GEN983 There are four attitudes among those how give charity: One who wishes that he should give and others should not, begrudges others what is theirs; that others should give and he should not – he is grudging toward what is his own (a miser); that he should give, and others too – he is pious, a hassid; that neither he nor others should give – he is wicked. Pirkei Avot V:16   Two of the four types in the mishnah do not want to give any charity; they why, we might ask, does the mishnah classify all four as “those who give charity”?   The answer is perhaps that if they themselves will not give, as members of their community they are likely in a position to prevail on others to give. So they are included among those who contribute. Or else, while these two types do not want to give charity, they will generally contribute anyway, under social (or other) pressure.  R. Moses Alshech [ca. 1507-1600: pupil of R. Joseph Caro] gives a most moving answer: The essential, innate nature of every Jew is to be religious; beyond the reaches of his conscious mind, his spiritual roots lie in the soil of Torah. Hence the Talmud teaches that if someone vows to derive no benefit from “the circumcised,” he may receive no benefit from uncircumcised Jews either. Mishnah, Nedarim iii 11 (Talmud 31b).  For in spirit, everyone in Jewry enters unreservedly into the Covenant of Abraham. By the same token, every Jew is, at heart, charitable. The Almighty Himself said of Abraham, “I have known him, that he may bid his children … to do tz’dakah …” [this verse]  Two characteristics of the Jew, says the Talmud, are that he is compassionate and does acts of kindness. Yebamoth 78a.  Thus the mishnah calls all Jewry “givers of charity”; if two types refuse to give, they have barriers; they suffer from resistances. At heart they are “givers of charity.” (Similarly, the next mishnah will speak of “four types among those who go to the House of Study,” then will describe two that do not go. Refuse as they will, in their souls they can be counted among the faithful who attend the synagogue for prayer and study.)   SINAI3 155-6

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GEN1040 Seven things are [typical] in a clod, and seven in a wise man; [The Wise Man] does not break in on the speech of his fellow-man. Pirkei Avot V:9   … it is only common courtesy to let someone complete his thought before we respond.   An eagerness to interrupt, straining at the leash, usually comes from an overpowering conviction that we know exactly what the other intends to say before he has said it, and already we perceive his fallacy.   Such a conviction often turns out wrong.   But right or wrong, anyone speaking should be given the right to express himself freely as he sees fit, without interruption, until he is done.  Avoth d’R. Natan (37) gives two illustrative examples from Scripture… (Leviticus 10:16-20) … The other example concerns Abraham the Patriarch.   When the Almighty was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He told Abraham, and this man of piety and loving-kindness began to plead. First he asked that the cities be spared if fifty righteous men could be found there; when that prayer was granted, he asked the same grace should only forty-five tzaddikim be found. That granted, he lowered the number to forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten. Each plea was accepted favorably in turn. [this verse and subsequent]. The Lord knew that were there even five or four virtuous people in Sodom, it would be saved from destruction. Seek them there, however, and you could not find them. Nevertheless, the Holy, Blessed One waited for Abraham to finish, and only then did he send him off, as it is stated [at the end]: the Lord went His way when He had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.” As it were, He as much as told him, “Now I am free [to act].” The lesson, continues Avoth d’R. Nathan (B40), is clear: The world and all that fills it is the holy, Blessed One’s; yet he did not wish to break into our father Abraham’s words. How much more certainly should a man – dust, [food for] worm and maggot – not break into the words of his fellow-man. It would be well to remember, though, that the courtesy should not be entirely one-sided. If a person speaking is to be permitted to conclude, let him forbear to abuse his privilege. He should not ramble but learn to express himself succinctly and concisely.   The story is told of an “august personage” who rose to address a rabbinic meeting.   After an hour and a half he was still talking, refusing to relinquish his precious opportunity. Then he remarked, “I once heard a great scholar say …” Suddenly a listener called out, “That cannot be!” There was a stunned silence. Sputtering with rage, the speaker shouted to his heckler, “How do you challenge me when I did not even tell what this great man said?” Replied the other, “You could never have heard any scholar say anything. You never give anyone else a chance to speak at all!”   SINAI3 103-4  

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GEN1044 If one has as good eye, an humble temperament, and a lowly spirit, he is of the disciples of Abraham our Father. Pirkei Avot V:22   These were truly Abraham’s characteristics. A “good eye,” we know, denotes a generous sense of benevolence, a wish to let and help others live, a joy at finding or making the world a bit happier.   Abraham’s “good eye” can be discerned in Scripture readily enough. For three strangers who happened along, we read how "Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, ‘Make ready quickly three measure of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes.’ And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf tender and good, and gave it to the servant; and he hastened to prepare it. …” Genesis 18:6-7 Earlier, when he defeated the four kings who had captured Lot, he gave one tenth of the war booty as tithe to Melchizedek “the cohen [i.e., priest - AJL] of God Most High.” Genesis 14:18,20 And when he needed a place of burial for his departed wife Sarah, he readily paid four hundred shekels of silver for it; he did not hesitate or haggle. Genesis 23:15-16.   An humble temperament, Abraham had too. When he came to ask the people of Heth for a burial ground for Sarah, his first words were, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you,” although he was a venerable man of some renown. When he saw the three strangers mentioned above, he himself ran to entreat them to stay and eat, though they looked like ordinary Arabs. According to the Sages, it was the third day after his circumcision.   And when he stood before the Almighty, his heart open to plead for Sodom and Gomorrah (a further instance of his generosity), he said, “Here have I taken upon myself to speak, and I am but dust and ashes.” [this verse]. SINAI3 201

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GEN1064 See [[GEN816]] Genesis 14:13 dwelling SINAI3 17-8

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GEN1110 A good son’s value is indicated in the Talmud: “It is written, Hadad heard in Egypt that David was a rest with his fathers and that Joab … was dead.”   Why is David described as laid to rest, but Joab as dead? … Because David left behind a son like himself, he is called lying at rest; Joab, who did not leave a son like himself, is called dead.” I Kings 11:21. Talmud, Baba Batrha 116a. Similarly, Abraham had Ishmael and other sons from other wives; yet the Almighty promised him, ‘through Isaac shall progeny be called yours.” [this verse] Only Isaac, then Jacob and his descendants, are truly the “children of Abraham,” for in Isaac Abraham’s faith lived on. Hence in a very real sense Abraham, like David, did not die but only came to rest. Their spiritual achievements, the essence of heir lives, lived on.  SINAI3 377

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GEN1136 With ten trials was Abraham our Father proved, and he stood firm in them all; which informs [us] how great was the love of Abraham our Father [for God]. Pirkei Avot V:4  In the previous mishnah, our first Patriarch is introduced as Abraham, and at it conclusion he is “Abraham our father.” Abraham achieved this title by a lifetime of virtue and righteousness; he did not have it at the beginning of his career. But since the previous mishnah established his title of distinction, this mishnah calls him so throughout.   As psychoanalysis has learned, a father is of far-reaching importance to a son. Not only is he a first teacher, whom the boy generally admires and seeks to emulate. Far beyond this, the very image of his father – his perception, he way of being in the world, his way of meeting and understanding life – all flows into the son and becomes an indelible part of his psyche. Paradoxically, psychoanalysis itself often assumes that the son must free himself from this father image’s authority over him – perhaps because practitioners and patients have largely absorbed pain and conflict from unacceptable parents Hand-in-hand with this thesis generally goes a blanket denunciation and rejection of ancestral religion. Thus, if we read Freud’s biographies with care, we can detect considerable unconscious conflict about his father, and by extension, about the Jewish people, which is not unrelated to his aberrant, wholly unscientific Moses and Monotheism.   Scripture records instances enough where idolatrous Hebrew kings scorned the ways of pious fathers, and vice versa. But where father and son were sound in religious knowledge and character, there was no such conflict or upheaval. Thus, on their way to bind Isaac and offer him up as a sacrifice, the Writ states twice of Abraham and him that “they went both of them together,” [this verse, Genesis 22:6] in unison, toward worship of the Creator. We read, “These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begot Isaac (or, was the father of Isaac)”; the Midrash interprets the second part –apparently superfluous – to mean that Isaac utterly resembled Abraham. Genesis 25:19. Midrash Tanhuma, Tol’doth 6; ed. Buber, Vayyishlach 25; Aggadath B’reshit xxxvii; Yalkut Machiri, Psalms §61 More than physical resemblance is connoted: Zohar states, “Now that Abraham was dead, his image remained in Isaac, and whoever saw Isaac said, This is Abraham!” Zohar I 135a  In piety, the character of the son became a continuation of the father’s.   Where the father is truly, soundly religious, without inner conflict or contradiction, his image becomes the core of the son’s piety. In this vein, the Sages teach that under the ceaseless seductive efforts of Potiphar’s wife, Joseph the servant was about go yield to temptation at last, when he suddenly beheld the image of his father, and he maintained his resistance thereafter.  Talmud, Sotah 36b; Jerusalem Talmud Horayoth ii 5; Midrash Rabbah, Genesis lxxxvii 7; xc 20; Tanhuma, Vayyeshev 9; Midrash Shmuel v; Pirke d’R. Eli’ezer xxxix; Yalkut Machiri, Proverbs §29,3.   Freud taught that our perception of God is “no more than a father-image,” to be discarded as a neurotic aberration. Judaism teaches that the father-image forms the prefiguration and configuration of the Supreme Being that has existence beyond all existence, that a person later knows as God. Hence we read in the Midrash: When the Holy, Blessed one [first] revealed Himself to Moses [at the scene of the burning bush in the wilderness] Moses was a tyro, utterly inexperienced in prophecy” [as of little power, hence of little significance]. What did He do? He revealed Himself with the voice of Moses’ father.   Happily, Moses thought, “My father is alive! He has come from Egypt!” and he responded, “Here am I. What does my father wish?” Said the Holy One, “I am not your father; I am the God of your father. I have manifested Myself gently to you, that you should not be frightened.” Midrash Rabbah, Exodus iii 1; xlv 5; Yalkut Machiri, Proverbs 25; Tanhuma, Sh’moth 19; ed. Buber, 16 (see Exodus 3:4,6)   Moses stood, unknowing, at a turning point in his life, when he would learn to receive the word of God, more directly than any other human being or since. He first heard it as the voice of his father.   These are the dimensions of meaning that traditional Judaism finds in the concept of father. Hence in the traditional Jewish family the roles of father and son fit together as in the join of a master mechanic; The father is bidden to provide his child with a thorough knowledge of the the son is obliged to respect and honor his parent; and when he attains maturity and can appreciate his forefather’s worth and achievements, he is to say, “When shall my deeds equal theirs?” Deuteronomy 6:7: “you shall teach them [the words of Torah] diligently to your children.” Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 19:3. Seder Eliyahu Rabbah xxv (standard eds.).  In profound awareness of the meaning of “father,” our tradition bestows the title above all on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   Though we have never known them personally, their influence permeates the continuing generations of Jewry. Starting from Abraham, as each father rears his son along the royal road of the Hebrew faith, his image is absorbed into t he psyche of the son, to become part of the very fibre of the son’s being: all his values, the fruits of the father’s maturing experiences, reflections, and hard-won inner certainty become the son’s own. In the next generation the son becomes the father, and the process continues.   Therefore, after the Almighty identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush as “the God of your father,” He added, “the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” No matter how removed in time and space Moses was from these ancestors, he yet knew of them in the depths of his being.   We study the lives of these Fathers, in Bible, Talmud and Midrash, over and over, trying to understand their trials and achievements, that we may the better emulate them, if only in some small degree. In our daily prayers we begin the central sh’moneh esreh with the benediction, “Blessed art Thou, our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob …” For as we remind our Maker in the preliminary morning prayers, “we are They people, the children of Thy covenant, the children of Abraham Thy loving Friend … the descendants of Isaac his only son … the community of Jacob They firstborn …” Before heaven we affirm them as our fathers, our Patriarchs, the archetypes of the Jewish soul.   Do we inherit something of their qualities through genes and chromosomes, biologically? Or through an unbroken continuity of family environment? Of this we are certain; the traits of these Fathers, their values and norms quicken our spirit and inform our striving. “A righteous man walks in his integrity – fortunate are his children after him.” Proverbs 20:7 Sometimes we see Jews far removed from traditional Jewish life and values, suddenly espousing a Jewish cause with fervor and enthusiasm. Such were the many young men, completely dissociated from any formal, overt Jewish interest, who joined the Israeli army in the war of liberation and made the supreme sacrifice to give their people back their historic homeland. Their background, their upbringing, can hardly explain why they should have suddenly risen to the defense of their people. When the moment called, through a higher, transpersonal self, the heritage of the Patriarchs moved them. In our own midst, ever so often a young man or woman raised in a totally non-Jewish home—with never a whisper of Torah or traditional, ancestral observance to warm it – turns to our age-old faith, for a lifetime of loyalty. They too are children of Abraham; because their spirits were attuned, some chords of the music of faith that their primordial ancestor played in his lifetime could arouse a sympathetic vibration, a Divine melody in their souls. For yet in Haran did Abraham know how to “make souls,” [Genesis 12:5] drawing them near to their Father in Heaven.  SINAI3 19-22

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GEN1149 See [[GEN1044]] Genesis 18:27 ashes SINAI3 201

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GEN1155 See [[GEN1044]] Genesis 18:27 ashes SINAI3 201

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GEN1157 Five possessions has the Holy, Blessed One … [The heaven and earth; Abraham; the people Israel; the Sanctuary] … Pirkei Avot VI:10 At first sight there is a difficulty: Surely the whole universe is the possession of the Almighty, not merely these five entities.   The Psalmist declaims, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it—the world and those who dwell in it”; … moreover, we read, “the Lord will rejoice in His works” – all His works, since, as Scripture tells, “God saw all that He had made, and, behold it was very good.” Psalms 24:1, 104:24, 31, Genesis 1:31.  In what sense, then, are the five entities in our text the peculiar possession of the Holy One in His world, which He has singled out to “acquire” and make especially his own? Don Isaac Abarbanel finds the answer in the Hebrew for “possession,” kinyan; in this term he sees three connotations:   (1) In its sense of purchasing, buying, kinyan signifies something an individual acquires through what he himself does. Thus, after Abraham gave its owner the agreed price for a field, tht he might bury Sarah there, Scripture tells that the field was rendered “to Abraham for a possession” (miknah, same root as kinyan); later, it is described as the field “that Abraham bought (kanah).” Genesis 23:18, Genesis 49:30. Similarly, many acts of purchase described in the Talmud take effect when the owner does a symbolic physical act: e.g. he gives money (as Abraham aid), lifts up the object he is buying, or leads away an animal that he is acquiring; or the seller gives him a part of his purchase to hold, etc. See e.g. Mishnah, Kiddushin i 4; Talmud 22b and 26a; Baba Metzi’a 9a; 47 a-b. (2) It donotes an abiding, permanent relationship between the acquisition and the one who makes it his.   It does not become his possession lightly, haphazardly, or temporarily. It becomes his thoroughly and permanently. (3) Finally, kinyan connotes something beloved and cherished by the one who makes it his. Originally this is part of the word’s usual meaning of purchase: for as the Sages insightfully observe, anything bought will have a charm, a grace in the eyes of its news owner. By extension, though, it can denote any possession that is particularly valuable and cherished, that is owner feels grateful for having. With the three facets of meaning in mind, we can see why the text calls five entities alone the kinyanim of the Holy One. SINAI3 391-2

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GEN1159 Hoary age is a crown of glory … Pirkei Avot VI:8   R. Abbahu taught: It was asked of Solomon, “Who is slated for life in the world-to-come?” Said he, “whoever has honor before him in his old age” – in keeping with the last verse in our text.   Thus it is clearly a fine thing for the righteous to achieve old age with honor. And the Sages teach: Wherever you find elders, the Omnipresent Sovereign bestows honor on them. Talmud Baba Bathra 10b; Midrash Sifre, Numbers §92 As to hoary old age, Scripture tells, “Abraham was old, well advanced in age” [this verse] and earlier, the Almighty promised him, “you shall be buried at a good hoary age.” Genesis 15:15. SINAI3 377

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