Our Torah consists of Mitzvot inter alia representing a variety of groups and understandings. Practical and spirituals. One mitzvah in Parashat Re’eh has a unique – if not a “ strange” - incentive. It does not offer any reward, such as the one related to “Respect thy father and thy mother- that thy days will belong in the land which the Lord thy G-d gives thee”. It is not a command that has its logic reflected in it, such as “For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous”. The verse relates to the prohibition to drink the blood of an animal reads as follows: “Only be sure that thou eat not the blood”. In Hebrew, the word is חזק, which means ״be strong” not to eat the blood.
Rabbi Moshe David Lieberman, the leader of the community and the most inspiring religious leader in Belgium today, asked an interesting question relating to this Mitzva. Do we actually need an incentive not to eat blood? How many of us are capable to drink blood? Does this specific Mitzvah which is so easy to obey, require the encouragement of “be strong”? Are there no more seductive rules requiring spiritual strength? Why did the Torah use this phrase only in relation to the drinking of blood of an animal?
The distinguished Rabbi had his reply.
Following the Rabbi Shlit”a’s question, I would like to offer an interpretation and reasoning demonstrating the vision expressed in the Torah itself?
Antisemitism is an integral part of world history and Jewish history from its inception. Antisemitic events, large and small were shared by the Jewish people from the very beginning. The Holocaust was its peak.
Other junctions are known to us in the “history of anti-Semitism”. There are chapters of “anti-Semitic” actions that repeat themselves. [Indeed, in a recent “Hate Crime Report” issued by the FBI on 30th August 2021, relating to the year 2020, “of all hate crimes motivated by hatred of the victims due to religion, 57.5% were targeted Jews. Jews make up less than 2% of the population in the USA].
There are “anti-Semitic “thinking” that have returned time and time again. Active Anti-Semitism demonstrated the norm during The Inquisition, the Pogroms in Eastern Europe as well, of course, at the Holocaust. Anti-Semitic thinking - which resulted in the spilling of blood – are symbolized amongst other examples by the Protocols of Elders of Zion, a document of fraud worded by Okhrana – the secret police operating under the Russian Czar - published in the Zenaida newspaper. [These protocols gained many translations inclusive of in Arabic in 1976].
Other antisemitic infamous “thinking” were found in The protocols of the Elsers of Zion, as well as Der Stürmer, and the Volkiacsher Beobachter , to mention just examples.
Blood libels are being interwoven in the history of Anti-Semitism. They were mentioned in Josephus Flavius’s book, Versus Apion. They were found in Europe in the courts of the Inquisition who executed Jews by burning them to death, also as punishments for the alleged usage of Christian blood. Later, classical blood libels were found in Norwich England 1144, in Lincoln 1255, Vaois, France in 1171, Pforzheim Baden, Germany in 1267, and many other locales. The libels repeated themselves. Later they were found in the centre and Eastern Europe; the “Damascus Libel “being the most noteworthy, gaining international publicity in 1840. And of course, the “Bailys Trial” of 1911, which should be considered the most famous blood libel in the 20th Century. Why, even in the United States there were cases of Blood libel in 1932. There is no doubt that it was a major “philosophical” incentive for every Anti-Semite as a justification for the murder of Jews.
Asher Hirsh Zvi Ginzburg also known by his pseudonym “Ahad Ha’am”, wrote a phenomenal article about Blood Libels called “חצי נחמה”- Half a Condolence, which he published on 5th October 1892, in the Hamelitz newspaper. Inter alia Ahad Ha’am wrote as follows:
"A Russian writer asked naively. As the whole world hates the Jews. Can it be said that the whole world is guilty, and the Jews are innocent? This question sneaks today into the hearts of many of our brothers. Can it be said that all these corrupted qualities and evil deeds that the whole world relates to the Jews are nothing but false?.... can it be that the whole world is guilty, and the Jews are innocent"?
Ahad Ha’am replies:
"Indeed, yes. And the blood libel will prove it. Here, the Jews are innocent and as pure as angels. A Jew and the blood? Are there more contradicting terms than these? Yet… ".
Precisely. Although we snub the idea of drinking an animal’s blood, although we know that Blood Libels are just libels, many in the world believed them. And Ahad Ha’am concluded. The World can err.
If we may summarize his words, we will say, ‘the fact that the world is thinking does not necessitate that the world is thinking of a fact’.
Let us remember this. We can be righteous even if the whole world is against us. This conclusion should serve as חצי נחמה“ - half a condolence.
The Bible anticipated these chapters in the history of the Jewish people. When the Torah relates to the drinking of blood of an animal, orders “just be strong”, it did not mean to demand of us to overcome the desire for blood. The meaning is, be strong against the accusation that we eat blood, as the accusations will arise time and again. But then – be strong - and let this strength be for us “half a condolence”.
The challenges to our faith are major. The outside influences cause the Jewish people to lose more of their numbers than they did during the Holocaust. However, during World War Two the loss was brutally forced on us. Today, the loss is voluntary; assimilation, the forgetting of faith. The ‘thinking’ “that I am and none else besides me”. Sometimes degrading those who believe or practice religion. But he who degrades “in the dark will he walk”. Forgetting God’s promise, “I will also give thee for a light to the nations”.
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Rabbi Joseph Halevi Soloveitchik zt”l in his article, “On the Measures of Truth and Peace”, refers to the contradiction between these two virtues. “Every man is unique in his world and no man mirrors the other. And so, his ideas differ, and he is unable to agree with his friends. Indeed, human beings learn to live together and even judges follow the majority. Being able to concede is a prime virtue that brings peace to the world. But it is not the truth. Truth insists on its own and does not concede even a drop… Peace and truth are two measures contradicting one another”.
And although G-d’s name is Peace, his seal is Truth. “ The measure of peace won. G-d took the truth and cast it to the ground”. The Rabbi concludes, “generally peace won”.
Indeed, Daniel, the Biblical leader stated, “and you have thrown peace to the ground”. But King David said, “Peace will grow from the ground”. Whatever Daniel said as interpreted by our Rabbis to coincide with the hopes of King David. Only when truth will be “cast” to the ground of the day to day reality, in variance to the abstract or theoretical, it will grow. However, for the ground to enable growth, it must be fertile. The ground cannot be fertile, it cannot grow anything, but with this tool known as ‘peace’, as “thus said Rabbi Simeon Ben Chalafta. G-d did not find a tool that holds more blessings to Israel but peace”. Indeed, the Shulchan Aruch rules not to disclose the truth if such disclosure will violate the peace, as there is no possibility to implement truth without peace. Peace is the tool. The context of the tool is truth.
Today, with all the storming arguments, when feelings are contentious, disputes do not “say enough”. We, the Jewish people, who unequivocally believe in G-d, should know how to manage a dispute in peace. How to disagree but not to argue. How to speak but also to listen. How to listen, not for the purpose of replying, but with the aim of trying to understand.
We should not only exchange opinions for heaven’s sake, it should look that we do so for heaven’s sake. Even in disagreements with those who do not believe, we are to conduct our conversations differently. To implement “הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים גם יחד”[How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity]. As “כל ישראל ״ערבים זה לזה [all Israel are guarantors to one another].
None of us has a right to veto another Jew and to shake off our responsibilities towards him or her. If we will express our opinions with love and friendliness, in peace and in dignity, in every subject and every matter, we will succeed. We will construct the bridge from near to far away. If we implement “In truth and peace thou shall love” then “for eternity they would be for happiness and festivals”.
In Hebrew the word “Reyut- friendship” is spelled with the letter י . The word “Raot-evil” is spelled the same way, however with the omission of the letter י. According to the Zohar, the letter י represents more than any other letter, G-d’s name. The introduction to the Zohar states as follows. “ The letter י said before the omnipresent – ‘Master of the Universe, you should consent to create the world through me as I represent the first letter of the holy name’”. G-d replied to י, “it is enough that you are inscribed in me… and all my desires are expressed in you”.
When there is Reyut with the special letter י, there are no Raot. But if the letter י was displaced from the word, the Reyut – friendship - is converted to Raot- evil. We are obligated to keep and guard the י.
Shana tova may you all have a healthy year, כתיבה וחתימה טובה and may all our prayers be accepted by the Omnipresent.
