Christian influence. She writes:

  I am suggesting that while ancient traditions of Eretz Yisrael were indeed alive and well in Hasidut Ashkenaz, some might have been only recently resurrected. In their Sisyphean attempts to reject and deny what may well have been irresistible cultural influences, Jews of the medieval Rhineland foregrounded themes and practices which had in previous centuries played only bit roles in the historical and religious texture of Jewish life…. In the course of their overarching pursuit of the absolute, Hasidei Ashkenaz unconsciously appropriated the demanding penitential practices, which had gained new visibility in the medieval Rhineland, of their Christian neighbors.359

  The possibility of Christian influence is certainly telling. The majority of later rabbinic correspondence made a marked effort to depart from this approach to penance. Nonetheless, for centuries such behavior—influenced by Christians or not—had a major impact on the rabbinic approach to sin. In fact, of all the diversified interests in the orbit of Hasidei Ashkenaz, this area of their thought likely left the largest imprint on later rabbinic writing. As Fishman introduces in her aforementioned study:

  The greatest impact of Hasidut Ashkenaz on Jewish culture at large has arguably been in the realm of penitential theory and practice; the ascetic behaviors and acts of self-mortification documented in the writings of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Rhineland pietists left their mark not only on non-pietist Ashkenazi culture but also on the Jewish subculture of France, Provence, Spain and Safed.360

  Hundreds of years following the death of Rabbi Eleazer Ha-Rokeah, his program of penance continued to be positively invoked. Jews would write to their rabbi, describing their sins and asking for the proper penitential regimen to achieve atonement. Typical examples of this sort of correspondence can be found littered throughout rabbinic responsa. For instance, Rabbi Yaakov b. Yehudah Weil, the fifteenth-century German rabbi, was asked for the proper course of penance for someone who swore falsely. Invoking the regimen of the Rokeah, he recommends that the man, named Phoebus of Munich, should fast for forty days accompanied with a biweekly flogging and fasting (following the initial forty day fast).361 In an earlier responsum362 to an adulteress, Rabbi Weil concedes that the regimen of the Rokeah may be too intense to tell a penitent sinner all at once. Rabbi Weil refers to the program of the Rokeah as an obligation but suggests that the requirements, including rolling around in the snow and sleeping on the floor, can be delayed until a proper confession is extracted.363

  A Second Hasidic Revolution: Sensitivity towards Sinners

  The influence of the Hasidei Ashkenaz on the road to repentance did not last forever. Beginning in the eighteenth century the rabbinic approach to sinners began to soften.

  A major turning point in the rabbinic approach to sin began with a different Hasidic revolution, the Hasidim of the Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, of no relation to the Hasidei Ashkenaz. Like most any historical movement, scholars have struggled to define what made the movement of the Baal Shem Tov innovative—and in fact whether it can be considered a movement at all. Such precise historical definition, however, is not necessary for our purposes. Instead we will rely on the simple characterization of their movement by Michael Rosen, who describes the revolution of the Baal Shem Tov as a “God-intoxicated people—who felt a sense of God’s energy in everything.”364

  Hasidim of the Baal Shem Tov championed the relationship that even the common man can have with God. As such, the movement wrote a great deal about the importance of the relationship formed with God through repentance and how such a relationship is accessible to all. Repentance is given far too voluminous a treatment in Hasidic writing to give a detailed analysis of each approach but an overall outline of the central themes can still be considered.

  Each strand of Hasidut has its own personality. An old adage in the Hasidic world states that the work Noam Elimelekh by Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk is for the righteous; the works of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad branch of Hasidut, are for people who are struggling between righteousness and sin; and the works of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav are for the sinners. Some have added that the works of Izbica Hasidut are for Jews who embody each of these characteristics365 (or maybe for Jews who aren’t sure which category they belong to). Each Hasidic sect manifests its own idiosyncratic approach to sin and sinners, reflecting the distinct intuition of each sect’s founding rebbe.

  The Hasidic world of Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk was dominated by the Tzadik. Normally, the average Jew has trouble connecting to the world of piety. How are piety and righteousness, normally so inaccessible and detached from the masses, supposed to be accessible to a simple Jew? In the world of Rabbi Elimelekh, piety is made accessible to everyday folks by connecting to the Tzadik—a righteous leader. The center of the Hasidic community in this model is the Tzadik. And the Tzadik, as Rabbi Louis Jacobs describes, had two jobs: “He brings man near to God and he brings down God’s grace from heaven to earth.”366 As the channel for spirituality, the Tzadik also played a central role in dealing with sin and repentance. He advocated for those struggling with sin to visit the righteous, “for the Evil urge is powerless in the presence of the zaddikim.”367 The antidote for sin, as developed by Rabbi Elimelekh, was connecting to a Tzadik.

  Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, on the other hand, has a different emphasis. His magnum opus Tanya, of which the first section is called “The Book of the Average Men” (Sefer Shel Beynonim), is replete with thoughts for those struggling with internal conflict between attaining righteousness and thoughts of sin. His audience was not those who considered themselves righteous but rather those who found themselves somewhere in the middle. The third chapter of Tanya is known as Iggeret ha-Teshuvah, and it serves as the core presentation of his philosophy of repentance. As opposed to Rabbi Elimelekh’s emphasis on the Tzadik, Iggeret ha-Teshuvah focuses on God. Sin, he explains, can affect the very presence of God in this world, so to speak. The act of repentance returns God’s presence to this world. Hence the word teshuvah is an amalgamation of the word “shuv”, to return and the letter hei , representing God’s presence. Teshuvah returns God’s
immanence to this world. On its more base level, the focus of teshuvah is on the repentant. In the highest form of teshuvah, however, known as Teshuvah Tata’a, the focus of repentance is on God Himself.368

  An old joke told in yeshiva circles asks, “Why do we only have a special introduction to prayers on Yom Kippur that requests permission to pray with the unrighteous [le-hatir la-hitpallel im ha-avaryanim] and not on Rosh Hashanah?” Because, the joke goes, on Rosh Hashanah they are all in Uman. Aside from eliciting a chuckle from those familiar with the Bratslav custom to visit the grave of Rabbi Nahman in Uman on Rosh Hashanah, this joke does highlight the stereotype that Rabbi Nahman provided a path in Hasidut for the unrighteous. The joke, of course, is not the real basis for the change in liturgy, but the stereotype has some merit. Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav was candid about his own struggles. His biography, written by his famed student Rabbi Nathan, spends an entire chapter detailing his spiritual volatility. Likely his own personal spiritual battles informed his theological writings. Rabbi Nahman, when it came to sin and distance from God, did not dismiss the questions of the heretics—he validated them. In his complex mystical structure, Rabbi Nahman provided grounding for those who feel like the world is bereft of God’s presence. Heretics and those struggling with faithlessness were not grappling with mere illusion but they in fact had stumbled upon the divine absence that remained after God’s creation. As Magid describes, Rabbi Nahman’s approach empathized with the atheistic sense of God’s absence. Instead of dismissing those who felt abandoned by God, Rabbi Nahman “began, however, with the assumption that the heretical question must be taken seriously if it is to be overcome.”369