Toward an Ethiopian Jewish Halakhah
Preserving the Mystery
The purpose of religion today seems to be similar to that of philosophy: to determine definitions, to search for truth, to address formalism, to decide what is true and what is false. The symbols, the framework, and the institution are transformed from a means of worshipping God into an end. In such a situation, religion becomes irrelevant. As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats.”16God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1955), 3. In his view, “Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.” Why? “When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion – its message becomes meaningless.”17Ibid. Still, as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein asserts,
Tradition is not something a man can learn; not a thread he can pick up when he feels like it, any more than a man can choose his own ancestors. Someone lacking a tradition who would like to have one is like a man unhappily in love.18Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), 76, cited in Tamar Ross, Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004), xxi.
Still, we must remember that a very thin line separates preserving tradition in its dogmatic-symbolic form and preserving it in a more meaningful way. Wittgenstein continues:
Something of the irrational reverence for the past is preserved in the pomp and ceremony of the British monarchy, even though no subject of the United Kingdom regards this form of government as anything more than a medieval relic.19Ibid.
We may certainly preserve the continuity of tradition “as a living and dynamic organism that can only grow by positive acceptance and affirmation of its historical and intellectual legacy.”20Ibid., xix. We must ensure that our world stands on a halakhic approach based as far as possible on objective truth. Still, our relation to the “other” should come through intimacy, from the personal-humane dimension – mentschlichkeit. Any contact with the “other” in the name of the establishment or of “institution,” in the name of halakhah as objective truth, from a perspective of frumkeit (“religiosity” in Yiddish), may arouse antagonism. Those who observe tradition clearly tend to follow this approach, due to its analytic and formal nature, but this approach does not relate to tradition as a living entity that must be passed down to the next generation.
As Leo Strauss writes, “Genuine fidelity to a tradition is not the same as literalist traditionalism and is in fact incompatible with it. It consists in preserving not simply the tradition but the continuity of the tradition.”21Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken, 1965), 24. In fact, this is the significance of Shulhan ha-Orit – to preserve the tradition of the community and to conduct an in-depth analysis of the drastic changes it underwent in the wake of aliyah to the Land of Israel. This is not out of an apologetic approach, not in order to act as an advocate for one tradition or another, but rather to represent the understanding that one cannot criticize the other – not because this is unpleasant, but because it is not right. Further, each side must demonstrate openness and understanding for the other side. If we act in this way, we can redeem tradition from a past that has become stale, and disconnect it from the context of institution and slogans, so that it will no longer be considered burdensome. I hope that this book will contribute to the preservation and continuity of tradition, not in a closed manner that remains unaware of reality and surrounding events, but rather with openness to the world around it.
Unity or Uniformity?
A believing Jew is a person who lives with doubts, uncertainties, and questions. In an ideal reality, religion would never be satisfied with one decision, but would always strive for more. An angel that lives in a perfect, ideal world has no doubts, but humans who live in the pre-messianic world do have doubts. Indeed, doubt is a component of belief. For this reason, any attempt to construct a perfect world through a single decision remains only an illusion. Judaism speaks of a mysterious world full of doubt, and its goal is to enable a life of faith in such a world. The impulse to try to make clear, absolute decisions originates in the scientific world, as science strives to give unconditional, universal answers about life. But it cannot give the individual what Judaism does – the awareness that he lives in a world full of mystery and wonder. As Heschel writes:
Religion . . . goes beyond philosophy, and the task of philosophy of religion is to lead the mind to the summit of thinking; to create in us the understanding of why the problems of religion cannot be apprehended in terms of science; to let us realize that religion has its own scope, perspective and goal; to expose us to the majesty and mystery, in the presence of which the mind is not deaf to that which transcends the mind.22Heschel, God in Search of Man, 18.
The debate among the spiritual leaders of the Ethiopian community, the kesim, and the rabbinic world focuses on exactly this point. Within the Beta Israel community, religion is understood as a mysterious, spiritual entity, personal and transcendent, not something that can be understood with the mind. Thus their religious world is not expressed in precise definitions or exact halakhot. This is a world of spontaneity, of individuality.
Here is an example that illustrates the conflict between the formal, analytic view of Talmudic Judaism and the more spontaneous, individually oriented biblical tradition. In the nineteenth century, an Ethiopian Jew named Daniel ben Hananiah visited the Land of Israel. When the rabbis in the Land of Israel heard that the Ethiopian community was in a dire state, both spiritually and physically, they decided to send an empathetic letter of solidarity through Daniel ben Hananiah:
Your situation has touched our hearts, and we have decided to take the following steps: when Daniel ben Hananiah returns, call a meeting, listen to him, and learn what he saw us doing and how we observe God’s mitzvot according to the traditions of the Sages. If you conclude that until now, you have not behaved properly, then appoint three or four talented individuals and send them to us, to the Holy City, and we will teach them the practicalities of observing the mitzvot.23“Leaders of the Jerusalem Community 1855,” in Menachem Waldman, Me-Etiopiah le-Yerushalayim: Yehudei Etiopiah ba-et ha-hadashah [From Ethiopia to Jerusalem: Ethiopian Jewry in the new age] (Jerusalem, 5752/1991).
The community leaders and priests received the letter. They were enthusiastic, but they also felt a threat to the foundations of their leadership and traditions. Confident of their path, they sent a reply that rejected the attempt at external interference:
We have heard that there are many Jews in Egypt and Jerusalem whose religion and customs are different from ours. It would behoove them to send us knowledgeable representatives who will learn the principles of Judaism accepted among us, and we will show you the path that you should follow.24“Priests of the Habash Community 1858,” in Waldman, Me-Etiopiah.
Division or Unification?
The biggest challenge of the rabbinic leaders of our generation is to enrich religion with spirituality, to grant it a personal and mysterious status. Instead of the lavish attention paid to framework and symbol, we should encourage the confrontation with content, spirituality, and the Jewish world, with the understanding that the mitzvot enable the individual’s encounter with God and with other human beings. In my opinion, this opportunity has been sorely missed. To me and many others, Judaism has been responsible for unifying the Jewish people over thousands of years of Diaspora and distance. The problem is that today more than ever, the religious world divides the Jewish world. Religious and non-religious Jews cannot eat together, they cannot manage a business together, live in the same neighborhoods, or marry each other. Even within religious groups, a hierarchy prevails, with well-defined divisions. Today we might find four observant Jews sitting together but who cannot eat each other’s food, due to kashrut laws. In such a miserable reality, the definition of the Jew becomes external, not one of meaning or value. To which stream does one belong? Haredi, knitted kippah (religious Zionist), secular, “Talmudic,” Reform, Conservative, Ethiopian, Yemenite, Russian, formerly religious, and the list goes on.
Shortly after I completed my studies at Har Etzion Yeshiva, I contacted one of the religious councils regarding a position as a rabbi. The council chairman’s reply came as a shock: “I can’t give you the job, because you are not ‘black’ enough.” I answered naively, “You know that I am Ethiopian. Do you mean that my brown skin is not dark enough?” He continued with a smile, “I’m not referring to your skin color. I mean this,” he said, pointing to the black kippah on his own head. When he realized that I was completely in the dark, he continued, “I’m sorry, but I am faithful to the public that elected me.”
A Judaism that is motivated by self-interest can go astray, and we may now see how the strength of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world has been harmed. A striking example of this damage is the “quiet Holocaust,” meaning the overwhelming phenomenon of assimilation in the United States. If a Jew does not accept Judaism through significant choice, his Judaism has no meaning,25Eliyahu Zarur, Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Ish ha-ruah ve-ha-hagut [Yeshayahu Leibowitz: Man of spirit and philosophy] (Israel, 2001). even though formally he is a Jew. In other words, the root of the disease lies in the fact that when religion focuses on ideas, the personal and ethical dimensions disappear, and formal faith comes at the expense of interpersonal faith. The world of observing mitzvot becomes a stock exchange, and the connection with God becomes a business. I do not in any way mean to negate the study of ideas or formal definitions, but we must ascertain that personal awareness, so vital to the formation of Jewish identity, is not pushed aside in favor of formality.
Keeping Halakhah Relevant
In encounters I organize with the members of the Ethiopian community, with the first generation and the second as well, I find that the tension between their subjective, personal feeling as true Jews and the halakhic definitions they encountered in Israel has caused them intense frustration. “Everything here is politics,” they say. We must build a spiritual vision, out of power and humility, which will offer an appropriate answer for this sad reality. The Sages in their genius annulled a law in the Torah when its fulfillment became irrelevant and hypocritical. Yet today, the spiritual aspect has moved aside for the benefit of definitions and symbols.26See Minhagei Yisrael, vol. 2, “The place of the symbol in the world of tradition,” 113.
We read in the Torah, “If a slain person be found in the land . . . lying in the field, [and] it is not known who slew him” (Deuteronomy 21:1) – in such a case, the guilt lies with the public. A frightening and impressive ceremony is held in order to provoke shock. The elders of the town nearest to the corpse meet and hold a ceremony called eglah arufah, in which the neck of an unworked heifer is broken. Some fifteen hundred years after this mitzvah was given, the Mishnah (Sotah 9:9) records: “When murderers multiplied, the ceremony of breaking a heifer’s neck was discontinued [since it was assumed that the murderer was known].” We find another example in the laws of adultery. According to the Torah, when a woman is suspected of adultery, she should be given bitter water to drink in order to verify her innocence. But the Rambam states that this mitzvah was annulled.27Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Sotah 3:17–19. In this context, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz writes:
This religious ceremony is significant in a society in which murder is a revolting and exceptional occurrence. In a corrupt society in which murder is frequent, there is no reason to pretend that we are repulsed by a murder that we are not able to decipher. In such a society, this ceremony would be hypocritical. . . . If the society is filled with licentiousness and sunken in lust, there is no reason to be shocked by a certain incident in which there is a suspicion of adultery. . . . In a civilized society in which murder is an exceptional occurrence, we should respond with the eglah arufah ceremony in case of an unsolved murder. In a society in which ethical behavior is the norm, we should respond with the bitter waters for an exceptional incident of a suspected adultery. But if the society is corrupt, there is no reason for these ceremonies.28Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Sheva shanim shel sichot al parashat ha-shavuah [Seven years of conversations on the weekly Torah portion] (Jerusalem, 5760/2000).
God’s Laughter – Humanity’s Victory
The primary message of this work is reflected in the well-known legend of “Akhnai’s oven.”29M. Waltzer, M. Lorberboim, N. Zohar, and Y. Lorberboim, eds., Ha-masoret ha-politit ha-Yehudit [The Jewish political tradition] (Jerusalem, 5767/2007). The background of this legend is a halakhic argument between Rabbi Eliezer and other sages about the method of purification of a clay oven:
On that day Rabbi Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the Sages did not accept any of them. . . . Again Rabbi Eliezer then said to the Sages, “If the halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven.” Sure enough, a divine voice cried out, “Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, with whom the halakhah always agrees?” Rabbi Joshua stood up and protested: “[The Torah] is not in Heaven!” (Deuteronomy 30:12). What does “it is not in Heaven” mean? Rabbi Yirmiya said: “That the Torah was already given on Mount Sinai, and we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, because long ago at Mount Sinai You wrote in Your Torah at Mount Sinai, ‘After the majority must one incline’ (Exodus 23:2).” Rabbi Nathan met [the prophet] Elijah and asked him, “What did the Holy One do at that moment?” Elijah: “He laughed [with joy], saying, ‘My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me.’ ” (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Metzia 59b)
Rabbi Eliezer calls upon supernatural phenomena in order to convince his colleagues of the validity of his position. In contrast, the Sages, led by Rabbi Joshua, insist that “It is not in Heaven,” while the Holy One laughs over how His children “defeated” Him.
Why does God laugh? I would like to propose a new direction for the interpretation of the reason for God’s laughter, following the question of the Tosafot on this story. The Tosafot note the difference between the argument Rabbi Eliezer conducts with the Sages, and the argument between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Both stories record the intervention of a bat kol (heavenly voice). In the debate between Hillel and Shammai, the Sages rely on the intervention of the bat kol in deciding the halakhah, while in the story of Akhnai’s oven, the Sages reject the opinion of the bat kol, stating that “We pay no attention to a heavenly voice.” The Tosafot give their answer. In my opinion, what leads to opposite results in these two stories is mainly the rhetoric, the way the bat kol addresses the Sages.
In the argument between Hillel and Shammai, the bat kol makes its first statement out of respect and esteem for the dissenting opinion. “These and those are both the words of the Living God,”30Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 13b. says the bat kol, and then declares that the halakhah is according to Beit Hillel. With this statement, the bat kol appeases the representatives of Beit Shammai. By contrast, in the story of Akhnai’s oven, the bat kol’s statement seems to contain a measure of reproach toward the Sages – “Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, with whom the halakhah always agrees?” In other words, who are you, anyway? Perhaps it is for this reason that the Sages reply, “It is not in Heaven.” God’s laughter expresses agreement or even embarrassment, because He placed His creatures to a test that led them to disgrace.
Rabbi Abba said in the name of Samuel: For three years the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel disagreed. These said that the halakhah was according to us, and those said the halakhah is in accordance with us. A heavenly voice emerged saying: “Both these and those are the words of the living God, and the halakhah is in accordance with the school of Hillel.”
Since both these and those are the words of the living God, why was the halakhah established in accordance with the House of Hillel? Because they were polite and forbearing (aluvin), and would teach both their own views and the views of the House of Shammai. Moreover, they would place the views of the House of Shammai before their own. (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 13b)
Rashi comments (there) that aluvin means “forbearing.” The justification that the Talmud gives for deciding the halakhah according to Beit Hillel demands explanation:
The explanations that the Talmud offers for the victory of Beit Hillel recall ad hominem arguments. . . . What is the relationship between the ethical honesty of a sage and the legal validity of his opinions? . . . The concept that “nice sages finish first” comprises an important ethical lesson: not only does God appreciate humility and lead the humble toward truth, but a natural connection exists between ethical qualities and legal credibility. . . . The more respect he gives his enemy and the more humble he is, the higher the possibility is that he will succeed in assimilating his opponent’s assertions. . . . We may propose another explanation of how the positive qualities of Beit Hillel led to decision of the halakhah according to their opinion. Beit Hillel’s practice of considering the other demonstrates greater esteem than Beit Shammai revealed for the importance of the dispute and the principle of “both these and those.” The sages of Beit Hillel were more committed to the process of discussion, and this commitment causes their positions to represent a well-functioning conscious method. This process even serves as a good example for such a method, to a greater extent than that of Beit Shammai.31Waltzer et al., Ha-masoret ha-politit ha-Yehudit.
This book attempts to adopt the method of Beit Hillel, and to consider the other – the Ethiopian Jewish community. This is not an organized Shulhan Arukh that pretends to gather the entire Jewish world under one umbrella; history has taught us that there is no such thing. But I am certain that every Jew will be able to find within tools for serving God.