Beth Hillel Synagogue E-Shul .. Shabbat Re'eh... sent on Augist 5, 2010 / 25 Av 5770

Torah Portion -- Commentary of the Week

This week, written by Rabbi Michael Gold of Tamarac, Florida....ENJOY!

     The book of Deuteronomy, and this portion in particular, is the one most concerned with what is often termed "social justice."   How do we help the poor? How do we remove poverty from the land? How do we reach the dream also in this portion that "there shall be no needy among you." (Deuteronomy 15:4)   Can we ever win the war on poverty, to quote former President Lyndon Johnson's famous phrase.
       The Torah is filled with obligations towards the poor. We are obligated to give tzedakah, often translated as charity but a word meaning justice. The highest form of tzedakah is finding a way for a needy person to start a business or earn a living. If we loan someone money to survive, we are not allowed to charge interest. If our brother sells himself into indebted servitude to pay off a debt, we must redeem him. We cannot take as a pledge on a loan the tools someone needs to earn a living. The laws go on and on; someone else's poverty places obligations on us.
       So how far are we expected to go to help others? The Torah does not lay this out in detail. I have found insights from kabbalah to be extremely helpful. The kabbalah speaks of various sephirot, emanations or aspects of God's existence in the material world. Let us explore three of the sephirot: hesed, gevurah, and teferet.
      Hesed means kindness, and is the desire to give to others. It is an outflow of bounty without limit. Hesed is a wonderful quality, but without limit it is also a dangerous quality. How do we protect ourselves from too much hesed and not give everything away? How do we protect the recipient from becoming too dependent on hesed and unable to fend for himself or herself? Is there a limit to giving?
       Gevurah means strength, but I like to translate it as restraint. Gevurah is saying enough is enough. I often see it as a protective wall around a person or family, guarding them and preventing them from giving everything away. Gevurah is the inner strength to tell the other "no, I can't do anymore. Your are now on your own." Without gevurah it is easy for others to take advantage of us.   But too much gevurah and we become selfish.
       And so we turn toteferet, the third of this triad of sefirot.   There is a dialectic, to quote the nineteenth century idealist philosopher Hegel's famous term - thesis, antithesis, synthesis. (In fact, many scholars believe Hegel studied kabbalah in Christian translation.) If hesed is the thesis and gevurah is the antithesis, then teferet is the synthesis. Teferet means beauty, but I like to translate it as balance or harmony. It is the middle ground, the balance between too much kindness and too much selfishness.    The goal is to find the balance.
       What is true for kabbalah is also true for the government?   How much should the government take from the haves to give to the have-nots?   It is a vexing question. I have spoken to extreme libertarians who claim the government has no obligation to help the poor. If people wish to be generous and give charity, that is a private decision. But the government cannot use the power of taxation to take from those who have to help those who have-not. On the other hand, I have spoken to extreme Marxists who claim that it is the role of government to redress economic inequalities. They dream of a classless society - or to quote Marx, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."
       Most people avoid the extremes. They agree that government must create a social safety net to help the poor, without raising the tax burden too much on the rich. In other words, they must find a balance - we are back to teferet. Economic fairness is about balance. Perhaps we could solve our poverty problems f our politicians studied kabbalah.