Arye Greenberg:
Hello, everyone. Welcome and Chodesh Tov (Happy New Month) . My name is Arye Greenberg. I'm JLIC at Brandeis Hillel and it is great pleasure for me to introduce Rav Yitz Greenberg. Rav Yitz learned in Yeshiva Bais Yosef Novardok from Avraham Yoffen, his Talmud and son in law of the Alter of Novardok. And anyone who knows the Novardok approach knows how strong they are in pursuing the truth, their ability to have deep and profound Cheshbon Nefesh and are simple but yet strong faith and Yrat Shamayim.
Arye Greenberg:
Rav Yitz's other Rabi was his father Rav Elyahu Hayim great Talmid Chacham learned from Rav Haim Mabrysk in Europe. My father who is Rav Eliyahu Hayim's grandson and Rav Yitz's nephew used to tell us stories about Aavat Torah and as the one who himself, learned most of his Torah from his father. I can tell how powerful the Torah becomes for you, Torah Hayim mamash, when you live with it, when you grow up to it.
Arye Greenberg:
Rav Yitz also has direct connection to our corner on earth, being the first full time director of Brandeis Hillel in the '50s. I think it was your first Rabbinical host if I'm not mistaken. And I can go on and on about his work in the field of Tikkun Olam, promoting dialogue and understanding between Judaism and Christianity and more and more but I'm afraid it will take the whole hour and we gathered here to learn from Rav Yitz.
Arye Greenberg:
So I'm going to hand it over to Rav Yitz without further ado, just we'll have time for question at the end. So please take notes if you want and we'll have time. So thank you so much Rav Yitz for joining us and without further ado it's yours.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Thank you very much, Arye Nachman. I am speaking to you and I greet you from Jerusalem where we're in the process of coming out of a lock down. This has lasted almost 13 months, at least for us but we're on the upswing hopefully and I hope America's starting to catch up with the COVID also.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I have a special warm feeling for Brandeis and this opportunity, as you just heard stemming from fact that Brandeis is a great university with a remarkable Jewish Studies tradition and no less it was my first job after I was married as the first full time Hillel director at Brandeis and I have had many positive and wonderful connections to Brandeis over the years, not least of them your current Hillel director Seth Winberg was a colleague and a friend and someone I admire and Arye Nachman himself as you heard. Full disclosure he's my grand nephew and he's quite remarkable person in his own right.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So I welcome this opportunity to talk to you two weeks before Passover. I want to reflect with you on the Jewish story. Not the story of jury or Jewish history, but the story the Jews have told the world. Taught the world, not just told it. In many ways one could argue that the Jews, at least pound for pound, are the most influential people of all time in terms of impact on the whole work civilization and much of that impact comes from the narrative, the story that the Jewish people told the world.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now when you ask people, "What is this story? What is the great Jewish influence on humanity?" The standard answer is God, monotheism. The first people who taught that we have an invisible universal force, presence, God who created and sustains all of existence. Sometimes this is presented as ethical monotheism in the spirit of the prophets, meaning that God who creates and sustains the world, also asks humans to do good and to live ethically. And this has had a profound impact on humanity, not only on the 14 million Jews but it is the core teaching or aspect of Christianity, which reaches 1.9 billion people and gutted in many ways from the Jewish tradition, and of Islam which as been profoundly been influenced by Judaism with a number of 1.1 billion where also God is the central figure.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Nevertheless, I want to offer an alternative if you will, an alternative narrative as to what has been the most influential Jewish story and that is of course, not that God is not important, obviously major and central even to this story. But the Torah teaches and Jewish tradition has taught that this universal creator, sustainer, God, also cares, continues in profound connection to existence and to humanity. In fact, God loves and stays close. God loves life but humanity, the most developed form of life with particular affection and strength. And therefore, this is the point, God wants the best for his creation, wants the best for humans and therefore enters into, reaches out to humanity to join in a covenant, or partnership, Brit in Hebrew, in partnership to repair the world. Modern thinkers call it Tikkun Olam but I think the tradition typically speaks of it as Meshichieut, as Messianism.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Nevertheless, in essence what Judaism's story is that if humans do their share, if they join with God, there will be a total Tikkun, a repair of the world. A so called Messianic age in which we overcome all the enemies of life. And of course this is a major part of modernity and modern thinking, to overcome poverty and hunger, to overcome oppression and war, oppression meaning all forms of discrimination and war. To overcome sickness that's part of the Jewish vision. In fact, the ultimate dream is to overcome death itself. As Isaiah says, "Death will be swallowed up in eternity." In other words the Earth will be turned into a Garden of Eden and life will flourish and most important life within, especially human life, will be treated with the full dignity it's entitled to on an everyday basis.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
This story that I've just told not only has shaped 14 million Jews, it has not only shaped the 1.9 billion Christians, and in particular within Islam the Shiite wing of that religion. It's also in a secular form, the narrative of modernity and of west. The narrative that 2.3 billion people roughly are currently living and which is spreading particularly in the east and now in Africa. So you're talking about a story that is shaping and reshaping the bulk of humanity.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now this part of the narrative that I'm speaking about of Tikkun Olam, starts with creation, as the Torah does, as the Jewish tradition does. Doesn't start with the first Jew, doesn't start with the first Jewish people, it starts with the first moment of existence. And the story of creation basically says that this world is not a product of random forces. It is not the outcome of a blind physical process, although it could be seen and interpreted that way. It is shaped, it is like a work of art, shaped by this universal force, invisible but universally present and this creation has been shaped and if you look carefully and study it you will see A, it has rhythms of development built into it. B, you will see that it has goals and outcomes or at least there are goals and outcomes that were intended by the creator.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
If you look at the Torah's account, not so much really the count of literally how the Earth developed but is a kind of a God's vision of how the world should look. In fact, "improving God's creation" will look when we finish improving God's creation.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And if you look at the story of creation told in the Torah, you'll see there are three fundamental rhythms built into the tradition, according to the tradition built into the very element of existence and of life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
One of these three rhythms, well in the Torah biblical language, the world is moving from chaos to order. In the biblical language, the world starts with tohu wa-bohu, a kind of void, a total void and a total chaotic situation and over the course of the seven days of creation it moves to order, to Shabbat which is the seventh day which is the day of perfect order, of harmony where all is in proper place, where life is overflowing. Where there is no conflict and no disorder, no chaos and no war, no conflict.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Of course if I were talking or making this in the language of our time, in the language of physics, say, we would it's a world that starts with a big bang, total chaos so violent that nothing can exist, no matter no bodies can exist and then it cycles through extended long periods of radiation era and then once the radiation subsides, matter coalesces, congeals and then that matter clusters in what becomes galaxies and those galaxies develop into stars and those stars spin off planets and beginning of life as it is on our planet.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So even though most humans think of the world and of the day as moving from order to chaos, that's because of your human limitations. You live inside your own body. "If you could see the world from God's perspective," says the Torah, "it's a world that's moving from chaos to order and you are asked to notice this order and come back to it and join in on the side of order which sustains life."
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
What's the second great rhythm of the creation? The world is moving from non-life to life. Again, if you look at the Torah, day one there's no life. Day two, day three there is vegetation but that's a very limited form of life. Day four there's still no life. It's days five and six, the very end of creation that we get the proliferation of life, the development of fish and then birds and then animals and finally the human being, the kind of the climax of this life evolution and development.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So the world we now know, looking in the language of biology, from 13 or 14 billion years of its existence, at least of our planet and our little piece of the galaxy, for 13, 14 billion years there was no life and then the one celled forms of life emerged and since that time in the past billion years, there's been an amazing proliferation of life. So here again you have to over come the human self centered, short sighted view of existence which sees us moving from life to death, I'm born I start to die. No, if you look at it from the divine perspective, this is the universe which is actually moved from an extended period of non-life toward a period of greater and greater life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And thirdly, the third rhythm of creation, it's a universe that is moving, not just quantitatively toward life but qualitatively. Life has become from the very first one cell to now, more and more capable, more and more developed and of course the climax of that development, the homosapiens, that is to say in the language of the Bible, the human being who is an image of God.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Another way of rephrasing that third rhythm in biblical language would be that life is moving from being less like God to being more and more like God to the point where the human is so Godlike, so amazing, has such capacity as to be compared to him. No it's a shadow, it's an image it's not the real thing, but it is profoundly Godlike in its capacity and this is the point. These three rhythms from chaos to order, from non-life to life and from life that is capable of understanding the purpose of existence, understanding the God who is hidden, understanding the development and the direction of the world and therefore says the Torah, "God reaches out," this is a Jewish story, "God reaches out to humans because they have the capacity to understand the pattern and where it should go and where it's meant to go and together to repair the world."
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So humans are asked in behavior, personal behavior, in societal policy and in every aspect of their work, very simply, to live on the side of the constructive life giving rhythms. On the side of order that sustains life as against chaos that disrupts it. On the side of quantity of life, increasing life versus non life and versus death which is ever present and must be struggled with and reversed. And of course for quality of life, for upgrading the quality of life rather than degrading or reducing or diminishing the quality of life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So I'll leave this section by saying all commandments, all instructions of Jewish religion and my judgment are intended to guide humans to act on the side of order for life, on the side of life as against death and for quality of life and I'll come back to that in a few moments.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
This is the narrative the Jewish people taught the world but the narrative has another very important dimension and that is about life itself being central and the most significant aspect of creation and that which we are supposed to treasure, support and increase.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I start with the fact Jewish tradition teaches that God is Elohim Chayim, a living God who loves life, in fact, loves all of creation. Tov Hashem lakol says the psalms Ashrei which is actually three times a day by traditional Jews, God is good to all because of God's compassion, mercy, love is of all God's creatures.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So this importance of life, this love of life is to be expressed in our behaviors, in our values and in the way we treat everything around us. Now again, it's not that that which non life is of no value. There is a fundamental law in Jewish tradition about inorganic, just plain matter, because it's created it should be treated as something of value don't waste it, Bal tashchit, don't waste it. Because to waste it is to say it has no value, no meaning, it has no weight. The answer is it should be taken seriously. It's remarkable in its own qualities.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
But then as life develops, the responsibility and the recognition of the uniqueness and power of life has to guide our behavior. Thus, for example living things, there's a much higher level of responsibility there. It's the law of ba'alei chayim. You're not allowed to cause needles suffering to animals of any sort. It's of course the logic of vegetarianism which I'll come back to very shortly but the Garden of Eden is a vegetarian society according to the first chapter of the Bible and according to the prophets in Messianic days we'll return to vegetarianism because the ideal of the world is to be for life and not for humans to live and continue to live by killing or by using the life of other creatures.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now of course, that's a nice ideal statement but in the present real world that's impossible. First of all, humans need the protein and secondly the have lived by and developed and evolved thanks to their hunting skills. So the Torah comes back and says, well the ideal is vegetarian but we permit meat at this moment. No I say the ideal's vegetarian, even with the laws of kosher, all vegetables, all minerals are kosher. They can be eaten and they can be prepared and they're totally available.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Restrictions on eating kick in only if you want to eat living things and kill organic organisms. So how do we express that? With restrictions. This is something so precious that if you do use it you have to accept restrictions that remind you and that goad you to going toward that ideal where you'll stop this process.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So for example, the first restriction, the first Kosher law you might say, applies to all humanity according to the Torah, not just to Jewish people. If you kill and animal for its meat, you cannot eat the blood and this is an obligation and restriction on all human beings. Why? Because blood is the carrier of life and therefore at the least acknowledge that you don't own this life, that by right humans shouldn't be taking this life and you acknowledge that by saying, okay I need the meat, I eat it, but I put aside the blood as something to exemplify that the life of the animal's beyond my control, beyond my ownership.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now kosher or Kashrut says that the Jewish people is prepared to live by a higher standard right now. We're all on the road to the ultimate standard where there will be no killing of animals but how do we get there? The Jewish tradition says in this covenant, one step at a time and the Jewish people agrees to live at a higher state of restriction until we get there. What's the highest state of restriction, again it's a question of showing reverence for life even as you take it. So the higher the life in kosher, the more restrictions there are. This seems to be a ritual but it's really a statement about life and life's value.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
For example, the lowest form of life that you're allowed to eat in Jewish tradition is fish. So immediately we have a restriction, it's one restriction, it's species. Only a very limited, it is a very limited number of species that have fins and scales can be eaten. And if you intend to move up the scale of life and eat higher forms of life there are more restrictions.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So for example the next level up is birds, and birds, well birds are a higher form so you have more restrictions. Now again, what are the kosher birds? Well unlike fish we don't have a specific set of signs although we do have one general observation you will be struck that. Predatory birds, if you have a bird with a striking talon it's a sign that it lives by predation, it's not kosher. The birds that we do eat however, in addition to species restriction there is slaughter, Shechita, killing restrictions. Shechita is designed to kill the bird with one stroke, swift stroke that cuts off the blood supply to the brain so it dies a swift and painless death.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And if you would want to push your eating to a higher level of life, namely animals, there's a third restriction. First of all there are species again. You can't eat very limited number of species and then sadly the species that are allowed to be eaten are herbivore. They're vegetarians themselves. I guess the Torah's saying you are what you eat, you shouldn't be eating predatory animals because you shouldn't be a predator. But be that as it may you can eat only a very limited number of species and furthermore you can restrict it as to how you kill them again, must be Shechita which is a swift and painless death.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And last but not least there's a third restriction because there's a higher form. The third restriction is how do you prepare the food and the answer is milk and meat cannot be cooked together, cannot be mixed together. Sorry about that McDonald's cheese burger. Why is that so? Again, it's very obvious, because meat is a sign of a dead killed animal. Milk, mother's milk which is what the Torah uses in referring to this law is a sign of nurturing life. Nurturing life and killing life are in contradiction and you should acknowledge that even as you compromise and eat meat.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now the higher form of life at all is of course the human, the human that is so developed that according to the Torah, humans are called the image of God, tzelem elohim. And here the Talmud Rabbis conclude therefore dignity is so high that they are born with three intrinsic dignities.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Those three intrinsic dignities are infinite value, the image of God is to be seen as of infinite value, meaning it's worth more than any amount of money you can imagine. I tell people you may think this is an exaggeration but if you sat for a moment, there are images of man that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars. The highest price piece of art sold and whose value was printed si of course Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci which was sold for 450 million dollars. Well if a da Vinci is worth 450 million dollars and if you've seen a Picasso sold for 150 million, if a Picasso is worth 150 million, and keep in mind that he can't even paint straight and both eyes on one side of the face, be that as it may, what's an image painted by God worth, created by God worth? And the Jewish answer is infinitely more.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now this is not just a cute comment and even an ideal statement. What happens with the da Vinci after they but if for 450 million dollars? The answer is they build a gallery with a special room for it. That's going on right now in Dubai, and in that room it must be perfectly air controlled. Not too hot, that could affect the colors, not too cold, that could crack the canvass or hurt, damage the frame, not too wet because that erodes the painting itself, not to dry because that can inflict. In short, perfect shelter for something precious.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now if you compare that, on the next winter night go downtown Boston or any major city in the world and see in the snow and sleep the homeless man lying on the street and the cars drive by and they splash slush on them. What do we see? What we see is very obvious. We live in a world where human beings are not treated like the image of God and of infinite value and that is the measure of the Tikkun, of the world correction that Judaism says humanity is called to correct.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And one can put this across the board in terms of what's the value of life. How about medical insurance? If people don't have it they postpone going to the doctor, they get sicker and they die. So there should never be a person who doesn't have medical insurance or who doesn't have food because of lack of money or who doesn't have education as we have much of the third world where children go to work and kin because the human life should be treated as infinitely valuable. That's the major Tikkun that's needed right now and that we are called to do as human beings.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And the second value of every human life in the image of God is that it's equal. There is no preferred image of God. God is not white, nor is God black or yellow in color of skin. God is neither male nor female. That will come as a shock to a lot of religions, including our own which has used male language about God. In short to the claim that a particular person is distinctly a superior image of God is another way of idolatry, of claiming that some human forged picture, statue, law, practice values one life more than the other. In fact, it's equal and that's what it means to be an image of God and Torah tells us Adam and Eve, the ancestors of all humanity, no matter life, color, religion, race sexual orientation, human status, none of these takes away or modifies the fundamental truth of being in the image of God.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
The last dignity of every human in the image of God is uniqueness. Images of man can be duplicated. You can duplicate a dollar bill, you can duplicate an airplane stamp. If by the way by accident the air plane is flying upside down that is known in Filatelia as the Flying Jenny. There was a group of airmail stamps in the 1920s that were printed upside down so each stamp is worth several million dollar, but that's because of the fluke. But in truth, human creations can be duplicated exactly. Human beings cannot be. The image of God, each one is unique even though they come from one original mold and source.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So the point is to create a world in which this is not just a theory but an actual practice. How do you create a world which listens to the uniqueness of each person, which treasures the diversity? Because this one is colored and this one is not, because this one is of this gender, this one of a different gender and transgender, doesn't matter. How do you get a world that tunes into the uniqueness of each individual, that rejects stereotypes because they lump a whole people together instead of dealing. That is the challenge of Tikkun Olam. That's the work of Tikkun Olam.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And Judaism teaches therefore that the work of overcoming poverty, yes business, transportation, communication, this is part of Tikkun Olam done properly. It has to be done on the side of life and toward equality and dignity of people. The work of overcoming war which wipes out unique, equal, infinitely precious people, that is again, these are the challenges of Tikkun Olam. The prophets predict they will beat their swords into plowshares and some that they will not learn war anymore. That's the task and the calling of humanity. To overcome sickness, again it's part of the prophetic vision of messianic life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
That's our second story, that the human beings have to come together and it's a covenantal approach, meaning you start in the real world, you even make compromises with the real world because covenant says you can't coerce, you can't go to violence and force your way. Even your opponents, those who are not for equality, those who are not for human dignity should be treated with dignity and they cannot be coerced. You'll persuade them, you'll negotiate with them and that's why this way typically does involve compromises in one step and a time. But if you do one step at a time, generation after generation, century after century, millennium after millennium, that's the Jewish commitment of teaching to the world, then eventually the world some day will be repaired and we will live in a messianic time.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now, I finish with one more dimension. What do you do in the meantime other than working as a collective to overcome poverty or overcome war or overcome sickness? The answer is in your own individual lives, this is the other claim of Jewish tradition and this is what is encapsulated in Halacha so called in the Jewish tradition, every moment of your life you have to make decisions and behaviors. What it claims is, again, each moment of your life should reflect these fundamental values, that the person you're dealing with is an image of God as your equal, is of value, is unique and should be spoken to, should be treated that way. Each moment of your life you should look at yourself as from the same spirit and say the next act I do should be in accord with the rhythms of creation that will bring the final repair. In other words, on the side of order and the side of quality and quantity of life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
In the next moment, eating. I've given you the example already. The next moment I eat. If I don't eat I will die so to eat is a choice of life but when I choose eating, do I choose to maximize life and minimize death? I mentioned before, that's vegetarianism or veganism, but if I don't, if I chose meat, how can I maximize life and minimize death. So again, I gave you the examples of Kashrut. But doesn't stop with that. How about if this is an over fished species, you don't eat. How about if the laborers and the workers in the field are not protected, if they are harmed by the various sprays that are used? Then that makes the food terefah, it makes the food subject of death so you're not showing maximum reverence for life. How about local, so you don't have to fly it in from around the world causing carbon footprint and pollution of the Earth?
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
In short, the next act of eating well chosen. Is it healthy food or is it saturated with sugar and salt and fat? As I tell people, is your next bite a piece of celery that's so healthy or is it some Haagen-Daz or Ben and Jerry ice cream which will shoot your veins full of cholesterol and fat and sugar? You have to think twice, otherwise you're choosing death. Although let me confess, I've chosen death more that once, but you get the main thrust.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
To next moment of eating is not just moment of eating, how about the next moment of speaking? Will the next word I say be a word of possibility, of encouragement, of respect for the other person or will it be a word that degrades them? And this is an extremely important because the words, the relationships that we make are fundamental statements to how we behave, whether the other person an image of God or not. Will the next word I say to them be a word of stereotype and degradation or of discrimination, hostility, hatred or will the next word be a word of respect, encouragement? Will be a chance that they can do it, encouraging, helping them to reach a higher level of self-development and self-fulfillment.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I'll give you the classic example here, the so-called Lashon Hara. Even telling the truth about somebody, telling the truth is one of the ways we show respect for the dignity and equality of your other but if you tell a negative truth, a bad piece of information about somebody to somebody else who has no need to know, if I know this person's a swindler and he's about to enter a business deal it's a mitzvot to tell the future partner, "Look out. This person has been a swindler. You want to protect yourself." That's a mitzvot. But if I tell it to a third party who has no need to know, has no connection to this person, this truth, he is a swindler, becomes a lie. It's a denial and degrading of this person's image of God. Telling him you think he's a good person, he's not.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So this commandment to speak and respect life can turn a truth into a lie and a sin and of course therefore every word should be chosen accordingly. And I could go through every aspect of life. The work you do, will it repair the universe or will be a pice of schlock that will be thrown away and just pollute? Will the production process itself cause global warming or will it upgrade and filtered and controlled and respected so at the same time that it creates better quality of life for people, it does not disrupt the environment. These are the tests-
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I'll close with a quote from the Torah as understood by Maimonides. So the Jewish narrative has tried to get us to think of the future process whereby the world can be repaired and turned into a Garden of Eden. And to think of the present moment as the moment when we can choose life, by choosing life maximize life and the dignity of life on this planet right now. Moses, at the end of the Torah Deuteronomy summarizes what has he been teaching through all these laws and all these stories and all these traditions. And he says, Deuteronomy Chapter 29 "Behold, I place before you today at the Et Hahayim Ve Et Hatov of life and good Et HaMavet ve Et Hara death and evil." And two verses later he adds, "I put before you the blessing and the curse."
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And in fact, says Maimonides, "Notice how Moses twins them. Life and good are twined, death and evil are twinned." The Torah says, "Choose life." Says Maimonides, "In every act of mitzvot or goodness is in some way a choice of life. Every act of evil, sin, hurt, harm, is in someway a choice of death or quality of death for somebody else. And therefore the commandment is to choose life."
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now we're living in a century in a millennium where they've been major breakthroughs toward trying to see infinite value in every human being no matter the color. For infinite equality of all human beings no matter the race or the gender in a period where the uniqueness of humans has been pushed for. We also have live in period of great catastrophic revenge and destruction in the name of revolution.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So the unfinished task of humanity, says the Torah, says the Jewish tradition, is to rally the forces of life and to work on their side. It's to understand that perfecting the world one step at a time avoids the excesses of coercion and total control that have marred revolutionary movements and turned them into Stalinism or Maoism or Khmer Rouge.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
That's the unfinished task and I would say the unfinished task of the Jewish people which is to continue, A to model and to try to exemplify as a community such behavior and to continue to teach the world, this is where it has to go. Of course, I don't mean to sound like it's just us but I mean to say that we among others can be teachers and role models and not least coworkers in the process of Tikkun Olam. That's the unfinished agenda of the Jewish religion.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Thank you. That's my pitch and I'll be welcome your responses and comments and demerols however they may be.
Arye Greenberg:
Thank you so much. I think there are a couple of questions in the chat.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Please. So please read them. I'm technology disabled. I'll be happy to get your read the questions.
Arye Greenberg:
So Steve is asking, "Can you elaborate or reconcile how the Torah which is Earth based with the potential of life on other planets, with the potential of life on other planets in the galaxy that will have their own history and biology? Everything that happens in the Torah happened on Earth, especially in light of the Perseverance which is looking for life on Mars for the next three years. So if life or evidence of life was found on Mars or in a galaxy far, fay away how would the Torah apply to those civilizations which might be older than ours?"
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I love the question, you got the point. And the truth is that we should expect life. Given the infinity of stars and the planets and given this remarkable gift of life and love or life which God has shown, one should assume as I do that it's not just on Earth. They will find other planets and other opportunities throughout the galaxy. Yes and the far, far away galaxies too. So the answer is, I'm not saying it may be the same Torah. It may well be a Torah that reflects... After all our Torah tells the story of Jewish people and of other people on this planet and their actual history. That's part of the uniqueness. So it could well be the same general truth about life and about God will be true but there may be very different characters and very different behavior patterns.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
It reminds me, I once sort of speculated, this was the early days of Star Wars, but yeah by the logic of what I just said and your question, there should be Jews in every foreign galaxy or the equivalent of Jews, what the Jews are. If we're all partners, where Jews are lead partners or active partners or managing partners, teachers so there should be in every galaxy such people.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So I was speculating well who are the Jews or who is a Jew in Star Wars? And of course I thought about it for quite a while and then I realized I could figure it out. The answer is you have to compare Jewish heroes with Christian heroes. If you look at the history, Judaism stresses Christianity very much the same message, except that Christianity out of conviction had such a hard job to repair the world that the lead character, the lead hero has to be perfect, in fact has to be God himself in order to get this job done. So the Christian heroes are generally perfect and spotless and if you look at the King Arthur stories, Lancelot who's the greatest warrior of his time, can't find the Holy Grail because he has not only killed people, he's had an affair with the queen which disqualifies him. So only Galahad the pure son can be the one who finds the Holy Grail.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
But the Jewish tradition says, no the reality is we're only human. We're not saying the Jews are perfect either. They're a role model but a role model of human beings with flaws. I mean the greatest Jews, Kind David committed adultery with the greatest of our mothers, Sarah. She loved Abraham and she loved life so much she told him to take Hagar as his second wife because she couldn't give birth. But after he took her and she became pregnant, Sarah became understandably jealous, angry and she abused him. So we're human. That's the Torah's answer. In fact, that's the point, if we can become those of a better world, anybody can.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So my answer looking around Star Wars saying, well who's the hero? Not Luke Skywalker, he's perfect so he's not the Jewish hero. Then of course I realized immediately it's Han Solo. Han Solo, he's a flawed hero and he's clearly Jewish. Once I realized that was the key I did research and I discovered he was Jewish. His name was Hananya Soloveichik he was just trying to pass in this culture as many Jews sometimes try to pass.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So my answer is in general, I'm not sure who the current Jew in Star Wars is but whatever galaxy they will be, there hopefully will be. It's part of the pluralism and uniqueness of humanity. There'll be a group or groups that manage, that teach, that pioneer, that push a little harder for these goals and for communicating the connection between God and humanity.
Arye Greenberg:
Diane is asking, "Your narrative seems to disagree with the orthodox view of women not being counted or treated equally. Can you explain?"
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Yeah well of course that's a fair question and it's a real challenge to Orthodox Jews. I am one myself. So I'll put it this way, I've tried to hint it all along in terms of the issues involved. Judaism intents to reach the messianic age in which all human beings are in the image of God, meaning infinitely valuable, equal and unique. And make it very clear the Torah says so unequivocally, it says [Hebrew] God created the human being in God's image. In the image of God, God created him. Zachar veNekeva Baram, Man and woman, God created them. So there's no question that in principle in the Garden of Eden, men and women are fully equal.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
But the Torah was given in the real word. Like it ended up permitting meat because of the realities, the truth is when the Torah was given in the 12th century or whatever century that particular was, women were bought and sold so the Torah does not overnight make them equal. What it does is start a process of redemption and perfection. Again, it's almost awkward to say it but it's right there in the Torah in the Exodus Chapter 21, right after the 10 Commandments and the Sinai Revelation. The Torah says, up to now, doesn't say what about this first sentence, up to now women were bought and sold commercially. From now on you can't do that. Only a father can sell his daughter. So that's the end of commercial trafficking in women. A father can sell his daughter, well only to somebody who will marry her and if he does not marry her she goes free and finally, when he does marry her he must treat her like an equal free women, that is to say like a free woman, not somebody that he bought.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Again, it's far from equal image of God, but it's the first step and I believe that the first step is follow by the second step until the day will come when they will be equal.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And what's my proof text? Hosea, the prophet Hosea when he is addressed and when he tells the story that God will take his people and renew the covenant with them, renew the brit of the Torah with them, redeemed world and of course the Jewish again are the first example of what the whole world will be like. Just as passover about to celebrate. This is the first example of slaves being taken to freedom but the big teaching of the Torah is that every human being will be taken from slavery to freedom. So Hosea says when that final renewal of the brit will take place, on that day the woman will say Tikri li Ishi ve lo baali. The woman will speak to her husband. The Jewish people will speak to God as the symbol of the wife speaking to the husband and say you are my man, not my ba'al, not my husband, meaning my owner. So the prophet understands that the day will come when women will be fully equal to men. It's not real at that time.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I have to think we're living in a very remarkable time because there's been major progress into bringing women into full equality, full dignity and I have to credit the Liberal Denomination started it. But even in Orthodoxy for the first time it its history we have woman Rabbis, we have woman scholars, we have woman leadership and I believe that this is an important step towards the messianic realization of full equality or full dignity.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now again, there are Orthodox people say nothing can change. Orthodox establishment as said that the woman Rabbis are not valid but my answer is I think they may be mistaken. The Orthodoxy represents not that there is no change, as I've described all along. The covenant goes through history, it changes and it develops and in part in times of the culture around it. None of us saw the full potential of women in terms of learning until this century. And Rabbi Soloveichik the first Orthodox Rabbi to teach women Talmud in America. He has an essay where he says point blank, women are existentially equal. They are images of God. They can be leaders and carry the flag for God like men. Now he didn't come to grips with... He left that for me and you to come to grips with the fact that doesn't that imply therefore that women should become Rabbis or should become counted in the many and I think it's coming. It's not there now but there have been significant steps.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
I would say more but you really should invite my wife to speak to the group. She's been a pioneer in Orthodox feminism and I think she has really made remarkable steps in [Hebrew]. Which reminds me of a joke I'll allow myself to tell.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
In 1982 there was an issue on Rabbinate in the leading magazine Judaism. And she was invited to write an article and she wrote, can Orthodox women be Rabbis? She did analysis of Rabbanut and if you look at him, she said there's no intrinsic Halachic obstacle. Anything a Rabbi can do, a woman can do. Rabbis also happen to read the Torah or lead the service and right now women aren't allowed to do that. So she said but that's a social obstacle. And of course in time there are women who do these roles and so on. She said, but if you ask me in principle is it obstacle, the answer is no.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
She writes this article and she lets me read it first before she published it and I love the article and the last paragraph is really exciting. She says "Since I'm convinced there's no obstacle in principle, I believe that in my lifetime we will have women Rabbis." Which frankly, in 1982 sounded really off the wall. And I get to this last part, I'm so excited. Her study's upstairs, I go running up the stairs, I run into her room and I hug her and I say, "My God this is an amazing article. I love it. And do you realize what you have just predicted?" She says, "What?" "When you said Orthodox women Rabbis in my lifetime, we're going to live forever." I was totally wrong. I'm not going to live forever but yes, there are women Rabbis in my lifetime.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now again, a long way to go. I don't want to sound complacent. There's still a lot of resistance but I believe it will come. Take some more questions.
Arye Greenberg:
Brandon asks "How do you reconcile the punishment in the Torah for breaking Shabbas with Jewish respectful life?" And I want to add into that question, what about the three yehareg ve'al ya'avor (be killed but do not transgress) it seems that some things are greater than life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Well these are two very different questions. So again, the answer is I believe again the covenant operates in the context of the culture around it. In the culture around Judaism in the 12 century or in the 10 century there's a lot of death penalties and the Torah builds off that and proves the treatment to restrict death penalty.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
There's still a lot of death penalties, including the violation of Shabbat, however if you look at Rabbinic tradition, the next major development within Jewish tradition, the Rabbinic tradition basically came to the same conclusion I did, that the covenantal way of improving step by step should be applied to death penalty because in the long run, if you put people to death officially, I'm not talking murder, I'm talking about the legal authorities, maybe the person deserved it but by putting to death you're weakening the respect, the reverence that all life should get, even the murderer.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
And so the Rabbis made death penalties so difficult to actually reach that the famous Talmudic passage that they ended up eventually all death penalties had to go to the Sanhedrin, the supreme court and then the supreme court had to approve. The Talmud said if once in seven years, and another Rabbi says no, no, once in 70 years, someone actually was condemned to death and executed, this became known as the Bloody Sanhedrin.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So the Rabbis defacto in a sense said that in the early stages maybe death penalty did achieve the goal which is to show respect for life. If you kill life, if you wasted life, if you did things that would totally break the system you could get the death penalty. But by the Rabbinic time already we felt we could communicate the respect for life more by not putting people to death.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now that brings me to your second question, how come there are three commandments that you're supposed to die rather than give in on? But if you look at those three commandments, first of all, I'll remind you 610 of the 613 are overridden because of respect for life. And Maimonides, he said "Anybody who hesitates to do all the work on Shabbat, all the work necessarily to help a sick person, not just somebody who's definitely in danger, even if there's a possibility of danger, if you don't do that freely and quickly and immediately, he denounces them as false believers. He denounces them as people who turn the Torah's laws into laws of hatred and vengeance for life whether there's meant to be words to live by to respect life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Now why the three exceptions? Very clear it seems to me. The first exception is murder. You can't murder somebody else. Murder I'm talking about, not self defense, murder, in order to protect your life. Because why? Because give your martyrdom. If you allow yourself to be martyred rather than kill an innocent person one person dies, just as if you killed an innocent person to save your life one person dies. But the difference is, had you killed that person's death would have weakened respect for life. He would say to save your own skin you're willing to kill and innocent person. By martyring yourself, you're upholding the value of life because people are saying that's it. Life is so valuable that you make the ultimate sacrifice to uphold it.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
The second such commandment of course is idolatry and here I feel strongly about. My whole thesis is really built on this. Because the Rabbis felt, what's idolatry? It's something human manufactured, not just an idol. How about Nazism, how about Stalinism where you take a human philosophy and you make it absolute and on that basis you condemn and put to death or you keep alive. In short, if you take something human and absolutize it as idolatry, it becomes a source of death. It's no accident that Totalitarian movement like the Nazis that ended up trying to wipe out Jewish people create a whole kingdom of death, the death camps. It's no accident that Maoism killed 30, 40 million peasants in the name of making equality and human dignity possible. So Rabbis felt you have to martyr yourself to fight and not accept idolatry because if idolatry wins, all of life will be cheapened and wiped out.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
The third example of course is sexual violation, Gilui Arayot. So again, I wouldn't say this for all but let me take the easy example of incest or rape or child pedophile abuse. It's like murder the Rabbis felt. It's kind of a murder of the soul and therefore again it's worth dying to prevent this cheapening of life.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So again it seems to me the three exceptions only prove my principle that the highest value in Judaism is to increase reverence, respect and love, proper treatment on the Earth.
Arye Greenberg:
Thank you. Rafi Rubenstein mentioned your dialogue with Dalai Lama in context of Tikkun Olam and is wondering if you have had continued dialogue with the Dalai Lama regarding how they can continue working towards gaining their homeland while still working to repair the world?
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
The dialogue with the Dalai Lama, yes but it was a very important and moving experience for us. And the truth, I have to admit I had known little or nothing. I had some knowledge of Buddhism. I had little to no knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism before we came there. The old joke which ever since I've done kind of a reprise of the famous joke is what's the nearest living religion to Judaism and the answer is Chabad. Well it's a joke of course but in the same way I used to tell people now that I've been in Tibet I take it back. The nearest living religion to Orthodox Judaism is Tibetan Buddhism.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Why do I say that? In Tibetan Buddhism we discovered the monks who are the leaded, they study classic texts. It's really Rabbinic texts only they don't call it Rabbinic, it's their texts and they study in the Beth Midrash and they study it by arguing with each other and trying to disprove the other side and they write commentaries on the text and super commentaries. It's very much like Yeshiva tradition. So that was an important experience to learn.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
More important we identified with their suffering and their struggle because I really felt it's like Herzl. 100 years ago when he started the great power was against him. To try to convince the powers of the world to stand up for them and I'm quite heartbroken I have to say because the world has not upheld the Tibetans. It has basically given into Chinese money and economic power as it's now doing with the Uighurs which is also a Muslim group that the Chinese are horrifyingly persecuting, cultural genocide, maybe actual genocide.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So the answer is we did stay in touch. In fact, we did our best rethought to strengthen them. The big question that the Dalai Lama had that he asked us to come and visit with him was the Jewish people manage to survive 2000 years of exile and powerlessness and that's what happened to him. He was forced to flee Tibet and he saw that he's not going to get back in his lifetime. How do you survive those 2000 years? So we tried all kinds of explanations based on Jewish experience.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
My wife who I think made the best presentation, at lest the most useful said it was the family and home. They have almost nothing in the family and home and so it was a very eye opening thing. Of course sadly the Dalai Lama himself was raised to be taken away from his family at the age of five and raised in a monastery without parents so they never occurred to them that family can be a major source of religious strength and cultural strength.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
They were so inspired by this that actually they said the Dalai Lama's going to come and visit us in America and will have a Shabbos with us so he can sort of learn what Shabbos is and bring it to his people. Actually it turned out at last minute he couldn't come. He sent Robert Thurman who was his American representative, the father of Uma Thurman but he took notes on Shabbat. Again I don't know how far they got with it but that was one example we tried to teach him at day schools and about intensive camping and in fact, they sent a group of educators and we brought them to my wife, brought them to a series of camps around the Americas so they could learn how to use camps.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So we have kept a limited dialogue and try to be helpful to them but again I I have to admit for the most part, it's a failure in that the political powers and the powers that be have given into Chinese abuse because of the Chinese power. And so it's something I feel is a great regret every day. I sort of feel it's like Zionism in the early days had to fight indifference and failure to come through. Somehow they managed and I pray every day that they will hang in there but it's a tough situation.
Arye Greenberg:
Thank you. I think we have time to take one more questions if anybody wants. Okay. Well.
Judy:
Thank you.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
Let me make one comment about the Uighurs too because again the Jewish people, you know there's international movement trying to help them. There are Muslims in the Xinjiang province in China and they are being culturally uprooted in genocide. They have a million of them in detention camps and Jews around the world have taken the lead for the right reason. They say we were slaves and we will never forget what it was like to be in Egypt and that's what Passover coming up is about. So I'd like to call your attention. There are ways in which you can lend your voice to help the Uighurs and this would be a very important enrichment of your passover celebration.
Rav Yitz Greenberg:
So I'll leave it at that and I wish you all happy and kosher and constructive Passover.