Vayera: Avraham Taking Ownership

Answering the Call (Vayera 5781)

This year’s Covenant & Conversation series on “Lessons in Leadership” was originally written and recorded in 5774 (2014) and subsequently published as a book.

The early history of humanity is set out in the Torah as a series of disappointments. God gave human beings freedom, which they then misused. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Cain murdered Abel. Within a relatively short time, the world before the Flood became dominated by violence. All flesh perverted its way on the earth. God created order, but humans created chaos. Even after the Flood, humanity, in the form of the builders of Babel, were guilty of hubris, thinking that people could build a tower that “reaches heaven” (Gen. 11:4).

Humans failed to respond to God, which is where Abraham enters the picture. We are not quite sure, at the beginning, what it is that Abraham is summoned to do. We know he is commanded to leave his land, birthplace and father’s house and travel “to the land I will show you,” (Gen. 12:1) but what he is to do when he gets there, we do not know. On this the Torah is silent. What is Abraham’s mission? What makes him special? What makes him more than a good man in a bad age, as was Noah? What makes him a leader and the father of a nation of leaders?

To decode the mystery we have to recall what the Torah has been signalling prior to this point. I suggested in previous weeks that a – perhaps the – key theme is a failure of responsibility. Adam and Eve lack personal responsibility. Adam says, “It wasn’t me; it was the woman.” Eve says, “It wasn’t me, it was the serpent.” It is as if they deny being the authors of their own stories – as if they do not understand either freedom or the responsibility it entails.

Cain does not deny personal responsibility. He does not say, “It wasn’t me. It was Abel’s fault for provoking me.” Instead he denies moral responsibility: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Noah fails the test of collective responsibility. He is a man of virtue in an age of vice, but he makes no impact on his contemporaries. He saves his family (and the animals) but no one else. According to the plain reading of the text, he does not even try.

If we understand this, we understand Abraham. He exercises personal responsibility. In parshat Lech Lecha, a quarrel breaks out between Abraham’s herdsmen and those of his nephew Lot. Seeing that this was no random occurrence but the result of their having too many cattle to be able to graze together, Abraham immediately proposes a solution:

Abram said to Lot, “Let there not be a quarrel between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.” (Gen. 13:8-9)

Note that Abraham passes no judgment. He does not ask whose fault the argument was. He does not ask who will gain from any particular outcome. He gives Lot the choice. He sees the problem and acts.

In the next chapter of Bereishit we are told about a local war, as a result of which Lot is among the people taken captive. Immediately Abraham gathers a force, pursues the invaders, rescues Lot and with him, all the other captives. He returns these captives safely to their homes, refusing to take any of the spoils of victory that he is offered by the grateful king of Sodom.

This is a strange passage – it depicts Abraham very differently from the nomadic shepherd we see elsewhere. The passage is best understood in the context of the story of Cain. Abraham shows he is his brother’s (or brother’s son’s) keeper. He immediately understands the nature of moral responsibility. Despite the fact that Lot chose to live where he did with its attendant risks, Abraham does not say, “His safety is his responsibility, not mine.”

Then, in this week’s parsha of Vayera, comes the great moment: a human being challenges God Himself for the very first time. God is about to pass judgment on Sodom. Abraham, fearing that this will mean that the city will be destroyed, says:

“Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” (Gen. 18:23–25)

This is a remarkable speech. By what right does a mere mortal challenge God Himself?

The short answer is that God Himself signalled that he should. Listen carefully to the text:

Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him” … Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached Me.” (Gen. 18:17–21)

Those words, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” are a clear hint that God wants Abraham to respond; otherwise why would He have said them?

The story of Abraham can only be understood against the backdrop of the story of Noah. There too, God told Noah in advance that he was about to bring punishment to the world.

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth” (Gen. 6:13).

Noah did not protest. To the contrary, we are told three times that Noah “did as God commanded him” (Gen. 6:22; 7:5; 7:9). Noah accepted the verdict. Abraham challenged it. Abraham understood the third principle we have been exploring over the past few weeks: collective responsibility.

The people of Sodom were not Abraham’s brothers and sisters, so he was going beyond even what he did in rescuing Lot. He prayed on their behalf because he understood the idea of human solidarity, immortally expressed by John Donne:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself …

Any man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.[1]

But a question remains. Why did God call on Abraham to challenge Him? Was there anything Abraham knew that God didn’t know? That idea is absurd. The answer is surely this: Abraham was to become the role model and initiator of a new faith, one that would not defend the human status quo but challenge it.

Abraham had to have the courage to challenge God if his descendants were to challenge human rulers, as Moses and the Prophets did. Jews do not accept the world that is. They challenge it in the name of the world that ought to be. This is a critical turning point in human history: the birth of the world’s first religion of protest – the emergence of a faith that challenges the world instead of accepting it.

Abraham was not a conventional leader. He did not rule a nation. There was as yet no nation for him to lead. But he was the role model of leadership as Judaism understands it. He took responsibility. He acted; he didn’t wait for others to act. Of Noah, the Torah says, “he walked with God” (Gen. 6:9). But to Abraham, God says, “Walk before Me,” (Gen. 17:1), meaning: be a leader. Walk ahead. Take personal responsibility. Take moral responsibility. Take collective responsibility.

Judaism is God’s call to responsibility.

Shabbat Shalom

[1] John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR VAYERA

  1. What could Adam, Eve, Cain and Noah have said or done differently, to face up to their various responsibilities?
  2. What was Abraham’s greatest quality?
  3. How can we continue Abraham’s legacy today?

From Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, here.

Never Forget: The Seminal Avishai Raviv Episode!

Recalling the Cemetery Swearing-In Ceremony Staged by Avishai Raviv

Friday, October 30, 2020

The website of Israel’s Media Watch from when I was Director is down but seems at least this post about that infamous swearing-in ceremony staged by agent provocateur Avishai Raviv can still be found.

The following text appeared in IINS News Service, November 1997 / Cheshvan 5758. As a public service, we bring to your attention its content.
“Declassified Shamgar Report (*) on Avishai Raviv”
November 13, 1997 – 13 Cheshvan 5757
Special Report -092sr
The following is a translation of the recently declassified portion of the Shamgar Commission’s report (*) into the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.
Chapter four (page 28) of the released material deals with Avishai Raviv.
**********************************************************
Chapter IV – Avishai Raviv was connected to the security services (General Security Service (GSS/Shin-Bet)) since December 1987. Not only were criminal charges not filed against him, he was informed that criminal charges were pushed off. The response of his superiors was that his results outweighed damages from his actions, which for the most part were not active participation in lawbreaking but failure to report such illegal activities. GSS officials had no doubt that he would repeat his [illegal] actions.
Raviv was also involved in the 1990 campaign to erase road signs leading to Arab areas. He was involved with the establishment of the Zionist Fascist Youth organization and a key player in the establishment of the militant “Eyal” organization. The “Eyal” organization, in actuality, was only able to exist because Raviv and Israel’s television stations publicized it.
1. In 1991, a racist letter sent to the Druze head of the Student Society of Tel-Aviv University was publicized by Israel TV.
2. Raviv assaulted Hadash (left-wing) MK Tamar Gozansky.
3. He incited a juvenile to attack Faisal Husseini. In connection with this attack, a false report was filed with Raviv’s superiors.
[Not from the Shamgar Report] – Note: On September 21, 1995, Israel’s government-run Channel One Television aired the swearing-in ceremony of Eyal members, who were seen holding a Bible and a handgun. This infamous TV footage created a national stir and increased the ongoing campaign to besmirch Israel’s nationalistic (right-wing) camp.Staged Eyal ceremonyStaged Eyal swearing-in ceremony by GSS agent provocateur Avishai Raviv. Pictures published in newspaper Makor Rishon 31.10.97 (Many Thanks)..
The staged swearing with a Bible and a gun, in Mount Herzl cemetery !! (Thanks to Makor Rishon from 5.12.1997)
Staged Eyal ceremony by Avishai RavivPictures published in newspaper Makor Rishon 31.10.97 (Many Thanks).
Following the airing of the Eyal swearing-in ceremony, “Israel’s Media Watch” sent a letter to Tzvi Lidar, the spokesman for Channel One Television. Media Watch asked if the TV Authority was certain the ceremony aired on TV was indeed, factual. The first response to the Media Watch letter stated that the question was unworthy of a response. Media Watch followed up with another letter, to which Lidar responded insisting the film footage was authentic, factual and worthy of being aired on national television. [end of note]
…[Shamgar Report Page continued- page 28] …Channel One Television aired the swearing in ceremony, which was obviously staged. Anyone who was present to see it had to have known it was a staged affair.
A7The following text appeared in Arutz 7 News Service, Friday, November 14, 1997 / Cheshvan 14, 5758. As a public service, we bring to your attention its content.
STILL NO ACTION ON COMPLAINT AGAINST TV
“Israel’s Media Watch” has demanded that Israel Television director Yair Stern clarify whether he actually investigated its complaints regarding the staged swearing-in ceremony of Eyal members.
Israel Television broadcast the ceremony in a major item several weeks before the assassination. Media Watch then wrote to Israel Television spokesman Tzvi Lidar, asking him whether the authenticity of the event had been checked in advance, “because the broadcast gives the impression of being staged.”
Lidar responded, “I don’t know what your impression is based on.” Media Watch wrote again, “Please answer whether the authenticity was investigated.” This time, Lidar answered, “Yes, it was checked, and found to be factual and worthy of being broadcast.”
As mentioned, Media Watch is waiting to hear whether the “check” was actually carried out. Media Watch later filed a complaint with the police against the television for broadcasting a staged event as authentic.
The State Attorney’s Office has not yet decided whether to begin a criminal investigation, despite repeated inquiries into the matter by Media Watch.
The organization believes that the complaint will now be taken more seriously, in light of the Shamgar Commission (*) findings released yesterday. The findings state, “Raviv continued his connections with the media in order to present Eyal as an existing body, and he received the help of the television in that it broadcast the swearing-in ceremony; [this] was nothing more than a fake, which anyone who was there most certainly noticed.”
(*) The Shamgar Commission has investigated the assassination of former prime-minister of Israel Mr. Yitshak Rabin (za”l). Nowadays, (November 13, 1997 – 13 Cheshvan 5757) a declassified secret part of the commision report about Secret Service agent provocateur Avishai Raviv has been published.
Israel’s Media Watch is a non-partisan advocacy group concerned with the ethical and professional standards of the media in Israel.
See here, too.
…On November 2, Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein prohibited publication of a summary of a meeting in the office of his predecessor Michael Ben-Yair. The summary, he claimed, would “endanger public security.” Eleven days later, long after the document had been placed on the Internet, the Israeli Supreme Court removed its own gag order, issued at Rubinstein’s request, and sharply reprimanded the Attorney-General for attempting to suppress a document that had no connection to public security.
A brief examination of Rubinstein’s actions and the way the Israeli press covered the issue provides a good case study of the many of the themes we have been developing.
The document in question dealt with a complaint filed by Israel’s Media Watch demanding that the Attorney-General bring criminal proceedings against Eitan Oren, the reporter who filmed the staged swearing-in ceremony of the Eyal organization (see p.8 above). According to the summary, the Attorney-General saw no alternative to prosecuting Oren. He is quoted as saying:
The episode shocked television viewers and caused enormous damage, a virtual public storm. I just don’t see how we can avoid beginning [criminal] proceedings. . . . I don’t see a problem with the evidence. I don’t see any problems in terms of his criminal intent. It is impossible to close the case without public exposure.
Everyone else in the room – State Attorney Edna Arbel, senior prosecutors, and representatives of the GSS – expressed concern that Oren would call Avishai Raviv to the stand, and that the latter would reveal everything connected to his actions as an agent provocateur on behalf of the GSS.
Much of the discussion concerned what grounds could be given for closing the file: “lack of public interest” or “lack of evidence.” The Jerusalem District Attorney argued that the latter ground would be easier to defend if the closure of the file reached the Supreme Court. The meeting ended with Attorney-General Ben-Yair washing his hands of the matter and leaving it up to the State Attorney.
The reason that the Israeli Right was so intent on revealing the document is clear. Since the Rabin assassination, the Right has continuously claimed that the GSS orchestrated a systematic campaign to delegitimize the opposition to Oslo by planting agent provocateurs in their midst to create the impression that the entire Right is composed of violent extremists. It was, for instance, GSS agent Avishai Raviv who held up the famous photomontage of Rabin in an SS uniform at an anti-Oslo rally, and who was Yigal Amir’s closest confidant in the months leading up to the Rabin assassination. For the Right, then, the document seemed to show that the State Attorney’s office was intent on avoiding public discussion of Raviv’s activities and their implications.
Many leading lights in the legal system had their own reasons for not wanting the document released. According to one GSS official present, Dorit Beinisch, former State Attorney and today a justice on the Supreme Court, gave approval for Raviv to engage in activities which would incriminate someone else who would then be arrested.
Even Attorney-General Rubinstein had his reasons for not wanting the document public, though he was not present at the meeting in question. For three and a half years, the State Attorney’s office pushed off inquiries from Israel’s Media Watch as to why no complaint had been filed against Oren with the response that the matter was under investigation. The document showed that response to be a lie: The decision not to prosecute on the grounds of “lack of evidence”‘ was made already nearly four years ago, for reasons having nothing to do with a lack of evidence.
Anyone old enough to remember the Pentagon Papers might have expected the Israeli media to raise a hue and a cry for release of the suppressed document. Far from it. If anything, the media followed the lead of Amnon Avramovits, who attempted to pooh-pooh the document as revealing nothing new. Though the document was easily available on Internet and had surely been read by the vast majority of print and broadcast journalists, few showed any curiosity as to why the Attorney-General was so determined to prevent its publications or what made it so important.
The media completely failed to accurately report the reason for the meeting described in the banned document: the complaint of Israel’s Media Watch to the Attorney-General over the role of IBA reporter Eitan Oren in the staged Eyal induction ceremony. A conspiracy of silence seemed to surround the activities of one of the brotherhood. No one asked why a reporter who played an integral role in the staged Eyal induction ceremony is still on the air.
Even after the Supreme Court allowed publication of the summary of the meeting, the media confined itself to score-keeping of winners and losers in the affair. The underlying issue of the government’s use of agent provocateurs as a means of delegitimizing opposition groups, however, still remained largely undiscussed.
The media showed a studied indifference to a document containing information sure to raise uncomfortable issues. When Israel’s Media Watch called a press conference prior to release of the meeting minutes, not one national paper or TV station sent a reporter, despite the presence at the press conference of Likud’s rising star MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz and one of Israel’s best known attorneys and the bombshell nature of the issue.
Steinitz was plainly stunned by the total boycott, and commented that the press conference reminded him of one called by Jewish refuseniks for the Soviet press under the Communists…

A MESHUMAD ‘Moetzes’ Member of Agudat Yisrael? That Wouldn’t Surprise Me…

The Viznitz tail doctrine. If this is not a cult what is?

R. Mendelle Vizhnitzer proclaims the tail doctrine. The doctrine urges his followers to think of themselves as tails with respect to their rebbe: just as the tail follows the body and cannot sever itself from it, nor control it –so ought a hosid follow his rebbe without any digressions, vacillation, or doubt. He even said the following:

Even if it seems that the Rebbe is transgressing a clear halokhoh from the mishneh beruroh, does not pray in public or not at all, or even if he does things that our forefathers did not do such as igniting a cigar in public or in the midst of a holy discourse –he [the hosid] remains clinging to his holy and pure rebbe… with a fealty of heart and soul, to him and to his pure path.

Believe it or not, in the recent Tail Doctrine campaign R. Mendelle taught his hasidim a new song to be sung before reciting the Psalms and after evening toroh lessons:

“we believe in the holy opinion of the holy Yeshuos Moshe (viz. his father, so named after a book that he composed), namely shvantzonus (the practice of being a tail; tail-ism)”

From The Jewish Worker, here.

re: The Gerrer Imrei Emes’ Letter About Rabbi Kook

I was asked what I meant in the recent article describing “the ויגזול את החנית strategy of Yerushalmi rabbis versus the hot-heads” hinted at in the Imrei Emes’ famous letter.

Rabbi Malinowitz says it best (see the rest here):

RM: Those who quickly made this a case of us against them –would they do so if a chareidi robbed Bank Mizrachi?
Questioner: If a charedi robbed Bank Mizrachi in the name of the Torah, and if R. Kopschitz sat on the dais of a gathering organized by the robber, then I hope so.

RM: R’ Kopschitz is not a kook. Rav Kopschitz was doing what that community does when the kooks get the headlines. They make a harmless asifah about the inyan and rail against it..this marginalizes the kooks within their community even more, and lets steam be let out in a harmless way, and shows that their leaders agree in principle for what is being fought for (that the school should move out). That is how they function. You may not like it, you may want the asifah to be against the violence, you may not like the idea that they are advocating the school’s moving–but that is not the point. This is their way of cooling tempers. (I do not want a discussion about that — I was merely addressing Rav Kopschitz’s intentions, to answer your questions)