15 Shevat

Do not destroy its trees. (Deuteronomy 20:19)

Although this verse refers specifically to the prohibition of destroying a fruit-bearing tree, the Talmud has extended this principle to prohibit all wanton destruction.

A rabbi and a student were strolling in the street. The student tore a leaf from a tree. “Think about what you have just done,” the rabbi said, “There is an ascending scale of matter that parallels each being’s function. God wants the inanimate to serve the vegetative, which should in turn serve the animate, which should in turn serve the rational. Our efforts should be directed toward the elevation of matter, and not to its degradation.

“When we cut a tree to fashion from it things that people will use constructively, the tree is elevated by being of service to humanity. But by tearing a living leaf from a tree for no purpose whatsoever, you have degraded the leaf from the vegetative to the inanimate, and you have reversed the ascending order of matter.”

If we guided our actions on this scale of elevation to a more sublime state, how different our lives might be! We might also then realize that there is one additional ascent, and that is from the rational to the spiritual. How wonderful our lives would be if everything were directed upward, culminating in the ultimate goal of spirituality!

16 Shevat

A mitzvah draws along another mitzvah, and a sin draws along another sin. (Ethics of the Fathers 4:2)


One day I received a panicky call from an alcoholic patient whom I had treated several years earlier. He had been at a gathering at a friend’s home, and although he had specified that he wanted a soft drink, his first sip told him that there was alcohol in the drink. He called me for instruction of what he might do, since he knew from past experience that one sip of alcohol sufficed to set in motion a chain reaction that would end in a drunken stupor. He stated that he was prepared to admit himself into a hospital if necessary in order to prevent this brief exposure to alcohol from escalating into a full relapse. Although he had only consumed a small amount and had done so purely accidentally, his fear was legitimate.

Let us suppose that a family which is meticulously observant of kosher laws discovers that a particular product that they ate under the assumption that it was kosher had lost its hechsher (rabbinical approval) because a non-kosher ingredient had been added. Although they certainly would regret having ingested something that was not fully kosher, they probably would not call their rabbi for instruction on how to prevent this accidental transgression from dragging them down to other forbidden types of behavior. This mistake may be more serious than their original error.

Doing wrong, even inadvertently, renders us highly vulnerable to further transgressions. Remedial measures, i.e. prompt teshuvah and an effort to do better in the future, must be undertaken to avoid deterioration.


Today I shall ...
...

promptly correct any transgressions and not allow even the slightest improper action to remain uncorrected, lest it lead to my deterioration.

17 Shevat

May no person be made to suffer on my account. (Siddur, Prayer on Retiring)

Although the Torah does not require people to love their enemies, it does demand restraint, in the sense of not seeking revenge (Leviticus 19:18). The Talmud extends this concept to forbid not only the act of revenge, but even a prayer that God should punish our enemies. “If someone is punished on account of another person, the latter is not admitted to the Divine Presence, for as Solomon says in Proverbs (17:16), ‘For the righteous, too, punishment is not good’ “(Shabbos 149b).

When Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev’s adversaries expelled his family from town during his absence, his colleagues asked Rabbi Wolf of Zhitomir to invoke the Divine wrath upon them for their heinous deed. “I cannot do anything,” Rabbi Wolf said, “because Rabbi Levi Yitzchok has anticipated us and is now standing before the open Ark, praying fervently that no harm come to them.”

Actions like this incident may appear to be the ultimate of magnanimity, but it is not necessarily so. To the contrary, they can also be understood as helping one’s own interests. If we pray that another person be punished for his or her misdeeds, we become vulnerable ourselves (see 3 Kislev), for the Divine sense of justice may then bring our own actions under greater scrutiny. After all, is it not reasonable to expect a high standard of personal conduct in someone who invokes harsh treatment of his neighbors? Consequently, it is wiser to seek forgiveness for others and thereby merit forgiveness for ourselves than to pray for absolute justice and stern punishment for others’ misdeeds and thereby expose ourselves to be similarly judged.


Today I shall ...
... try to avoid wishing harm to anyone, even to those who have greviously offended me.

18 Shevat

All Jews are responsible for one another (Shevuos 39a).

The commentators explain the full extent of our responsibility for one another: If any Jew has been derelict in performance of a given commandment, every other Jew is considered to be derelict in that particular mitzvah, even though he or she may have performed it to one's fullest capacity. All Jews are considered to be a single unit. Just as the unit is incomplete if any part of it is missing or broken, so too, no one can consider oneself complete if any other part of the "unit" is incomplete.

A person who sustained an injury causing infection to one arm would not say, "It is only my arm that has been injured; therefore, no other part of my body has been affected." Since the body is a unit, anything that affects the part affects the whole.

People are physically distinct, and their spirituality is an intangible entity; that is why we do not readily perceive the spiritual forces that unite us. Nevertheless they are very real. However, just as it is possible for part of the body to be anesthetized so that experiences no sensation from what transpires in other parts of the body, so it is possible for there to be a "spiritual anesthesia" which renders us insensitive to the spiritual injury that may occur anywhere within the body of universal Jewry. We must overcome this insensitivity if we are to be a healthy and optimally functioning nation. We must learn the vital lesson that we are enhanced by the spiritual successes of our neighbors, and we are diminished by their failures.

To the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?", the answer is, "Yes!"


Today I shall ...
... try to be of assistance in whatever way I can to help other Jews in the fulfillment of their obligations as Jews.

Now if only we could trade that Jewish view of a church with our present western the individual is all view.