Man Is a Tree of the Field: Of Trees and Men

August 13th, 2014

“Man is a tree of the field,”[1] and the Jewish calendar reserves one day each year—the “New Year for Trees” on the 15th of Shevat[2]—for us to contemplate our affinity with our botanical analogue and what it can teach us about our own lives.

The tree’s primary components are: the roots, which anchor it to the ground and supply it with water and other nutrients; the trunk, branches and leaves that comprise its body; and the fruit, which contain the seeds through which the tree reproduces itself.

The spiritual life of man also includes roots, a body, and fruit. The roots represent faith, our source of nurture and perseverance. The trunk, branches and leaves are the “body” of our spiritual lives—our intellectual, emotional and practical achievements. The fruit is our power of spiritual procreation—the power to influence others, to plant a seed in a fellow human being and see it sprout, grow and bear fruit.

Roots

The roots are the least “glamorous” of the tree’s parts—and the most crucial. Buried underground, virtually invisible, they possess neither the majesty of the tree’s body, the colorfulness of its leaves nor the tastiness of its fruit. But without roots, the tree cannot survive.

Furthermore, the roots must keep pace with the body: if the trunk and leaves grow and spread without a proportional increase in its roots, the tree will collapse under its own weight. On the other hand, a profusion of roots makes for a healthier, stronger tree, even if it has a meager trunk and few branches, leaves and fruit. And if the roots are sound, the tree will rejuvenate itself if its body is damaged or its branched lopped off.

Faith is the least glamorous of our spiritual faculties. Characterized by a “simple” conviction and commitment to one’s Source, it lacks the sophistication of the intellect, the vivid color of the emotions, or the sense of satisfaction that comes from deed. And faith is buried underground, its true extent concealed from others and even from ourselves.

Yet our faith, our supra-rational commitment to G-d, is the foundation of our entire “tree.” From it stems the trunk of our understanding, from which branch out our feelings, motivations and deeds. And while the body of the tree also provides some spiritual nurture (via its “leaves”), the bulk of our spiritual sustenance derives from its roots, from our faith in and commitment to our Creator.

A soul might grow a majestic trunk, numerous and wide-spreading branches, beautiful leaves and lush fruit. But these must be equaled, indeed surpassed, by its “roots.” Above the surface, we might behold much wisdom, profundity of feeling, abundant experience, copious achievement and many disciples; but if these are not grounded and vitalized by an even greater depth of faith and commitment, it is a tree without foundation, a tree doomed to collapse under its own weight.

On the other hand, a life might be blessed with only sparse knowledge, meager feeling and experience, scant achievement and little “fruit.” But if its “roots” are extensive and deep, it is a healthy tree: a tree fully in possession of what it does have; a tree with the capacity to recover from the setbacks of life; a tree with the potential to eventually grow and develop into a loftier, more beautiful and fruitful tree.

Fruit

The tree desires to reproduce, to spread its seeds far and wide so that they take root in diverse and distant places. But the tree’s reach is limited to the extent of its own branches. It must therefore seek out other, more mobile “couriers” to transport its seeds.

So the tree produces fruit, in which its seeds are enveloped by tasty, colorful, sweet-smelling fibers and juices. The seeds themselves would not rouse the interest of animals and men; but with their attractive packaging, they have no shortage of customers who, after consuming the external fruit, deposit the seeds in those diverse and distant places where the tree wants to plant its seeds.

When we communicate to others, we employ many devices to make our message attractive. We buttress it with intellectual sophistication, steep it in emotional sauce, dress it in colorful words and images. But we should bear in mind that this is only the packaging, the “fruit” that contains the seed. The seed itself is essentially tasteless—the only way that we can truly impact others is by conveying our own simple faith in what we are telling them, our own simple commitment to what we are espousing.

If the seed is there, our message will take root in their minds and hearts, and our own vision will be grafted into theirs. But if there is no seed, there will be no progeny to our effort, however tasty our fruit might be.)[3]

_________________________

 

Based on a letter by the Rebbe dated Shevat 21, 5704 (February 15, 1944)

Tags: trees, roots, fruit, communication
Posted in Tu B'Shvat, Weekly Parsha, Shmot, Va'eira, Soul & Mystical, Months & Holidays, Shvat, Spiritual, Torah | 1 Comment »

The Tenth of Teves: A Letter From the Rebbe

August 13th, 2014

Editor’s note: In response to many requests regarding what we can do about the present crisis in Israel and the world, we felt it appropriate to post a letter written by the Rebbe exactly 27 years ago, addressing precisely this question. The Rebbe makes several suggestions as to how we should utilize the fast day of the 10^th of Tevet (this Sunday, December 15) to intensify our spiritual security, which in turn reinforces our material security.

Tevet 10 is observed as a day of fasting, mourning and repentance, in remembrance of the siege of Jerusalem 2,427 years ago. On the 10th of Tevet 3336 (245 BCE), the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar surrounded the walls of Jerusalem. Thirty months later — on Tammuz 9, 3338 — the city walls were breached, and on Av 9th of that year, the Holy Temple was destroyed. The Jewish people were exiled to Babylonia for 70 years.

On this day, we refrain from food and drink from daybreak to nightfall, and add the Selichot and other special supplements to our prayers. (More recently, Tevet 10 was chosen to also serve as a “general kaddish day” for the victims of the Holocaust, many of whom the day of their martyrdom is unknown).

WHAT YOU CAN DO ON THE 10^TH OF TEVET
ABOUT THE SITUATION IN ISRAEL

A Letter from the Rebbe – dated 5^th of Tevet, 5736-December 9, 1975
~ Free translation (original is printed in Likkutei Sichos vol. 15 p. 555-557) ~

By the Grace of G-d
3^rd Day of Week
5^th of Teves, 5736
Brooklyn, N.Y

Greeting and Blessing

… In reply to your inquiry and request for instructions in connection with the forthcoming fast of Asoro b’Teves (10^th of Teves), in view of the situation in and around Eretz Yisroel — —

You will surely be instructed by the Rabbi of your congregation this coming Shabbos, which is erev Asoro b’Teves, in his sermon, and in practical terms, since the essential thing is the deed.

However, since you have also approached me in this matter, I will set forth, at least, several suggestions – after the following introductory remarks:

Regrettably, there are people who claim that it is necessary to think and act “big,” in terms of global dimensions and stupendous undertakings, etc., etc.  Surely they mean well; and to the extent that such resolutions are practical and are actually carried out – they are very helpful to improve the situation.

Yet, we must never overlook – indeed, rather greatly emphasize – the so-called “small and unsophisticated” things which each modest congregation, or even each individual, can and must do – beginning with the old, yet ever-new, Jewish way, collectively as one people and also as individuals.  This is the action of hakol kol Yaakov (“the voice is the voice of Jacob”) – Torah and prayer – which G-d himself has shown us to be the first effective action to nullify the power of yedei Eisov (“the hands of Esau”) – in whatever shape or form they are raised against us.

Certainly this should find the fullest expression in a day which the Shulchan Aruch declares to be a Day of Fasting, one to which the prophet Isaiah refers as a “chosen fast … a fast and time favored by G-d.”

Now, in answer to your inquiry, and since the Fast of Asoro b’Teves is especially connected with Eretz Yisroel and the holy city of Jerusalem (recalling the siege of Jerusalem), my suggestion – in addition to the regular “observances” on Fast Days, as set forth at length and in detail in Poskim and in books of Mussar and Chassidus – is as follows:

During this Day – expressly for the sake (zechus) of the security and strengthening of Eretz Yisroel as well as in the Diaspora – and particularly for the benefit of our brethren behind the “Iron Curtain” –

A special effort should be made in the spirit of “Old Israel” – in the areas of Torah, Tefillah (prayer), and Tzedoko (charity),

Specifically: After the prayers (both in the morning and at Mincha) to learn (and where there already are daily study groups, to add) a subject in Torah, including a halacha pesuka (legal ruling),

Immediately following the prayers, even before learning, to say several chapters of Psalms (in addition to the regular portion);

Before and after the prayers – to give charity (in addition to the regular donation), including charity for a sacred cause or institution in Eretz Yisroel, Eretz haChayim (“Land of the Living”).

Needless to say, one who repeats the above again and again in the course of the day, is to be praised,

And each time – the more one adds in these activities (in quantity and quality), is to be praised all the more.

And, as in all matters of Kedusha (Holiness), it is desirable that all the above be done in a group (with at least a Minyan).

May HaShem accept, and He will accept, the prayers and supplications of Jews wherever they are,

And soon, in our very own days, may the Promise be fulfilled that “These days will be transformed into days of rejoicing and gladness,”

With the true and complete Geulah (Redemption) through our righteous Moshiach.

                                                With esteem and blessing

                                                            /Signed: Menachem Schneerson/

****************

Addendum to the letter above –
Excerpt from the Talk of Shabbat Parshat Vayigash 5736

~ Free Translation (original is printed in Likkutei Sichos vol. 15 p. 558-559) ~

…In response to the queries of some [people] for more specific instructions regarding the addition in the three pathways of Torah, prayer and charity explained in the letter of the 5^th of Tevet:

No details were stated intentionally, based on the directive of our sages that “one should always study Torah in the place where your heart desires.” Similarly prayer, “service of the heart” – depends on the feelings of each person’s heart. And the same is with charity – in the words of the verse: whose heart impels him to give [thus the Rebbe did not specify which additional sections in Torah should be studied, which prayers should be said and what charity should be given, because all these three activities are dependent on the feelings of each individual – ed. note].

Nevertheless, since every inspiration requires details in order for it to be actualized, we can find specific directives based on the words of our Rebbes our Leaders in similar situations and in the words of Sages in general:

The suggestion to add in Torah study: According to the teachings of our Sages that Moses established that the Jews should study the teachings of each respective day – [the suggestion is to] study the Laws of Fasting.

And since the ultimate purpose of a fast day is that it be transformed into joy and gladness and to a holiday – we should (also) study the end of the Laws of Fasting in the Rambam’s Sefer HaYad [Mishne Torah], where he discusses the fulfillment of the promise that the fast days will be transformed to ‘holidays’ and ‘days of joy and gladness.’

Prayer: Based on the directive of the Rebbe my father-in-law [Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak] in 5701 [1941] to say the three Psalms – 20, 22, 69 – one can say that also in our case the additional prayer should consist of saying these three Psalms.

Even though the present situation is not at all as severe, G-d forbid, as it was then, yet it is still appropriate today to make an additional effort beyond the conventional etc.

Charity: The siege of the walls surrounding Jerusalem began on the 10^th of Tevet. Accordingly, based on the words of our Sages “I am your wall – this is Torah” – charity should be given to a Torah organization, and more specifically – (also) to literally help build a ‘wall’ – charity to construct a Torah building (or for the maintenance and repairs of an existing building).

There is a virtue in the charity outside of Eretz Yisroel and a virtue in the charity given for Eretz Yisroel. Its is therefore appropriate to give [the additional charity] both for a Torah organization outside of Eretz Yisroel and for a Torah organization in Eretz Yisroel, which will be rebuilt by our Righteous Moshiach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUMMARY:

To help the present crisis in Israel, each of us should add on the 10^th of Tevet (this coming Sunday, December 15) in:

Tags: fasting, mourning, Beis Hamikdash, Jerusalem, charity, teshuvah, Israel
Posted in 10 Tevet, Months & Holidays, Tevet, Social, Torah, Current Events | No Comments »

When Shabbat Follows Rosh Hashanah

August 12th, 2014

Shanah, the Hebrew word for “year,” means both “repeated” and “different.” Indeed,  the Jewish year exemplifies how a faithful repetition of something might also profoundly differ from it.

Each annual journey through the Jewish calendar follows the same roadmap and passes through the same landmarks. Each embarks from a two-day Rosh Hashanah, immerses in the awe of Yom Kippur, enters within the unifying walls of the sukkah, dances on Simchat Torah, kindles the lights of Chanukah, is inebriated with joy on Purim, is liberated on Passover, climbs the 49-step sefirah ladder to Shavuot, mourns in the “Three Weeks,” and culminates in the warm embrace of Elul. And yet, how different is each journey from its predecessors! We are a year older, wiser and holier. What was last year’s “experience” and “achievement,” is this year’s norm; now, the challenge is to transcend our last year’s self with a more exalted awe, a deeper joy, a more liberated freedom.

Furthermore, the very structure of the Jewish calendar provides us with a different journey each year. The itinerary is the same, the landmarks are affixed to the same points in the roadmap, but there are subtle changes in the terrain. The year might be longer by a month[1] or the month shorter by a day[2]; the Passover seder, held on a Wednesday night one year, might be conducted on Shabbat eve on another, and on the night after Shabbat on a third year, each instance introducing new nuances into our experience of freedom; the grief of Tishah B’Av might be supplanted by the delight of Shabbat; or the festive meals of Shabbat might be sublimated into fasting and prayer when the holiest day of the week coincides with the holiest day of the year. Time, for the Jew, is defined by several incongruent cycles—the weekly cycle set by the seven days of creation, the monthly cycle set by the phases of the moon, the annual cycle of the solar seasons—and their ever-varying conferences make for a different calendar each time we repeat the familiar journey through the year.

Triple Header

A distinguishing feature of this year’s journey through time is that it begins with a succession of three holy days: the two days of Rosh Hashanah—which fall on Thursday and Friday—followed immediately by Shabbat, the weekly day of sacred rest.

In Torah law, a three-time occurrence achieves the status of chazakah—a “strengthened” or firmly established phenomenon.[3] For example, if an ox gores another ox, the owner of the attacking ox is absolved from full payment of the damage it inflicted; since it is considered uncommon behavior for a domesticated beast to attack another animal, this was not an occurrence that the owner might reasonably have foreseen and been expected to prevent. However, if the ox gores another ox on three different occasions, this becomes the “normal” behavior of this particular beast, and its owner becomes fully responsible for the damage it causes. The ox now has a chazakah of violent behavior toward other animals.

Ordinarily, the holy days in our lives are exceptions to the rule, as opposed to the days devoted to material pursuits, which are the norm. This makes the task of fulfilling the ultimate function of Shabbat and the festivals, which is to carry forth their sanctity and spirituality into the ordinary days of the year,[4] a most difficult and challenging task: we are being called upon to impart an “abnormal” quality to a “normal” day.

But when the year opens with three successive holy days, holiness becomes the norm. A chazakah of holiness empowers us to regard the mundane areas of our lives as abnormal, and the sanctity with which we are to imbue them as natural and necessary to our existence.

Condensed Time

The Jewish calendar contains several possibilities for three successive days of holiness. Yet the particular constellation of two days of Rosh Hashanah followed by Shabbat is unique in several respects.

Firstly, because “Rosh Hashanah” is not merely the year’s beginning, but—as a literal translation of the term implies—the “head of the year.” This reflects the Kabbalistic conception of creation, by which the entirety of time was created by G-d in a single instant; what we experience as “time” is but the unfolding of that instant into myriads of particulars, which we then experience as a succession of “moments” aligned one after the other. In other words, G-d did not create the world in one state—its state in the first moment of time—and then allow or compel its development into its state in the next moment, and then the next, and so on: rather, He created all states of existence simultaneously. The fact that we relate to these states in terms of “past,” “present” and “future” is only because we experience them one at a time, one “after” the other.

This “timeliness,” or the fractionalization of creation into so many time-segments, is a feature of our physical world; the higher, more spiritual worlds are less finite, less fragmented. Thus, the seder hishtalshelut—the chain of “worlds” that make up the created reality—can be said to resemble a pyramid. At the highest point of the pyramid—the divine act of creation—all of time and history is encapsulated within a single point. At a lower “world” or dimension of reality, the point fans out into seven components (the seven days of creation), each embodying one of the seven millennia of history.[5] In lower worlds, these are further broken down into successively more detailed segments.[6] Finally, in the lowest strata of creation—our physical world—the singular act of creation is broken down into the innumerable moments of time that comprise our “reality.”

Nevertheless, we are not completely locked into the moment-bound nature of the physical world. In the calendar He ordained in His Torah, G-d inserted days and moments of higher, more “concentrated” time. Shabbat is not just another day of the week, but a day that encapsulates an entire week in a higher, more spiritual form. The day (or days) of Rosh Chodesh (“head of the month”) contain the spiritual essence of an entire month. And the forty-eight hours of Rosh Hashanah, the “head of the year,” include within them the entire year, in the same way that the head incorporates all of the body’s faculties.[7]

This is why everything we do on Rosh Hashanah has a profound effect on the entire year. If we commit ourselves to a certain change in our behavior, it is more easily implemented than if we had made our resolution on any other day. For, in a certain sense, we have already effected this change every day of the year, since they all exist within the “condensed time” of the year’s head.

So a chazakah of holiness established on Rosh Hashanah is doubly potent, having been established in the days that “head” and encapsulate the entire year.[8]

The Dividend of Doubt

Also unique about the succession of holy days formed when the two days of Rosh Hashanah are followed by Shabbat is the fact that this is the only example of this phenomenon to occur in the Holy Land.

Outside the Land of Israel, the “holy days” of the biblical festivals (Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, the first and last days of Passover, and Shavuot) are all observed for two days. In the Land of Israel, however, only Rosh Hashanah extends for two days, while all other festivals are observed for a single day only.

Historically, this is due to the structure of the Jewish calendar and the process by which its months are set. The Jewish calendar follows the phases of the moon—the night on which the new moon is first visible marks the start of the new month.[9] Originally, the new month was “sanctified” on a month-by-month basis by the Sanhedrin (supreme court of Torah law), based on the testimony of two eyewitnesses who sighted the new moon. Messengers would then be dispatched to all Jewish communities to inform them of the proper date. But the communities outside of Israel were too distant to receive word of the new month before the festivals; as a result, they fulfilled the laws of each festival for two full days, to ensure that they had observed them on the day mandated by the Torah.

This practice continued until nearly three hundred years after the destruction of the Holy Temple, during which the Sanhedrin continued to function in the Holy Land under Roman rule. In the year 361ce, however, Hillel II, the president of the Sanhedrin, recognized that the days of the Sanhedrin were numbered and that soon the dispersion of the Jewish people would reach a point where it would be impossible to maintain contact between all the communities of the Diaspora. He therefore established a calendar system by which the years and months could be calculated in advance. Hillel’s Sanhedrin then “sanctified” all subsequent months until the coming of Moshiach, when the Sanhedrin will be re-established.

Today, then, there is no longer any doubt as to the exact date of the biblical festivals. Nevertheless, the practice of observing two days for each festival continues. The circumstances that brought us “the second festival day of the Diaspora”—our distance from the Holy Land, the ignorance and doubt spawned by galut (the exile)—were negative, but their yield was decidedly positive: an additional twenty-four hours of holiness and festivity, which we have never relinquished.[10] In the Holy Land, however, only one day is observed, for there the need never arose for the festivals to be observed for more than the requisite day. The single exception is Rosh Hashanah, which, because of  its particular place in the calendar, was observed for two days in the Holy Land as well.[11]

So while there are many possibilities for a three-day succession of holy days in the Diaspora—whenever one of its two-day festivals occurs in immediate proximity to Shabbat—the only case in which the residents of the Holy Land can enjoy this phenomenon is when Rosh Hashanah falls on Thursday and Friday.[12] Indeed, in such years the distinction between the Holy Land and the Diaspora is sharply emphasized: when the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on a Thursday, so does the first day of Sukkot, which occurs exactly two weeks later on the 15th of Tishrei, and so does the festival of Shemini Atzeret, which occurs on the 22nd of Tishrei. Thus, the Diaspora has no less than three three-day spells of holiness in a single month, while the land of Israel, where the “holy days” of Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret are observed for one day only, has only one such occurrence.

Conical Time

Everything is by divine providence, especially something as basic to the cosmic order as the timing of the festivals. Thus, Chassidic teaching explains that, underlying the historical and technical reasons described above, there is a deeper reason for the difference in how the festivals are observed within the Land of Israel and outside its borders. In essence, the reason for the Diaspora’s second day is that the world outside the Holy Land requires that additional day for the function of the festival to be fulfilled. If a single day of holiness suffices to provide us with the spiritual fortitude to elevate and sanctify the “ordinary” days which follow in the Holy Land—“a land upon which the eyes of G-d are focused from the beginning of the year to the year’s end”[13]—we require two such days to infuse holiness into the more mundane lands that lie outside its borders.

(Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch[14] compares this phenomenon to the conical nature of a beam of light: the farther it travels from its source, the greater the area over which the light is diffused. Thus, the quantity of light that is contained within one cubic foot of space in proximity to its source fills double that area at a point farther from the source. Similarly, the holiness that is concentrated in a single day in the Holy Land, the source and epicenter of G-d’s provision in the physical world, requires two complete days to “capture” it in more distant lands.[15])

By the same token, whereas a single chazakah of holiness suffices to establish the precedent for a sanctified year within the Holy Land, a chazakah of chazakot is required outside its borders. Thus, when the year begins with three successive days of holiness in the Land of Israel, this phenomenon repeats itself three times in the course of the festivals of Tishrei as observed by the communities of the Diaspora.

The Lesson

Whatever the circumstances in which we might find ourselves, we are granted the necessary tools with which to fulfill our mission in life to elevate the ordinary and sanctify the mundane. If we find ourselves outside of the Holy Land—whether in the spatial or the spiritual sense—we possess the power to “make this a Holy Land,” as one Chassidic master[16] told a follower who desired to emigrate to the Land of Israel.

And not only are we given the spiritual resources that the task requires, but also the “vessels” with which to receive them and integrate them into our lives. If our day proves too “narrow” to absorb the holiness slated for it, if a single chazakah proves insufficient to ingrain a new standard, then our holy days are doubled and trebled to accommodate our particular needs.

Based on a series of letters and talks issued by the Rebbe in the High Holiday season of 5751 (1990).[17]

 

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Tags: new year, commitment, Shabbat, divine providence, time, Jewish calendar
Posted in Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, Months & Holidays, Personal Life, Torah | No Comments »

The Workaholic

August 12th, 2014

Two visions of life:

The Pampered Employee: “What I demand [of My creations], I demand not in accordance with My capacity, but in accordance with their capacity” (Midrash Rabbah, Bamidbar 3:13). “G-d gave us this Torah, it is a tree of life… and He promised us that if we observe it with joy and gladness of heart and pursue its wisdom constantly, He will remove from us all that may prevent us from keeping it, such as illness, war, hunger and the like, and He will bestow upon us all the blessings that support our efforts to uphold the Torah, such as abundance, peace, and wealth, so that we need not preoccupy ourselves with the needs of the body but are free to study the wisdom [of Torah] and observe the mitzvot” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 9:1).

The Driven Workaholic: “The day is short, the work is much, the workers are lazy, the reward is great, and the Master is pressing” (Ethics of the Fathers 2:15).

Which is it? Is life a comfortable job or an ever-elusive obsession? The first perspective derives from the Midrash and Halachah and describes the basic law of creation: G-d is indeed a benevolent boss who never demands from his employees more than their capacity, provides them with a supportive work environment, and generously supplies their needs. The second perspective is from Ethics of the Fathers, which is the section of the Talmud that addresses the “chassid”—the individual who endeavors to expand the limits of his potentials and serve G-d “beyond the line of the law.”[1]

For the chassid, the day is never long enough. The work is always much—his goals far surpass his natural capacity. No matter how hard he works, he is always “lazy” in his own eyes, for he can never rid himself of the feeling that he could and should have done more. To him, G-d is not a benevolent employer but a driving taskmaster he will never satisfy.

The chassid’s path through life is fraught with anxiety and frustration. His prevailing state of mind is one of self-doubt, inadequacy and unworthiness. But for one who chooses this path, the “reward is great.” For unlike his tranquil brother, he knows the exhilaration of pushing himself to the limit and beyond, of transcending his finite self to touch the infinity of the Divine.

Based on an address by the Rebbe, Sivan 16, 5750 (June 9, 1990)[2]

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Tags: Rebbe, attitude, Chassidus, motivation
Posted in Chapter Two, Months & Holidays, Pirkei Avos, Ethics of Our Fathers, Torah, Nisan | No Comments »

Concentrated Light

August 12th, 2014

There is no free man, save for he who occupies himself with the study of Torah
Ethics of the Fathers, 6:2

Among the great technological achievements of the last quarter-century is the development of the “laser beam.” The nature of light is such that it scatters as it moves away from its source, thereby lessening its intensity and effect. The laser overcomes this limitation by concentrating its energy in a straight line, so that it retains its potency even at great distance from its point of origin; thus its utility (as a source of light, heat, or other uses) can be exploited in ways previously unimaginable.

We often hear the argument that a life that is faithful to the precepts of the Torah is greatly “constricted” and “confined.” Why limit myself in any way? Why not give free rein to my thoughts, feelings and inclinations, and let them lead me where they may? Why automatically exclude certain pursuits and experiences from the possible paths my life might take?

On the face of it, any code of behavior is a limiting factor, something that detracts from the great variety of possibilities that life has to offer. In truth, however, the very opposite is the case. A life without parameters is a life that quickly dissipates in the cosmic heterogeneity in which we exist, draining it of all power and impact. As the example of the laser beam demonstrates, it is precisely the “limitations” imposed on a force that extend and amplify its potentials and enable its optimal realization.

Based on an address delivered by the Rebbe on Chanukah, 5730 (1970)

Tags: choice, Rebbe, light and darkness, Jewish law
Posted in Months & Holidays, Pirkei Avos, Ethics of Our Fathers, Chapter Six, Torah, Nisan | 1 Comment »

Viewing Life Like an Artist

August 12th, 2014

The following is a freely-translated excerpt from a letter by the Rebbe
dated 24 Adar II, 5711 (March 8, 1951).[1]

… I was extremely happy to read that you are working with your artistic talents, are preparing to hold an exhibition, and that you have already received favorable reviews in the press. Surely you will progress in the utilization of the talent that G-d has granted you toward the strengthening of Yiddishkeit and G-d-fearing behavior.

As to the main point of your letter, in which you complain about your circumstances, your depression, your despair, etc., and express the wish that we should meet, so that we could discuss the matter face to face.

For two good friends to get together is always a positive thing and a spiritual pleasure for them both. But to put off [the resolution of your problem] until then, and in the meantime to remain in a state of despair, G-d forbid—who can allow himself such a thing?

You do not write of the causes which bring you to this state of mind, so I cannot go into their details to show you how these “causes” are but imaginary and stem from the evil inclination—that is, that even if there is some substance to them, the fact that they lead to despair and depression is folly…

I must therefore confine myself to a general comment with which I hope to illuminate your particular situation. My comment is based on the saying by the Baal Shem Tov—which my father-in-law, the Rebbe, would often repeat—that a person can derive a lesson in the service of G-d from everything he sees or hears about.

As you are surely aware, the primary talent of an artist is his ability to step away from the externalities of the thing and, disregarding its outer form, gaze into its innerness and perceive its essence, and to be able to convey this in his painting. Thus the object is revealed as it has never before been seen, since its inner content was obscured by secondary things. The artist exposes the essence of the thing he portrays, causing the one who looks at the painting to perceive it in another, truer light, and to realize that his prior perception was deficient.

And this is one of the foundations of man’s service of his Creator.

As we know from the Torah—and particularly from the teaching of Chassidism—the entirety of creation stems from the word of G-d,[2] and the word of G-d is what brings it into existence and sustains it in every moment of time. It is only that the divine power of tzimtzum (constriction) holds the divine life-force in a state of concealment and obscurity, and we perceive only its outer form (i.e., the physical reality).

Our mission in life—based on the simple faith that “there is none else beside Him”[3]—is that we should approach everything in life from this perspective. That we should each strive to reveal, as much as possible, the divine essence in every thing, and minimize, to the extent that we are able, its concealment by the externalities of creation…

So one must take great care that secondary and external matters should not obscure the essentials of life and its ultimate purpose.

A person might experience difficulties, trials and challenges in separating the good from the bad. But these are but the means by which to achieve the purpose of life—that his soul should elevate itself through its positive deeds in this world… So one must never allow the difficulties in overcoming one’s trials, or even the fact that one might occasionally fail and stumble, to overwhelm the joy that one must feel as a child of G-d…

Tags: Rebbe, depression, purpose of life, Chassidus, Baal Shem Tov, tzimtzum, personal growth, Rebbe's letters
Posted in Social, Art & Music | 1 Comment »

A Letter From the Rebbe on Prohibiting Smoking

August 12th, 2014

By the Grace of G-d

5739

Brooklyn, N.Y.

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter in which you write about the problem of smoking and ask why no issur has been issued against it, etc.

I note from your letter that you are aware of halachic problems in issuing an issur.Rabbinic authorities have traditionally been reluctant to proclaim issurim, eve in non-controversial situations, when it involved a Gzeirah Sh’ain Rov Hatzibur Yecholim Laamod Bah in which case an issur would force many into a position of being maizidim instead of shogagim.

Certainly there would be no case for issuing an issur in a matter on which authorities differ.

As you know, there are those, albeit in the minority, who claim that the health hazard of cigarette smoking has not been proven conclusively. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the manufacture and sale of cigarettes has not been outlawed by the Health Authorities.

In recent years there has been a further consideration, namely, that the prohibition of cigarette smoking and placing it on par with smoking “pot” would increase the incidence of drug abuse and drug addiction, since it is believed that cigarette smoking, especially among young people, provides a certain “escape” and to some degree a substitute for drug abuse so pervasive among their peers.

Needless to say, these and other considerations do not justify the use of something that has already been prohibited by the imperative of Venishmartem M’od Lenafshosaicem. But I have mentioned the above by way of answering your letter as to some of the reasons why no issur has been proclaimed against cigarette smoking. In addition to being counterproductive, there is also the possibility of a harmless cigarette being introduced before long.

Since everything is by Hashgocho Protis  and you have written to me on the subject, perhaps there is a more practical reason for our exchange of correspondence which I ought to bring to your attention – after some prefatory remarks.

Every Jew is obligated by the Great Principle of our Torah, v’ohavto lre’acho komocho, to help his brethren not only materially and health wise, but also, indeed even more so, spiritually.

A person who is in a prominent position, in whatever field, usually has a special influence also in the areas not related to his field. In keeping with the imperative, “Know Him in all your ways,” such a person has the additional obligation and privilege to use his influence to strengthen and disseminate Yiddishkeit, Torah and mitzvos.

In light of the above, and seeing your concern for the physical health of fellow Jews, I wish to express my confident hope that you are using your influence in the fullest measure to promote the spiritual health of your Jewish students and of the Jewish community at large. And in this case, expert opinion is certainly undivided that theTorah and mitzvos are “our life and the length of our days.”

Also in regard to non-Jewish students there is the obligation of promoting the so-called Seven Noachide Laws with all their ramifications – the Divinely ordained basic laws of morality, justice, etc. for all mankind (“Noach’s descendents”), without which no decent human society could long endure.

And there is the assurance that “words coming from the heart enter the heart and are eventually effective,” especially when coupled with a living example.

As we are now in the month of Elul, it gives me pleasure to extend to you and yours prayerful wishes for a Kesivo Vachisimo Tovo Umesukah.

With blessing,

Tags: cigarettes, prohibitions, Rebbe's letters, Rebbe, Jewish law, health, smoking
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A Singular Life: Separation of Religion and State

August 11th, 2014

The following is an excerpt from a letter written by the Rebbe:

The Jewish faith unites two extremes (which only seem to be in contradiction to each other). On the one hand, it includes the most abstract concepts, such as the unity of G-d, the unity of creation, [the concept that the world was created] ex nihilo, etc. On the other hand it instructs the daily life of man down to its most minute details, including the most simple and mundane things. We see this also in the Ten Commandments, which begin with the commandment “I am the L-rd your G-d…,” whose inner meaning is the negation of any true reality save the reality of G-d, and concludes with commandments such as “Do not kill,” which pertain to the lowliest instincts in man. This teaches us that there cannot be any separation between religious and material matters in Jewish life. On the contrary: as is the case on the micro-level of personal life, unity and harmony on the macro-level of social life can be achieved only via the synthesis of the two domains—by integrating the spiritual into the material and thereby refining the material.

Hence the all-time motto of our sages, of blessed memory: “The essential thing is not study, but deed.”[2] Though they occupied themselves with the study of the secrets of the Torah and the most sublime concepts, they also elaborated, in exacting detail, on practical matters, including matters—such as eating and drinking—that seem petty and insignificant. But this[3] is the touchstone of any individual or ideology…

From a letter by the Rebbe dated Sivan 2, 5719 (June 8, 1959)[4]

——————-

 

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Police Brutality: The Responsibility of Authority

August 11th, 2014

Rabbi Simon Jacobson: Hello and welcome.

I’d like to share that I just returned from a really high, spiritual experience, a retreat that I led in upstate New York.

It’s hard to land and get grounded to get on radio here, but I wanted to share the enthusiasm from my own heart with you. Those of you listeners who were there will know what I mean, and I’ll try to capture some of that magic on air. It was really special, bonding with intelligent people—searchers as well as skeptics—and people who sincerely are looking for deeper meaning in their lives. What we did was take a Sabbath experience, which for many is seen as a mechanical or very distant experience from a spiritual perspective, and really personalized it, made it into an intimate exercise in personal growth and introspection.

We titled the weekend, “Transition, Immanence, and Transcendence”: three steps that the Kabbalistic masters teach that in any type of growth there’s always a transitionary stage where you leave one world to enter another, and then there’s immanence, filling yourself up with that new journey, or assuming the new experiences that you have traveled into, and then finally there’s transcendence, where you’re able to transcend time and space, and problems and difficulties.

Frankly, what was missing was a fourth stage, which is how do you bring it back, how do you reimmerse, which is where I’m at now. Integrating experiences like this into our daily lives is always the difficulty. It’s one thing to get inspired, and one thing to have a really special experience. I think the greater challenge is how to integrate it into the daily grind of life. You get back into the pits, or whatever it is that we’re into, the rat race or the merry-go-round, and the question is how to take inspiration and bring it into that type of reality.

For most of us that’s the biggest challenge in our lives. If we were able to do that, then we’d have that type of seamless flow where you can go to mountain, come back to the valley, and return the dance of life itself.

So coming back from this retreat, I decided to discuss a topic that definitely brings things down to earth in the most profound way.

I was hearing about the verdict passed on the police brutality trials, where the four white police officers were acquitted and cleared in the Diallo case and on the other hand, the conviction of police brutality in the Louima case.

Of course police brutality isn’t exclusively an issue regarding whites and blacks, but you find it also in the recent case of mentally deranged fellow, the Jewish man in Borough Park who was also killed by police. That was also considered by some as excessive violence and many feel that it was covered up.

So I felt that in order to bring transcendence into reality, it would help to address a topic like this, police brutality. I don’t know if it’s even a fair way of titling it, because PR is PR, and it immediately puts the police department on the defensive, so I really don’t want to just join the crowd that’s condemning the police department, because I think that an intelligent person really has to look at this from different perspectives.

Now, what would I have to say on this topic? I’m no expert on the legal system here in New York, and I don’t want to discuss the obvious and predictable here. I do want to address it from a deeper perspective: the fact is that we do live in an environment and world where there is crime, and for that purpose we need law enforcers. What are their responsibilities and obligations, how do you deal with excessive violence, what kind of accountability should they have, and what are the pros and cons each way?

I invite and welcome your calls, so before I get into the meat of the topic, let me give you the number here in the studio: 212-244-1050. I’m sure this is a topic that many of you may have many different opinions on, but I’d like to keep the caliber of the calls beyond the obvious and predictable outrage that any one of us has when you hear about any innocent person being hurt, we clearly all agree about that.

So I’m not here to defend any type of violent act on anyone’s part. No human being has the right to hurt another person, whether he or she is in a position of authority, or not in a position of authority; particularly people in a position of authority who yield weapons definitely do not have that right.

So that’s an obvious thing. The question that goes farther than that is, what do you do about the situation, and what is going on? And do statistics show that police brutality is growing in the last few years? Has the insensitivity of law enforcers heightened? Is there insensitivity to particular minorities, and so on.

What comes to mind, and I do speak from a spiritual or Torah perspective, a Jewish mystical perspective—you may wonder what connection that has to police brutality—but the connection is quite obvious.

Any spiritual system cannot be divorced of, separated, or compartmentalized from the real realities of life. The fact is that we live in a world where there is crime. And since there is crime we need law enforcers. So the Torah clearly says, “Shoftim v’shotrim titen lecha b’chol shaarecha,” You shall appoint judges and law enforcers in all your municipalities. People who will hold up the court verdicts in order to keep people accountable and responsible that we don’t hurt or kill each other.

Now the question really is, what responsibility does that law enforcer have? I should pose the question and put it into a scenario where really there are two sides to the coin. We have to remember, to speak in defense of the police department, that when you’re dealing with a situation where you have to defend the public from criminal activity, you’re dealing with an element that’s very unpredictable.

The fact is, when a cop goes into a situation where he’s responding to a call, there’s always the risk of a life and death situation. So though there’s no question that each of us has heightened defenses when we’re in a place like that, it’s not just like walking down the street, you don’t know what’s coming, as if you’re in a battle zone. And we know that in all civilized countries, when it comes to war, war has its own rules and laws.

Now I can’t say that the police department is literally comprised of soldiers who are in the middle of World War II or Vietnam, but nevertheless, in that particular situation, they’re going into a threatening situation and it’s to be expected that their adrenaline is heightened, and that in general they’re very tense and anxious.

And human beings are human beings. So some of the worst of a human being will come out in times like that, because oftentimes there will be an innocent person whom they are accosting and encountering, like in this case, it may look like a gun but it’s really a wallet. And in an act of self-defense, they may kill the person.

But now the issue is, is this cop also be a racist? It may very well be that if it were a white person, or another situation, he may not have pulled his gun that quickly. So how do you determine that?

Now any intelligent person knows that there will be situations where a mistake will be made by a law enforcer, so I wanted to present it in the context that we can’t just dismiss it and say, “Hey, a cop has been violent—kill all the cops.” You have to understand that there is a situation that each of us would deal with perhaps in the same way.

The real problem is when it snowballs into a situation where the person is a racist coupled with a situation that’s legitimately one of fear.

Another issue that I think should be brought up is the loyalty that police have to one another. If you have a partner who has saved your life, and you know you’re depending on him to cover your back, and then that partner, for some reason, abuses his power, you know clearly that they’ve gone too far in a fit of violence and abused the power of a policeman, are you responsible to turn that person in?

So of course speaking from the ivory tower, you would say, “Of course you should turn that person in.” Ethically, the cop went too far. But you have to remember that you both work together. You may be partners who have been on the beat for five or ten years, and there is a loyalty that’s created when people are soldiers who stand side by side—they will protect each other, even at times when it doesn’t seem appropriate.

Should we enforce and create a climate of panic where any cop knows that his partner may inform on him? Wouldn’t that also undermine the ability to have that loyalty? Without trust, police can’t really work with each other. And again, this is in no way condoning any type of violence, it’s just trying to make it into a real human issue where we see there’s a problem here because there’s going to be loyalty, and there will inevitably be cover-ups.

So how do we deal with all of this? Some cynics say, if you’re going to beat the guy up, just make sure you don’t get caught so then we don’t have the PR mess.

Now is that a solution, to make sure that you don’t get caught? Like: everyone’s doing it (like they said about Nixon), he just got caught… too bad.

Now what are the answers to some of these questions? As always, there are short-term solutions and long-term solutions. I think on a short-term level, obviously, any type of violence, particularly from a person of authority (whether from police officers or a teacher in school or a parent), that person has greater responsibility because he or she was given power and the ability to hurt another, so they are even more responsible than just a regular citizen.

So there’s no question that violence has to be condemned to the fullest, and every possible measure of discipline within the police department has to be enforced in order to create a climate of sensitive leaders.

You see recently that the cops are doing pretty good PR—they have this thing on the police cars: “integrity” and this and that. So the image that they’re trying to create is that the police are becoming more cordial. I guess that’s the trend lately. The IRS is now “helping us” instead of being our enemy—it’s like a new political trend. I don’t know if it’s having an impact or not, but at least it looks pretty good when you see it in the street.

But the thought that comes to mind immediately, from a Torah perspective, how did the Torah cultivate sensitive law enforcers, and what kind of criteria does the Torah put forth for a law enforcer?

Does a law enforcer go through a screening process? What about people who have a lot of rage in them? Do you allow them to become a cop? I’m sure in the CIA or highly sensitive positions in the United States, or in any government, people are screened for these jobs. You don’t allow certain personality types into a certain environment  because in case of crisis or danger, their emotional structure will be such that it will undermine their ability to fulfill the role.

So in Judaism, interestingly, there are very clear criteria of the rigorous process that a law enforcer or a judge has to go through before becoming that person. Now of course the argument goes that we don’t have much time to train law enforcers. I don’t how many years it takes someone to become a cop from a completely neutral citizen, but clearly it’s not the same amount of time, for instance, that it takes for someone to become a doctor.

And one of the elements of going through medical school, for example, is that there’s a screening process that ultimately, although it’s not guaranteed, creates a situation where someone who really and sincerely wants to be a doctor, and sees it through the system (you trust that they’ve gone through the education and residency and all the rigorous trials) has been screened. That in itself filters out a lot of the quacks so to speak.

When it comes to police, it could be that a criminal or someone who’s not necessarily fit, decides to become a policeman, a person who doesn’t have the required sensitivity or is not completely acceptable.

But the argument is, we need cops so what are you going to do? Make a ten-year screening process until we have cops? We’d have a terrible situation dealing with crime.

So it’s an important point that on a long-term basis, ultimately, when someone is violent and hurts a potential criminal and abuses that person’s rights, it comes down to what kind of people are able to do that?

There are people who are sensitive human beings, and one of the things that the Torah says when it talks about law enforcement is that even when you judge criminals, remember that your objective is not to hurt anyone, but rather that even punishment is part of healing. The expression in the bible is “v’shoftu ha’eida v’hatzilu ha’eida,” which means “You shall judge the community and you shall protect (or rescue, preserve) them.”

Now, the fact is, if a person is guilty, why would the Torah call it rescuing that person? If a person has to punished, then they should be incarcerated or whatever other punishment is due. So why is it called rescuing? Because the attitude of a law enforcer is such that he or she is not just here to enforce the law, but to actually make people better people.

Part of that requires the fear of punishment, of retribution, the fear of law and order, but the cultivation of that type of law enforcer has to come from a sensitive place.

There have been systems where the best police officers were the most brutal ones. And they prevented most crime because people were simply terrified—for example, they didn’t want to get into the hands of the Gestapo. So should we hire police that are of that personality, because that’s definitely going to be the most crime preventive.

So that’s not the Torah’s approach. You don’t want people who are using law enforcement as a mask for their own aggression, for their own insecurities—and who take it out on potential criminals or on actual criminals. You want to create sensitivity. I think that in any healthy civilized community, including the New York police department or wherever it may be, there has to be a much more rigorous educational process of the requirements of a police officer. The truth is, it really goes back to education in general, of educating people to be sensitive human beings, because that’s what it comes down to.

The fact is, the difference between two cops who are both in a life-threatening situation, and who both have heightened defenses and they both behave somewhat excessively; the fact is, the difference between the two is that one may be a sensitive creature and one is not, and that will be expressed in different outcomes.

So they both may make a mistake which everyone is capable of, but if you know that the person is a sensitive person in general and values life, whether it’s a black life or a white life, or Jewish or non-Jewish, or whatever it may be, and they know that their position as a law enforcer is to enhance the quality of life and not just to weed out the criminal elements, then a person like that can be trusted in more cases than the other. Yes, there will be mistakes, but in a way you will forgive certain mistakes.

So that’s one point I want to make. I’m not trying to be naïve about it because I know it’s not going to be solved overnight, but I think we have to look at ourselves and how we deal with it. Look at parents. There are parents who are in positions of authority and they also hurt their children. So ultimately it comes down to, what kind of person are you, and how do you deal with situations when you’re threatened? Sometimes the parents will justify it by saying that the child behaved in a way that was atrocious: “I was provoked,” or whatever it may be.

I’m not comparing that to a cop, but the idea is that it all comes down to how you come into it and what kind of person you are.

So those are my initial opening remarks. We’re here on Toward a Meaningful Life with yours truly, Simon Jacobson, on WEVD 1050 AM and we’re talking about police brutality. We have Jerome on the line.

Caller: The basic defect with the police department is that it isn’t under the control of the people, and as long as that’s the case we can’t expect anything much better than what exists.

Jacobson: What would you suggest? That we have a people’s court that cops are accountable to? You’d undermine the whole system in all those situations. Every cop would be accused of being excessive in the way he or she arrested someone, and you’d just have a new bottleneck of red tape. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.

Caller: Well, what could happen is that anyone who wants to, could become a policeman. Now there are about 40,000 policemen. Supposed there were 100,000 who wanted to be policemen? Now naturally it probably wouldn’t be necessary to have that many, but anybody could become a policeman, and the police, meaning that anyone who wants to, would have the ability to elect the commissioners.

Right now the commissioner is appointed by the mayor, who is not accountable to anyone, really.

Jacobson: It’s true. And as a matter fact I’m sure you’ll have extreme arguments about Mayor Guiliani. On the one hand, there’s no question that the crime rate has fallen dramatically in New York City, and many attribute that directly to Guiliani, perhaps because he was a DA, a prosecutor, and he has some of those tactics that are quite aggressive. The fact is, most New Yorkers are quite satisfied with that element of his behavior.

On the other hand, some people just hate him because of his type of enforcement. So you can’t win. If Guiliani were to be accountable to the people, maybe the crime rate wouldn’t have gone down. In time of war, for instance, a general is not answerable to the people. He has a Commander-in-Chief called the President of the United States who intentionally is not an army man, who is a citizen living in a peaceful environment. However, you really have to weigh the two, and on a practical level, I’m not sure what suggestion you’re making here. We’d really have to think that through.

Caller: The whole thing is this. The society we live in, whether capitalism or communism, especially under capitalism, encourages crime because of the poverty, etc. The thing is that the whole governmental structure is not under the control of the people. The politicians are bought and paid for by the capitalist class, and of course under communism, it’s just a legalized Mafia, so to speak. So the point is that in either case, the people are not in control. You’ve got the ruling class, whether capitalist or communist, as the ones in control.

If you look at Russia today, for example, crime is rampant. Before they had capitalism, they had communism which was legalized crime—legalized crime by the ruling class, the bureaucrats in Russia.

Jacobson: So would you agree with Al Sharpton who says that the Louima convictions are a breakthrough in the conspiracy of the blue wall of silence?

Caller: Well, if Al Sharpton said that today was Sunday I wouldn’t believe him. I have no use for him. The guy is just an obvious opportunist. He’s still accusing Steve Pagonas of raping Tawana Brawley and he has no evidence whatsoever and he’s getting away with it.

So frankly I don’t even think his name should ever be mentioned unless it’s necessary. He’s a nobody. In fact, a lot of black people it seems are finally beginning to realize that he’s using them, he’s manipulating them.

Jacobson: Okay, that’s true. And this show’s not about him so forget about him. My point is, do you think there’s some type of conspiracy or some reason why we should not trust the police department overall, that we need this citizen accountability that you’re referring to?

Caller: Well, if there were a genuine police department in the whole country, a federal police department, to begin with, that was really interested—after all, narcotics couldn’t exist without corruption and bribery, and that goes for so many crimes.

You take industrial crimes, where pollution is taking place, or automobile production. It’s over a century now. They can’t build automobiles that don’t have basic problems. Well, I guess the first 100 years are the hardest.

Jacobson: Okay, Jerome, thank you for the call. It’s a good point and I think accountability is extremely important. It’s the number one thing that keeps people in line, including police. And just like police are here to have citizens be accountable and not be criminals, police themselves have to be accountable so that they should not be criminal in their behavior. So thank you for the call.

In Torah law, at least in the times when there was the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court that had control and jurisdiction, so capital punishment was an option, an option in extreme situations of first-degree murder and so on with witnesses. There were many strong conditions.

But it’s interesting that the Talmud says that when a court of law convicted someone of murder or anything else that warranted the death penalty, the court of law that put someone to death was stigmatized and was labeled, according to the Talmud, a “murderous court.” I always found that very fascinating, because why would you call a court that legitimately found the accused guilty (no one was suggesting that they were corrupt and no one was suggesting that they were too aggressive). They listened to both arguments and they came to a very legitimate democratic decision, by a majority of judges who were objective. As I said, no one suggested that they were not objective or in any way a kangaroo court or some other set-up. They came to a conclusion that a person had committed a crime with the proper witnesses and all that’s necessary to convict someone, and that person was put to death.

Why would you label them forever a murderous court? The answer is, that any court of law, even when they put someone to death, would be the first to shed tears for that person. That the sensitivity of a person in a position of authority is fundamental and crucial even in the most extreme situation. So of course they had compassion for the victims, and that’s why the guilty party was put to death, because ultimately, he or she was a danger to society. But still the Torah calls them “murderous” in order to make a loud statement for posterity of the importance of sensitivity necessary, so that we’d know forever, as a legacy in history and as a testimony to the fact of the sensitivities that were necessary of people in that position.

So even when capital punishment was legitimate and necessary, we see the emphasis on the sensitivity necessary of law enforcement. It just reinforces the point I was making about how we have to deal with the police department. I think there are many messages and lessons that we have to learn, even in our own secular society, from the sensitivity of the courts of law of old that were divinely inspired and based on divine law.

The fact is that the Constitution of the United States and much of its ethics is based on the Ten Commandments and on Noachide laws, timeless laws that go back in time, that go back to the beginning of society. And there’s much to learn from the mysteries of what kept communities together at that point. There’s much to learn about those ethics, and those ethics can be applied even to a situation of police brutality.

Let’s go to Samuel on the phone.

Caller: Hi, how’re you doing? Listen, first of all, I would like to say that you would have to be in it to win it. And what I mean by that is, people have a tendency of having amnesia when they really don’t know what’s happening. You have to be in the community and in the area where people live in order to know what goes down. That’s why a lot of people say, “Oh no, that doesn’t happen.”

Well, let me tell you sir. I have seen these crime units get out of the car, right there on First Avenue, and pull people over and slam them up against the car, and if they don’t have nothing, then the cops say, “Get the hell out of here.”

Now I don’t think that’s right. That is absolutely wrong. If you’re looking for respect, then you have to give respect. Now there’s another thing I would like to say.

Community police. If you have police patrolling the community, the people in the community will get to know the officers that are patrolling the community. Then they can help the officers if there’s something that goes wrong in the neighborhood, they can always let the officers know so they wouldn’t be putting themselves in whatever you want to call it—so-called danger. Work with the community and the community will work with you. You don’t have to go in no private car in no private clothes. Work with your community and you’ll find out the respect and courtesy that you will get from your community providing that you give them the respect that they’re looking for from you.

Jacobson: Samuel, I think your points are very well taken and I’m the last to suggest and minimize the amount of brutality that may exist. But let me ask you this question—you seem to be very logical and rational—what would be reasonable cause in your mind for a search or for stopping a citizen?

Caller: Well, let me put it this way. If someone is acting suspicious, what I mean, let’s say the police are walking or driving through and someone is walking and looking all around, watching, whatever, maybe that’s a reason to stop that person and shake him down and do whatever. But just to stop people, I’m mean, come on, stop people right there on First Avenue, make them get out of the car, I don’t understand that. And then when they don’t have nothing, “Get the hell outta here.”

And if you say something to them, “Officer, why?” they say, “You’d better get outta here before I lock you up.”

I say it right there, my man, on First Avenue where I live. And I think that’s wrong.

Jacobson: First and what?

Caller: First bordering 115^th and 112^th and 116^th. I saw them do it.

Jacobson: Well, listen, Samuel, I appreciate your call, and I’m very happy that I have a platform here for you to be able to make a statement like that, because the fact is, I’m sure that there’s often undue and excessive shaking down, as you put it. I mean, I do have my own dilemma about this, because the fact is that there are certain situations in which that you would allow the police department to just randomly stop cars sometimes.

I’ve been stopped and I hardly look suspicious, but who knows. But I’ve been stopped and of course ticketed for no seat belt or whatever it is, but no one has ever shaken me down, so I guess definitely in certain areas of the city they’re doing it more because they believe that it’s a more crime-ridden area. But I definitely think, Samuel, to go back to my initial point here, that any police officer has to be driven by one important thing: the dignity of human beings. And I must say this even though it may sound too over-idealistic is that ultimately it comes down to spiritual sensitivity; recognizing that human beings have souls and have a dignity, and the best we do as law enforcers is to help that dignity emerge and protect people’s dignity from those who want to abuse it.

Any type of excess violence is really inappropriate. I think it really comes down to an education with an emphasis on the highest standards that the head of the police department and the mayor himself should ask of police officers in their training, that every part of their training should be infused with this type of sensitivity.

There will be situations where cops will often overreact, and I will be the last to condone a violent act; however, you have to also be aware of the ramifications of preventive measures. If you tie cops’ hands to the extent that they can’t really do what they need to do, you’ll ultimately be destroying a certain element of the immune system, so to speak, that stops so much of our crime.

Let’s go to Andrew on the line.

Caller: I’ve been listening to people complain about police brutality and I’ve noticed that it often accompanies a sort of fond remembrance of how the old days used to be. People sort of glorify how Times Square used to be. I think that this is part of what people in the late 60s said about Leonard Bernstein, how he would have these fundraisers for the Black Panthers and how it was radical chic. For a lot of people now it’s become in fashion to condemn the police. And I think that’s the prime reason for all the complaining because we had a low crime rate for the past couple of years so now people feel, well, we can now ease up and go back to bashing the police. I think that when Guiliani leaves office and Mike Green takes over and Al Sharpton and his tribe have full control of the city, I think people will look back at this era and really miss what’s been happening now despite the occasional and rare events of police brutality.

Jacobson: That’s very well put, Andrew. Do you have any experience yourself with the police?

Caller: I’m a security guard and as you can tell, I’m an immigrant from the Caribbean. In my building sometimes police come in and check the various officers, and they look at me and they try to bait me, you know, they sort of look down at me, sometimes. I never take it personally. I’ve been pulled over for speeding when I wasn’t speeding, and I’ve gotten a ticket or two that I probably didn’t deserve, but overall, you know, do you remember how it used to be—2300 people getting killed annually a few years ago? Despite that, I’ve met policemen who were bad, but the overall picture is, I’m just one man compared to a city of 6 million people.

Jacobson: How long have you been living in New York?

Caller: Since 1989, and I can still remember in 1989 how bad things were then. I think for the most part it’s really an attempt by Ed Koch and David Dinkins to delegitimize what Guiliani has done because they know that when the history of the city is written, Koch and Dinkins will be seen as the people who helped push New York over the brink. So whatever they can do to make Rudy seem bad, they say, “He reduced crime but it came at the expense of civil rights.” What they’re really looking for is some sort of equivalence: They were bad, but Guiliani was just as bad. And I think that’s why they’re jealous of him.

Jacobson: Well, what you’re saying, Andrew, is very reasonable. So, coming from your way of thinking, would you suggest anything that could help? I’m not talking about bashing the cops, I agree with you about that, that’s just political pandering. Would you suggest something that could help heighten the sensitivity of law enforcers where it would minimize some of the abuse, even if there is some abuse?

Caller: Well, I’ve seen a program where black policemen go to neighbors and meetings, and tell people, “Look, when a policeman pulls you over, that is not a time to complain, it’s not the time to make great racial statements and it’s not a time to fight. When a policeman tells you to stop, you stop. Don’t go into your wallet. Don’t say ‘This is racist.’ Whatever complaints you have, take it to the complaint review board. But when you’re pulled over by a policeman, that is not the time to make some grand statement. You know, when a policeman pulls you over, freeze, don’t move.” And I think a lot of kids think they can talk to the police however they want, but you know, I just think that when a policeman pulls you over, that is the time that you do exactly what he says because he has the gun and you don’t.

Jacobson: Well, that’s very prudent. I do that when they pull me over.

Caller: There’s an actual program of black policemen who go into black neighborhoods and they hold meetings in church basements and schools and they say “This is how you behave when a policeman pulls you over.”

Jacobson: Well, what do you do in a situation where you find a policeman who has abused that power? How aggressive or how strong of a reaction should a police department have and should we have to a show a clear violation of civil rights?

Caller: Well, I think they should be fired and then prosecuted like everybody else. There are complaint review boards and all that, but I used to be a security guard and I dealt with 16 and 17-year-old teenagers and a lot of these kids are growing up and the only authority they’ve ever dealt with are policemen. They don’t have fathers, they don’t have mothers who are strong enough. What kind of mother can tell a 17-year-old to stay home? I’ve seen some of these 17-year-olds as big as me (I weigh 230). Unfortunately, a lot of these kids are growing up and the only authority they ever deal with are policemen.

The principals can’t tell them anything. The school teachers don’t tell them anything. They grow up. They don’t go to church. They have no strong male role models, and unfortunately, the only guy they ever meet who can tell them “no” is a cop, and unfortunately it sometimes comes with a bullet.

Jacobson: Well listen, if all the cops were as sensible and as sensitive as you are, Andrew, I think we’d have a much better situation. It comes down to this. Sometimes you meet a cop or any other officer in the city, whether it’s the fire department or the medical arena, and they really behave in ways that are extremely noble. It’s very powerful because these are people who put their lives on the line, and I completely agree that to bash, and to just overgeneralize and bash the entire police department—to say, look what’s happening—is from my point of view a complete PR move, a political one, and is highly inappropriate.

But what we have to do, since we live in a democratic society, is to heighten the pressure. I definitely think that when pressure is put on the leaders and the ones who run the show, it has to trickle down into the way they hold their police officers accountable. As in any type of business where there’s any type of abuse going on, the buck stops at the top. If you put the pressure there, the mayor and the head of the police department or the head of a particular police precinct doesn’t want to be accused of allowing any abuse in his particular area.

Let’s take a moment to identify who we are here. This is the Toward a Meaningful Life radio show with yours truly Simon Jacobson. We’re from the Meaningful Life Center which I have the privilege to head, and we bring you this show as well as many other programs and classes and activities that are essentially all focused on helping people discover deeper meaning in their lives, whether it’s issues like police brutality, how we can learn to be more sensitive human beings, how we can affect our surroundings, even our authorities, or issues of how to deal with our own psychological scars, personal issues, cosmic issues, or Kabbalistic issues, and we try to weave it all together into some type of blueprint, a paradigm for how life can be lived in a way that is better than how it is lived presently.

You can contact us at wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com or www.meaningfullife.com or you can call us at 1-800-363-2646 (1-800-3MEANING) or write to us at Meaningful Life Center, Suite 303, 788 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11213.

We go to Paul on the line.

Caller: Hello. Thank you. Very good show and you give people time to let people make some very good comments. I just want to answer one point that Andrew made. He insinuated that Amadou Diallo did not stop for the police. There’s every indication that he did exactly what the police asked him to do. And he was shot for that. I mean, they claimed that he had a wallet and they even tried to change the story and say that it was a wallet gun. First they thought that the wallet was a gun, then they thought it was a wallet but a wallet-type gun.

So we have no reason to believe that he didn’t do exactly what the police asked.

One more point. Crime is down in every city in the country, and it’s nationwide, so it’s not unique to New York under Guiliani. I think he’s getting credit for what basically is a national phenomenon with reduced crime and I think that’s due to the President as much as anyone, because the economy’s been very good and when the economy is good, crime is down. Also, New York City is in good shape because of the amount of taxes that have been brought in through Wall St. There again, I think President Clinton deserves credit for that. The President always gets either credit for the economy or if the economy is bad, he’s blamed for that. So here we have a situation where we do have an excellent national economy. Crime is down in the country because of the national economy.

Jacobson: Okay, listen, Clinton isn’t running again, but I appreciate your call, Paul, and I think there are many factors—prosperity among them—so thank you for that.

Let’s go to Yanna.

Caller: How’re doin’ brother? I just wanted to say something. I listened to this joker that you had on the air, I guess that’s what he is to me because I’m an officer myself. There’s no way in hell that a street crime unit in the black community, which I live amongst, are going to address themselves as who they are.

Because when you see white people in the community that you know are not normally common among your own people, automatically you’re going to suspect that they’re either law enforcement or some kind of other authority that is working with a city agency.

Now this guy here has the gall to sit up there and talk about what teenagers should be… I wanted to ask him, if he’s still on the air, what do you do when you have white officers confront black officers on the street? Because I had a friend of mine who has been relieved of his duty, because he defended himself against three other white officers that came up against him.

See, this whole thing that we’re talking about going on here in New York City, and then you have this other joker on the air talking about how great the economy is. If the economy is so good, as he claimed, the gas prices would be a lot lower than what they are now and people wouldn’t be going through the fringes of digging deep into their pockets to pay for home heating fuel and other stuff that’s going on right now.

But the issue of the police department that a lot of people don’t know what’s going on inside there, and that the Judicial system is totally biased against minorities and blacks as well.

Jacobson: You’re a police officer?

Caller: Yes I am. And I’m not speaking from the gut of it, because I got 20 years on the job and I’m on my way out the door. My attitude to the whole situation with New York in general is that when I sell my house and get up and get out of here to go to Florida, they can kiss it. Because I’m sick and tired of all the nonsense that these people in New York City try to procrastinate about saying how good this is and how good that is, but yet, property values have gone up out in Long Island…

Jacobson: So, Yanna, you’ve experienced racism on the force?

Caller: Sure. All you have to do is come in there in the morning in just about any precinct and work there for a while. You got some guys who’ve seen your face for five years. You could say good morning to them and they’ll walk right past you with a cigarette and a cup of coffee in their hand. It goes on even when I was in the military in the early 70s, when I was in the Marine Corps.

Jacobson: And you just tolerated it for these 20 years?

Caller: You had no choice. You have no choice. You’re either going to conform to what’s around you and ignore it and go on about your business and then go home hopefully to somebody who’s loving, and see the face of your kid and put it behind you. And then the next day you say to yourself, oh well, I have to deal with this again. But you know that you have to pay your bills.

Jacobson: When are you getting off the force, Yanna?

Caller: I’m looking to leave here sometime in the fall of this year. I’ve got my last child that I’m paying…

Jacobson: Maybe you’ll be a new Serpico and really…

Caller: No, because no matter how many Serpico’s come up, you got 100 men in black law enforcement that are there talking about situations in there, and it’s not getting the limelight, the media coverage that it should about what’s really going on in there. You have women who work within the police department that are being discriminated against and harassed by other fellow and superior officers, or every now and then from fellows from different units, and then when they go to make a complaint about it, it’s squashed.

Jacobson: Yanni, being someone who knows the system from within, are there any suggestions you would make, or have you just given up?

Caller: Well, I’ll put it like this. If I could change it, I would try my best to change it, but I just can’t do it by myself because you’re talking about an army of individuals that work within the department that have different ideas and viewpoints on ways that they feel the department should run.

Jacobson: I don’t mean you changing it yourself. What suggestions would you make overall that could be implemented?

Caller: Well, I recommend to anyone who’s going in there as a new recruit to keep your nose clean. If you can avoid getting into any problems for yourself, climb through the ranks, do your time, and get out of there. That’s the best thing I can say for them.

Jacobson: So you don’t have hope, basically.

Caller: I don’t have hope in American society in general because they got a lot of procrastinators out here. And I learned that a long time ago. When I started to see the way the Judicial system is—a one-sided figure according to when you arrest a teenager for something, and you get him into the family court system, and the fathers are kicked out of the house… they had actually destroyed in a minority community the infra-power structure of the home where these kids are looking for someone to rely on, and if they can’t get it from both parents then they end up getting it from somebody who’s either a good mentor of an older age, or as far as older people like my grandmother, you can forget about the kids listening to them because they think that they’re crazy. There’s a different generation out there: everyone’s going to go through what they’re going to go through.

I mean, I experienced police brutality when I was coming up as a kid. Being popped in the head, like that, and I’ve carried that on my shoulders through the years. But I didn’t let it get to me to the point that it drove me sick.

Jacobson: Okay, Yanna. I really appreciate your call. But I have to say, I’ve got more hope for the human condition than you do and I really hope that (well, you’re from the inside so you really know what the situation is) but things can change, I really believe they can change and have to change, whether it’s here in New York or wherever, and I wish you good luck wherever you go.

Let’s go to Norman on the line.

Caller: Hi Rabbi. I’m glad you had a good weekend. I’d like to comment on the subject here. There is a program in place with the NYPD in which the last program was titled “Verbal Judo.” And officers are taught that when a suspect who is being apprehended is being verbally abusive, the officer lets him have the last word because the officer has the last action.

I want to equate the rare incidence of police accidents, where someone is killed (I’m not talking about misconduct—although that’s rare too) with airplane travel. You can not make every plane fly all the time without an accident. And according to the city authorities, there’s a lower incidence of police drawing their guns accidentally or otherwise, in the city of New York versus other cities. It is a rarity. It should be zero, I agree.

I’d also like to comment on two different types of fear reaction that an officer has. When someone is aggressive or disrespectful toward a minority simply because that person is different, that’s a fear state.

Jacobson: Norman, because of the time factor, can you get to your point?

Caller: My point is that it is a fear state when a person is against a person because of his minority status. It’s a fear. And it’s also a fear of a different kind when he thinks that a gun is being pointed at him or a gun is being pulled, that’s another kind of fear. And everybody is responsible to lessen his fear.

But a policeman is sometimes in a semi or a quasi or actual combat situation. However, there’s no excuse for anybody to be disrespectful to a minority on the job or off the job because he’s a black or a Jew or anything. That’s a sickness and I think that the police department authorities should be highly pervasive in getting to that. I don’t know what they could do, maybe they should bring chaplains in, chaplains at large. How about you being a chaplain at large or others who would volunteer for that? It would take a long time.

Jacobson: Being Jewish they may discriminate against me. Listen, Norman, thank you for the call. It’s a good call and your comments are well taken.

We’re talking here about police brutality. This show is supported by your contributions so please, there’s someone standing by and we’d appreciate your calling us with your pledge to 1-800-3MEANING (1-800-363-2646) to be able to support us.

I do want to thank the sponsors of this show, and many of the shows made possible in the name of all the listeners and all the people that really appreciate the show, I want to thank Ivan Stux, Sharon Gans, Fred Mindel, James Altucher, James Garfinkel, and the other supporters who really stand behind us both in spirit and financially to really make this show possible and bring it to the largest amount of listeners possible. I welcome and invite all of you to participate in this type of support, both to let others know about the show and to listen in every Sunday from 6-7pm, 1050AM on the dial.

We’ve been talking about police brutality, which for me is a topic that is much broader than just the narrow issue of the police. It’s an issue in general of human sensitivity, of accountability that people and authority have, the trust that is required, but at the same time it’s the appreciation of people in that position who are putting their lives at risk. It’s clearly a situation where all of us sometimes will behave in an excessive way, and the key here is to allow the human dignity that we have within ourselves and others to emerge so we behave and treat people in the best way possible, the way we would like to be treated.

Hillel put it in the Talmud in the best way possible, when he said, “The entire Torah is ‘Don’t do unto others that which you don’t want done to yourself.’”

If a police officer had that in mind every time he accosted or approached someone, even in a state of danger… You know, every one of us has control over our faculties and our abilities. Particularly if you have a weapon in your hand, you have to always remember that you’re responsible, not just to authorities and superiors, but to G-d and to the soul and dignity of human beings.

Now I also want to invite all of you to my Wednesday Night Class which I give in the city every Wednesday night at 8:15PM at 509 5th Ave. between 42nd and 43rd Streets, where we talk about topics like this and other topics. As always, I thank you for listening in and I look forward to continuing this show with interesting topics. I welcome your comments and suggestions for future topics.

Thank you for listening.

Tags: responsibility, authority, violence, justice
Posted in Social, Government | No Comments »

Abortion

August 11th, 2014

Mike Feder: Welcome to Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson. We are live in the studio. I am Mike Feder and tonight’s topic is “Abortion.”

Since we always have a limited amount of time to talk about these massive topics, let’s just start right in. I just read the other day in the Times that one of the federal courts denied what they call partial-birth abortions, late-term abortions. So this is an issue that never goes away: there are protests at abortion clinics all the time; people have been murdered (a doctor upstate several months ago) over this topic…

So it’s a serious issue and one that everyone is concerned about. The first thing I want to say before I ask you the first question is that I always feel funny when I discuss topics like these that have to do with women. I have suffered from many things and endured many things, but I have not endured pregnancy and I have never endured childbirth.

So I would like to qualify that this discussion is coming from a male point of view.

Rabbi Simon Jacobson: This is a confession?

Feder: Whatever. So let’s start off with a question. “X” number of years ago this issue came to the Supreme Court and it was decided that abortions could be legal, because before that they were not. Let’s say you were there the first time for this massive decision, or you were there when it came up again. What would you vote for? What you vote for the right to an abortion or against the right to an abortion?

Jacobson: Before I would say what I would vote, I would like to explain what I would vote, because I don’t like to impose my vote or opinion on anyone. So I would want the floor for a few minutes to discuss and explain my position.

Now, I have to say, right at the outset, my position comes—as my book Toward a Meaningful Life states very clearly—from a Torah viewpoint. When I say Torah viewpoint I mean what I consider a Divine blueprint for life that has a very clear value system and standards that I see as being the most humane, and at the same time, as being most Divine in allowing us to be the best human beings we can be.

So therefore I see Divine law not as human law, but as a way of self-actualizing and fulfilling (you and I and many others, the 6 billion people on this planet for that matter) a person’s greatest potential.

So coming from that perspective, and I definitely welcome yours and of course our callers, I want to state my view and take into account, of course, the sensitivity of the issue: doesn’t a woman have a right over her own body, and what about the case of rape, incest, and situations of those more sensitive areas.

Now this is a topic that is clearly very explosive. Everyone has an opinion that touches to the heart of the issue of freedom, so to speak, the rights of a woman to make these choices: Pro-Choice as they call it, which I think is really a political term, as if it’s assuming that the other side doesn’t want you to have choice.

Feder: Well, those on the side of Pro-Life are assuming that the other side is Pro-Death.

Jacobson: It’s the same thing with Pro-Choice—they see the other side as Pro-Slavery, essentially.

So from a Jewish perspective, a Torah perspective, the long-term, bottom-line issue at the root of it all, is the sanctity of life. Now, interestingly, a fetus, from a Torah perspective, as long as it’s still in the pregnancy, is not yet considered independent life. That is why if the fetus poses a threat to the life of the mother, the mother’s life comes first, because she has a full-fledged life, whereas the fetus is still considered, to use a Talmudic expression, a limb of, an extension of, the mother.

So it would be like, so to speak, an arm or a leg, which as we know if the arm or the leg poses a danger to the entire body, we amputate it in order to save the body. And G-d forbid anyone should be in a situation like that, but just to approach the topic on a legal level, it’s not two equal lives.

So abortion per se is not an issue of the murder of the fetus, however, there are other issues at hand. First of all, even to amputate part of a body when there is no threat of death is also very questionable and unacceptable in Torah law, because, as Maimonides eloquently states, “Our bodies don’t belong to us.” You do not have the right to mutilate your body.

You know, some people think, okay I have no right to touch someone else, I have no right to abuse somebody else. But interestingly, in Torah thought, you have no right to abuse yourself as well, because your body is not yours; there’s a sanctity to it, and that sanctity is like a gift that was given to you on loan, for the duration of your lifetime, for you to elevate, for you to work together with, and purify and refine, and you have no right to mutilate it, even if no one else is harmed.

From a Torah perspective, if you mutilate your own body you are harming the world. It’s the issue of sanctity of life that we’re dealing with here, and therefore, abortion is not just a matter of whether it’s per se murder or not, it’s a question of how we treat ourselves, how we treat that which comes our way, and particularly, how we treat a life that we’re carrying that clearly, though it may not be legally an independent life as the mother herself, but it’s still clearly a potential life, and that life will emerge and be who we are.

From that perspective, just because you don’t see the life because it’s still being carried within the mother’s womb—so in a sense it’s as if it’s invisible—it should not in any way minimize our treatment of the sanctity of it.

Now that’s when we’re talking about a conventional situation, and I just wanted to state that for the record. It gets more complicated when the pregnancy is a more complicated one: like when it’s due to rape, or incest, or a woman just decides that it was an accident, as many would say, and she wants to terminate it because she’s not ready for a child at this point. Either the child will get in the way of her career or…

Feder: Or maybe there’s just no money.

Jacobson: No money, or she feels incompetent as a mother, even if it’s very legitimate reasons. So here we’re dealing with an issue that is difficult to discuss in two minutes, the reason being because it touches a very deep and personal place in our lives, very personal choices we may have made. In addition, after the fact it is difficult to turn the clock back. Many of us make mistakes in our lives and hen we try to correct it after the mistake has been made and try to repair it like a bandage.

The real issue is, what are our sexual attitudes in general and what is the attitude that allows us to get into a pregnancy of that nature in the first place. See, an abortion in this case is like a short-term solution, “Okay, an accident happened so we have a way to fix it.”

But let’s say the child was already born and the person said, “Well, I don’t have the money to pay for this child’s life, for health, education and the likes.” Would anyone consider putting this child to death after the child was born—age one, age two, age three—for the above reasons? That it’s inconvenient for me or a matter of poverty? No one, that is, no healthy mother would consider that.

Unfortunately we hear cases of that as well, but that’s another topic entirely.

Feder: That’s a matter of mental illness.

Jacobson: So what are we saying here? Because we don’t see the child yet, we can get away with it because we can still say, “Hey, the life hasn’t begun yet.” See, when you start tampering with that, it becomes a very sensitive area. What about the Greeks (I think it was the Greeks), who had a custom thousands of years ago where they considered it humane to kill mentally retarded and handicapped children after birth.

Feder: There have been societies that have, what they call, exposed children that are unwanted on a hillside somewhere and that was it.

Jacobson: So why are we bringing this up? Because most Americans will say, “No, that’s completely inhumane.” But you see how subjective things get when you don’t know where to draw the line.

So therefore the Torah is very careful not to tamper with this area, because someone could say, “Okay, two-thirds of the pregnancy fine, but the last trimester, we all agree, no abortions,” as you mentioned.

What about the second trimester, the first trimester? So from a Torah point of view, life is life, G-d is G-d, and G-d has given life, and it’s come to this earth. You may consider it an accident, but G-d didn’t.

G-d is also a partner in the child’s life and He did send a soul down to this earth. Because the fact is, there are many people who are very healthy, and they try to have a child and it doesn’t work. So it’s not just a question of convenience or where you stand right now.

There is a G-d, and obviously I’m basing my discussion on G-d, or else, there’d be no point at all.

Feder: There’d be no radio show here.

Jacobson: That, and also the whole issue of abortion would be moot, frankly, because for example, do we have a problem aborting sheep?

Feder: So if there’s no larger plan and there’s no larger meaning, then you could do whatever you want.

Jacobson: So there’s a G-d in this plan. So the people involved may feel that they had an accident, that in their mind the pregnancy was an accident, they may feel they’re not ready, or in poverty … but G-d sent a soul down here. Where, as I said, in many situations there are people waiting for children and can’t have one.

So you see that things are a bit mysterious when it comes to this area, and tampering with that is a very serious issue. So it’s not always our game plan (or better said, the way we understand our game plan).

Now I’m not suggesting that that is not painful. Just as, for instance, G-d forbid, having a child who is born with some kind of handicap—and my heart goes out with the deepest tears to a parent who has a child like that—because they may never understand why G-d would do that. And you know what kind of havoc it wreaks in a family when a child is born with unique challenges.

But I’ve seen parents embrace it—I don’t mean embrace it in the sense that they are not pained by it—but they aren’t ashamed of it, they don’t hide the child in some dark basement, and there’s great dignity and beauty that has come out of it.

You know, we hear stories about certain autistic children, how their parents cared for them with such unbelievable sensitivity, and stories of human majesty that emerge from that.

So that’s why I’m very careful that human beings should think twice—more than twice—to be extremely cautious before we tamper with this issue of life, and our own comforts.

Now the case of pregnancy resulting from rape and incest is a very painful situation and I’d like to discuss that a little later in the show. But I wanted to first make the statements that I did to preface the issue at hand, which is the sanctity of life in general.

Now, you asked me what I would vote. See the second question is, how should we regulate this, how should the government regulate this? Now, I’m a firm believer in the fact that the government should not intervene in free expression in this country, yet we have “In G-d We Trust” on our currency, and I believe that a government is responsible to uphold the welfare of its citizens.

In that case, I would vote to not permit abortions for the reasons I stated above, but I would explain myself and try as eloquently as I could, in a loving way, to explain the standard.

Feder: So you would write a majority or a minority opinion explaining this.

Jacobson: You see, sometimes when you come in the middle of the debate, you’ve already lost it in a way. I would like to have seen the debate when it was talked about before the Pandora’s box was opened. Because once it’s there (better: the law is established), women can say, “What do you mean? We have the right already to do so.” So you start explaining to them, “Well, you have to deal with the sanctity of life.”

But once a certain taboo is broken, in a way it becomes very hard to rewrite or retrace the steps. My belief is not an imposition to try with a stick to force people to prohibit abortions. I think that what’s required is a call to people to look at what we are doing, and address the issue: what is life?

And this brings us back to something we always talk about. I think abortion is almost secondary to the actual issue: How sacred do we think our own lives are? If a person doesn’t think his or her own life is sacred, they’re surely not going to think that a fetus’ life is sacred. And I think that is what really is at the heart of the issue.

Because if we really considered life Divinely sacred, it would not be just an easy debate where people could flippantly say, “Hey, it’s freedom of choice.”

Now the fact is, I know some women who have had abortions and it’s an extremely traumatic experience which for me is a testimony that this is not just a technical matter; it’s not like going in (I don’t even like to compare it) and removing a wart. It is a seriously traumatic experience which just means that, this is a life and it’s part of the woman’s life for the amount of time that she carries the child. Women who have miscarriages, and definitely abortions—which are intentional—are seriously affected by it, and that should tell us something about human nature. Why are they affected by it? Why don’t we just dismiss it and say, “Hey, what’s the big thing? You just get rid of it.”

Feder: Well, same here. I’ve certainly known women, most of whom are very liberal, who have supported a woman’s right to choose, who have had abortions and have felt utterly miserable and guilty about it. So, in other words, it is an issue that, as you say, goes above and beyond the law.

And also, as a point of fact, we are in an era now where the child (as you mentioned before) is not so invisible with all these tests and these sonograms and pictures. This is an interesting technical era that has changed the way we look at things ethically.

Now we have a picture of the child, we have a description, we know whether or not he or she is going to be ill in various ways, or seriously deformed. We never knew this before, and this really adds something to the mixture.

Jacobson: I really think that the debate hinges upon a serious confusion or a vagary in what I would call the sanctity of life issue. In other words, we’re not really sure what life is and how sacred life should be treated, because if you bring it down to this topic (and I’ve tried to discuss it with people who are what they would call pro-abortion), they’re very evasive when it comes to this because everyone’s uncomfortable—and I’m not talking here about the fetus, I ask the question about your life (how sacred is your life in your own eyes?).

If a person is killed, we all consider that a tragedy. How tragic is it ultimately? Why don’t we see it as survival of the fittest: just like the weaker deer in the winter season will fall to predators or to weather, that’s how it is in life. Some people just fall.

But I think every human being has a very deep sense of life’s sanctity but, in a way, our society has undermined that sanctity because what we value is not the sacredness of life but our looks and youth, and the whole cosmetic industry…

Feder: Spending $40,000 on Marilyn Monroe’s bathing suits.

Jacobson: I think I said this on the show before. When’s the last time someone told you that you matter and you’re valuable because you exist? Do you know why we don’t hear that message too often, if at all? Because no one is going to make money by telling you that. Because if you exist, they can’t charge you for your existence. But if they create an image and say, “Oh, you should wear this shirt, or you should have this type of hair-do, or you should look like this celebrity, then they can charge you and say, okay, here’s what it will cost you to get that type of image.

And human beings are in a serious identity crisis so we very much gravitate to images that are projected. Subliminally, how many times a day are we inundated with these images? Now, I’m not one of these fire and brimstone people attacking Madison Avenue advertising, because if it’s used well, it’s great. But there is a very subtle erosion of human value that results from advertising image inundation.

Feder: So starting with the issue of abortions and telescoping outwards to what’s the value of life from the beginning to the end, the mother’s life, the fetus’ life, life in general, is what’s part of this discussion here.

Jacobson: Well, this show is called Toward a Meaningful Life, emphasizing that life is absolutely meaningful or else we don’t have a reason for our existence.

Feder: Okay, let’s take a short break here and remind people who we are. You are listening to Rabbi Simon Jacobson, and this is Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson. My name is Mike Feder and we’re here every Sunday night from 6-7pm here on WEVD, 1050AM in New York City.

We are going to take calls from you in a moment, with your opinions, perhaps your personal experiences, and your attitudes about abortion and everything we’ve been talking about here. The number is 212-244-1050.

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Let me just ask you this question. Biblically speaking, G-d’s blueprint for life, does a fetus have a soul? I mean, before you sort of indicated that this soul has been sent by G-d, but yet, I think I read in a book that a soul doesn’t start until actual birth. Now a fetus doesn’t have a soul, so could it possibly be murder if there’s no soul involved?

Jacobson: Actually, this is very interesting discussion in the Talmud: when exactly does the soul enter. But I must preface my answer by saying that as soon as the fetus is growing, clearly it’s not a corpse and it has some type of energy force that has entered it. In other words, when an egg is fertilized and it turns into a life, that moment of conception is when, one would say, the soul enters into the equation, and that’s why the fetus begins growing.

Feder: Once that cell starts dividing, it has a soul?

Jacobson: Yes. However, when we say the word “soul,” I think we should define what the word “soul” means. It has a life force that has begun to work. When we talk about the soul and stages of the soul entering into the human life, as a matter of fact, even after birth, the soul is not completely manifest. That can happen later in life, whether it’s a bar or a bat mitzvah at twelve or thirteen years.

Feder: So the soul is always a work under development?

Jacobson: You could say that. It’s a work under emergence, I would say, in its levels of emerging. So actually, in the Kabbalah and Chassidic thought (Jewish mysticism) there’s discussion about five levels of the soul: the soul has five names, five dimensions. But when we say, let’s call it this way, biological life as we understand it, it begins at the moment of conception.

There are two opinions in the Talmud of when that actually manifests itself, whether it’s at the moment of conception or when the fetus begins taking on shape and form, which is, I believe, at least in the first or second month. But even in all those stages of development during pregnancy, you could say that the soul is slowly getting accustomed to and slowly entering the body. But as long as that fetus is being fed during pregnancy by its mother, it does not yet have independent will and independent life. Until you cut the umbilical cord upon birth, you cannot call it an independent life…

Feder: Or an independent soul.

Jacobson: Right. So in a way, it has a soul but the soul is still an extension of, and in some way, a part of its mother. Now, I don’t want to get too technical about this, but just suffice it to say, to use an example; I don’t want to compare a child to this gross example, but let’s just say when you start up a car and you pump the gas, once, twice, sometimes the gas goes into the fuel lines but it takes several times for it to really go in. So you could say that in those early stages, the fuel is beginning to enter, but you can’t really say that this car can drive on its own until the fuel is really circulating completely and fully.

So it’s something like that. So you say that the soul begins to enter but the body is not really a container that allows for the “fuel” to circulate freely until birth. So to say that aborting a fetus is murder, you can’t really say it’s completely murder. It would be like murdering a part of the mother, part of the mother’s body.

Feder: But the mother is doing that.

Jacobson: Correct, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still like amputating or affecting a part of a person’s life, but for instance, if a part of the mother is endangering her life, as I mentioned, her life takes precedence over the fetus.

Feder: We do have a call. We have Dorothy on the line.

Caller: I was thinking of this Torah that has been characterized as being full of contradictions and inconsistencies and absurdities and errors and mistakes. And why we should believe the rest of it, I don’t know. One page would cancel out another one, and I guess you’d have to spend your life reading the Talmud which justifies all these inconsistencies. So I wouldn’t take my value system from them.

Rather, if there is meaning in life, it’s meaning that we bring to life, not that has been endowed or imposed upon us from some mystical source and a book written in the Bronze Age.

Feder: So that’s a good comment and hopefully we’ll have a comment on that in a second, but let me just ask you a personal question. What is your feeling on the idea of abortion?

Caller: Oh, I think women should definitely have a choice.

Jacobson: Thank you Dorothy for the call. However, when I say Torah, I mean a large body of time-tested, or timeless wisdom. Remember, human beings, even though we have fax machines and emails today, have been struggling with the issues of life and death from the beginning of time. And issues like love, I don’t think that people in the Bronze Age, as Dorothy put it, cry differently from the way we cry, and there’s much to be learned from history and from timeless wisdom. I think that the issues discussed should be taken on their own merit and not be dismissed because they happen to go back thousands of years. Before making a statement that the Torah has inconsistencies, one needs to first study the different commentaries that address these issues. Yes, it is easy to dismiss Torah thought if someone is unable to read it or doesn’t know the Hebrew or doesn’t fully appreciate the blueprint of life that it entails.

However, I was privy to have had an education where I was taught, not as an imposition, but in a beautiful way, how the Torah is an unbelievable manuscript and blueprint for life, and as I said, I would invite Dorothy or anyone to debate the issue on its own merit.

I presented on this show a logical explanation about the sanctity of life. If I wouldn’t say it was from the Torah, it would still be the same argument, so I’d like someone to argue that on the merit of what I’ve said, and I would add—and I’m not ashamed to say—that I took it from the Torah because I believe that the Torah is an extremely humane system and it should be studied as such. Indeed, by studying Torah, one will come to recognize that the Torah is a Divine blueprint for life.

Still, I am sensitive to Dorothy because I know that many people do have misconceptions of what the Torah is, and therefore they do see it as a religious imposition of some primitive time and a throwback to old times, and ask why we should impose it upon ourselves today.

That’s part of why we’re doing this show. It’s a question of education, having opened enough minds to be able to look at the Torah perhaps in a refreshing way, not based on stereotypes.

Feder: Well, as an extension to that before we go onto our next two calls, let me make a little trouble here.

Jacobson: I want you to make trouble!

Feder: Okay, you ready for it? You want trouble, I’ll give you some, and that’s why I was put into the world, and I’m glad I’m still here. So, a lot of people—and I mean a lot of people—consider these laws against abortion (which were only corrected in a very recent time in our history—I say “corrected”…obviously you see my point of view) as a patriarchal inheritance, that when it comes to the Torah itself, the holy word, the Scriptures, Judeo-Christian culture, it very clearly comes down to the fact that men made these laws. Men perhaps wrote this down or took these words down (men have been running the show for a long time), and a lot of women feel this way and a lot of men agree with them. And women resent this as a patriarchal imposition on their bodies and on their souls and on their choices as human beings.

I think I’m just stating a case, not necessarily giving an opinion.

Jacobson: If that were true, that the Torah were what you just described it to be, I would sympathize with women and be the first advocate for their cause. However, I know it to be not true, and I speak as (I don’t want to call myself an expert) but I speak as an authority of someone who studied Torah intensely for many, many years.

If we were sitting at a medical convention, no layman would get up and say, “Oh here, I know medicine, here are my opinions.” I am ready to present (and this is what the show is about) in a logical way, the Torah’s view on abortion as a direct discussion of—and I mentioned one thing and one thing only—the sanctity of life.

Because if a man said, “I want to mutilate my own body,” there’s a law that prohibits that. This is not a man or woman issue. A human being does not have the right to touch his or her own life because it’s G-d’s life.

Now I agree that that perception of Torah is there…

Feder: I don’t think it’s Torah specifically…

Jacobson: Religion, religious authority.

Feder: Okay, the next call is from Daniel.

Caller: I was originally Pro-Choice but I always felt kind of uncomfortable with it. I wasn’t sure why, until it became clear to me that I really see life as a process, and when a child is born you have an object there, and it’s clear that no one would want to end that life because we can see it as something that’s tangible. We see that life runs through the child, because the child is not an object, that child is a process.

And if you look at that child a month later, it’s clear that it’s a process because the child is then different. So if you look at life as a process (and it doesn’t really have to have any religious overtones), and you try to think that a process generally has a beginning and an end, and you try to figure out, well, when does this process of life begin? Certainly I don’t think anyone could really say that it begins at birth because birth is not really a definite beginning. A child can be taken from its mother prematurely and still live.

So really, when I thought about it, there is only one really clear-cut, clearly defined point, at which life begins and that is at conception, even though we can’t necessarily see it and identify it. Theoretically that’s when life begins. So anything that happens to stop that process is ending life, ending the process of life. Merely because we can’t see it as an object, that doesn’t make it any less valid.

Feder: So, first of all, would you be against abortion?

Caller: Yes, against abortion, however, it really does get complicated when it’s not a voluntarily pregnancy, and that’s a very complicated issue. I’m glad I’m not a legislator and I don’t have to deal with it.

Feder: Or a judge.

Jacobson: Or a mother.

Caller: But in most of the cases it seems to me that—well, in all of the cases—it is ending life. When does something else take precedence over that? When do circumstances say that ending a life is less abhorrent than letting it go on under these circumstances.

Feder: So thank you for calling.

Jacobson: I thought I’d let you know, Mike, that I tried an experiment tonight, without you knowing it…

Feder: I’ve been the victim of an experiment? I can’t believe it.

Jacobson: Victimization yet again. An experiment which, in a sense, I don’t regret but I realize the risks involved. Usually when I discuss a topic like this (abortion), I specifically don’t use religious texts and just discuss it, because I realize that by using religious references, people often get stuck in stereotypes and resist hearing the message because of their distrust or dismissal of religion. I just try to make the argument and then at the end of the show, or, for that matter, next week I could say, oh by the way, I took this from the Torah.

And the reason I say that is that when many people hear the religious thing, it often evokes a knee-jerk reaction that really obfuscates the issue, and I’m realizing it somewhat. But I don’t regret mentioning that my sources are from Torah, because I’m adding this disclaimer. But I must say that I often find that people focus more on “Where’d you get this from?” instead of just hearing what was said and responding to the issue itself. The way Daniel put it was in a very secular type of language—he didn’t use the word Torah—so I appreciate how he put it.

Feder: We have Sandy here on the line.

Caller: Hi, earlier you used the phrase “partial-birth abortion” ever so briefly, but I would like to address that. I think that whether one is Pro-Choice or Pro-Life (and incidentally, the opposite of Pro-Life is anti-life—I think we have to think about that for a moment) but partial-birth abortion should be addressed separately from abortion because it definitely is, or it would seem to me if I were to describe it, a felony. I mean, in what law book can you find that a baby who is presented in a breach position, and delivered up to his neck, and then has a pair of scissors thrust into his neck with the hole widened to receive suction tube, and then we say, well we can clean it up a bit and say that the contents are removed, or we can say that his brain is sucked out.

Feder: So what you’re saying is that you’re very much against partial-birth abortion, that is clear, but what about earlier-term abortion?

Caller: I’m against abortion in particular, and if the rabbi was able to use the Bible as a source, or the Torah or the Mishnah or the Talmud, I would like to as well and just quote a very simple woman, Chanah who says “I was not the one who gave you life and breath. I am trying to affirm the sanctity of human life.”

Feder: Okay, thank you very much for your call. Okay, we have another call here. Vladimir you’re on the air.

Caller: I have a question for the rabbi. My question is, when the baby is born, who’s going to take care of the baby? It’s the mother who’s going to take care of the baby. Now let’s say in her life’s circumstances, she’s not ready to take care of the baby. Neither is the father. It could ruin their whole lives. What are they going to do with the baby? Are they going to give it away? Are they going to send it to foster care? So in some situations, instead of giving a baby a rough life, an abortion to me seems a viable choice that nobody wants to make, but sometimes you just have to do it. What’s your opinion on that?

Jacobson: Well, I think I addressed it already somewhat directly or indirectly. I empathize as much as you Vladimir, as much as anyone, a mother or parents for that matter, who feel they can’t take care of the child. However, you have to weigh the two options. Would you say the same would be the case if they decide to have the child and then after two years they see that they really are incompetent, unable to rear the child, or that it’s inconvenient for them. Would anyone suggest that they should take the child and murder it, G-d forbid?

You’d say, “Well look. It’s very sad that children are born into homes where the parents cannot nurture them properly or provide for them, but I think it’s sadder if we begin to tamper with life itself.” And when you start making such calculations, I don’t know where to draw the line. Ultimately it has to come down to some type of appreciation of the sanctity of life.

In my community people have many children. And some do not have money. But you have to see the love that they have for their children, and the sacrifices that they will make for them, and they bring up healthy and wholesome children. The issue has nothing to do with abortion — whether it is an option or not. The issue is that we must educate those parents to learn how to be loving and to learn how to take care of a child even when it’s difficult.

Some may argue, that all that I have said is good and fine as a long term solution. But perhaps abortion is a short-term solution to preventing the birth of unwanted children or children that will not be cared for properly. The argument goes: “we don’t want to, but we have no other choice than to abort a child who may be born into a family that can’t provide. I feel very terrible about it, but what other option do I have?” This argument is unacceptable, because by aborting we tamper with the sanctity of life. And whether we like it or not, we must apply longer term solutions when it comes to an issue that carries much gravity: life and death. I don’t think short-term solutions should be used in a long-term problem like this.

Feder: If we are not the owners of our life—let’s say G-d gave us these souls, these lives—if there’s a higher purpose to all this, if we are not to abort for this reason, then why on earth should we ever use any birth control? Isn’t that also interfering with G-d’s plan? If people were using birth control there perhaps would never have been a Beethoven, never have been a Gandhi, there would be no Moses, or you or me. I mean, isn’t it the same exact thing we’re talking about here—the sanctity of life?

Jacobson: I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same because abortion is an act where you’re actually aborting a life, or a potential life, or a life in process, as Daniel put it, whereas birth control is impeding the process from the beginning. But conceptually yes, and we should dedicate a show on that topic as well. I have much to say on it, and one of the things I would say is, we don’t even know the psychological effects of birth control on potential parents.

If someone were to say that you should have your left arm tied behind you for 20 years of your life, there’s no question that that has to have an impact on you, because you are, in a sense, impeding one of your faculties, one of your arms.

So if human beings have the ability to procreate, to have children, and we control that or we stop it altogether, what psychological impact does it have on the person who did that? And that may be more destructive than the comforts that that control can offer us. But I do agree that birth control touches on the same issue of sanctity of life. Should we intervene in the process that G-d put into the system, how human beings multiply (remember the first commandment in the Torah is “Be fruitful and multiply”)? I know people who would give anything to have a child because they either tied their tubes, or they thought their career was more important in their earlier years.

The greatest gift in life is having a child, I must say. Because it’s the only thing that you actually create, it’s the only thing that is eternal. The power of eternity. The Divine gift of life. The greatest gift of all. And unfortunately not everyone appreciates that, and I think that’s the issue. If we appreciated that, then the context of the dialogue about all these topics like abortion and birth control would be entirely different.

Feder: You know, you mentioned the idea of children being born into poverty or being born into a very large family where there’s very little to go around. In fact, let’s expand that to the reality of the situation not only in our city, but in our country, and on the planet.

Before you mentioned that there are 6 billion people on the planet.

Jacobson: I think it just hit 6 billion last week.

Feder: Well, it had nothing to do with me! But here’s the serious point. If there are already far too many people on this planet…

Jacobson: Wait a minute. You’re assuming that there’s far too many.

Feder: Okay, I’m not taking G-d’s position here. But from the point of view of territory—of food, of housing, of shelter—the more people that come into the world, the less there is of a limited amount of resources to go around, and the more poverty there is. Aren’t we actually causing greater pain sometimes, and greater destruction and even death to large groups of people and sometimes even war?

When people are trying to provide for their children at the expense of someone else, if there were fewer children in the world, there wouldn’t be all this trouble.

Jacobson: Okay, a very good, legitimate question. But I would say this. Why are we focusing on population? Perhaps we should focus on why people who are prosperous should share more of their prosperity with the people who aren’t. You know, if we allocated funds, on almost an equal basis: took those who are have an abundance of wealth and don’t know what to do with their money (just look at what’s thrown out in the garbage cans in Manhattan that could feed probably countries in Africa—I’m not even sure whether that is an exaggeration) if we distributed that wealth on a more equal basis, it may be one solution rather than telling people not to have children.

Indeed, it is often the prosperous that put so much focus on population issues and abortion. Perhaps it is more convenient — and more selfish — to blame large families and complain, “Hey look. Why are they having so many children?” rather than being more charitable and distributing their wealth.

So I believe sometimes these causes (of abortion and fighting overpopulation) are funded by people who are invested in not wanting to share their wealth, or in maintaining their comfort zones. Do you see people who have one- or two-child families necessarily happier than those who have five or six children?

Feder: I don’t think that was the point I was trying to make.

Jacobson: What I’m trying to say is that this is not just a question of population. First of all…

Feder: You’re talking about equal distribution.

Jacobson: That’s one comment. Second of all, I’m not worried about G-d’s world. The fact is, no one ever imagined that 6 billion people could be on this planet and we would still have resources. Now they’re just discovering, for instance, that oil and other fuel resources actually regenerate. Everyone thought that it just depletes. But now I just recently read, and a scientist friend of mine told me, that they’re discovering a new theory that it regenerates: that the more oil that’s drawn the more is created.

However, in our logical, limited minds, we do think that there’s just that much food, that much resources. Look, no one believed in the 70s that we could have automobiles that would get 30 miles to the gallon. The entire auto industry went up in arms and said that’s impossible. The cars used to get 9-10 miles to the gallon.

My point is that with technology, these issues can be addressed, and I don’t know if we should tamper with life itself before we look at all the factors involved. But I would dedicate a show to this because it’s a good topic and your question is a good one.

I’m just answering it tangentially more in context with our discussion here.

Feder: Okay, let’s just take a break to acknowledge our supporters of tonight’s show. Tonight’s program is underwritten by Dina and David Reis. And when I say underwritten, I mean in a way sponsored by: they provided money to help this program air and get out to you.

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Again, this has been another large topic tonight and we’ve had some interesting talk about it. I guess all I can ask at this point is to make one last remark. You said earlier that there may be cases in fact where it’s possible that an abortion may be required to save someone’s life, or because of brutal emotional circumstances, but in general, your point was that this is a human life we’re talking about and a human life is sacred and we should not be taking it just because there is some emotional or physical reason that bothers somebody. And then I’ll ask you to offer people some comments to walk away with at the end of the show.

Jacobson: You summed it up well. And I would just add that I believe the issue really is a catalyst, a springboard, for each of us looking at our lives in a deeper way. Because I believe that the dialogue, the debate begins much earlier, long before the issue of abortion, because it touches on how we value life and how we see life and how we see our right to intervene when we think that life isn’t working well. I’m sure you remember the show we did on suicide and related topics. In other words, it comes down to how we see life and how we see our role or right, so to speak, to use our logic or our rationalizations to determine how life should be lived, or how life shouldn’t be lived.

To me, that’s a much bigger issue. I know many people who are anti-abortion, but they’re aborting their lives every moment in a metaphorical sense. They undermine themselves, they do not value themselves properly. So abortion is, from my point of view, a much larger issue, and when you deal with it from a root level, you often discover that one’s viewpoint on abortion is really one’s viewpoint on life in general: Since life is not that valuable, then yes, for me it makes sense: a woman has a child, she doesn’t want the child, abort the child, no big thing.

Often our attitudes to things are a result of our attitudes toward larger issues. That’s how I would really put it in context, because then you really get to the heart of the issue. And we could have a debate on this topic, but I’m sure, if you get to the root of the debate, abortion is a secondary factor. It may be belief in G-d (that may be the difference of opinion), it may be the sanctity of life, or it may be whether life is valuable. Or perhaps, some people would argue that some lives are not that significant, and perhaps some lives are more negligible than others.

Feder: Some lives are more valuable than other lives?

Jacobson: I’m sure there are people who have such attitudes because they feel that some child, for instance, may suffer unfairly. Let’s address the issue of unwanted pregnancies, which is the most painful side of abortion. But clearly the mother didn’t want it. It wasn’t just like a tragedy like a rape or incest or something that is clearly not in the control of the mother.

Now if the emotional trauma is so profound (and that is established medically), that is a different issue and I don’t like to make generalizations on this program. Everyone should ask one’s own authority, whether a rabbi or other religious authority, case by case in a particular situation. However, I do want to make a general statement, because here, we’re dealing with a topic where we clearly know this child is a result of a crime, let’s say. A felony…

Feder: Of the worst sort.

Jacobson: Correct. And I do equate it somewhat with a child who is born handicapped in a very severe way, which again traumatizes the parents. Why do I equate it? Because you’re dealing here with the mysteries of life and death. The reason the Torah would not just advocate abortion in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, in the case of a rape, because you are tampering, ultimately, with life one way or the other. And as painful as it may be, the fact is that it is this woman’s child. And we don’t want to tamper with that third partner—G-d—who did allow a life to be born out of this violation, so to speak.

Now, because it’s such a sensitive topic, I don’t want to elaborate on it, per se, but I do have to say that there are a lot of things in life that are unfair. And if it’s unfair, it does not necessarily mean that we should become less sensitive to life itself because something unfair happened to us.

That’s why I’d rather not speak generally about it, because anyone who has experienced something terrible like this shouldn’t hear about it on the radio from me; it should be done on a one-on-one basis in a personal way or a discussion. That’s why I didn’t want to just flippantly state my opinion. It feels somewhat vulgar to talk about it conceptually. As you say, I’m a man, you’re a man, it hasn’t happened to me. So I feel inadequate, yet my heart goes out, and I would be happy to talk to anyone who writes to me in such circumstances, because I think sensitivity is the key here.

It’s not just a question of whether abortion will heal the violation. There’s a sensitivity required if somebody who has been hurt and trying to understand G-d’s ways, and if a pregnancy didn’t result from a rape, is the rape less of a violation?

People’s entire lives change due to an abuse and a violent trauma of that nature.

Feder: Let me just mention that next week our topic will be “Lost Faith: How Can You Recapture It?” which is something that I think a lot of people might have something very personal to say about that.

Jacobson: And it’s something connected to what we’re discussing on this show. Why would G-d allow a situation where a child is born handicapped, unable to fully actualize its aspirations, or allow unwanted pregnancy? I think that’s part of it; many people lose their faith over matters like this.

But even if one doesn’t, you don’t want to cause more damage than necessary and I think that’s part of the issue. So it’s a good topic and we’ll address it next week.

So this topic is, as I said earlier, a springboard for a way of looking at life in a new way. Even people who don’t necessarily have to grapple with life and death questions of abortion, whether it’s people beyond birth-bearing age or just someone who’s not in that particular situation, any dialog, any debate that has reached the public’s attention, I always feel is Divine Providence, an opportunity to look at things. Even if there are violent disagreements—and when I say violent I don’t mean physically violent—but when there’s very strong disagreements, it always seems to me that that’s a great way of looking at the issue anew, and the issue is “What is life? How sacred is your life?”

And as I always say, when you wake up in the morning and you say, “Thank You G-d for returning my soul to me,” you’re essentially acknowledging the sanctity of life; that it’s something for us to embrace and celebrate. It doesn’t mean life is fair, and there are times when it’s more powerful than we are, but we have to celebrate the lives that are given to us.

Feder: Thank you very much.

Tags: radio transcript, body and soul, family planning, abortion
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