Shofetim

September 8, 2016

Devarim: Sought: Ideal Leaders

You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes…and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue…
If…you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” …he shall not keep many horses…and he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess.
When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left…(Devarim 16:18-20, 17:14-20)

Let them be clear of claims of corruption,
reputations unsullied by charges of graft.

Let them be honest in all of their dealings,
and also be humble and willing to learn.

Let them not have consorted with numerous partners;
let their hands not be brimming with ill-gotten gains.

Let the words of the prophets resound in their ears;
let them wrestle profoundly with moral concerns.

We’re searching for leaders of crystal transparency
through whom the light of the Lord will shine forth;

who will heed the command that echoes in darkness
“Justice, justice you shall pursue!”

In a commentary on Parashat Shofetim from 2015, http://www.jtsa.edu/judging-the-individual-guiding-the-community, Professor Shuly Rubin Schwartz notes that the 2016 US presidential election primary season was launched with more than two dozen potential candidates. She points out that observing the ways in which they advocated for public support lent itself to focusing not only on each candidate, but also on which leadership qualities we both look for and reject in our elected officials.
Prof Rubin Schwartz observes that Parashat Shofetim examines a variety of leaders, including judges, officers, priests, kings and military leaders. She says that here we find “insights on the leadership qualities the Torah deems essential to the establishment and sustenance of a just society, qualities applicable not only to elected officials today but to anyone in a position of authority or responsibility over others. In this parashah devoted to the central theme of “Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof,” [“Justice, Justice shall you pursue,”] (Deut. 16:20) the Torah teaches that the social order will thrive only when all leaders are attuned to upholding justice. A straightforward goal, but the parashah acknowledges that the reality is inevitably more complicated. Even the most inspiring leaders will struggle, and the parashah opens by exhorting leaders not to succumb to all-too-human impulses to play favorites or take bribes. (Deut. 16:19).”

In a commentary from 2014 http://www.rabbisacks.org/shoftim-5774-learning-leadership/ Rabbi Jonathan Sacks describes the parasha as “the classic source of the three types of leadership in Judaism, called by the sages the “three crowns”: of priesthood, kingship and Torah.” (Mishnah Avot 4:13. Maimonides, Talmud Torah, 3:1). He continues, “Power, in the human arena, is to be divided and distributed, not concentrated in a single person or office. So, in biblical Israel, there were kings, priests and prophets. Kings had secular or governmental power. Priests were the leaders in the religious domain, presiding over the service in the Temple and other rites, and giving rulings on matters to do with holiness and purity. Prophets were mandated by God to be critical of the corruptions of power and to recall the people to their religious vocation whenever they drifted from it.
“Our parsha deals with all three roles.” Rabbi Sacks notes that with regard to the kingship, the Torah is very clear on what the king may not do: acquire great numbers of horses, take many wives and amass great riches. (Devarim 17: 16-17) And he adds that as we learn, later on in the Bible, even the wisest of kings, King Solomon himself, succumbed to these temptations.
He adds that “consistent with the fundamental Judaic idea that leadership is service, not dominion or power or status or superiority, the king is commanded to be humble: he must constantly read the Torah “so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God … and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites” (17: 19-20). It is not easy to be humble when everyone is bowing down before you and when you have the power of life and death over your subjects.”
Rabbi Sacks mentions the ambivalence (reflected from the Torah itself) among the commentators regarding whether the monarchy was a positive institution or not, but notes that there was one extremely significant aspect of royalty – that the king is mandated to study continually. He adds that Joshua, who succeeded Moses as leader, is enjoined in very similar words “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8)
So Rabbi Sacks concludes “Though few of us are destined to be kings, presidents or prime ministers, there is a general principle at stake. Leaders learn. They read. They study. They take time to familiarise themselves with the world of ideas. Only thus do they gain the perspective to be able to see further and clearer than others. To be a Jewish leader means spending time to study both Torah and chokhmah: chokhmah to understand the world as it is, Torah to understand the world as it ought to be.
Leaders should never stop learning. That is how they grow and teach others to grow with them.”

In a further commentary from 2016, http://www.rabbisacks.org/greatness-humility-shoftim-5776/ Rabbi Sacks expands on the theme of the Divine mandate addressed to the king, to remain humble. He says “Great leaders have many qualities, but humility is usually not one of them. With rare exceptions they tend to be ambitious, with a high measure of self regard. They expect to be obeyed, honoured, respected, even feared…”
So he suggests that this instruction to the king is surprising and powerful. The Torah, he notes, is speaking about a king, in ancient times, when kings commanded absolute power. Rabbi Sacks says, “If a king, whom all are bound to honour, is commanded to be humble – “not feel superior to his brethren” – how much more so the rest of us…”
Rabbi Sacks continues “This is a clear example of how spirituality makes a difference to the way we act, feel and think. Believing that there is a God in whose presence we stand means that we are not the centre of our world. God is.” He cites research published in 2014 by the Harvard Business Review that showed that “The best leaders are humble leaders.”* He says that such leaders “learn from criticism. They are confident enough to empower others and praise their contributions. They take personal risks for the sake of the greater good. They inspire loyalty and strong team spirit.”

And finally, in a commentary on Shofetim from 2005, http://www.jtsa.edu/the-responsibility-of-holding-office, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch addresses the responsibility that is so often shirked by those who hold public office. He considers the horrors wrought by Hurricane Katrina, which left devastation in its wake and engendered great suffering, while the federal government had been unprepared for a disaster that was just waiting to occur. He says “In the months ahead, investigative commissions without number will seek to plot missteps, assign blame, and propose initiatives. But how will politicians, for whom winning is everything, cleanse themselves collectively of guilt where no one is directly culpable? How do we spiritually atone for the stain left on our body politic by Katrina’s assault?
“This week’s parashah, which takes up the contours of good governance, among other subjects, actually addresses the issue with an exotic proposal.” He then describes the ritual of the beheaded heifer (which I addressed in a post in 2015 https://parashapoems.wordpress.com/category/book/Devarim/Shofetim/). This ritual was prescribed for the leaders of a community to confess and atone for an unsolved, unpunished murder that happened on their “watch”. Rabbi Schorsch notes “the intent of the confession is to exonerate the elders of facilitating the travesty by their indifference.” He continues, “I have often wondered if office holders should not be made to undergo a rite of purification when the public suspects their culpability. Not an investigation in which they exercise their right to defend their actions, but a sacred setting in which they might give voice to their feelings of remorse and sense of fallibility. Their oath of office, taken on a Bible, implies a duty to God as well as society. An occasional confession in the house of worship of their choice might even reinforce the sanctity of their public trust. It certainly would give authority a more human face.”
He concludes, “…the ideal remains valid even in contemporary America. Office holders are accountable to God as well as to their constituencies, otherwise they would not swear on Scripture. And for God, humility has always been one of the qualifications of leadership. Moses looms as the greatest of ancient Israel’s leaders because in part at least he was also the humblest of men (Numbers 12:3).”

*Jeanine Prime and Elizabeth Salib, ‘The Best Leaders are Humble Leaders’, Harvard Business Review, 12 May 2014.

August 20, 2015

Shofetim: Unseeing eyes

If …someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns. The elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall then take a heifer which has never been worked, which has never pulled in a yoke; and the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to an everflowing wadi, which is not tilled or sown. There, in the wadi, they shall break the heifer’s neck. The priests, sons of Levi, shall come forward; for the Lord your God has chosen them…and every lawsuit and case of assault is subject to their ruling. Then all the elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi. And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O Lord, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt. Thus you will remove from your midst guilt for the blood of the innocent, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of the Lord. (Devarim 21: 1-9)

In the nearby city
children caper joyously
underneath acacia trees
shaded from the sun.

In the distant pasture,
crushing uncut grass
lies a figure, prone and still
beneath the burning rays.

A pall of horror falls,
darkness shrouds the town,
heads are bowed, eyes are dull,
the children’s voices hushed.

By the barren wadi
the untried heifer’s blood
trickles past the rocks
and flows into the stream.

The city elders, troubled,
solemnly proclaim,
“Our hands are free of blood
we did not see the crime.”

Yet contrition fills their heart
for the one they did not save
for the care that was not offered
for the life that was curtailed.

The rite of the beheaded heifer (eglah arufah) concludes the Parasha of Shofetim which largely encompasses the establishment of a judicial system.

Rashi explains the symbolism of this rite: it involves a decapitating a heifer which is in its first year of life and has not yet yielded any fruit either by giving birth or by working.  This calf represents the individual whose death severed his ability to bear fruit. It is killed in an unworked field which represents the fact that no-one from that town was aware of the murder and the steps necessary to prevent it were not taken.

The Rambam suggests that this ritual was so rarely performed that it became a much-discussed public spectacle in the town. There would be a high likelihood that the murderer emanated from the town closest to the murder scene and due to this level of involvement from the citizens the murderer might soon be discovered because someone would emerge who knew something about it. “Furthermore since the place where the neck of the calf is broken can never be cultivated after the cow is killed there, it will remain uncultivated forever, and the owner of the field and his family and friends will thus do everything possible to discover the murderer to prevent the eglah arufah ritual from recurring.” (Guide for the Perplexed 3)

The Ramban regards it as a “chok” – a law like that of the red heifer, the meaning of which we do not undestand.

The Gemara (Sotah 38b) elaborates on the hidden meaning: R’ Yehoshua ben Levi says: the eglah arufah only comes on account of inhospitability, as it says, “They shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood…” Would we have thought that the elders of the court are murderers [that they need to declare their innocence]? Rather, [what they are saying is]: “He did not come to us that we left him without food, he did not come to us for us to leave him without escort.” (In the Sifri only “escorting” is mentioned).
So the leaders seem to be declaring that they did whatever they could to treat the victim properly while he was passing through their town (or that they were unaware of his presence – both the Gemara and the Sifri could be read either way).

In a commentary on this ritual, http://www.torah.org/advanced/mikra/5757/dv/dt.58.5.05.html, Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom recalls a teaching he learned from Rabbi Yoel Sperka, “What does the hospitality have to do with homicide? Why would a declaration stating that “We did not kill this man” imply anything about the way the elders (or townspeople) treated him?”
Rabbi Etshalom elaborates in the name of Rabbi Sperka, that a stranger who comes to town and is ignored, not offered hospitality nor escorted when he leaves, is unlikely to feel uplifted and emotionally buoyant. He will be more likely to be easy prey if he is set upon by a thug who stalks him outside the city. On the other hand, someone who comes to town and is vied over by the townsfolk who wish to host him, is begged to stay longer and finally escorted to the edge of town is likely to feel more emotionally robust and put up more of a fight against a would-be attacker. Rabbi Etshalom continues, “This is what the elders are declaring: If we saw this man, we did everything possible to enhance and maintain his sense of self-worth, such that any chance he had of defending himself was enhanced by his visit through our town.
“(If, as the second half of the declaration implies, they did not see him, then they certainly did as much as they could…)”

Nechama Leibowitz devotes a chapter in her book Studies in Devarim to this rite. She first cites the 15th-century Portuguese Jewish philosopher Abravanel (1437-1508) who asks what is the significance of this strange ritual – if the aim was to cleanse the innocent blood – how did the blood of the beheaded heifer atone for that of the victim; and if the Israelites had not committed the sin, why did they need the ritual? Nechama Leibowitz does not find  support in the text for the Rambam’s theory that it might aid in detecting the murderer. She says that most commentators argue that the rite was intended to shock the local inhabitants, “We know too well the indifference that prevails among people regarding the miseries of others. Anyone hearing of a murder, either then or now, would shake his head, go his own way and the world would continue as before.”

In a commentary on Parashat Shofetim, http://www.rebjeff.com/blog/category/shoftim from 2011, Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser notes that on average, more than thirty people are murdered every day in the United States. He continues, “When most of us hear statistics like this, we think about the role of poverty and guns in creating a climate for homicide. We may think about the frequency with which racial minorities are the perpetrators and the victims of these murders. But we don’t often think about our own culpability.
“What would happen if we had to make the declaration of the cow with the broken neck described in this week’s Torah portion? What if, every time you read about a homicide in your town or an adjacent area, you had to travel to the scene of the murder and declare that you had no opportunity to offer the victim food, to care for him or her, or to offer protection from harm? Could you do it? Could any of us?
“…the Torah has no particular interest in the rights of an individual, but it has a very keen interest in a person’s obligations. The Torah offers us no right to remain uninterested in murders committed in the places near where we live. By the very fact that we do live in the place, we already are implicated. We are obliged to protect from harm even the stranger who is passing through.”

In Jerusalem in 2012 the Tzohar association of rabbis conducted a modernized version the ritual of the decapacitated calf. A minyan of ten rabbis from Tzohar gathered on highway 66 at the site of a hit-and-run incident in which female soldier Amnesh Yasatzu was killed. According to the police, Yasatzu was hit by a number of cars close to Kibbutz Hazorea in the western Jezreel Valley before she died.
Led by Tzohar chairman Rabbi David Stav, the ceremony was conducted in protest against the “moral injustice” of hit-and-run incidents, and as a call to drivers to exercise greater caution on the roads.
Tzohar said in a statement that it conducted the ritual (without the decapitated calf), “to arouse the attention of communal leaders and the hearts of the public, because there should not be a situation in which blood is haphazardly spilt and the public does not perform any act of remorse.”
“The Torah presents an uncompromising moral statement, that all of us, religious, traditional and secular, have to adopt: We are responsible for spilt blood,” Rabbi Stav said. “We are responsible for blood spilt in road accidents, we are responsible for blood spilt in stupid gang fights, for women murdered by their husbands, and for the blood spilt in the murders which fill the pages of our newspapers.”
Rabbi Stav continued that we must not shirk responsibility when it comes to human life and professing ignorance about a potential life-threatening situation is a form of guilt. The purpose of the ritual then as now was to interrupt the routine of everyday life and force those watching and passing by to think about and take responsibility for a situation in which a society can allow a person’s death to go unpunished and unnoticed.

In an article from the blog Times of Israel entitled The Eglah Arufah and Modern Police Work: The View of Jewish Police Chaplain, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eglah-arufa-and-modern-police-work/ Rabbi Rigoberto Vinas (the chaplain) discusses various commentators’ views on the meaning of the ritual. He says, “The best explanation I have ever received for this ritual actually came from a Detective – a member of the Yonkers Police Department, where I serve as Police Chaplain. I came into the office and he and another officer were busy planning a candlelight vigil to take place in front of the home of a homicide victim. He was on the phone with family members, community leaders and others to attend this event. I remarked to him that it must be difficult solving a murder when you become so personally involved in a case that you would want to organize a memorial service for the victim. I asked him why he did this, wasn’t he supposed to concentrate on solving the murder. The detective explained that in the many years that he was involved in homicide he had noticed that this type of service opens the hearts of potential witnesses who had seen the crime, and promotes their cooperation when they see the victim’s family asking for help. He also said that sometimes the murderer attends the event and this helps to identify potential suspects. “So in a very direct way the candlelight vigil is a very much a part of solving the crime,” he explained. I realized that this is in fact the modern version of the eglah arufah and explained to him the biblical source for what he was engaged in. To this day, I am beholden to this detective for explaining to me a biblical ritual which at first glance appears to be obsolete but is in fact a very important and modern part of police work.
Rabbi Vinas notes the apathy of today’s society, “Murders go on daily and we are no longer shocked or up at arms. “Don’t get involved” either directly or even emotionally seems to be the order of the day. In this ritual, the Torah describes a society where the citizens of that town have stopped their daily routines to participate in a ritual that perhaps they do not even understand. (Ramban) But react they must. Even if it has the most remote chance of bringing the murderer to light (Rambam) they do everything they can to stop it. Their reaction to the death of that innocent is not a cold calculated reaction, rather they try to recreate what happened to stir up their own feelings even more and to mourn the loss of that individual. (Rashi).
“The Torah’s path is a path of compassion and connection not coldness and separation. Even at the cost of feeling other’s pain we seek it out so that we may continue the connectedness of society. In today’s “advanced culture” which is really primitive compared to the culture outlined in this ritual, we tell each other that we cannot feel others pain either because it wouldn’t help anyways or because it would be too overwhelming for us. But perhaps if we did begin feeling others’ pain we could highly diminish it so that it would be a rarity.”

And finally, in a lengthy article on the eglah arufah in the Jewish Journal, entitled Strangers, Immigrants and the Eglah Arufah http://www.jewishjournal.com/socialjusticerav/item/strangers_immigrants_and_the_eglah_arufah
Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz addresses the plight of the “outsider” of our day, the immigrant, and relates to economic immigrants who attempt to cross borders into neighboring countries and are sometimes killed while doing so. He suggests that the Jewish response to vulnerability of undocumented immigrants might incorporate the ethos of the eglah arufa.
He notes that the 16th-century Jewish thinker, the Maharal of Prague, suggests that the poor wanderer was hungry and was killed while trying to steal food. Even though the victim died while committing an illegal act, the leaders who failed to feed him are responsible. Rabbi Yanklowitz says “Just as the wanderer who was commemorated through the eglah arufah broke the law, so too undocumented immigrants today break the law. Nevertheless, the leaders who turn a blind eye to their needs are responsible for their suffering. In the case in Deuteronomy, the individual was guilty of theft, a sin condemned very strongly by Jewish law. Rav Ahron Soloveichik writes: “We assume that the person was starving and attempted an armed robbery in order to obtain food” (Ahron Soloveichik, Logic of the Heart Logic of the Mind (Jersualem 1991), 175). This is all the more true with someone crossing international borders without documentation which is not an act condemned by Jewish law, and although we are bound by the law of the land, there is no reason why we should take less responsibility than in the case of the eglah arufah.”
Rabbi Yanklowitz continues, “The idea that leaders are accountable for their generation is prevalent in Jewish thought…Once we accept the role of moral leadership, we are truly accountable for our community. But the Rabbis teach us that societal accountability is not granted solely to those who have been granted formal authority, but to all those of learning. “If a person of learning participates in public affairs and serves as judge or arbiter, he gives stability to the land…But if he sits in his home and says to himself, ‘What have the affairs of society to do with me? …Why should I trouble myself with the people’s voices of protest? Let my soul dwell in peace!’—if he does this, he overthrows the world” (Midrash Tanhuma, Mishpatim 2). Responsibility does not just apply to the scholar. The Rabbis confirm that this responsibility is upon all of us. “Everyone who can protest the sin of his household and does not, is responsible for the people of his household; for the people of his city, he is responsible for the people of his city; for the whole world, he is responsible for the whole world” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b). There are many different ways to take responsibility and to fulfill the commandment, “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor!” (Leviticus 19:16). The world continues to exist because humans are responsible agents. When we give up our ability to hear the voices of protest and the cry of the sufferer, we bring the world to ruin.”
Rabbi Yanklowitz cites Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his 1971 “A Prayer for Peace”: “O Lord, we confess our sins; we are ashamed of the inadequacy of our anguish, of how faint and slight is our mercy. We are a generation that has lost its capacity for outrage. We must continue to remind ourselves that in a free society all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible.”

August 28, 2014

Shofetim: Who goes first?

Justice, justice you shall pursue. (Devarim 16:20).
The laden camel
lumbers slowly, up
the steep ascent
to Beth Choron:
the man alongside
eyes the jagged path.

A shadow falls
across the trail:
he lifts his gaze
as to a mirror;
another camel,
another man.

If all ascend
the narrow way
abreast,
they plunge
together
to the depths.

One camel laden;
the other, further
from journey’s end;
true justice calls
each man
to see the other.

Biblical commentators discuss the meaning of the duplication of the word tzedek – justice. The Hertz commentary offers two further translations of this phrase, tzedek tzedek: “that which is altogether just,” and “justice, and only justice,” commenting, “The duplication of the word “justice” brings out with the greatest possible emphasis the supreme duty of even-handed justice for all.”
Bachya ben Asher* comments, “Justice, whether to your profit or your loss, whether in word or in action, whether to Jew or non-Jew.”
Rashi explains that this duplication means one should seek out a reliable court. Ibn Ezra notes that the command “you shall pursue – tirdof” is phrased in the singular so maintains that it is incumbent on every judge individually to uphold righteousness. Nachmanides agrees but adds that the judges should also seek out the advice of sages greater than themselves.
Rabbi Simcha Bunim (Bonhart) of Peshischa teaches, “Pursue justice with justice. Also the pursuit of justice should be through honorable means, not through deviousness.” Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel** sharpens up this point, “Justice alone is not enough, because from the human view-point there are many kinds of justice, just as there are many kinds of truth…every regime has its own “justice”. Therefore it is written, “Justice, justice you shall pursue,” that is the justice of justice. That also the purpose and also the means will come from an ethical source.”
In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 32b), we find the following:
It has been taught: Justice, justice shall you follow; the first [mention of justice] refers to a decision based on strict law; the second, to a compromise. How so? Where two boats sailing on a river meet; if both attempt to pass simultaneously, both will sink, whereas, if one makes way for the other, both can pass [without mishap]. Likewise, if two camels meet each other while on the ascent to Beth-Horon; if they both ascend [at the same time] both may tumble down [into the valley]; but if [they ascend] after each other, both can go up [safely]. How then should they act? If one is laden and the other unladen, the latter should give way to the former. If one is nearer [to its destination] than the other, the former should give way to the latter. If both are [equally] near or far [from their destination,] make a compromise between them, the one [which is to go forward] compensating the other [which has to give way].
[Soncino translation]
In an article on Parashat Shofetim, entitled Pursuing Justice for All, http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion/shoftim_hillel2002.shtml?p=2 Rabbi Marc D Israel suggests that the passage from the Talmud is teaching that true justice is reached when all members of the group’s needs are taken into consideration, not only the individual’s needs.

*Bachya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye (1255 – 1340), was a rabbi and scholar of Judaism. He was a commentator on the Torah.
He is considered by Jewish scholars to be one of the most distinguished of the Biblical exegetes of Spain. He was a pupil of Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet (the Rashba). Unlike the latter, R’ Bachya did not publish a Talmud commentary. In his biblical exegesis, R’ Bachya took the Ramban, who was the teacher of the Rashba, as his model. The Ramban was the first major commentator to make extensive use of the Kabbalah as a means of interpreting the Torah. R’ Bachya was a darshan – a preacher – in his native city of Saragossa, a position he shared with several others. He received a meagre salary, scarcely enough to support him and his family. However, neither his financial straits nor the reverses that he suffered (to which he refers in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah) diminished his interest in Torah study in general, and in Biblical exegesis in particular.
In the preparation of R’ Bachya’s commentary on the Torah, he thoroughly investigated the works of former Biblical exegetes, and used all the methods employed by them in his interpretations. R’ Bachya believed that the method of the Kabbalah, termed by him “the path of light,” which the truth-seeking soul must travel, facilitates the revelation of the deep mysteries hidden in the Torah. However, he does not reveal any of his Kabbalistic sources, other than generally referring to Sefer ha-Bahir and the works of Nachmanides. He only mentions the Zohar twice.
R’ Bachya’s commentary is considered to derive a particular charm from its form. Each parashah is prefaced by an introduction preparing the reader for the fundamental ideas to be discussed; and this introduction bears a motto in the form of a verse selected from the Book of Proverbs. Furthermore, by the questions that are frequently raised, R’ Bachya invites his readers to participate in his mental processes.
The commentary was first printed at Naples in 1492 and became very popular as evidenced by the numerous supercommentaries published on it (at least 10). Owing to the extensive allusions to the Kabbalah, the work was particularly valuable to Kabbalists, although Rabbi Bachya also availed himself of non-Jewish sources.
His next most famous work was his Kad ha-Kemach – Receptacle of the Flour (published in Constantinople in 1515.) It consists of sixty chapters, alphabetically arranged, containing discourses and dissertations on the requirements of religion and morality, as well as Jewish ritual practices. Kad ha-Kemach is a work of Musar literature, the purpose of which is to promote a moral life. In it, R’ Bachya discusses belief and faith in God; the divine attributes and the nature of providence; the duty of loving God, and of walking before God in simplicity and humility of heart; the fear of God; Jewish prayer; benevolence, and the love of mankind; peace; the administration of justice, and the sacredness of the oath; the duty of respecting the property and honor of one’s fellow man; the Jewish holidays, and halacha.

**Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel (1883-1946) was an orthodox rabbi, author, orator and philosopher. He was born in Porozov in Russia. He studied in the local Talmud Torah until age 13 when he went to study in the Telz Yeshiva. Three years later he moved to Yeshivat Brisk and learned under Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik. One year later, he went to learn under Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski in Vilna. At age 18 he received Semichah and at age 23 he was appointed Rabbi of Swieciany, where he established a large yeshiva. In 1913, he became Rabbi of Grajewo, a town on the Russian-German border. It was during this time that Rabbi Amiel was acknowledged as a great public preacher with outstanding oratory skills. He became one of the first rabbis to publicly join the Mizrachi movement and Zionist organization, applying his speaking and writing abilities to the cause of Religious Zionism and national questions. In 1920 he was elected as one of the delegates to represent Mizrachi of Poland at the Mizrachi World Convention in Amsterdam. There he made such an impression upon the Jewish community that he was given the post of Rabbi of Antwerp, one of the largest and richest Jewish communities of the time. He set up a system of lower yeshivot for girls and boys by creating the Jewish Day School (as it came to be known in America), as well as religious institutes of higher learning.
In 1936 Rabbi Amiel made aliyah in order to serve as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv which encompassed the largest concentration of Jewish population in the yishuv. This demanded the need to maintain harmonious relations between the religious and non-religious segments of the community. During his leadership he set up a yeshiva high school (the first modern high school yeshiva) which taught religious subjects in the morning and secular in the afternoon. This yeshiva, named Yeshivat Ha’Yishuv HeChadash, was used as the pattern for the B’nei Akiva yeshivot which were subsequently established. After his death the yeshiva was renamed Yeshivat Ha’Rav Amiel.
Rabbi Amiel drew on his extensive background in Talmud, Halachah and Midrash in his analytical writings. He authored several books, among them: Derashot el Ami (Sermons to my People); Am Segulah (A Treasured Nation); L’Nevuchai HaTekufah (Light for an Age of Confusion); HaMidot L’Cheker HaHalachah (Ethics and Legality in Jewish Law).