בבא מציעא פ“ג ע“ב] דרש רבי זירא ואמרי לה תני רב יוסף מאי דכתיב (תהילים קד:כ) תָּשֶׁת חֹשֶׁךְ וִיהִי לָיְלָה, בּוֹ תִרְמֹשׂ כָּל חַיְתוֹ יָעַר. תָּשֶׁת חֹשֶׁךְ וִיהִי לָיְלָה – זה העולם הזה שדומה ללילה. בּוֹ תִרְמֹשׂ כָּל חַיְתוֹ יָעַר – אלו רשעים שבו שדומין לחיה שביער.
Bava Metzia 83b] R. Zeira interpreted a verse homiletically, and some say that Rav Yosef taught in a baraita: “You make darkness and it is night, in which all the beasts of the forest creep forth” (Psalms 104:20). “You make darkness and it is night” – this refers to this world, which resembles nighttime. “In which all the beasts of the forest creep forth” – these are the wicked in this world, who resemble a beast of the forest.
Rabbi Simcha Zissel of Kelm z”l(d. 1898, close student of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter z”l) built his spiritual worldview on a single line from Pirkei Avot (6:6). He believed that the goal of a Torah life is to learn how to be “נושא בעול עם חברו – to bear the burden of another.” In choosing this line as the basis of his theology, Rav Simcha Zissel centered and highlighted a human ethic. This short essay presents one paragraph from the first chapter of his magnum opus, Chochma u’Mussar, as a way to frame some thoughts about racial injustice, civil unrest, and law enforcement.
Rav Simcha Zissel begins by presenting a short gemara from Bava Metzia.
והנה עוד בחינה יש לצורך החנוך של נושא בעול עם חברו, והורה לנו חז”ל בלשונם הנחמד מזהב ומפז. אמז”ל בב”מ פ”ג “תשת חשך ויהי לילה, זה העוה”ז שדומה ללילה”. פ’ כי פנימיות העולם נעלם בעוה”ז. “בו תרמוש כל חיתו יער אלו רשעים שבו שדומין לחיות שביער”.
There is another aspect regarding the need to educate towards bearing the burden of your friend (Avot 6:6) and it was taught to us by the Sages of blessed memory in their beautiful and precious words. As they taught in Bava Metzia 83b “You make darkness and it is night (Psalm 104:20) – this refers to this world, which resembles nighttime”. By this they meant that the interior of the world is hidden inside this world. “In which all the beasts of the forest creep forth (Psalm 104:20) – these are the wicked in this world, who resemble a beast of the forest.”
In the world of mussar, the word “פנימיות – interiority” can refer to two very different realities. Rav Simcha Zissel understands that a spiritual substrate permeates the world that is, in part, the presence of God. In addition, “interiority” can refer to our own internal spiritual and emotional reality. In this short paragraph, Rav Simcha Zissel primarily addresses each individual’s internal view of the world.
איזו השכלה וידיעה יוצא לנו בכנוי הרשעים “חיתו יער”? הורו לנו ידיעה רבה בחינוך האדם, והוא: כי בלתי אפשר לבוא להרגיש בצער זולתו, ולישא בעול עם זולתו, רק ע”י ציורים רבים, שכל מה שקרה לזולתו ממיני הצער או ממיני היסורים והמכאובים, כאלו קרה לו ח”ו, ומה שהי’ דורש מזולתו שיעשה לו, ומה שהי’ דורש מזולתו שיעשה לו, או לכה”פ שישא בעול עמו, כן ידרוש מעצמו לעשות עם זולתו. ורק עי”ז יבוא למדרגת “נושא בעול עם חברו”.
What wisdom and understanding is brought to us by referring to the wicked as “beasts of the forest?” They have taught us a great insight regarding the education of a person: namely, that it is impossible to come to feel the suffering of the other, to carry another’s burden, except by creating many tziyurim (visions) so that the trouble, the pain, and the suffering of the other were actually one’s one pain (God forbid). And that which you would have expected from another to do for you, to at least help to carry your burden, so too you must demand from yourself to do for another. And only in this way can one come to the level of bearing the burden of the other.
This paragraph contains two important ideas. First, Rav Simcha Zissel’s use of the concept “ציורים” refers to a combination of vision, imagination and meditation. This is a key spiritual technology that he revisits throughout his work. It refers to learning to really feel in your own body something that is external to yourself. In many ways, enacting this principle lies at the core of the life of Prayer. On a thrice-daily basis, we need to imagine ourselves standing before the Master of the World, an extraordinary enacting of vision, imagination and meditation. This teaching, for Rav Simcha Zissel, is also the key to appreciating the suffering of another.
Second, in order to bear the burden of another, we must imagine ourselves in their place. This is basic human psychology, and it is extraordinarily difficult. We all know the nerves associated with getting pulled over by the police when driving a car. You feel a lump in your throat, your pulse quickens and you begin to think about what you might have done wrong, how much the ticket might cost, and the annoyance of having points on your license. However, when you are black man in America, and you are pulled over by the police, there is another level of fear. Will I get arrested? Will the cop see me as a threat? Will there be violence in this moment? Am I safe?
For those of us who have not experienced that set of worries, it may be hard to imagine them or, at times, even believe they are true. We sometimes doubt what we have not experienced ourselves. And yet, we have heard enough to know that these worries are genuine and warranted. And so Rav Simcha Zissel pushes us to ask them of ourselves: how would we feel if an encounter with police were not an inconvenience but a threat to our very lives?
For me, and for my family, law enforcement officers are generally seen as ‘good guys’. And the truth is that the vast majority of police are good people. I teach my boys that, if they are lost, the first person to seek out is an officer. For black people in America, that kind of simple childhood instruction is much more fraught and complex. Instead of the straightforward lesson I have imparted to my sons, people of color in America have to teach their children to respond to emergencies in very different ways; too often, the encounter with police is itself the emergency. It is nearly impossible for me to imagine myself on the ground with a policeman’s knee on the back of my neck for eight minutes. I must learn to use this powerful spiritual technology and see myself in the suffering of another, especially someone whose life experience is so different from my own.
Finally, in the third section of this short paragraph, Rav Simcha Zissel brings the gemara back into conversation with his goal of seeing and feeling the suffering of another:
וידוע כי החי’ אינה טורפת, רק אחרי שנדמה לה כבהמה, וזהו “אלו רשעים שבו שדומים לחיות” וכו’. פי’ רחוקים מציורי זולתו, ע”כ אינו מרגיש בצער זולתו. ולימוד רב התועליות הורנו בזה דרך אגב, כדרכם בקודש תמיד.
And it is known that the chaya (wild animal) will only attack those that appear to be a bihema (domesticated animal). And this is what the Rabbis meant when they said, “these are the wicked who resemble a beast…” Meaning that they are far from having a [true] tziyur (vision) of the other and therefore they can not feel the pain of the other. And this lesson has many great benefits that the Rabbis taught us incidentally, in their usual holy manner.
The idea of this section is vital to help understand what we all saw in the horrifying video of George Floyd’s murder. When Rav Simcha Zissel explains that a chaya will only eat a bihema, he means, metaphorically, that the wild animal sees itself in a hierarchical relationship with the domesticated animal. In the wild animal’s eyes, the domesticated animal is not really a fellow animal but is food. In human terms, this metaphor suggests that only when one sees the other as fundamentally unequal to him or herself can one commit violence. The wild animal lacks the power of tziyur to appreciate the pain and suffering of the other. Its primary concerns are for itself only, and the other is merely an obstacle in its way. Because the other is seen as “less than,” it can be dispatched easily towards the chaya’s goals for itself.
As Jews, we know this reality all too well. When the Nazis put numbers on our arms, our humanity was removed. In order to enact their unspeakable horrors, the Nazis needed to view us as sub-human. In order to keep your knee on the neck of another human being for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, you need to see that person as fundamentally other, as not fully human. Too many white people, when they see a black man, are not seeing an equal but rather a class of being less than themselves.
At the same time, some of us have come to believe that law enforcement officers are subhuman. Those who do violence to officers simply reenact Rav Simcha Zissel’s calculus but reverse the parts: any violence done to another can be seen in terms of the hierarchy of chaya and bihema. Therein lies the deep fissure of race relations in this country.
There are no easy answers, but we can not get answers without asking tough questions. How do we remind police what they already know and are taught: that all human beings are fundamentally equal in the eyes of the Creator and in the eyes of the law? How does repentance happen for the sins of 250 years ago and the sins of today? What spiritual technologies might help move this communal discourse forward?
But there are also many ways in which the Jewish community benefits from the hierarchy that views racial minorities as totally other. In a certain sense, the police who behave this way are enacting physically the violence that we all take part in through financial, educational and implicit biases in our society. If we take Rav Simcha Zissel’s foregrounding of bearing the burden of another seriously, how can we — the white members of the Jewish community — dare to continue to reap the benefits of systemic racism? We must stop acting like the chaya and eliminate the social hierarchies in which we live and that allow us, police officers and regular citizens alike, to distance ourselves from the pain and degradation of the other.
God shall call upon me, and I will answer. I will be with him in pain. I will deliver and honor him.
May we all learn to be with those who are in pain so that we may bear their burdens and flatten the hierarchies that allow for violence.
3 thoughts on “An Inadequate Response to Violence”
I this “one line summary of “the goal of a Torah life is to learn how to be ‘נושא בעול עם חברו’ – to bear the burden of another”, the Alter of Kelm is following in the footsteps of R Chaim Volozhiner.
Lo at this line fromR Chaim’s son R Yizchaq Volozhiner’s description of his father in the introduction to Nefesh haChaim:
והיה רגיל להוכיח אותי על שראה שאינני משתתף בצערא דאחריני וכה היה דברו אלי תמיד שזה כל האדם לא לעצמו נברא רק להועיל לאחריני ככל אשר ימצא בכחו לעשות
“He would often rebuke me, seeing that I did not empathize in others’ pain. These were the words he constantly said to me: ,This is the entirety of a human being – A person was not created for themselves, but instead to help others to the extent of their ability to do so.”
In the 20th century this evolves a little, but not that much. In Michtav meiEliyahu, Qunterus haChessed (Discourse on Lovingkindness), it’s about being a giver, rather than a taker. And in Rav Shimon Shkop’s introduction to Shaarei Yosher. it’s about being a meitiv, providing benefit to others.
But in all cases, the goal is found in helping the others with different focuses about which part of that interpersonal connection is primary. Differences in resulting lifestyle or day-to-day attitudes would be minimal.
Do you think that the Alter Kelm learned from Reb Chaim’s Torah directly? The timeline doesn’t seem right. I assumed that his approach came from Reb Yisrael Salanter. Also, the Alter of Kelm clearly build an entire system around this concept which seem to go father than Reb Chaim. Do you have the sense that the Kabala / Machshava of Reb Chaim impacted the Kelm world of Mussar?
TL;DR: I think Kelm and Mussar as a whole are an interpretation of Rav Chaim’s worldview. But that these aspects of his worldview themselves were less created by Rav Chaim than developed by him. So he interpreted the Gra as well as the earlier Lithuanian Jewish culture and assumed worldview, and then R Chaim’s work itself got interpreted multiple ways. Kelm being one of them. As the Aramaic idiom goes
I would think instead that there was common cause. Not that we’re looking at an idea Rav Chaim Volozhiner (RCV) invented, but something he believed in. This was the culture of Lithuanian Judaism. Yes, much of the development of the ideological culture was impacted by the Vilna Gaon and RCV, but I think it was more further development than initiation. Chassidus rose, an alternative worldview was presented, and now givens everyone took for granted got articulated and fleshed out. (A hashkafic Rupture & Reconstruction was underway, thanks to the Enlightenment.)
But then there were two trends in how to interpret Rav Chaim Volozhiner’s thought. The early chapters of Nefesh haChaim shaar 4 introduces talmud Torah as the means for refining one’s soul. What did RCV mean? Not just in the writing, but in what he passed on to students?
One school of thought became the Yeshiva Movement. They took this relationship to Torah study as to mean that our job is to study shas and posqim and our middos will correct themselves.
But another group of students, notably Rav Zundel Salanter who inspired Rav YisraelSalanter, took the approach that our job is to learn Torah in a manner that attends to correcting our characters, and thus other character correcting efforts are also in order.
And so both the Yeshiva Movement and Mussar Movement are developments of RCV’s thought, or as I opened, perhaps general Lithuanian thought which RCV articulated. I am more inclined to believe that Lithuanian thought in general was of an interpersonal bent, which this idea of unity with others already baked in before Lithuanians had anything to be Misnaged against.
These two schools bumped heads when Rav Itzeler Blazer (“Petersburger”, a 3rd-hand talmid of RCV, being a student of Rav Yisrael Salanter) offered his services to the flagship of the Yeshiva movement, Volozhin. R Chaim Solovei[t]chik (“Brisker”; grand-talmid of RCV AND descendant) was a known opponent of the Mussar Movement. The story of RCB’s rebuttal and R Itzele’s eviction from Volozhin’s beis medrash is often told, and in a number of different ways.
And yet, the only epitaph RCB wanted on his tombstone was “Rav Chessed”. (The family warped his request, it reads “haRav haChassid”.)
So as I see it, the dispute over Mussar was not about how to define the ideal, but how one was supposed to get there. Do we stick to talmud Torah and the other 612 mitzvos and let the job happen on its own, or do we need to consciously pick up the tools and use them to do the work?
(The introduction to my seifer argues strongly for the latter. But then, so does the anecdotal evidence.)
————————————————————–
I must apologize to the reader for how uneven my writing here is. Some was written with R’ Fox in mind, some has more explanation remembering third parties may be reading or someday will read the exchange. The result is that for any one reader, some of the above will be too terse, and some boringly over-explained. But I ran out of time for more editing.
3 thoughts on “An Inadequate Response to Violence”
I this “one line summary of “the goal of a Torah life is to learn how to be ‘נושא בעול עם חברו’ – to bear the burden of another”, the Alter of Kelm is following in the footsteps of R Chaim Volozhiner.
Lo at this line fromR Chaim’s son R Yizchaq Volozhiner’s description of his father in the introduction to Nefesh haChaim:
והיה רגיל להוכיח אותי על שראה שאינני משתתף בצערא דאחריני וכה היה דברו אלי תמיד שזה כל האדם לא לעצמו נברא רק להועיל לאחריני ככל אשר ימצא בכחו לעשות
“He would often rebuke me, seeing that I did not empathize in others’ pain. These were the words he constantly said to me: ,This is the entirety of a human being – A person was not created for themselves, but instead to help others to the extent of their ability to do so.”
In the 20th century this evolves a little, but not that much. In Michtav meiEliyahu, Qunterus haChessed (Discourse on Lovingkindness), it’s about being a giver, rather than a taker. And in Rav Shimon Shkop’s introduction to Shaarei Yosher. it’s about being a meitiv, providing benefit to others.
But in all cases, the goal is found in helping the others with different focuses about which part of that interpersonal connection is primary. Differences in resulting lifestyle or day-to-day attitudes would be minimal.
Do you think that the Alter Kelm learned from Reb Chaim’s Torah directly? The timeline doesn’t seem right. I assumed that his approach came from Reb Yisrael Salanter. Also, the Alter of Kelm clearly build an entire system around this concept which seem to go father than Reb Chaim. Do you have the sense that the Kabala / Machshava of Reb Chaim impacted the Kelm world of Mussar?
TL;DR: I think Kelm and Mussar as a whole are an interpretation of Rav Chaim’s worldview. But that these aspects of his worldview themselves were less created by Rav Chaim than developed by him. So he interpreted the Gra as well as the earlier Lithuanian Jewish culture and assumed worldview, and then R Chaim’s work itself got interpreted multiple ways. Kelm being one of them. As the Aramaic idiom goes
I would think instead that there was common cause. Not that we’re looking at an idea Rav Chaim Volozhiner (RCV) invented, but something he believed in. This was the culture of Lithuanian Judaism. Yes, much of the development of the ideological culture was impacted by the Vilna Gaon and RCV, but I think it was more further development than initiation. Chassidus rose, an alternative worldview was presented, and now givens everyone took for granted got articulated and fleshed out. (A hashkafic Rupture & Reconstruction was underway, thanks to the Enlightenment.)
But then there were two trends in how to interpret Rav Chaim Volozhiner’s thought. The early chapters of Nefesh haChaim shaar 4 introduces talmud Torah as the means for refining one’s soul. What did RCV mean? Not just in the writing, but in what he passed on to students?
One school of thought became the Yeshiva Movement. They took this relationship to Torah study as to mean that our job is to study shas and posqim and our middos will correct themselves.
But another group of students, notably Rav Zundel Salanter who inspired Rav YisraelSalanter, took the approach that our job is to learn Torah in a manner that attends to correcting our characters, and thus other character correcting efforts are also in order.
And so both the Yeshiva Movement and Mussar Movement are developments of RCV’s thought, or as I opened, perhaps general Lithuanian thought which RCV articulated. I am more inclined to believe that Lithuanian thought in general was of an interpersonal bent, which this idea of unity with others already baked in before Lithuanians had anything to be Misnaged against.
These two schools bumped heads when Rav Itzeler Blazer (“Petersburger”, a 3rd-hand talmid of RCV, being a student of Rav Yisrael Salanter) offered his services to the flagship of the Yeshiva movement, Volozhin. R Chaim Solovei[t]chik (“Brisker”; grand-talmid of RCV AND descendant) was a known opponent of the Mussar Movement. The story of RCB’s rebuttal and R Itzele’s eviction from Volozhin’s beis medrash is often told, and in a number of different ways.
And yet, the only epitaph RCB wanted on his tombstone was “Rav Chessed”. (The family warped his request, it reads “haRav haChassid”.)
So as I see it, the dispute over Mussar was not about how to define the ideal, but how one was supposed to get there. Do we stick to talmud Torah and the other 612 mitzvos and let the job happen on its own, or do we need to consciously pick up the tools and use them to do the work?
(The introduction to my seifer argues strongly for the latter. But then, so does the anecdotal evidence.)
————————————————————–
I must apologize to the reader for how uneven my writing here is. Some was written with R’ Fox in mind, some has more explanation remembering third parties may be reading or someday will read the exchange. The result is that for any one reader, some of the above will be too terse, and some boringly over-explained. But I ran out of time for more editing.
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