Thoughts on Maariv

I just davened Maariv, and was deeply moved by the first blessing, and want to try to express what I thought and felt, in the darkness of this pandemic. These are inchoate feelings, not thought out ideas, but I hope I can communicate something.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה'. אֱלקינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם.
Blessed are you, Gd, Ruler of the Universe,
אֲשֶׁר בִּדְבָרו מַעֲרִיב עֲרָבִים.
Who, by His word, brings on evenings;

The Hebrew word for evening, ערב, is the same as that for a mixture. Evening is a mixture of day and night. So often in the world we experience mixtures of good and evil, happiness and sorrow - we must navigate an ever-changing and opaque confusion. And yet, all these varied mixtures of light and dark are "by His word". We may be confused, but He is not. And we are not alone.

בְּחָכְמָה פּותֵחַ שְׁעָרִים
In wisdom, opens gates; 

Even when we are in the fog of unknowing ערב, Gd is opening gates for us, in His wisdom - He is with us, clearing paths for us, and rooting for us.

וּבִתְבוּנָה מְשַׁנֶּה עִתִּים וּמַחֲלִיף אֶת הַזְּמַנִּים

And in understanding, changes times and exchanges seasons;

As קהלת, Ecclesiastes, teaches, for everyone there is a season, and for everything a time:  "A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for planting and a time for uprooting the planted; A time for slaying and a time for healing, A time for tearing down and a time for building up; A time for weeping and a time for laughing, A time for mourning and a time for dancing." Human wisdom lies in recognizing each time for what it is, understanding that nothing is constant and nothing lasts, and that all we can do in the end is strive to respond to each of the times of our lives in a way that reflects the Divine presence. The constantly changing times and seasons of life come to us from Gd, who is with us through them all. And if this does not lessen the pain of the dark times, yet it is a comfort that we are thus accompanied.

וּמְסַדֵּר אֶת הַכּוכָבִים בְּמִשְׁמְרותֵיהֶם בָּרָקִיעַ כִּרְצונו.
And orders the stars in their courses, according to His will. 

There is an order in the heavens, where Gd's will is the clear reality. But that is only in the heavens - here on Earth, we live in the murky world of changing times, hidden gates, and twilight groping for direction. That is our reality to accept, and through acceptance, we may hope for wise action.

בּורֵא יום וָלָיְלָה
He creates day and night;

Both light and dark, happiness and sorrow, are made by Gd. Why must we have both? Many answers have been given, all of them unsatisfactory. We have no way of knowing. But I find comfort that both are the fabric of creation.

 גּולֵל אור מִפְּנֵי חשֶׁךְ וְחשֶׁךְ מִפְּנֵי אור.
He rolls away the light to reveal darkness, and the darkness to reveal light;

Just as we may enter a period where we see happiness rolled away as we are enveloped by darkness, we must know that none of this is constant--the darkness will in its turn, sometime, we don't know when, be rolled away to reveal light. This too shall pass.

I don't know if all of this is banal, or if anyone other than me will find these thoughts meaningful, but they give me some comfort at this dark time. May Gd soon roll away the darkness and reveal the light; may He send swift recoveries to those who are ill, and bring a speedy end to this plague. And may all of us be comforted.

What's in a name?

Parashat Shemot, the weekly Torah portion that opens the book of Exodus, describes the transformation of the Children of Israel from a family, as they were at the end of Genesis, into a nation.

We also see the birth, quite literally, of the first Jewish leader, Moshe Rabbeinu. Indeed, the Torah presents him as the very archetype of what a leader should be - certainly not without flaw (no Biblical characters are), but absolutely without peer. He is the only individual in all of Tana"kh to wield all Biblical forms of leadership: political, judicial, priestly, and prophetic. And, while his successor Joshua is without a doubt great in his own right, the Torah ends on a wistful note, implicitly sighing, "If only Moshe had been the one to lead us into the Promised Land!"

What can we then glean, from the narrative of his early life, about the character of this man destined to become the paradigmatic leader?

A fundamental lesson can be seen in an apparently small detail - his name. He is named "Moshe" by Pharaoh's daughter when he is returned to her after being weaned (his own mother having clandestinely served as his hired wet-nurse). What had he been called before that point? The Torah says nothing - the only name relevant to its narrative is just this one, "Moshe". In fact, the Yalkut Shimoni states that he had many other names, and yet he is referred throughout Tana"kh only as "Moshe", the name given to him by his Egyptian foster mother. This name is clearly of great significance.

The Torah tells us that she gave him this name because, as she says on naming him, "I have drawn him out of the water" - כִּי מִן-הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ. The name Moshe derives from the Hebrew root מ.ש.ה meaning to draw something out of the water, and so memorializes for the rest of his life the fact that he was saved by the princess' hand.

Yet, as R. S. R. Hirsch points out, the grammar is wrong. If the name was to mean "The one who was drawn from the water," it should have been "Mashui" (משוי). The name "Moshe" (משה), by contrast, means "One who draws out of water."  By naming him Moshe, Pharaoh's daughter is charging him with a mission, saying, "I drew you out of water. Now grow up and be someone who will draw others out of water!" This charge of hers propelled him to leadership, and is key to understanding the Torah's view of what true greatness is.

She tells him, in effect, "You were saved from a dangerous and traumatic situation. Do not view yourself as a victim, as helpless. Use this experience to help others. Let your memory of salvation guide you to save others. You were afraid, so be sensitive to the fear of others. You were in pain, alleviate the pain of others. You were in danger, save others. You felt threatened, protect others."

Pharaoh's daughter teaches this infant, through his very name, how to have an Existence of Destiny, in R. Joseph Soloveitchik's formulation - how to respond to suffering not with "Why do I suffer?" but with "What do I do with my suffering?" By reorienting himself thusly, the victim becomes the hero.

Such heroism as a response to trauma is the character of the Torah's archetypal leader, Moshe.

There never was, nor ever will be a leader as great as Moshe. However, we are, all of us, capable of following a similar path. Of taking our suffering, our fears, our pain, whether great or small, and using them as an impetus, and as a teacher, to help others. In this way, we can redeem our own suffering, and also bring a measure of redemption to the world.

The Paschal Society

This Passover season, I've been thinking about what the laws and traditions surrounding the holiday have to say about what it means to be, or rather to become free. If we closely examine God's commands and messages to the Children of Israel before the Exodus, I believe the Torah conveys a powerful and consistent vision of what constitutes the basis of a free society.

In that vein, let us consider how the Torah describes God's command to the nascent Jewish people for the first paschal sacrifice, given shortly before He rescued us from slavery in Egypt. (I draw heavily in what follows on R. Samson Raphael Hirsch's Torah commentary.)

In Exodus 12:3-6, God tells Moses and Aaron:

ג  דַּבְּרוּ, אֶל-כָּל-עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר, בֶּעָשֹׂר, לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה:  וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם, אִישׁ שֶׂה לְבֵית-אָבֹת--שֶׂה לַבָּיִת.	3 Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of this month they shall take for them every man a lamb for their parental house, a lamb for a each house;
ד  וְאִם-יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת, מִהְיוֹת מִשֶּׂה--וְלָקַח הוּא וּשְׁכֵנוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֶל-בֵּיתוֹ, בְּמִכְסַת נְפָשֹׁת:  אִישׁ לְפִי אָכְלוֹ, תָּכֹסּוּ עַל-הַשֶּׂה.	4 and if the household be too few for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor close to his house take one according to the number of people; according to every man's eating ye shall make your count for the lamb.
ה  שֶׂה תָמִים זָכָר בֶּן-שָׁנָה, יִהְיֶה לָכֶם; מִן-הַכְּבָשִׂים וּמִן-הָעִזִּים, תִּקָּחוּ.	5 An unblemished male lamb, one year old shall ye have; ye shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats;
ו  וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְמִשְׁמֶרֶת, עַד אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה; וְשָׁחֲטוּ אֹתוֹ, כֹּל קְהַל עֲדַת-יִשְׂרָאֵל--בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם.	6 and ye shall keep it safeguarded until the fourteenth day of this month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at dusk.

There are a number of odd and apparently unnecessarily verbose phrasings in this passage that demand explanation.

First, why is the command to take a lamb phrased in a roundabout and repetitive way, "they shall take for them, every man a lamb," instead of simply saying, "take a lamb"?

Second, while we can understand that the command must single out the "house", due to the (later) command to paint the blood on the doorpost of the house, why the repetition of "parental house ... each house"?

Third, why the detail in verse 4 of what to do if a household doesn't have enough people to consume an entire lamb? Isn't this just a practical issue of how to implement the command?

Fourth, why the seeming redundancy of "neighbor" and "close to his house"?

Fifth, why the command to take the lamb on the tenth of the month and keep it until the fourteenth of the month - why not more simply say to take the lamb before the fourteenth (to have it ready) and then slaughter it on the fourteenth? And why the phrase "keep it safeguarded," which implies that the keeping is not merely instrumental, but itself constitutes an essential part of the command?

All in all, an oddly worded and strangely verbose passage. On the face of it, the Torah could have more simply said:

ג  דַּבְּרוּ, אֶל-כָּל-עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר:  קְחוּ שֶׂה לַבָּיִת. מִן-הַכְּבָשִׂים וּמִן-הָעִזִּים תִּקָּחוּ תָמִים זָכָר בֶּן-שָׁנָה;	3 Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: Take a lamb for each house. It must be an unblemished male sheep or goat, one year old.
ד וְשָׁחֲטוּ אֹתוֹ בּאַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם:	4 They shall slaughter it on the fourteenth of the month at dusk.

Simple and to the point. So why all the extraneous detail? Why the unnecessary complexity and repetition? It almost seems as thought the Author of the Torah was getting paid by the word.

In fact, if we see this passage as more than just a sacrificial command, but rather as setting the foundations for a polity of free people, it all falls into place.

The command to make the paschal sacrifice begins by addressing the people as a whole, but quickly shifts the command to the individual, who is referred to as an "אִישׁ", a term that, in the Tanakh, refers to a person of dignity and stature. At this seminal moment, when the family of Jacob, after many generations, is about to become a free people, the entire congregation is told that the fundamental unit of the nation is the individual. Not a glorious leader, not an august council of noblemen, not an all-powerful administrative State. But each and every person, from the highest to the lowest. Each and every person, with their own inherent dignity and importance. 

The individual is not subservient to the nation or the king, as every developed society of the time would claim, but the nation is a collection of free persons, whose individual freedom is the basis for the freedom of the people as a whole.

Each of these free persons is also to have the ability to own personal property - "וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם", they shall take for themselves a lamb. The lamb will be each person's personal property. Heretofore, these slaves had no ability to own anything; even their very bodies were not their own property. With this command, God returned each and every one of them the essential human dignity that comes from the ability to acquire and possess personal property.

And yet, the vision is not of an atomized society which is a mere collection of self-sufficient self-seeking individuals in an ur-libertarian dream. Each upright, dignified individual is to be part of a "בֵית-אָבֹת", an ancestral/familial house, a group of related people caring for each other. There are to be connections and associations between people that are lasting, that are more than merely transactional and of the moment - the term "אָבֹת" denotes one's ancestors, a connection to one's history. Society is to be made up of historically-rooted families, each with a sense of continuity and of tradition.

So does the Torah seek to design a society which is a mere federation of (probably) rival clans? A tribal society where family loyalties trump all else? Certainly not! Each family unit is also to share with its neighbors, those close to it. The term "שְׁכֵנוֹ", his neighbor, refers to others who live nearby, in spatial proximity, regardless of how similar or different they may be. The other phrase, "הַקָּרֹב אֶל-בֵּיתוֹ", near to his household, to not be redundant must refer to a personal closeness and affinity. Hence we see two great principles of association - we are to be connected to and concerned with the welfare of our neighbors and our locality, and at the same time, to be free to associate with those with whom we ourselves feel close, regardless of what the rest of society may have to say. These principles, of seeking the welfare of one's community, and of freedom of association, are, together with the basic family unit, the foundations of what is known as civil society, that set of local and often informal institutions and associations that mediate between the individual and the state.

And just as individualism is paramount and yet not absolute, so too personal property. The command was to take a lamb, invent (from the slave's perspective) personal property, several days before its commanded use, and then also to care for, preserve, and protect it. We were to be instilled from the very beginning with an ethic of property. Ownership is not the right to do anything one wants, willy-nilly, with one's property, but also entails responsibilities. Ownership is stewardship, a responsibility for proper care and guardianship (מִשְׁמֶרֶת) of the property, so that it can be used for proper and productive ends.

Thus we see how God's command to sacrifice a lamb on the eve of redemption, is not a mere ritual. It establishes a foundational ethic for a new kind of society, one based on the sanctity of the individual, the household, private property, and human relationships. Some three millennia before the birth of John Locke, the Torah set forth inviolable principles for establishing a free society - the protection of life, liberty, and property, and the freedom of association.

Abominations come in threes

I recently wrote about how the commandment forbidding keeping dishonest weights or measures (Deut. 25:13-16) is one of only three places in the Torah where an individual is termed "an abomination to God" (תועבת ה׳). In this post I'd like to explore what may connect these three rare instances of enormous opprobrium.

The first place we see this is in Deuteronomy 18:10:

לֹא-יִמָּצֵא בְךָ, מַעֲבִיר בְּנוֹ-וּבִתּוֹ בָּאֵשׁ, קֹסֵם קְסָמִים, מְעוֹנֵן וּמְנַחֵשׁ וּמְכַשֵּׁף. וְחֹבֵר, חָבֶר; וְשֹׁאֵל אוֹב וְיִדְּעֹנִי, וְדֹרֵשׁ אֶל-הַמֵּתִים. כִּי-תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה; וּבִגְלַל, הַתּוֹעֵבֹת הָאֵלֶּה, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, מוֹרִישׁ אוֹתָם מִפָּנֶיךָ.

There shall not be among you those who pass their children through fire, a diviner, soothsayer, fortuneteller, sorcerer, demon summoner, one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or a necromancer. For anyone who do these is an abomination to God, and it is because of these abominations that the Lord your God is removing them [the Canaanites] from before you.

The second is in Deuteronomy 22:5:

לֹא-יִהְיֶה כְלִי-גֶבֶר עַל-אִשָּׁה, וְלֹא-יִלְבַּשׁ גֶּבֶר שִׂמְלַת אִשָּׁה: כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה.

A woman may not wear a man's thing, nor shall a man wear a woman's garment, for anyone who does this is an abomination to the Lord your God.

And the third is in Deuteronomy 25:13-16, as aforementioned:

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּכִיסְךָ, אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן:   גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּבֵיתְךָ, אֵיפָה וְאֵיפָה:   גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

אֶבֶן שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ, אֵיפָה שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ - לְמַעַן, יַאֲרִיכוּ יָמֶיךָ, עַל הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ.

כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה:   כֹּל, עֹשֵׂה עָוֶל.

Do not keep multiple weights for yourself in your pocket, large and small. Do not keep multiple measures for yourself in your house, large and small. You must have a complete and just weight; you must have a complete and just measure - so that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. For anyone who does such things, anyone who does injustice, is an abomination to the Lord your God.

Is there some common thread that connects these three seemingly very different commandments which all share this rare level of divine reproach? I believe that there is - a thread twisted from two strands.

First, the fact that there are precisely three of these personally abominated activities is reminiscent of the three supreme prohibitions, for which one is obligated to give up one's life, viz.: idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality. There is a simple and plausible parallel:

Big Three	Person is an Abomination
Idolatry	Divination and necromancy
Murder	Keeping dishonest weights and measures
Sexual immorality	Crossdressing

These three are the ultimate exemplars of the three general categories of transgressions: against God (idolatry), against one's fellow (murder), and against one's self (sexual immorality). Similarly here we have a sin against God - seeking guidance from soothsayers and necromancers in his place; a sin against one's fellow - keeping equipment to secretly cheat in business; and a sin against oneself - cross-dressing (by analogy to the clearly related sexual sins).

Second, in a previous post discussing the prohibition of keeping dishonest weights and measures, I suggested that the reason that the person who keeps dishonest weights or measures is an abomination, and not just the action, or the objects, is that while simply keeping something in one's house seems quite harmless, whereas what the Torah is teaching us is that in fact it is pernicious and can lead over time to a total transformation of one's personality.

In each of these three cases, the action involved is one that, on the surface, seems entirely harmless. Do you think that if I (a man) put on a skirt that I'll immediately run out and join an orgy? Crazy talk. Or that getting my fortune told will cause me to go and sacrifice a goat to Baal? Ridiculous!

And yet, what we do has a subtle influence on how we think and how we view the world. Someone who keeps dishonest weights will come to see nothing wrong with having them, and then nothing wrong with using them, and will slowly and imperceptibly lose sight of the humanity of his fellows. Occasional crossdressing will become habitual and will lead, over time, to losing respect and sensitivity for sexual boundaries of all kinds. And playing with occult rituals will lead to a blurring and eventual obliteration of one's spiritual fealty to God, and so to idol worship (in spirit, if not in deed).

One must always remember that what we do creates who we will be, and thus not to mock the influence on us of actions that are seemingly trivial and harmless in themselves. It is through our habits that we become either great, or slowly, imperceptibly into abominations.

Who is an abomination?

The second-to-last mitsva in Parashat Ki Tetse reads as follows:

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּכִיסְךָ, אֶבֶן וָאָבֶן:   גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ בְּבֵיתְךָ, אֵיפָה וְאֵיפָה:   גְּדוֹלָה, וּקְטַנָּה.

אֶבֶן שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ, אֵיפָה שְׁלֵמָה וָצֶדֶק יִהְיֶה-לָּךְ - לְמַעַן, יַאֲרִיכוּ יָמֶיךָ, עַל הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ.

כִּי תוֹעֲבַת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, כָּל-עֹשֵׂה אֵלֶּה:   כֹּל, עֹשֵׂה עָוֶל.

Do not keep multiple weights for yourself in your pocket, large and small. Do not keep multiple measures for yourself in your house, large and small. You must have a complete and just weight; you must have a complete and just measure - so that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. For anyone who does such things, anyone who does injustice, is an abomination to God.

On its face, this is a straightforward commandment: Be honest in your business dealings. Do not use a large weight or measure with which to buy merchandise and so cheat your suppliers, while using a smaller weight or measure to sell merchandise, cheating your customers. It is indeed striking that such practices are, like the paramount sin of idolatry, termed here as an "abomination to God," one of the strongest forms of opprobrium in the Torah.  This in itself draws our attention and demands our consideration as a powerful and timely lesson to those who wish to fulfill God's will.

And yet there are two oddities in this passage that demand further explanation, and which, I believe, teach us an even greater and more far-reaching lesson.

First, rather than state the prohibition simply, "Do not use dishonest weights and measures," the Torah uses what seems at first to be an oddly idiomatic phrasing - "Do not keep ... in your pocket; Do not keep ... in your house." Why?

Second, while the term תועבה, "abomination" appears quite a few times in the Torah, it nearly always applies to either an action or an object, rather than a person. This passage is one of only three places in the Torah where a person is called an "abomination to God." (The other two are Deuteronomy 18:12 and 22:5, about which more another time.)  Why is this particular violation, as important as it is, singled out, such that the person who engages in it becomes him/herself an abomination to God?

I believe that the key to answering the second question is given by answering the first. The phrasing of "Do not keep ... in your pocket" indicates that this passage does not forbid dealing unfairly in business, but rather it prohibits just keeping the tools for doing so even if you do not use them (a fortiori, if you use them).

But why?

One who does so may think that they are doing nothing wrong. After all, one could say, I'm not actually using them! But by having them around, one is keeping the possibility of using them open. And this secret knowledge is pernicious. The person may not at first use them, but eventually will do so, but only in times of (so he thinks) of great need. Slowly his mindset will change, and the very wrongness of dealing dishonestly, of secretly cheating others, will not seem so very wrong, will, in fact, seem to be the natural order of being. Indeed, the one who keeps these dishonest weights and measures will likely come to assume that everyone else does as well, normalizing, in his mind, the dishonesty and the theft.

Thus, by keeping these seemingly harmless possessions, a person will inexorably be transformed into an inherently dishonest creature who is, the passage explains, an abomination to God.

The act of keeping these weights or measures is not, in itself, terribly problematic. But the inevitable psychological and spiritual effects on the keeper are. The verse warns us to take great care not to put ourselves into situations that will exert small but inexorable pressures upon our personality so that, like the proverbial frog in boiling water, we ourselves become abominable without ever noticing.

This principle applies not just in the realm of business. One must take great care to choose one's mentors, friends, and neighbors carefully (to the extent possible), to maximize positive, and minimize negative, influences. What we read or watch also has subtle, but significant influence on who we are. Indeed, every decision we make, every experience we seek out, influences the person that we become.

Even a decision as small as keeping a couple of dishonest measuring cups in a back cupboard.

Miketz: The Road to Serfdom

Parshat Miketz, which nearly always falls on Chanuka, the festival of religious freedom, also powerfully describes the fragility of economic and political freedom. 

Yosef, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Egypt, institutes a series of severe political and economic changes in response to the looming crisis of famine--higher taxes, export restrictions, and governmental regulation of internal agricultural commerce (cf. R. Hirsch on Gen. 41:48).  Further, when the crisis finally struck, the stores of grain were sold back to the people, enriching Pharaoh (Gen. 41:56); eventually, the people were forced to sell themselves into servitude to Pharaoh to survive (Gen. 47:25).

Now all of this can certainly be understood as the necessary response of government to an existential national crisis.  However, the key to understanding the full import of this story lies in next week's parsha, Vayigash, where it states (Gen. 47:26): And Yosef established a one-fifth fee on all Egypt's land as law unto this day; only the priests' land was not taken by Pharaoh.  The famine was over, the crisis successfully navigated, the country (and government) saved.  Yet the regulation and governmental machinery developed during the response to the crisis remained. The response of government to an existential environmental crisis was to ultimately enslave the people even as it saved their lives.

We are shown, thus, the risk to political freedom that loss of economic freedom ultimately entails. This can be contrasted with the ideal described by the prophets of each man under his own vine and fig tree, living in economic and political freedom.

The Torah warns in Parshat Miketz of one possible avenue for man's natural liberty to be taken from him without a fight--the route of national crisis.  The midrash (Yalkut Shimoni) in Parshat Shemot describes another road to serfdom, that of good intentions.  The midrash describes how Pharaoh got the Jews to willingly become his slaves--he appealed to their sense of civic pride, their desire to help society.  Pharaoh himself started digging and laying bricks, so of course the Jews rushed to help with the work.  Once this became the norm, however, that norm was enforced with increasingly harsh discipline.

The Torah warns us, therefore, of two paths that the statist may seek to lead us down the road to serfdom - the Road of National Crisis and the Road of Good Intentions.  While certain measures may be necessary in the short term, we must always be wary of what governmental powers we may thereby accept for the long term.

Mishlei 10:1

 בֵּן חָכָם יְשַׂמַּח אָב וּבֵן כְּסִיל תּוּגַת אִמּוֹ

A wise son makes his father happy, and a foolish son is his mother's grief

Questions:

1. Why is it the father who has joy in the wise son, and the mother who has grief over the foolish son?
2. There are many kinds of fool discussed in Mishlei; why is the כְּסִיל here contrasted with the חָכָם?

Definitions:

1. A wise man, חָכָם, is one who has wisdom, that is, he (or she) can clearly see the consequences of his actions (רואה את הנולד), and can therefore make good decisions (and give good advice).

1. The fool in this verse, כְּסִיל, according to the Malbim, is someone who may have wisdom, like the חָכָם, but pursues whatever he feels like, regardless of the demands of his wisdom. This "kesil-fool" will thus end up doing foolish things, but not for lack of intellectual capability or knowledge. For example, such a fool might predict the likely end of gambling uncontrollably, but still end up gambling away his life's savings.

Explanation:

1. The parent (father or mother) is the educator of the child; we thus conclude that the father is the one who educates the child in חכמה, wisdom on how the world works and how to make good decisions, and the mother is the one who educates the child in emotional understanding and regulation, i.e., what the kesil-fool lacks.
2. Furthermore, per Rashi, the fool is the grief of his mother, since the stereotypical mother is in the home, and she sees the son in his foolishness, which is in the home. The wise son therefore is presumably out and about, applying his wisdom in the world. Rashi implies that the stereotypical father is also out in the world, presumably applying his wisdom.
3. The contrast between the wise son, חָכָם, and the kesil-fool son, כְּסִיל, emphasizes the fact that merely knowing wisdom is useless, unless it is actualized. One who, like the kesil-fool, has wisdom but, due to lack of self-control, does not use it, is the grief of she who raised him. The wisdom of the wise son is the joy of the father, who sees that it is actually applied (outside the home).
4. The verse also teaches that the crucible wherein this essential quality of self-control is learned is the home. Emotional understanding and self-control can only be learned in the context of close relationships, not in the schoolhouse. These lessons must be modeled, and practiced, in real situations - theoretical education may work to teach wisdom, but cannot by itself prevent the student from becoming a "wise" fool.