To intermit the plague

 Israel’s new coronavirus czar, Prof. Ronni Gamzu, has a name with Talmudic significance. The Babylonian Talmud (Ta’anit 21a) tells us of a sage named Nahum of Gamzu, who would say about every event in his life “This too is for the best (gam zu le-tova)”– despite the fact that he was a blind quadriplegic leper, “the legs of whose bed had to be placed in bowls of water to prevent the ants from climbing on him.” His students were alarmed by his condition.

Thereupon his disciples said to him: Master, since you are wholly righteous, why has all this befallen you?

He replied: I have brought it all upon myself. Once I was journeying on the road and was making for the house of my father-in-law and I had with me three donkeys, one laden with food, one with drink and one with all kinds of delicacies, when a poor man met me and stopped me on the road and said to me, Master, give me something to eat. I replied to him, Wait until I have unloaded something from the donkey; I had hardly managed to unload something from the donkey when the man died [from hunger]. I then went and laid myself on him and exclaimed, May my eyes which had no pity upon your eyes become blind, may my hands which had no pity upon your hands be cut off, may my legs which had no pity upon your legs be amputated, and my mind was not at rest until I added, may my whole body be leprous.

Thereupon his pupils exclaimed: Woe to us that we see you like this!

To this he replied: Woe to me did you not see me like this.

Nahum’s condition does not prevent him from teaching many disciples, including Rabbi Akiva, whom he trains for 22 years (BT Hagiga 12a). It does, however, keep him from touching a scroll or entering the study hall. The same passage calls Nahum a miracle-worker, but he does not rely on miracles where health is concerned. He isolates himself at home for decades, and yet his Torah touches everyone. The deep concern for one’s fellow human being is certainly echoed in Rabbi Akiva’s dictum: “‘Love your fellow as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18) –this is the great principle of the Torah (Sifra ad loc.).”

And yet, Rabbi Akiva himself fails to transmit this to his own students.

It was said that Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of disciples, from Gabbat to Antipatris, and all of them died at the same time because they did not exhibit proper regard for each other… Rav Hama bar Abba or, it might be said, Rav Hiya bar Avin said: All of them died a cruel death. What was it? Rav Nahman explained: Diphtheria.

It’s not clear what the lack of proper regard consists of. Do they fail to follow Nahum of Gamzu’s teaching about feeling the distress of others, or do they fail to follow Nahum’s example of isolating so as not to spread disease? Are these even two different things?

I could not help but think of that as I heard of the pressure being put upon our Professor Gamzu to allow a lessening of restrictions on assembling in synagogues for Tisha be-Av, which begins tonight. Apparently, when everyone is sitting on the floor, amid extreme heat, while fasting, that’s the time to pack the shuls.

Now, the Mishna, Gemara, even Shulhan Arukh, note that the month of Av as a whole is not a time to tempt fate. A Jew with a court date in the month should do everything to push it off, Halakha states (OH 551:1). But at the height of this period of misfortune and mourning, amidst a second pandemic wave threatening to overwhelm our hospitals and healthcare workers, it is more important to read the Book of Lamentations with as many people as possible present? Ronni Gamzu would tell you that is sanctimonious malpractice. And Nahum of Gamzu would agree.

The burning Talmud

 The burning of the Talmud is a powerful image. Next week, as many Jews fast on Tisha be-Av, we will read a dirge composed to commemorate the destruction of as many as ten thousand Talmudic manuscripts in Paris in 1242.

But yesterday I was hoping that a certain volume of Talmud would burst into flame. It was in a Jerusalem courtroom, on the table of the defense counsel for Malka Leifer, captured by my friend Ittay Flescher for Plus61J Media, which covers the Jewish world for an Australian audience. Leifer is facing 74 counts of child abuse from her time as an ultra-Orthodox girls’ school principal in Melbourne, and this was her 69th hearing since three sisters came forward a decade ago to tell their harrowing story of victimization at her hands.

So whose Talmud was it? Her longtime lawyer Yehuda Fried brought the gigantic ArtScroll edition (Pesachim, Volume I, it appears) to peruse while her new counsel Nick Kaufman (famous for fighting extradition for Serbian genocidists and Muammar Gaddafi’s kids) used the opportunity to blame the victims. Yes, they were minors, but they almost weren’t. Who’s to say these 16- and 17-year-old students weren’t really the ones at fault? To extradite Leifer for a trial that will determine her guilt or innocence, the Israeli courts must first find her guilty! And she’s such a pious woman, how could she maintain her religious standards in an Australian prison?

These arguments are patently ludicrous, and hopefully Judge Chana Miriam Lomp will reject them. But they do so sound awful… Talmudic. The Talmud is often criticized for sophistry, for picayune dissection of impossible abstractions. However, some of the wildest theoretical discussions in the Talmud have turned out to be essential over the millennia. A flying tower crossing over a graveyard, a flying camel ferrying witnesses from one far-flung location to another, a cow giving birth to a donkey, a woman getting pregnant from a bath – these all seemed ridiculous until we developed analogous technology.

But that is the difference between a beit midrash and a beit mishpat, a study hall and the halls of justice. In a courtroom, we are dealing with real people, not teasing out theoreticals.

Am I arguing that Malka Leifer does not deserve a fair trial with a vigorous defense? Not at all; that is what awaits her in Australia. In Israel, it has all been about fraud and denying justice by delaying justice. This 69th hearing was the first extradition hearing, as the previous 68 were about feigning various forms of illness, mental and otherwise, aided and abetted by too many in the ultra-Orthodox community, up to and including our (recently former) Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman, whom the police have recommended indicting for his part in the affair. This case has tarnished the image of Torah and the image of Israel in the world. A hillul ha-Shem, desecration of God’s name, in every sense of the term.

And let’s not forget what the Talmud symbolizes for Orthodox Jewish women, which include not only the accused and the victims, but the presiding judge as well. Until recently, the Talmud was a symbol of patriarchy, a part of Jewish tradition controlling nearly every aspect of the lives of Jewish women but which they were forbidden to open. Only in the mid-20th century did this begin to change, and in many parts of the Orthodox community, especially the ultra-Orthodox sects, it hasn’t really changed at all. So when Fried peruses his Gemara while Kaufman proffers klutz kashyas that even Hillel the Great wouldn’t have entertained, this sends a message of intimidation, telling women that they will never be equal. Or even heard.

As our Sages might have said: Better that the words of Talmud be burnt than that they be used to oppress and to victimize.