Food 4 Shabbos Pinchas - Hakhel!
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Shalom from Safed,
In this?week's portion Pinchas, we read how the greatest, most humble and objective man in history refuses to judge a case brought before him. The reason being the the plaintifs opened with a statement that verbaly could cause Mosses to be bias and take sides.
This is the case and issue with all of us not even being aware may time of our subjectivity. Therefor the Torah instructs us to take counsel in our decisions in life. This is not only to seek the greater wisdom or proffessional knowhow of another, but to receive the honest unbias and objective opinion of someone who is personaly detached from the subject.
?To pursue assistance, guidance and consultation from an objective spiritual guide on any matter of life, you are invited to contact me.
Good Shabbos.
Moshiach NOW!
Eliyahu
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This Week’s Portion
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Pirkei Avot:?Chapter 1 ( 6 in the diaspora )
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Pinchas -?
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WHY DO WE?NEED
A MENTOR?
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A Russian government official was arrested for accepting a bribe from a contractor. A friend who went to visit him in the lock-up asked, "How are you going to get out of this mess?"
The official replied calmly, "I got into trouble for accepting a bribe; I will get out of trouble by giving it."
It is a puzzling story—the tale of the five daughters of Tzelafchad, recorded in the portion of Pinchas.
They stood before Moses saying,
Our father died in the desert, but he was not in the assembly that banded together against G-d in Korah's assembly, but he died for his own sin, and he had no sons.
They asked Moses why should our father's name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us his land portion along with our father's brothers...
So Moses brought their case before G-d.
God spoke to Moses, saying: The daughters of Tzelafchad have a just claim. Give them a hereditary portion of land alongside their father's brothers. What Happened to Simple Logic?
It seems that as soon Moses heard the question posed to him by the daughters of Tzelafchad, he immediately, without skipping a beat, declared “I will bring this to G-d.” None of his own deliberations were employed here, why?
Moses surely could have employed his wisdom to tackle this question. Yet Moses did not even attempt to do so; he immediately passed it along to G-d.
Rabbanu Bachaye, offers a most daring insight.
To appreciate his answer, we must examine this question: Is there such a thing as objectivity? Are humans capable of objectivity? Is objectivity real, or just another idealistic principle like justice or truth, nice in principle but imperfectly operated in human hands?
Based on nature or nurture, or both, we each have our own paradigms which define our judgments. Can we ever set ourselves beyond them? What is more, we define reality based on our senses and interpretations, hence we are forever subjective, or what is known today as “cognitive bias.”
It is fascinating that literally thousands of years ago, the Torah and the Talmud understood this truth about humanity. Listen to this fascinating law in the Talmud.
The Talmud states that “the king or the high priest -- may not sit in on the court proceedings as to impregnate the year with an extra month.” Why? The king has an invested monetary interest, and the High Priest: He might not want the year to have thirteen months, for then Yom Kippur will be later in the season and it will be colder weather, and he has to immerse himself in the waters of the Mikvah five times that day! Plus, he serves in the Temple barefoot, and he does not want the floor to be cold.
You know the anecdote:
A man who faced a staggering loss if the judge ruled against him, was in great distress. During the litigation, he conferred with his counsel. “If I lose this case, I am lost!”
“It is in the judge's hands”, his lawyer instinctively replied.
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“Perhaps I can send him a small gift, maybe a case of whisky, to help him make up his mind?”
“Oh, no! Not with this judge,” the lawyer hastily replied. “He is a very upstanding man and would be very insulted by the implication that he could be bought with a bribe. In fact, it could easily cost us the case if you tried any shenanigans.”
The defendant did not respond.
A few days later the judge rendered his decision in the defendant's favor. On the way out of the courthouse, the delighted defendant thanked his lawyer heartily: “We won! Thanks so much for your advice on the whisky; it was just like you said!”
“I am certain we would have lost if you had tried that,” the lawyer responded smoothly.
“What do you mean? I did it and it worked.”
The lawyer stopped short and stared at his client in disbelief. “What? You sent him a case of whisky?!”
“Yes. And I added a check for $10,000. And that’s the reason we won.”
“It can’t be. This judge never takes bribes. If someone bribes him, they lost the case immediately. How did you pull it off?”
“It is very simple. I sent the judge a case of expensive whisky with a nice check. But instead of using my own name and address, I put in my opponent's business card.”
So the Talmud relates six episodes—I will share two of them—to illustrate how the Talmudic sages viewed the challenge of human bias.
The Babylonian sage Shmuel was crossing a bridge when a fellow stretched out his hand to help him come across. Shmuel asked him what brought him here? He answered: I have a pending court case by you. Shmuel said: I am disqualified to adjudicate for you because you did me a favor.
The sharecropper of Rabbi Yishmael used to bring him a basket of fruits every Friday from the harvest of his own orchard. This was part of the business arrangement they had made. One week he brought in on Thursday. Rabbi Yishmael asked: “Why did you come early?” He answered: I have a pending court case by you [with another person], so I figured that on my way I will bring to my master the basket of fruits. Rabbi Yishmael did not accept the basket and disqualified himself from judging this person.
Let us reflect on this story: This worker of Rabbi Yishmael certainly had no intention of bribing him because he was obligated to bring him the fruits at the end of every week. If he brought the fruits a day earlier on Thursday, the day the court was in session, he did it just to save himself a trip from the orchards into the city a second time. Yet, Rabbi Yishmael did not accept his own basket of fruits and he did not allow himself to adjudicate this case. He felt that he was already “bias” in the case.
The story continues: Rabbi Yishmael disqualified himself to adjudicate. So he found other scholars to adjudicate for him. In the midst of the trial, Rabbi Yishmael found himself mentally engaged in how this person can win his case. Then Rabbi Yishmael said: See the power of bribery! I did not take the basket of fruits. Even if I would take the fruits it would have been allowed as the fruits belonged to me. Still, I found myself favoring this man! Imagine those who actually take a bribe!
The moral sensitivity and integrity of the Talmudic sages displayed here can explain to us the spiritual weight they carry in Jewish history. For the greatest obstacle to truth and trust is not that human beings have agendas; it is that humans have agendas and deny them.
A teacher was giving a big test. Upon collecting the tests she noticed a note attached with a $100 bill underneath which read, "one dollar per point, please." The teacher returned the test the next day with $40 and a note attached which read, "$40 change!
Based on all of this we will appreciate what occurred with the daughters of Tzelafchad.
If we are to look at how they presented their case they prefaced, “our father died in the desert. He was not among the members of Korach's party who protested against G-d, but he died because of his own sin without leaving any sons.”
This detail is the key to it all. Korach staged a ferocious rebellion against Moses. He saw Moses as his arch-enemy and attempted to rally up the entire nation against Moses. Korach claimed that Moses was a power-hungry demagogue, who craved nothing but absolute control and authority. The moment Moses heard the daughters say that their father was not part of Korach’s mutiny, he felt that his psyche had just become biased toward them and their father. This was a verbal bribe, subtle as it may be, and he might not be fully objective in his decision.
Now let us understand: The episode of Korach challenging Moses’s authority took place thirty-nine years earlier! Lots of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Korach’s end was ugly as he was swallowed up by the earth and Moses’s authority had been restored. Over the past four decades, no one any longer suspected Moses of being a dictator or challenged his role as leader. Korach’s story has long abated.
Add to this that Moses did not have anything personal against Korach. Moses actually never wanted to become a leader. It was G-d who “twisted his arm” into taking the position. Moses would have been more than happy to obey Korach and retire from his post. Moses, however, was defending not his honor but the honor of G-d and the Torah.
Consider further that Moses was now reaching 120 years. He has been the greatest prophet and scholar and the greatest human being who ever walked our planet, a person who for the last forty years communed with G-d and brought his Torah to the world.
Yet this man felt that the moment a few young women mentioned the fact that their father was on the right team, that their father did not join the mutiny 39 years earlier, he is disqualified of judging their case! He immediately said: I cannot be objective in this case thus I must ask G-d what needs to be done in your case.
Had they not mentioned the saga of Korach, Moses might have contemplated the question and offered his view on the law. But the moment they mentioned that 39 years ago their father was on the right team, Moses said: I cannot be the judge!
This is the level of self-awareness Judaism asks of us. Don’t be perfect, but be accountable. Don’t be flawless, but be honest with yourself. Realize how subjective you may be on any given issue, perhaps beyond realizing it. Thus, always retain your humility, allow yourself to be challenged, listen to another perspective, and be open to the truth that you may really be wrong.
So where do we go from here? If people are inherently subjective and might always have a lurking agenda, what do we do? How can one possibly gain an objective perspective on people, places and things? When we have to make important decisions in our lives that affect us and other people, especially moral decisions, how do we know that we are not stuck in the quagmire of our own biases?
To this, the Mishna gives us a clear directive.
Joshua the son of Perachia would say: Assume for yourself a mentor, acquire for yourself a friend, and judge every man to the side of merit.
“Assume for yourself a Rav,” a mentor, an instructor, a confidant. Every one of us must have a mentor, a human being, in whom we confide and discuss important matters pertaining to the course of our lives. The value of that confidant is not that he is smarter than you. We know no one is smarter than you… the value is that he is simply not you, someone who can listen to us and give us the feedback we often dread but which we desperately need.
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For a further understanding of Tammuz 17 and the three weeks you may go to:
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This has been made available by:?
Rabbi Y.?Geisinsky?Chabad of Great Neck NY