SERMON FOR PARASHAT VAYERA

IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE MURDER OF PRIME MINISTER
YITZCHAK RABIN OF ISRAEL

by: Rabbi Barry Freundel

I am going to react publicly at least three times from this pulpit. Next
Shabbat, I will try to answer the question which many of us have, and which
was posed to me directly by David Epstein. That question is, how can this
happen and continue to happen from within the Halachik or Traditional
community. Tomorrow night, a night of introspection, study, and prayer, I
will look at an historical antecedent to these events. We will study a
similar tragedy of Jew against Jew violence described in the Talmud, where
one individual acted violently to protect what he deemed as sacred. Today
and before all that, I think it is important to lay down some much more basic
principles that we seem to have ignored. The things I am about to say have
either not been said, or have not been said enough to make the impact that
they should have made.

I began to formulate this morning's response last Monday evening when I was a
guest on a TV. show to discuss the assassination and its meaning. The show
is a sort of McLaughlin Group clone which deals with ethical issues that
arise from the headlines. It was broadcast on something called the "Faith
and Values" network, and in its conception, it seems to have an important and
serious intent. On the panel was an academic ethicist, fairly secular,
although identified as a Christian; a politically and religiously liberal
Jew; a politically conservative traditional Jew best known for his opposition
to the peace process; and, of course, me. The first question was the obvious
one: "How can one understand such a thing happening?" asked the moderator.
In response, the secular ethicist, whom no one would confuse with being a
religious fanatic, blamed religious fanaticism. The liberal Jew, whom no one
would confuse with being a right-wing extremist, blamed right-wing extremism.
The anti-peace process conservative, whom no one would confuse with being
Yasser Arafat and the PLO, blamed Yasser Arafat and the PLO. One other
attempt at explanation emerged from this group of three, and that was to say
that the murderer was demented. I suspect that none of the group sees him or
herself as having that deficit, either.

I suppose by this point, many of you know or can anticipate the direction
that my response took. This will be especially true if you have read Shai
Franklin's e-mail post on the Rabin assassination, or the statement by Rav
Amital and Rav Lichtenstein that is posted on the bulletin board downstairs.
I am going to expand and preface the answer I gave that night by way of a
Dvar Torah. The Dvar Torah will focus on the source of the evil in the city
of Sodom that leads to its destruction in this morning's Parsha.

As one looks at the story this morning, it seems clear that evil was part of
the culture of Sodom. If I were to ask anyone reading this morning's portion
why the city was destroyed, the answer would seem to be obvious. The angels
come to the city, having left Abraham's home and care. They are invited into
Lot's house, whereupon the people of the entire city surround the house,
apparently for purposes of immorality. They carry with them, of course, the
threat of mob violence and of murder, and that threat appears to be real,
even if those inside Lot's house were to go along with the demands.

This must be the way in which these people generally acted as, apparently,
there is some sort of unseen signal that tells everyone in the city that they
can and should go and surround Lot's house at this point in time. This
suggests that it is part of the culture. If so, this would certainly give
sufficient reason to G-d to destroy the city in response to its sexual
immorality, violence, and murder.

Yet the Rabbis don't leave it there. Instead of attributing the destruction
simply to these heinous crimes, the Rabbis shift the focus, at least
somewhat, to the mistreatment of guests and strangers. It is true that this
mistreatment is often described in murderous terms in Rabbinic literature.
For example, the city is purported to have beds set aside for visitors.
Each visitor is asked to lie down in one of the beds. If the person is too
long for the bed, his legs are cut off, and if he is too short, he is
stretched on the rack until he fits. Similarly, the Rabbis tell us of the
torture of Lot's daughter that comes in response to her showing kindness to a
visitor. Nonetheless, even though violence pervades these stories, there is
a sort of subtle shift away from that being the essence of the city's evil,
to a focus on the mistreatment of the stranger and the "other."

I suppose there is a partial explanation here for the shift. After all, the
angels are strangers. But there is a problem. Lot came to the city in last
week's Parsha, as a stranger as well. At the point where Lot and his family
enter Sodom, the city is already described as being wicked and evil. Yet Lot
survives. In fact, in the Biblical story, no harm or danger comes to him
when he first enters the city. Even in Rabbinic midrash, the violent
mistreatment of his daughter comes not from her stranger status but from her
helping someone else who is a visitor. Where, then, do the Rabbis come to
the idea of shifting the focus to the mistreatment of the stranger?

The answer, I therefore believe, comes from the Jewish parallel to the
actions of the people of Sodom. There is, in fact, one time in Jewish
history when the Jewish community sank so far into immorality that Jews
parallel the behavior of the people of Sodom described in this morning's
Parsha. The story comes towards the end of the book of Judges, and it is
known as "Pilegesh Begivah."

In its barest detail, and leaving out many of the most gory elements of the
story, a Jewish man, his concubine, and his servant are traveling on the road
as the sun is setting. The servant says to the man, "Let's stop in this
Jebusite city just ahead of us." And the man responds, "No, there is a
Jewish city a little way down the road. Let's go there and find welcome."
The couple comes to the city to look for a place to stay but no one will
take them in. Time passes and it looks as if they will be homeless and in
the streets for the night. Finally, one old man invites them in and they go
with him to his home. Then, in horrible parallel to this morning's Parsha,
all of the Jewish townspeople surround the house and demand that the man be
brought out so that they may "know" him.

In the Parsha that we read this morning, the people surrounding Lot's house
and demanding that the strangers be brought out to them are "starting up"
with angels. Those angels, through miraculous intervention, save Lot and his
family and, at the word of G-d, destroy the city of Sodom.

No such miraculous intervention takes place in the "Pilegesh Begivah" story.
Instead, the man takes his concubine and throws her out of the door where
she is abused for the entire night and eventually murdered. This horrible
action leads to the near destruction of the tribe of Benjamin. The other
tribes descend on Benjamin, demanding that the perpetrators, who are members
of that tribe, be turned over to them for justice. When Benjamin refuses, a
war ensues, which nearly puts an end to that entire segment of the Jewish
community.

Given the strong parallels between the two stories, and the fact that, in the
"Pilegesh Begivah" story, the breakdown begins with the violation of
"hachnasat orchim"-- the improper treatment of the stranger-- there is a
logical carryover back into the story of Sodom that gives the Rabbis license
to see that as the breakdown in Abraham's time, as well.

In that carryover, there is movement from describing the sin that destroyed
Sodom as murder, violence, and violation of sexual immorality, to what one
would think of as a far lesser crime, that of being insensitive to the
stranger and the visitor. This begins a dynamic of "ratcheting" down the
crime that leads to the destruction of the city. That "ratcheting" reaches
its culmination in the Talmud in sources that speak of a personality
characteristic called, "midat Sodom," the attribute of Sodom.

What is this "midat Sodom," and how is it to be understood? It is described
in the Talmud as a kind of callous insensitivity to the human beings with
whom one is dealing. An example of how it appears is the following case
discussed in the Talmud. A poor man owns a mill which is not being used.
Another poor man in the same city is a miller, and they make a deal. The
man with the skill will lease the mill, and will repay the owner by grinding
the owner's grain gratis.

Time passes. The owner of the mill becomes successful, and even affluent,
and he buys another mill. At some point, he no longer needs the miller to
grind for him at the first mill, as he can do it at the other mill. The
fellow who is acting as the miller is still poor, and depends on his work at
the mill for his livelihood. Nonetheless, the mill owner comes to the poor
man and says, "I want the standard rental fee for using my mill." This
rental fee will not only wipe out any profits realized by the poor man, but
will take whatever remaining resources he might have. The miller insists on
retaining the relationship, arguing that the owner can sell what is ground at
the new mill and keep that which is ground by the miller. His argument is
that using time on the new mill for his own needs will lose the owner as much
money as he will gain by charging rent for the present arrangement.

Jewish law will accept the argument of the miller, unless the miller can be
shown to have other orders that can replace working for the owner. If he has
sufficient work and is simply getting in the way of the owner functioning as
he would like, this is considered "midat Sodom."

The general statement of this principle appears in the Mishna in Tractate
Avot. In discussing characteristics of generosity and selfishness that one
finds in the people one meets, certain individuals are described as having
the attitude of "sheli sheli, veshelcha shelach"-- "what is mine is mine, and
what is yours is yours." One opinion in the Mishna calls this "midah
beinonit"-- a "middling" or "average attitude." A second opinion says "zu
midat Sodom"-- "this is the characteristic of Sodom." When one is so
isolated from the other, when one is so callous to the other's needs, when
one is unable to touch the humanity of the other person, when one simply
says, "sheli sheli veshelcha shelach"-- "what is mine is mine and what is
yours is yours," one is acting like the people of Sodom. From that beginning
comes next the inability to invite the guest or the stranger in need. When
that goes far enough, when that callousness, when that inability to sense the
humanity of other people reaches its culmination, the climax can include the
murder, violence, and sexual immorality of this morning's reading and of the
story of "Pilegesh Begivah."

The Rabbis are, of course, correct. Without the initial callousness, without
the first denial of the other's humanity and the other's basic human needs,
we would never ever get to the point of abuse and of murder. If I can feel
the other's humanity, if I can have a sense of his or her infinite value and
uniqueness as a human being, I would never do that-- I could never do that.

That all brings me back to what I said on Monday night's television show when
it got to be my turn. I indicated that I saw in all of the others' answers
an unwillingness to reach beyond oneself, to look the evil that had occurred
squarely in the face, and to recognize that evil for what it was-- a part of
us, a part of all of us. In labeling the fellow "demented," then we "normal"
people are not part of what he did. The ethicist, in making it a function of
religious fanatics, makes it not his problem. The liberal, in claiming that
it was right-wing extremists who were to blame, was saying that it was not
her burden. The anti-peace process conservative, in faulting Yasser Arafat
and the PLO, was insisting that it was not part of his persona. "Sheli
sheli," "what's mine is mine," "veshelcha shelach," "what's yours is yours."
To which I respond, "zu midat Sodom," "this is the characteristic of Sodom."
Of course, what happened was all of their problem, and all of our problem,
as well.

The root of this event, as of so many of the events of our day, is in the
culture of violence that pervades society and that surpasses Sodom and the
"Pilegesh Begivah" story in its horror and immorality. This culture has sent
a message to some people of every ideological stripe, and to some people who
are religious and to some people who are not religious, and to some people of
every religious and every non-religious persuasion, that it is somehow okay
to solve one's political and social problems at the point of a gun or with
the blade of a knife or with the explosion of a bomb.

The point from where we begin to look at this with an eye toward fixing it
has to be that we all contributed to it-- not just in rhetoric that tends to
dehumanize those who we do not like and those who are different from us, but
even more fundamentally. We don't educate, we don't talk enough about, we
don't confront enough, the precious uniqueness, the infinite value of every
single human being in the world. We don't dwell long enough on the fact that
every individual has a particular set of hopes, dreams, aspirations, and
identity unto him or herself, that is precious in the eyes of G-d and should
be precious in the eyes of all human beings.

It is clear to me that, if we made this realization the central value of our
society, if we simply refused to accept any behavior that did not meet these
parameters, if we ostracized and brought social disdain upon anyone who
functioned other than with that type of respect, then the chances of someone
rationally performing this type of violent and murderous act would diminish
considerably. It is similarly clear to me that, if we had reminded ourselves
of that central value, no one could argue that such an act was Halachically
permissible, and no one after the fact could suggest that it was justifiable.
It is precisely because we do not get beyond the "sheli sheli veshelcha
shelach"-- "what is mine is mine and what is yours is yours" morality--
precisely because we don't touch the other, precisely because we don't talk
about the other and don't function with the other in ways that reflect this
value, that the murder, the Halachik statements, and the justification occur.

I also believe that this is perpetuated in no small way, by those who, in
looking at these events, say "I know why it happened; they did it; not me;
they're responsible; it's not part of me." It also seems to me that the
only way to heal the terrible breach that has occurred and to prevent it from
happening again is if we as a complete community allow for a shared
introspection that asks how each of us contributed to this environment and
this cultural violence, and how each of us in our own small way can change
that culture and that environment and make it better. If we do it together,
and each group starts with its own culpability and its own fault, and not by
blaming the other, then we have a chance to heal. On the other hand, if we
use these events as a club to beat the other over the head, then I am truly
afraid that we have not seen the last of this kind of trauma.

I want to conclude with two thoughts. The first is frightening, and the
second is hopeful and challenging. The frightening comment concerns the
debate about the moral quality of "sheli sheli veshelcha shelach," "what is
mine is mine and what is yours is yours." As we have said, one opinion in
the Mishna is that it is the "average" human being's response, and the other
is that it is the "attribute of Sodom."

This, it seems to me, is the Rabbinic way of pointing to the banality of
evil, because, frankly, both those statements appear to be correct. Most
people, on an average basis, tend to function on the "sheli sheli, veshelcha
shelach" principle, at least occasionally. It is frightening to suggest that
the average is the "attribute of Sodom." Yet that would seem to be true. In
fact, I am not sure the two opinions are really at odds with one another.

But there is, as I say, a hopeful and challenging aspect to this, as well.
The term, "midat Sodom," the attribute associated with Sodom, is used most
often in the Talmud in a longer sentence. The sentence is "kofin al midat
Sodom," "we use suasion to deal with the attribute of Sodom." If you go
back to the case of the mill, the resolution of the Talmud to that story is
that the owner of the mill is compelled not to charge rent to the poor man,
but to allow him to continue using the mill as he had before, if that remains
necessary. If not necessary, then the miller must give way to the owner.
The kind of callousness, the kind of insensitivity, the kind of lack of
recognition of the human needs of the other person in a circumstance where it
is not hurting the mill owner in any way to continue the previous
arrangement, or conversely where it is not hurting the miller to change the
arrangement, is something which the community is told, "don't tolerate." You
compel proper, decent, "menschlach" behavior, through force of law, through
force of community action, through force of ostracism. You compel anyone who
acts with callousness, to straighten up and act appropriately.

What that rule of law teaches, therefore, is that by putting some effort into
changing the culture, the culture can be changed. People do not need to act
as they have. People can touch the humanity and infinite value of the other.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is our challenge as we move past the horrible
events of this past week. It is the challenge of "kofin al midat Sodom," to
use the energy necessary to remove, to eliminate, at the very least to alter
and modify, the "midat Sodom" that exists in us, that exists in our
communities, that exists in our nation, that exists in our society. If we
can change the culture at its root, we can avoid what we have just lived
through. In my view, it is the only way to prevent our going through a
repeat of what we have seen this past week.