Rejewvenate!

Please make sure to refrain from doing business with www.succah.com or www.succah.safewebshop.com, as they are owned by Mr. Sam Rosenbloom, who continues to refuse to give his wife a get, leaving her an agunah.  He continues to be subject to a seruv (i.e., he is in contempt of beit din), and it is thus halakhically prohibited to engage in any contact with him, economically or socially.  See http://www.ouradio.org/images/uploads/rav_hauer77.JPG.

So spake my rabbi, and I pass it on to you. Can’t help but feeling like it’s a drop in the bucket though.

I’ve recently taken a renewed interest in economics and finance, and I find myself wishing that there was a good blog about Judaism and economics. I read plenty of Jewish blogs that are interested in economic issues, like the JSpot blog run by Jewish Funds for Justice. What I’m really looking for though is a blog that addressed the economic implications of Jewish social justice and mitzvot.

A couple of months ago, my friend Yechiel Newman gave a wonderful dvar Torah about charging interest, and I have adapted it, with his permission, for this blog. I hope to one day convince him to blog about Judaism and economics, but for now, all we get is a taste:

Shabbat Shalom

One of the classic rivalries between Jewish thinkers is that of the Rambam (Maimonides) and the Ravad (Rabbi Avraham Ben David of Posquieres). These two great Jewish philosophers found little they agreed on and went to great lengths to discuss their disagreements. In fact, when I was teenager growing up in Brooklyn, the rabbis at my yeshivah would joke that the proof of God’s existence can be easily deduced. The logic was simple — The Rambam stated that God exists and the Ravad did not disagree.

If truth can be deduced from the absence of disagreement between rivals, then, it follows, there can be no greater truth than of the evil of charging interest on loans. For Islam, Christianity and Judaism universally agree that collecting interest is prohibited.

The Koran in Sura Al-Imran verse 130 states

O you who believe! Devour not interest, for it goes on multiplying itself and be mindful of your obligation to Allah that you may prosper; and safeguard yourselves against the Fire which is prepared for disbelievers. (Koran 3:130)

The prohibition against collecting interest is seen in the Torah a few times. For example, in Exodus 22:24

The New Testament, in the Parable of the Talents seems to suggest that interest was actually acceptable. Briefly, the Parable speaks of three servants, each of whom was entrusted with a sum of money during their master’s absence. Two of the servants used the money in the service of some business venture, and doubled the initial sum. The last servant, who was given the least money, feared that he would lose what little was given to him, and so he buried the money to ensure that he could return it to his master when his master returned to collect it. In Matthew 25:29 we see the last servant being chastised by the master for this act: “Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.”

However, in spite of this verse, in the Middle Ages, the Church eschewed their own teachings and declared the charging of interest as usury, and, therefore, illegal.

So, whether you are a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew, the evil of interest is spelled out to you in no uncertain terms.

As an aside, the Buddhists spent so much time convincing their followers to divest themselves of all worldly possessions that developing a position on the “interest issue” was not high on their agenda.

For Jews, the halachic prohibition against interest is far-reaching in scope. Jewish borrowers are not allowed to offer preferential discounts in to a lender in their business dealings, as that could be construed as implied interest (Avak Ribbit). Even something as insignificant as the borrower thanking the lender is prohibited, as this display of gratitude is considered an ill-gotten gain from the loan.

A modern day thinker may wonder, how is it possible to live in a world without interest? Surely interest, as a free-market inducement between borrower and lender cannot be forbidden under a reasonable social system. Though borrowers would certainly prefer not to pay interest, lenders do not charge it out of cruelty, but as a reflection of two factors: the risk inherent in lending money to another, and the time value of money (a dollar now is worth more than a dollar next year irrespective of risk, simply because you can exchange today’s dollar today, but you must wait until next year to convert that dollar into some good or service). What kind of socio-economic system is the Torah advocating?

The importance of interest was explored by Ludwig von Mises — one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics and a noted Libertarian thinker. Von Mises wrote in his treatise on Human Action:

Therefore there cannot be any question of abolishing interest by any institution, laws or devices of bank manipulation. He who wants to “abolish” interest will have to induce people to value an apple available in 100 years no less than a present apple. What can be abolished by laws and decrees is merely the rights of capitalists to receive interest. But such decrees would … very soon throw mankind back into the original state of natural poverty.¹

Facilitating commerce, and in particular, loans, was something the Gemara felt strongly about. In Sanhedrin 2b the Gemara discusses the importance of judges performing rigorous due diligence of all witnesses that come before them. The Gemara ponders the possibility that a distinction should be drawn between the typical due diligence necessary of all witnesses and the due diligence necessary when witnesses come forth on monetary matters. The Gemara states that if the courts were to apply the same level of rigor in their examination of witnesses to loan contracts as to witnesses in other matters, the courts would be placing a heavy burden on lenders trying to recover their money. The Gemara therefore ruled that extensive due diligence of loan witnesses was not in the public’s interest since it will effectively “lock the doors of the lender to the borrower”.

Though normally the courts required a very high standard of proof in order to uphold a claim, in the case of loan contracts, such a high standard would greatly increase the risk that a lender would be unable to collect on his loan. Since lenders would be unable to collect interest commensurate with this level of increased risk, lenders would simply pull out of the capital market, and seek other investments with lower risks and better rates of return.

With the policy of not “locking the doors of lenders” in mind, Jews have developed a special type of loan document called Heter Iska (literally, a business permit). The Iska contract is structured like a trust or partnership, but, viewed in the abstract, has a financial outcome in line with that of loaning money for interest. The way it works is that two parties who might have normally entered into a lending relationship instead form a partnership or trust. The would-be lender becomes an investor, providing capital to the would-be borrower, who in turn becomes the manager of the trust. Profits are divided in such a manner that the investor earns a rate similar to what he would have earned as a lender charging interest. In addition, a buyout clause enables the manager to ‘repay’ the investor and end their relationship. (See JLaw.com for a standard Heter Iska form.) Note that while the Heter Iska functions well so long as the business venture is profitable, as a practical matter, the failure of such a venture leaves the lender cum investor with little halachic recourse for recovering his investment should the business fail. Such cases often wind up in secular courts - see Kenneth Ryesky’s treatment of the Heter Iska in secular courts.

It should be noted that both Christians and Muslims have also found ways to work around the prohibition against charging interest. When the Church issued its decree against usury it allowed Jews to engage in money-lending. Jews, who were left out of the formal guild system, found themselves with no other source of income than money-lending. In the long term, the results were disastrous for the Jewish people since they would eventually find themselves stereotyped as evil for conducting these very loan. In the near term though, Jewish bankers quickly became an integral and irreplaceable cog in the European economy, providing financing for everyone, from farmers to craftsmen, merchants to manor lords, and even kings and generals.

Islam, under Sharia, takes a slightly different approach than the Heter Iska. Muslim lenders enlist a third party who sells an asset to the borrower at a guaranteed profit. This profit is paid out to the seller, who is an agent of the lender, over the period of the loan. For example, let’s say Yousef wishes to borrow $10,000. Abdul is willing to lend $10,000 to Yousef at a 20% interest rate. To circumvent the prohibition against interest, Abdul purchases a car from Faisal for $10,000, and sells the car to Yousef on a payment plan of $1,000 per month. Yousef winds up paying $12,000 over the course of the year in exchange for the $10,000 he received at the beginning of the year. Neither Abdul nor Yousef ever take delivery of the car, or even see the car. For that matter, the car may not even exist! This so-called “business transaction” has created a situation in Saudi Arabia where a car dealer with eight dusty Yugos on his car lot has annual revenues greater than the Gross National Product of a mid-sized country.

So we are left with an economic puzzle. If interest is acceptable, as can be seen from the Heter Iska document, then why does it state clearly in the Torah that interest is forbidden? And, if interest is forbidden, why are we given this easy out with the Heter Iska? On the one hand we have a direct prohibition against interest up to and including receiving a spoken thank-you, and, on the other hand, we are allowed to engage in transactions that are essentially the same as interest bearing loans.

To attack this puzzle I suggest we look at the context of the laws relating to interest.

If we look at the relevant texts we will find that the laws of interest are closely related to some interesting laws about employment and collateral. We are told an employer must pay wages on the day that the work is done. We are not supposed to let the sun set without fully compensating an employee for a day’s work. Additionally, we find that if a poor person comes to you for a loan and collateralizes that loan with his own garments, then you, the lender, need to return the garment to the borrower each night before sunset, since, as the text says, “This alone is his covering .. With what shall he sleep” (Ex. 22:26). The Chafetz Chaim took it for granted that these three laws were intertwined. In fact, the first chapter of the Chafetz Chaim’s book, Ahavath Chesed, is titled “Laws of Loans, Pledges, and Wages.”

It is the proximity of these laws that helps us to solve our interest puzzle. I suggest, that The Torah is not instructing the two parties to a loan to defy the natural laws of the market. Rather, the Torah is teaching us how to conduct ourselves when there is a disparity in power between the two parties. By including the laws of loans among the laws of employment and collateral the Torah is telling us that when we find ourselves in a more powerful position, because of another person’s financial weakness, we should not exploit that opportunity.

Many people in this room may have read the works of Ayn Rand. The collection of her writings form a system of ethics known as Objectivism. Objectivism teaches us that selfishness is a good thing. Adam Smith, an economist most famous for how writings on free trade postulates that when each person arranges his affairs in the most “selfish” way an “invisible hand” causes the outcome to be best for society.

John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods, questions this worldview in an inspiring speech he gave to a recent Libertarian conference

He said:

… despite her literary greatness and many positive contributions to the freedom movement, I believe that Rand has also harmed the movement. How? She was overly provocative. The “virtue of selfishness” is an oxymoron. Selfishness is not a virtue. Now, I understand all the arguments — I’ve read all the books. I know that self-interest channeled to the social good, as expressed through Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” is the single most brilliant insight about social organization ever made in history. That being said, selfishness (as opposed to self-interest) is still not a virtue. It is something to be discouraged, and not something to be supported.²

I believe John Mackey’s message echoes the message we are meant to take from the Torah’s prohibition against charging interest on a loan.

Interest per se is a great thing. It allows us to rise from the natural poverty, as Von Mises stated. In the form of microfinance, interest enables thousands of people from developing countries to escape hardship. In the form of a mortgage interest it allows each of us to own a home. Interest is a tool to harness risk and to temper inflation. For all of these reasons and many more, we are given the Heter Iska.

But, interest also has a darker side. As an example, there are companies in the United States that offer “payday anticipation loans - very short term loans that are to be repaid from the borrower’s next paycheck. These loans are given at very high rates of interest and are only attractive to people who cannot wait until their payday at the end of the week. Although the moral case for these loans can be made from an economic perspective, the Torah instructs us otherwise. The Torah tells the employer not to exploit his position of power and force the employee to borrow money that is rightfully his. The Torah tells the employer to pay the employee immediately.

In this week’s Parsha we are instructed “Kedoshim Tehiyu” — be holy. This positive commandment to follow a moral compass in our daily actions is a catch-all. It is recognition that we are faced with economic puzzles each day that call for moral clarity. Faced with the duality of interest as both a source of good and an instrument of evil – Kedoshim Tehiyu instructs us to use the Heter Iska where appropriate, but, also, take care to not exploit our neighbors in their time of greatest need.

1 http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap19sec2.asp

2 http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_06/mackey-winning.html

Another post in the Halachics series - perhaps I should organize them into some kind of category.

Like most bloggers, I keep an eye on lots of blogs, but I only read a select few religiously (no pun intended). Among my favorites is the Kosher Blog, which combines recipes and restaurant reviews with reporting on the kashrut industry. Recently Jonathan Abbet, the blog-owner, posted his notes on a lecture given by Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, a Rabbinic Administrator at the Star-K. I want to turn my attention to some of the issues R. Heinemann discussed.

The first issue covered at the lecture was the upcoming Shemitta year, and its impacts on the produce market. During Shemitta, produce grown on Jewish-owned land in Israel may not be sold commercially to other Jews, and as such, will not get a hechsher. In order to meet demand, companies contract with Arab farmers for their produce, grown on their land. Normally, there is not much demand for Arab produce, and it is usually much cheaper than the more in-demand Jewish produce. However, every Shemitta year, demand for Arab produce skyrockets, and Arab farmers are often not prepares to meet the demand. Since the price of Jewish produce plummets during Shemitta, Arab farmers will often meet shortfalls in their supply by purchasing and re-selling Jewish produce.

According to R. Heinemann, their actions undermine the efforts to respect the Shemitta year. What’s interesting is what the Star-K has decided to do about this issue. I nearly fell out of my chair when I read it:

[T]he Star-K has contracted with a French satellite company to take pictures of Arab farms every five minutes to discover any illicit deliveries of Jewish produce. The image resolution is high enough that a truck’s license plate can be read, and appropriate action may be taken.

I guess if you’re wondering why kosher products are so expensive, here’s your answer! Satellite surveillance!  Is this reasonable? I’ve been singing this tune for a while: the Kashrut industry has transformed our obligation from a standard of reasonable reliance to one of empirical kashrut. My understanding of the overall shape of the laws of kosher is that we are permitted to make a broad range of assumptions in determining whether something is kosher. Relying on these assumptions no doubt means that some of the food that enters into our bodies would be not kosher by empirical standard (some quantity of non-kosher molecules, if such a thing could be said to exist, will be eaten) the halacha is clear that the power of the Rabbis to declare something kosher supersedes the physical reality. This is not an uncommon feature of the power of psak.

Unfortunately, the kashrut industry has rejected this approach, and has decided instead ot attempt to meet a standard of absolute, empirical kashrut. While this is no doubt a middat chassidut, and a laudable practice for the especially pious, is this the proper standard for determining mainstream kashrut?

Here’s why I think it is not:

• As we’ve seen over the past year, even reputable and reliable hechsherim have been found to have shocking gaps in their operations, and their ability to enforce compliance has been severely compromised. The Monsey chicken scandal proves, in my mind, that no hashgacha is truly reliable to the level of empirical kashrut. As such, it is both fraudulent and self-defeating to set the empirical standard as normative.
• In personal conversation, anyone involved in kosher slaughter that I’ve ever spoken to has told me that if 70% of what is sold as kosher is, in fact, kosher empirically, it would be a miracle. Given this, who are we kidding by taking pictures of Arab farms from space?
• Empirical kashrut, and its step-sister, Glatt-only hechsherim, place a serious financial burden on the kosher community. If halacha allows us to observe more realistic standards, it behooves us to embrace them, rather than feeding more and more money into the Quixotic quest to achieve a standard not required by God or Halacha.
• How can empirical kashrut be such an important priority? In the days of the Talmud, when merchants tried to gouge Jews shopping for Shabbat, the leaders of the day declared that no person should buy from these merchants, even at the cost of not having fish and meat for Shabbat! Where is that sentiment today? Significant food savings would make an enormous difference for many kosher families, and lower prices for kosher products would enable more Jews to keep kosher, in whole or in larger part.

The madness did not stop with the satellites, however. Evidently, the Star-K is developing a leaf camera(!) that will be able to sort out produce that contains bugs from bug-free produce, based on its ability to detect protein, which is present in bugs, but not in leafy vegetables. Sorry folks, but this sort of thing is what convinces me that the whole system has jumped the tracks, and is careening wildly. The profit motive has replaced the pious motive, and their is no real oversight. The vision of the kashurt industry stands in stark contrast to the vision of kashrut expressed in our Mesorah, and what started as a public service to the community has become a private business supported out of the coffers of the public.

In response, I have decided to become far more liberal about which hechsherim I will accept in my home. If even the best hechsherim are essentially cheating me, by claiming to meet a standard that they do not meet, and if their standards far exceed halachic requirements anyway, why should I support them? Let them make their money off of kosher bleach and paper plates! What do you folks think?

Given that my post on the YCT article in the Yated Ne’eman has been my most popular post, accounting for something like 20% of the total hits on this blog, I’m guessing you folks out there would want to know about this.

Gil Student has posted a letter from Rabbi Nati Helfgot in response to the Yated article.

I probably won’t post again until after Purim, so have a chag sameach!

Two pieces of business to attend to today:

First, I’d like to coin the word ‘Halachics’ and define it as “the study of the application of Halachic categories to contemporary behaviors and situations.” Why do we need a new word? If you’ve you’ve ever used the word ‘halachacized’ you know exactly why we need it. I you haven’t, just put a smile on and go along with it. It is Adar after all.

On to the next, related item. Cross-Currents has a post today from Dovid Gottlieb on classic Halachics topic: The Contemporary Relevance of Parshat Zachor. I’m short on time today, so this will be brief (yes, really brief, not like the critique of the article in the Yated).

In his post, Gottieb says that Palestinians are Amalek.

The Palestinians may be descendants of Yishmael but – in this regard – they are also the ideological heirs to Amalek. The root of the problem, as has been pointed out by some political commentators, is not just the terrorist atrocities, but the culture of death from which these atrocities have emerged.

He goes on to mandate hatred for the Palestinians, no forgiveness for their crimes, and wishes that the memories of their leaders be wiped out.

I suppose that this is what the Torah commands for Amalek, but I’m just not convinced that the Palestinians are in fact Amalek. Certainly, we don’t believe that they are Amalek on a genetic level. However, as per the Rambam, the obligation to battle Amalek extends beyond the immediate descendants of the nation of Amalek. Any nation committed to the ideology of Amalek must be battled as well.

What then is the ideology of Amalek? The two leading examples of Amalekite behavior that are usually forwarded are Haman and the Nazis, yimach shemam v’zichram (may their names and memories be obliterated). Without getting into detail, our understanding of the essential character of Amalek is that Amalek wishes to destroy the Jewish people for no reason other than that they are Jews. Amalek will damage his own cause in order to do harm to the Jewish people, and Amalek will settle for no less than the destruction of the Jewish people.

I don’t love the Palestinian people. I’m quite angry with them, with their leaders, and with the policies of violence, terror, and dehumanization that they pursue. But that doesn’t make them Amalek. You see, the key difference between Palestinians and Amalek is that Palestinians, even judged by their most extreme rhetoric, don’t wish to destroy the Jewish people. They just want the land.

I suppose that you could probably construct some kind of argument based on the essence of the land to Jewish identity, or the refusal on the part of the Palestinians to recognize the divine mandate that Jews have over the land to claim that the Palestinians do in fact want to destroy the Jewish people. To me, it just sounds like the part of the haggadah where we learn that Lavan was worse than Pharaoh because Pharaoh only decreed that male babies would be drowned, whereas Lavan, by attempting to turn Yakov and his family into Arameans, was trying to uproot the whole of God’s plan. You just can’t take these things outside of their context.

Palestinians don’t hate Jews because they are Jews. They hate Jews because the Jews are sitting on land they believe belongs to them, and because Jews are living a life and a destiny that they desire. Using the halachic framework of Amalek to tar the Palestinians is very troubling to me. It is striking that Dovid Gottlieb is so horrified by the inhumanity of Mariam Farhat, aka Um Nidal that he describes her and her entire culture as having sunk to the depths of depravity; in the same breath he then brands the mark of Amalek into the flesh of the Palestinian people as a whole, and embraces a Jewish responsibility to slaughter, hate, and obliterate. If dehumanization is the precursor to devastating moral sin, I think we must consider ourselves forewarned.

The relationship between the Jewish and Palestinian people is fraught and irreducibly complex. Its intractable nature makes us weary and sometimes even disinterested. There is a great temptation to simply blame one side for everything and make some sweeping ideological claim to provide some kind of theological meaning to the daily attrition, but doing so comes at great moral cost. Let’s not make that mistake, or the price we have paid, and continue to pay, for our homeland will have been in vain.

Yated Ne’eman recently published a screed against Yeshivat Chovevei Torah. You can read the article over at Yeshiva World. By now many bloggers have weighed in with various comments, so I’ll keep my comments brief.

In case anyone wasn’t sure, I do not agree with the content of Yated’s critique, nor do I agree with their Jewish philosophy in general. I was happy to see the article though, because it proves to me that Chovevei has survived its infancy and has made enough of an impact nationally that it must be reckoned with by the Orthodox world. That’s quite an achievement, regardless of whether you applaud or decry it.

In the spirit of respectful disagreement I’m not going to critique the Yated’s critique, nor will I try to disprove or refute their arguments. What I am going to do is air my disappointment.

My feelings towards the Chareidi community are conflicted and complex, but I always felt that I could at least rely on Chareidim to be serious learners. And that’s why I’m so disappointed. The article I read was just filled with poor logic. I’m not talking about making good deductions from debatable premises. I’m talking about using kindergarten logic!

Here’s a quick example:

Rabbi Berman also writes, “When [certain rabbanim] favored Orthodoxyworking [sic] alongside Reform in common community organizations, they saw the divine command of ahavat Yisrael as applying to all Jews.”

He is clearly insinuating that Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and all of the Roshei Yeshiva who unequivocally prohibited collaboration with these movements were lacking in the requisite Ahavas Yisroel! He also implies that Rabbi Soloveitchik’s love of his fellow Jews was incomplete. Does Rabbi Berman really believe that he and his sympathizers have a monopoly on Ahavas Yisroel?

Is it even possible to clearly insinuate something? Isn’t that oxymoronic? But beyond the diction problems that litter the article, the logic is missing. Rabbi Berman’s claim that working with Jews of the Reform community is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to love Jews is turned into an attack on rabbanim both dead and living! Surely one could understand Rabbi Berman’s comments in a way that did not cast aspersions on anyone at all!

Here’s another example:

YCT seems to have unlimited resources, does not charge tuition and even gives financial stipends to its students. It is obviously being funded by those who seek to be called Orthodox, but who are interested in halacha conforming to their pre-conceived notions of what is right and not the opposite.

Reading this, one would think that YCT has thousands of students who are supported by wealty patrons who are seeking a hechsher for whatever chazer-treif they are involved in. The truth is that Chovevei accepts no more than twenty students per year, and stipends are often not even sufficient to cover housing costs in New York City. Is the situation different in a Chareidi yeshiva? I’m no expert, but it was my understanding that Chareidi yeshivot and kollels also offered salaries to smicha students. As for the donors, they include such notable and honorable persons as Howard Jonas, Dov Zakheim, and Charles Feldman, and serve on the boards of organizations including Yeshiva University, Yad Vashem, Ohr Torah Stone Institute, and the Bet-Din of America.

I’ll tell you what really broke it for me though. All the above, egregious as it is, might be forgivable, given how passionately the Yated feels about YCT. Consider how they frame their decision to run the article:

It was with great reservation and heartache that we undertook to expose to our readers to [sic] the terribly destructive conduct of YCT. It is a responsibility that we undertook with great trepidation. As a Torah newspaper we hesitate to expose and pain our readership by enumerating the terribly distressing things contained within this article.

No, what’s unforgivable, what’s so damaging to credibility, what makes all the indifferent editing, haphazard grammar, fuzzy logic and regrettable diction pale in comparison is this:

Nevertheless, after watching YCT develop and spread with barely a peep of public outcry from the Modern / Centrist Orthodox establishment we felt compelled by the injunction of our sages, that state, “Bemakom she’ein ish, hishtadel lihiyos ish: In a place where there are no leaders; strive to be a leader (Avos 2-6).”

How can you write a piece like this and then get the one piece of actual Torah you cite wrong? The actual quote, as I thought every Orthodox Jew knew is “Uve’makom she’ein anashim hishtadel lihiyot ish!” One thing is certain, just because you try to be an ish, a leader, doesn’t mean that you succeed. Come on! Get the basics right! How are you not ashamed! How dare you disrespect your audience like that? What a failure! Do you take us for fools? Exactly how many people laid eyes on this article before it was published? How serious could your reservations truly have been if you let such a glaring error through? The Yated isn’t a blog, and its making a serious charge. Is it too much to ask that you at least quote correctly from Pirkei Avot?

What have I learned? Only this: whatever the Yated is on about, it is not about defending truth, or Torah, and it is not about macholoket l’shem shamayim - a dispute for the sake of Heaven. Truly, it’s a pity that such a beautiful community that is so devoted to avodat Hashem has such a disgraceful mouthpiece.

The Gemara below is a relatively famous one that play a key role in the long-running debate throughout the Talmud about the theological value of miracles. The dispute arises in many places and inflects the views of our greatest scholars on many key events in Jewish history, including the seminal moment of Exodus:

 

מסכת שבת פרק ה

דף נג

(link)

ת”ר מעשה באחד שמתה אשתו והניחה בן לינק ולא היה לו שכר מניקה ליתן ונעשה לו נס ונפתחו לו דדין כשני דדי אשה והניק את בנו אמר רב יוסף בא וראה כמה גדול אדם זה שנעשה לו נס כזה א”ל אביי אדרבה כמה גרוע אדם זה שנשתנו לו סדרי בראשית אמר רב יהודה בא וראה כמה קשים מזונותיו של אדם שנשתנו עליו סדרי בראשית אמר רב נחמן תדע דמתרחיש ניסא ולא אברו מזוני

Talmud Bavli Tractate Shabbat 53b (link)

Our Rabbis taught: It once happened that a man’s wife died and left a child to be suckled, and he could not afford to pay a wet-nurse, whereupon a miracle was performed for him and his teats opened like the two teats of a woman and he suckled his son. R. Joseph observed, Come and see how great was this man, that such a miracle was performed on his account! Said Abaye to him, On the contrary: how lowly was this man, that the order of the Creation was changed on his account! Rab Judah observed, Come and see how difficult are men’s wants [of being satisfied], that the order of the Creation had to be altered for him! R. Nahman said: The proof is that miracles do [frequently] occur, whereas food is [rarely] created miraculously.

Let’s start by dealing with this story on its face. Last week, Scientific American published an article reporting that human males can lactate! Turns out that this is not such an unknown phenomenon, having been reliably observed by both scientists and laymen in humans and other mammals. A brief Internet search yielded plenty of corroborating stories, (this one not work safe/not tzniusdik).

Most of the articles talk about some combination of taking the hormone prolactin, which spurs lactation, and stimulating the nipple in order to induce male lactation. Historically speaking, male Nazi concentration camp survivors were observed to lactate during their recovery - evidently, the glands that produce hormones, including prolactin, healed faster than the liver, which breaks down excess hormones in the body. These recovering survivors were generating lots of hormones, which their livers were not yet capable of absorbing. Still, other reports suggest that lactation can be achieved only through stimulation of the nipple, or in one case, through the power of positve thinking alone!

Though some might dispute this point, I would think it churlish to claim that these examples, even if undeniably true, indicate that male lactation is part of the ‘order of Creation.’ Whatever the innate physiological possibilities of the male body, the ability to lactate has gone unactualized in all but the smallest scintilla of the human population. For some it may be comforting to have found a rational basis for the miracle reported in the Talmud, while others may view it as another ax-blow to the roots of faith in God and miracles. That’s not my issue, or at least, not today’s issue.

Abaye and Rabbi Yosef are simply continuing a long line of debate regarding the role of miracles. This debate goes back at least as far as the Tana’im who lived through the destruction, and was an issue particularly for Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, who miraculously aged prematurely after being appointed to replace Rabban Gamliel as head of the yeshiva at Yavneh. Though he was only eighteen years of age when he took the job, he miraculously assumed the appearance of a 70-year old man overnight. See Haggadat Beit Halevy for an interesting connection between this topic and the section of the Haggadah that begins “Amar R. Elazar ben Azaryah”.

But what of the responses of R. Yehuda and R. Nachman? Rashi comments that they are responding to the fact that God specifically enacted a miracle to enable this man to feed his child, rather than simply “opening the gates of earnings for him.” In other words, God could have arranged that the man be matzliach in his business, which would have allowed him to hire a nursemaid. R. Yehuda is suggesting that it is in some way more difficult for a man to earn a living than it is for God to change the orders of Creation. R. Nachman points out that miracles occur all the time, but only rarely do miracles create food of themselves.

I’m sure that there’s a lot that can be said on these last two points, especially with regards to the Man that fell in the desert, and I wish I had the time to explore them more fully. Maybe we’ll get some good comments on this aspect of the story. Go on, don’t be shy now.

Today, it seems like we are able to manipulate the orders of Creation with ever-greater ease. In the Western world, we have unprecedented control over how we and our favorite species of animals and plants live, die, and reproduce, and with each passing day we extend our natural order, sometimes blithely ignoring the moral responsibilities that are inseparable from these awesome powers.

Yet even in a society with such power, we find that the statement of R. Yehudah remains true. As a species, mankind still fails to feed himself. Starvation is a problem in even some of the wealthiest countries in the world, and is epidemic among the less fortunate countries. Though rarely, a miracle, a change in the orders of Creation can solve the problems of one man, the greater problems of the world are not often unsolved for lack of tools, but for lack of want. The human orders of Creation - fear, greed, envy and hatred - these lie at the roots of the difficulties that Man faces in meeting his wants, in earning his daily bread. Technological solutions are tools that must be wielded wisely, justly, and most importantly, kindly.