Drashas Parshas Terumah: The Yesod of Achdus, The Secret of the Keruvim, and the Koach of Purim

 1. The P’shat in the Keruvim: Learning Like a Child

The drasha opens with a focus on the pasuk in Parshas Terumah regarding the building of the Aron: “V’asisa shnayim kruvim” (And you shall make two cherubim).

Rashi’s P’shat: Rashi points out that the word Kruvim comes from the word Ravya, meaning they had the tzuras panim (faces) of a tinok (a baby/child). Since the Keruvim sat atop the Aron, which holds the Luchos, this is a deep yesod in limud HaTorah. When a person learns Torah, they need to do so with the geshmak, enthusiasm, endless curiosity, and utter humility of a young child. No matter how much you know, you must approach the Torah realizing there is always so much more to learn.

Rabbeinu Bachya’s Diyuk: Rabbeinu Bachya asks a strong diyuk: Why does the pasuk say "shnayim kruvim" instead of the grammatically standard "shnei kruvim" (like shnei se'irim)? He explains that the Keruvim were distinctly different—one was zachar (male) and one was nekeiva (female). Despite their inherent differences, the pasuk mandates "U'pneihem ish el achiv"—they must look at each other. This is the ultimate siman of a healthy relationship; despite differences in nature or opinion, spouses (and friends) must look at each other with fondness, respect, and connection.

2. The Essence of a True Chavrusa-Shaft

This concept of the Keruvim flows directly into how we are supposed to learn Torah. The Baal HaTurim says that the two Keruvim represent two friends learning Torah together.

Dialogue vs. Monologue: True learning is a dialogue, not a monologue. [What is the difference between a monologoue and a dialogue? A monologue is when one person speaks and everybody listens. A dialogue is when two people speak and nobody listens...]. Too often, people sit at the Shabbos table or with a chavrusa, and instead of truly listening, they are just waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can say their own shtickel. The Keruvim teach us to look at each other, legitimize the other’s sevara, absorb it, and respond constructively.

Moshe and Aharon: The Keruvim also represent Moshe and Aharon. They had very different tafkidim (roles). Moshe was the Shoshvina d’Malka (the right-hand man of the King/Hashem), bringing the Torah down to Klal Yisroel. Aharon was the Shoshvina d’Matronisa (the representative of the Kallah/Klal Yisroel), elevating the people. They had totally different kochos, yet they worked totally b’yachad with zero hakpada (friction).

3. The Dangers of Pirud (Disunity) in the Beis Medrash

What happens when we fail to look at each other? The essence of Makkas Choshech (the Plague of Darkness) wasn't just a lack of light; the pasuk says "lo ra’u ish es achiv" (no man saw his brother). And what is the immediate consequence? "V'lo kamu ish mitachtav"—nobody could get up! When Jews don't "see" each other, when there is no connection or mutual support, there is zero constructive growth. You can't elevate yourself, and you can't help your friend.

To drive this point home, the shiur brings a gevaldige Midrash Shir HaShirim, famously cited by R' Shlomo Wolbe zt"l in his classic mussar sefer, Alei Shur (Chelek Alef):

The Midrash says that when Jews learn Torah, but there is sinah (hatred), kinah (jealousy), tacharus (competition), and people embarrassing one another—the Malachei HaShares say before Hashem: "They are not learning Torah!"

The Yesod: If a makom Torah is filled with ka'as, politics, and division, the Torah is fundamentally flawed. A true Yeshiva must be the ideal society—a chevrei where everyone is invested in the ruchniyus of everyone else. Limud HaTorah must bring Shalom and Achdus.

4. Har Sinai, the Mishkan, and the Avodah of Purim

The Ramban in his Hakdamah to Parshas Terumah states a massive yesod: The whole purpose of the Mishkan was to be a continuation of Har Sinai. Just as Hashem spoke to Yisroel at Sinai, the Dibbur continued to emanate from between the two Keruvim.

But what was the prerequisite for Har Sinai? "Vayichan sham Yisroel"—K'ish echad b'lev echad (like one man with one heart).

Therefore, the Hashra'as HaShechinah (resting of the Divine Presence) between the Keruvim is entirely dependent on that same Achdus—two friends looking at each other in peace. The Shechinah departs when we turn away from one another.

This is the avodah of Purim.

Haman’s claim against us was: "Yeshno am echad mefuzar u'meforad" (There is one nation, scattered and divided). He saw our lack of achdus and recognized it as our greatest vulnerability. He knew that the Satan's greatest weapon in Eretz Yisroel and the broader Jewish world is internal fighting.

Esther’s immediate eitza to combat Haman was: "Knos es kol HaYehudim" (Gather all the Jews). Bring them together!

Purim is Hadar Kibluha—the re-acceptance of the Torah. Just as the first Kabalas HaTorah required K'ish echad b'lev echad, the acceptance of Torah on Purim requires the exact same total Achdus. This is why the mitzvos of Purim are Mishloach Manos and Matanos L'Evyonim—to foster chavrusa-shaft, love, and unity among Klal Yisroel.

5. L'Maaseh: A Halachic Nafka Mina on Achdus

The shiur ends with a brilliant hashkafic point cloaked in Halacha, quoting the Beis Yisroel of Gur.

When the IDF captured the Kosel and Har HaBayis, people asked: We are all T’mei Meis (impure from the dead), but there is a klal in Shas that "Tumah Hutrah B'Tzibur" (the prohibition of impurity is overridden for a public communal offering). Why can't we go up and bring korbanos?

The BY answered with a sharp truth: "I don't see a Tzibur!"

Rav Eliashiv heard his vort and liked it!

A Tzibur is not just a statistical headcount of Jewish individuals. A Tzibur is a unified entity. Right now, Klal Yisroel is so fractured and fragmented that we don't hold the halachic status of a Tzibur.

The Takeaway:

We want the Geulah. We want the Bais HaMikdash rebuilt. But the first Churban happened because of the three capital aveiros, and the second Churban happened because of Sinas Chinam which is Pgam B'Achdus Hashem - a flaw in our unity with each other.

To bring the Shechinah back, we have to start by looking at each other like the Keruvim. We must make time to truly listen to one another, be happy for each other's success in Torah, drop the politics and jealousy, and become a true Tzibur. As the drasha concludes, we don't make Havdalah on Purim because we don't want to make a separation; we want to take the Achdus and Simcha of Purim and carry it into the rest of the year.

1. הפשט בכרובים: ללמוד כמו ילד

הדרשה נפתחת בהתמקדות בפסוק בפרשת תרומה בנוגע לבניית הארון: "וְעָשִׂיתָ שְׁנַיִם כְּרֻבִים" (ועשית שני כרובים).

פשטו של רש"י: רש"י מציין שהמילה "כרובים" באה מהמילה "רביא" (בארמית: ילד), כלומר שהיו להם צורת פנים של תינוק (ילד קטן). מאחר שהכרובים ישבו מעל הארון, שבתוכו הלוחות, זהו יסוד עמוק בלימוד התורה. כאשר אדם לומד תורה, עליו לעשות זאת בטעם, בהתלהבות, בסקרנות אינסופית ובענווה מוחלטת – כמו של ילד קטן. לא משנה כמה אתה כבר יודע, חייבים לגשת לתורה בהכרה שתמיד יש עוד כל כך הרבה ללמוד.

דיוקו של רבינו בחיי: רבינו בחיי מעלה דיוק חזק: מדוע הפסוק אומר "שְׁנַיִם כְּרֻבִים" במקום הצורה הדקדוקית הרגילה "שְׁנֵי כְּרֻבִים" (כמו "שְׁנֵי שְׂעִירִים")? הוא מסביר שהכרובים היו שונים מאוד זה מזה – אחד זכר ואחד נקבה. למרות ההבדלים המהותיים ביניהם, הפסוק מצווה "וּפְנֵיהֶם אִישׁ אֶל אָחִיו" – הם חייבים להסתכל זה על זה. זהו הסימן האולטימטיבי לזוגיות בריאה; למרות הבדלים בטבע או בדעות, בני זוג (וחברים) חייבים להסתכל זה על זה באהבה, בכבוד ובחיבור.

2. המהות של חבְרוּתא אמיתית

מושג הכרובים זורם ישירות לאופן שבו עלינו ללמוד תורה. בעל הטורים אומר שהשני כרובים מסמלים שני חברים שלומדים תורה יחד.

דיאלוג לעומת מונולוג: לימוד אמיתי הוא דיאלוג, לא מונולוג. [מה ההבדל בין מונולוג לדיאלוג? מונולוג זה כשאדם אחד מדבר וכולם מקשיבים. דיאלוג זה כששני אנשים מדברים ואף אחד לא מקשיב...] לעיתים קרובות מדי, אנשים יושבים סביב שולחן שבת או עם חברותא, ובמקום באמת להקשיב – הם רק מחכים שהשני יסיים לדבר כדי שיוכלו לומר את השטיקל שלהם. הכרובים מלמדים אותנו להסתכל זה על זה, להכשיר את הסברא של השני, לספוג אותה ולהגיב בצורה בונה.

משה ואהרן: הכרובים גם מייצגים את משה ואהרן. היו להם תפקידים שונים מאוד. משה היה "שושבינא דמלכא" (שושבין של המלך/ה'), שהוריד את התורה לישראל. אהרן היה "שושבינא דמטרוניתא" (נציג הכלה/ישראל), שהעלה את העם. היו להם כוחות שונים לגמרי, ובכל זאת עבדו יחד לגמרי בלי שום הקפדות וחיכוכים.

3. הסכנות של פירוד בבית המדרש

מה קורה כשאנחנו לא מסתכלים זה על זה? המהות של מכת חושך לא הייתה רק חוסר אור; הפסוק אומר "לֹא רָאוּ אִישׁ אֶת אָחִיו" (לא ראה איש את אחיו). ומה ההשלכה המיידית? "וְלֹא קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו" – אף אחד לא יכול היה לקום! כשיהודים לא "רואים" זה את זה, כשאין חיבור או תמיכה הדדית – אין שום צמיחה בונה. אתה לא יכול להתעלות בעצמך, ולא יכול לעזור לחברך.

כדי להדגיש את הנקודה הזו, השיעור מביא מדרש נפלא משיר השירים, שמובא על ידי הרב שלמה וולבה זצ"ל בספרו הקלאסי "עלי שור" (חלק א'):

המדרש אומר שכאשר יהודים לומדים תורה, אבל יש שנאה, קנאה, תחרות והלבנת פנים – מלאכי השרת אומרים לפני הקב"ה שאינם לומדים תורה!

היסוד: אם מקום תורה מלא בכעס, פוליטיקה ומחלוקת – התורה פגומה ביסודה. ישיבה אמיתית חייבת להיות החברה האידיאלית – חברה שבה כולם מושקעים ברוחניות של כולם. לימוד התורה חייב להביא שלום ואחדות.

4. הר סיני, המשכן ועבודת פורים

הרמב"ן בהקדמתו לפרשת תרומה אומר יסוד גדול: כל מטרת המשכן הייתה להיות המשך של הר סיני. כשם שה' דיבר עם ישראל בסיני, הדיבור המשיך להתפשט מבין שני הכרובים.

אבל מה היה התנאי להר סיני? "וַיִּחַן שָׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל" – כאיש אחד בלב אחד.

לכן, השראת השכינה בין הכרובים תלויה לחלוטין באותה אחדות – שני חברים שמסתכלים זה על זה בשלום. השכינה מסתלקת כשאנחנו מסיטים את פנינו זה מזה.

זוהי העבודה של פורים.

טענת המן נגדנו הייתה: "יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד". הוא ראה את חוסר האחדות שלנו והכיר בו כפגיעות הגדולה ביותר שלנו. הוא ידע שהנשק הגדול ביותר של השטן בארץ ישראל ובעולם היהודי הוא מלחמות פנימיות.

העצה המיידית של אסתר נגד המן הייתה: "כְּנוֹס אֶת כָּל הַיְּהוּדִים" – אסוף את כל היהודים! הבא אותם יחד!

פורים הוא "הֲדַר קִבְּלוּהָ" – הקבלה מחדש של התורה. כשם שהקבלה הראשונה של התורה דרשה "כאיש אחד בלב אחד", קבלת התורה בפורים דורשת בדיוק אותה אחדות מוחלטת. זו הסיבה שהמצוות של פורים הן משלוח מנות ומתנות לאביונים – לטפח חבְרוּתא, אהבה ואחדות בקרב כלל ישראל.

5. למעשה: נפקא מינה הלכתית על אחדות

השיעור מסתיים בנקודה השקפתית מבריקה המסווה בהלכה, בציטוט מבעל "בית ישראל" מגור:

כאשר צה"ל כבש את הכותל ואת הר הבית, שאלו אנשים: כולנו טמאי מתים, אבל יש כלל בש"ס ש"טומאה הותרה בציבור" (הטומאה מותרת עבור קרבן ציבור). מדוע לא נעלה ונקריב קרבנות?

ה"בית ישראל" ענה באמת חדה: "אני לא רואה ציבור!"

הרב אלישיב שמע את הוורט ואהב אותו!

ציבור אינו סתם ספירת ראשים סטטיסטית של יהודים. ציבור הוא ישות מאוחדת. כרגע, כלל ישראל כל כך מפורד ומפוצל שאין לנו מעמד הלכתי של ציבור.

המסקנה:

אנחנו רוצים את הגאולה. אנחנו רוצים את בניין בית המקדש. אבל החורבן הראשון קרה בגלל שלוש עבירות חמורות, והחורבן השני קרה בגלל שנאת חינם – שהיא פגם באחדות השם.

כדי להחזיר את השכינה, צריך להתחיל להסתכל זה על זה כמו הכרובים. חייבים להקדיש זמן להקשיב באמת זה לזה, לשמוח בהצלחה של השני בתורה, להשאיר את הפוליטיקה והקנאה מאחור ולהפוך לציבור אמיתי. כפי שהדרשה מסתיימת: אנחנו לא עושים הבדלה בפורים כי אנחנו לא רוצים לעשות הפרדה; אנחנו רוצים לקחת את האחדות והשמחה של פורים ולהמשיך אותם לשאר השנה.

A Simcha Mefuara

This discourse integrates Halacha, Machshava, and close textual analysis to offer a unified conceptual framework connecting Purim, Pesach, the Beis Hamikdash, the existential threat of Amalek, and the ultimate voluntary acceptance of the Torah.

**1. The Halachic Weight of Pirsumei Nisa (Publicizing the Miracle)**  

The central principle governing the laws of Purim is Pirsumei Nisa—the obligation to publicize the miracle. This concept carries extraordinary halachic force. The Talmud (Megillah 3b) teaches that the reading of the Megillah overrides nearly all other communal obligations, including Torah study, the Avodah in the Beis Hamikdash, and even the burial of a neglected corpse (Meis Mitzvah).  

The Baal HaTurim highlights a linguistic connection: just as the Jewish people declared “Na’aseh V’Nishma” (“We will do and we will hear”) at Sinai, the Megillah describes how the Jews “heard” (nishma) the king’s decree. Because of the unique imperative to publicize this particular miracle, hearing the Megillah takes precedence even over Torah study itself.

**2. The Nature of the Hidden Miracle (Nes Nistar)**  

The Purim miracle receives such extraordinary emphasis because of its distinctive character. Unlike the Exodus from Egypt—with its overt supernatural events such as the plagues and the splitting of the sea (Nes Niglah, revealed miracles)—the Purim story contains no open violations of nature. The name of God appears nowhere in the Megillah.  

According to the Vilna Gaon, however, every single verse of the Megillah embodies a miracle. Divine intervention is concealed within palace politics, royal sleeplessness, court intrigues, and apparent coincidences. The greatness of Purim lies in perceiving God’s complete mastery over history precisely when He is hidden beneath the surface of natural events and human decisions.

**3. The Joy of Adar and Nissan: Two Complementary Realms of Faith**  

The Talmud declares that when Adar enters, joy increases, mirroring the decrease of joy in Av. Rashi explains that Adar (Purim) and Nissan (Pesach) are linked because they are the months of miracles for Israel.  

These two months reflect complementary dimensions of Jewish spiritual consciousness:  

- Nissan/Pesach represents the foundation of faith, when God revealed Himself openly and unmistakably to the entire world.  

- Adar/Purim represents the maturation of faith, when the Jewish people learned to recognize God within the concealment and darkness of exile, within the natural order.  

Together they form a complete vision of Divine Providence (Hashgacha Pratis).

**4. The Beis Hamikdash as the Permanent Home of Miracles**  

The Beis HaMikdash was far more than a site of ritual; it served as the fixed earthly location where miracles became institutionalized. The Mishna in Pirkei Avos records ten ongoing miracles in the Beis Hamikdash (such as rain never extinguishing the altar fire, flies never landing on the sacrifices). These parallel the ten miracles performed during the Exodus.  

While the Exodus introduced the concept of miracles into the world, the Beis Hamikdash made them a continuous, structural reality—a place where the natural and supernatural existed in harmony.

**5. Amalek: The Denial of Providence**  

Amalek stands in direct opposition to the Beis Hamikdash's message. The Torah commands eternal remembrance and complete eradication of Amalek because of its ideological assault: “Asher karcha baderech” (“how he happened upon you on the way”). The root “kar” connects to mikreh (coincidence) and coldness.  

After the awe-inspiring revealed miracles of the Exodus, the world was “boiling” with recognition of God. Amalek sought to “cool” that awareness by insisting that events were mere coincidence, natural processes, or political chance. Haman, a descendant of Amalek, embodied this worldview by casting a pur (lottery)—the ultimate symbol of blind, random fate—to choose the date for Jewish destruction.

**6. The Rambam’s Sequence: Removing Amalek Before Establishing the Beis Hamikdash**  

The Rambam rules that upon entering the Land of Israel, three commandments were given in precise order:  

1. Appointing a king  

2. Destroying the seed of Amalek  

3. Building the Beit HaMikdash  

Amalek must be eradicated before the Beis Hamikdash can be established because the Beis Hamikdash represents the permanent dwelling place of Divine Providence. The ideology of absolute randomness and coincidence creates an irreconcilable psychological and spiritual barrier; it must be removed before the truth of God’s constant supervision can be fully realized in the world.

**7. Hadar Kibluha: The Re-Acceptance of the Torah out of Love**  

At Sinai, God “held the mountain over them like a barrel,” compelling acceptance of the Torah under conditions of overwhelming revealed miracles. Free choice was effectively suspended by the intensity of the experience.  

In the time of Purim, however, God was entirely hidden. Facing annihilation, the Jewish people were saved through subtle, concealed miracles. This experience produced a profound transformation. Rashi explains that they then re-accepted the Torah “me’ahavas ha-nes”—out of love for the miracle. Because salvation came while God remained concealed in exile, they recognized the depth of His unconditional love. Purim marks the moment when acceptance of the Torah became fully voluntary and rooted in love rather than awe.

**8. The Spiritual Renewal: “Orah V’Simcha”**  

The Megillah concludes: “LaYehudim hayisa orah v’simcha v’sasson v’y’kar” (“The Jews had light, gladness, joy, and honor”). The Talmud interprets these terms spiritually: orah = Torah, simcha = Festivals, sasson = circumcision, y’kar = tefillin.  

The use of “hayisa” (“had”) implies renewal. Haman’s decree had cast a deep shadow, making the Jewish people feel abandoned to fate and politics; their spiritual life had grown dim. The hidden miracle shattered Amalek’s worldview of randomness. The Torah once again became genuine “light,” and the relationship with God was restored with renewed vitality. The physical deliverance was secondary to this profound spiritual renaissance.

**9. Contemporary Relevance**  

In the modern era, the dominant worldview often attributes everything to science, nature, politics, and chance—echoing the ideology of Amalek. The enduring mission emerging from Purim is to counteract this perspective through deep Torah engagement, recognition of God’s hidden hand in daily life, and authentic spiritual joy (simcha). In this way, the light of Torah is brought back into a world that appears dark and random.

The Greatest Joy of Purim

According to the Rambam, although there are many ways to fulfill the mitzvah of rejoicing on Purim—such as feasting, drinking, and sending mishloach manot—the highest and most important expression of simcha is Matanot La’Evyonim (gifts to the poor).

This act brings genuine life and happiness to orphans, widows, and the destitute. The Rambam describes the joy produced by uplifting the brokenhearted in this way as “השמחה הגדולה והמפוארה” — the greatest and most glorious joy.

The Meaning of “Mefoarah”

The term “מפוארה” (mefoarah) requires clarification. In Jewish thought, the root פ-א-ר (Peh-Aleph-Reish) does not refer merely to abstract beauty or poetic splendor. Rather, mefoarah denotes a joy that is tangible and clearly perceptible to the physical senses—“דבר ניכר בחוש” — something unmistakably recognizable through direct experience.

Scriptural Support: Tiferes

This understanding is supported by the well-known verse in Divrei HaYamim I (Chronicles I) 29:11:

“L’cha Hashem HaGedulah, VeHaGevurah, VeHaTiferes…”

(Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, and the glory/Tiferes…)

Tiferes shares the same root as mefoarah. It signifies the state in which God’s hidden, spiritual reality becomes concretely manifested and graspable in the physical world — “הכי נתפס בחוש” — the most directly apprehended by the senses.

Connection to the Central Theme of Purim

This concept of a “Simcha Mefoarah” aligns directly with the deeper message of Purim.

Amalek’s ideology seeks to render the world random and to keep God’s presence hidden and imperceptible. In contrast, the mission of the Jew on Purim is to draw the concealed reality of Divine providence into the open and make it an undeniable, tangible fact in this world.

When a person gives Matanos La’Evyonim and literally revives a fellow Jew in desperate need (lehachayot), they accomplish precisely this: they transform the abstract spiritual attribute of God’s kindness into a concrete, visible, and deeply felt reality. Through this act, they create a joy that is truly “mefoarah”—clearly perceptible and powerfully manifest in the physical world. [הגרחי"ק שליט"א]

Shabbos 54a: Don't Kovel The Sheep!

1. The Meaning of the Land of "Kavul" 

The shiur begins by discussing a piece of land Shlomo HaMelech gave to Chiram Melech Tzor, referred to as "Kavul." The Gemara offers a new explanation for this name: it was a salty, cracked wasteland (Chumton). It was called Kavul because a person's foot would sink into the soft earth up to their ankle (kavla). Furthermore, the land was considered "bound" (mechable) because it was entirely unproductive. 

The land's failure to develop usually stems from either the settlers (who may be too pampered to work) or the land itself. In Kavul's case, the salty soil lacked the natural "power of growth." Without this natural vitality, any swamps on the land could not be dried out, making it entirely useless for agriculture, industry, or settlement. 

2. The Halacha of "Tied" Sheep on Shabbos 

The discussion then shifts to a related use of the root word for "bound" (k-v-l) in Jewish law. The Gemara discusses female sheep (ewes) going out on the Shabbos kavulos (tied up). This refers to the practice of tying the sheep's tails down to cover their genitals, thereby preventing males from mating with them. The shiur notes that it is permissible for the sheep to go out like this on Shabbos, as the ties are not considered a forbidden burden. 

3. The Moral Lesson on Nature and Reproduction 

The moral and philosophical lesson derived from this law is that while tying the sheep to prevent mating is technically permitted, it should only be done out of absolute necessity—such as if the animal has an illness or physical defect that makes reproduction dangerous. 

Otherwise, humans should not place unnatural restraints on the reproduction and flourishing of God's creatures out of narrow-mindedness or stinginess. The Torah encourages natural growth, procreation, and abundance in the world, as reflected in biblical verses praising overflowing pastures and valleys. 

  

1. משמעות ארץ "כבול"   

השיעור מתחיל בדיון בחלקת אדמה שנתן שלמה המלך לחירם המלך, והיא מכונה "כבול". התלמוד מציע הסבר חדש לשם זה: זו הייתה שממה מלוחה ומסועפת (חומטון). היא נקראה כבול משום שרגלו של אדם שוקעת באדמה הרכה עד לקרסול (כבלא). בנוסף, הארץ נחשבה "כבולה" (מכובלת) משום שהייתה חסרת תוצרת לחלוטין.   

הפירוש מסביר כי כישלונה של ארץ להתפתח נובע בדרך כלל או מהיושבים בה (שמאוד מפונקים מכדי לעבוד) או מהאדמה עצמה. במקרה של כבול, האדמה המלוחה חסרה את ה"כוח הצומח" הטבעי. ללא חיוניות טבעית זו, כל ביצות שבאזור לא יכלו להתייבש, והאדמה הפכה לחלוטין לחסרת תועלת לחקלאות, לתעשייה או ליישוב. 

2. ההלכה של "כבולות" בצאן בשבת   

הדיון עובר לאחר מכן לשימוש קרוב בשורש כ-ב-ל בהלכה. התלמוד דן ברחלות (כבשים נקבות) היוצאות בשבת כבולות. הכוונה למנהג לקשור את זנב הכבשה כלפי מטה כדי לכסות את איבר המין, ובכך למנוע מהזכרים להזדווג איתן. השיעור מציין כי מותר לכבשים לצאת כך בשבת, משום שהקשירות אינן נחשבות משא אסור. 

3. הלקח המוסרי על הטבע והרבייה   

הלקח המוסרי והפילוסופי הנלמד מהלכה זו הוא שגם אם קשירת הכבשים למניעת הזדווגות מותרת מבחינה טכנית, יש לעשות זאת רק מתוך הכרח מוחלט – למשל אם לבעל החיים יש מחלה או מום גופני שהופך את ההריון למסוכן.   

בכל מקרה אחר, אין לאדם להטיל רסן לא-טבעי על הרבייה והשגשוג של ברואי ה', מתוך צרות עין או קמצנות. התורה מעודדת צמיחה טבעית, פריה ורבייה ושפע בעולם – כפי שבא לידי ביטוי בפסוקים המדברים על נאות דשא שופעות ועמקים מלאים. 

In Defense Of Judgement

 King Solomon, acceding to the throne, is said by the Bible to have been granted one wish. He asked not for wealth or long life or the defeat of his enemies but simply this: “Grant Your servant a discerning heart to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.” Such has been at most times in most civilisations, not perhaps what people sought, but what they believed they ought to seek: discernment, wisdom, insight, understanding, judgement. In the Jewish prayer book these are the things we pray for before all else. Plato, believing that wisdom comes from reason not revelation, sought to have it enthroned in the form of philosopher-kings. Most cultures have had their wisdom literature, the sifted cumulative experience of those who had lived long, seen much, and learned to tell the difference between the desirable and the merely desired. King Solomon was not alone in knowing that even in a society with as clear a moral code as ancient Israel, there are times when it needs discernment to distinguish between right and wrong. It would be hard to find a society without its sages, and one which did not place judgement at the summit of the virtues. 

Ours is one, and that is what makes it unusual, possibly unprecedented. Future historians will find one of the most remarkable features of our culture the use of the word “judgemental” to rule out in advance the offering of moral judgement. This is not a superficial feature of our language but part of the deep structure of modern morality. Today almost any public pronouncement on personal morality will be greeted by a chorus of disapproval. When a Church leader recently criticised adultery on the part of figures in public life, he was subject to a torrent of abuse, in some cases by other religious leaders. Adultery was acceptable; judgement was not. The stand taken by politicians and academics of different shades in defence of the family has been routinely greeted as a group libel against single mothers and working wives. When the age of homosexual consent was recently lowered, a journalist on The Times – himself a homosexual – lamented that the victory had been won without a fight. Where, he asked, was the voice of reasoned opposition? The answer is obvious: it had been intimidated into silence. Nietzsche, the anti-moralist, has won and we have undergone what he called the “transvaluation of values.” What other ages saw as the supreme virtue, we see as a vice. Judgement has become taboo, and to believe otherwise is, as Michael Novak puts it, to “risk excommunication from the mainstream.” 

This attitude is based on a fallacy, and one which is in need of exposure. The word “judgement” has two distinct, if related, meanings. The first is what we are looking for when we seek advice. We seek wisdom, experience, sagacity. Whether the counsel we wish for is moral or practical, we turn to those who have had long and successful encounters with the problem at hand. Whether we go to a tennis coach or a master craftsman or a lawyer, the very act of taking advice presupposes that there is excellence within an activity and that it is learned rather than immediately acquired. If this applies to specialised compartments of human behaviour, how much more so does it apply to life itself taken as a whole. There may not be – indeed there is not – a single model of the good life. Even in a world as cohesive and structured as eighteenth-century East European Jewry, you went to Vilna for scholarship, to Mezerich for mysticism, and to Lubavitch for piety. But within each form of life there are exemplars and sages, and consensus tells us who they are. When we seek judgement in this sense, what we want is something forward looking, the bringing to bear of considered experience on decisions we have to make. It responds to the request, “Tell me what to do,” or “Show me how to do it.” 

But there is judgement in a second sense, a metaphorical extension of what judges do in court. They pass a verdict. They acquit or condemn. Moral judgement in this second sense is, as it were, passing a sentence on what we or other people have done. It is backward looking, after the event. It is about this that we have hesitations. Who are we to pass a verdict on other people’s lives, and who are they to pass sentence on ours? This reservation is well-founded. Judgement assumes authority, and the sources of moral authority have become unclear in our time. It assumes a shared set of standards, and perhaps in a diverse society there is no such thing. Besides which, moral judgement seems to presuppose knowledge that none of us has. How are we to administer blame until we know the motives and intentions of the agent, things of which he himself may not be fully aware? Judges and juries have to come to a decision about such things on the basis of the available evidence. But that is what makes legal and moral judgement different. Law is a practical compromise, the best we can do given that we have to do something. But morality seems to admit of no such compromise. When it comes to moral rather than legal guilt, only God can be the judge. 

So we are reluctant to be judgemental in this second sense. But so we always were, or were taught to be. The Judaeo-Christian tradition is full of admonitions against it. “Do not judge your fellow human being until you have been in his place,” said the rabbis. “Judge all people in the scale of merit,” and “One who calls for judgement against his neighbour is punished first.” The Christian tradition warned, “Judge not that ye be not judged,” and “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Both traditions spoke against hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Both valued generosity and forgiveness in human relationships. When the sons of Jacob feared that their brother Joseph, whom they sought to kill and eventually sold into slavery, would take revenge, he replied, “Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” That sublime note, on which the book of Genesis ends, is the common ideal of both faiths. So reticence in passing judgement is not new. It is one of our oldest moral traditions. 

What is new is the confusion of one kind of judgement with the other. Most of those who speak in defence of moral principle are seeking not to condemn but to guide. That has always been the responsibility of one generation to the next, to set out the map of human relationships and point out the places of danger, the glaciers and quicksands and marshes, as well as the points where the view is worth the climb. To fail to do this – to send off children or pupils on a journey without a map on the grounds that this will inhibit their choice – would in any other civilisation be seen as a dereliction of duty of the worst kind. I believe it is in our case as well. Why has it happened? 

In large measure it has been the combined impact of two fateful modern ideas: the relativity of morality and the quasi-scientific explanation of human behaviour. We know more clearly than our ancestors that other people do things differently. Thirty years ago you could walk along the sea front in Southend and see one cafe after another offering the same fish and chips. Today the average supermarket offers a choice of cuisine from West India to China. And what applies to food applies to moralities. Instead of a single tradition we are faced with lifestyle options. So morality becomes a matter of taste and choice, and de gustibus non est disputandum: there is no point in asking an expert which to prefer. 

If the significance of choice has been expanded in one direction, it has been contracted in another. A whole range of human sciences – biological, sociological, physiological and psychological – has been constructed on the idea that what we do is caused rather than chosen. It has its origins in external forces, not the human will. So our behaviour is not the proper subject of praise or blame, and the concept of moral responsibility has been placed in doubt. We are what our genes or early childhood or human instinct or social class have made us, and if we are to change what people do, we must change those external forces rather than address the responsible self, for there is no such thing. The dual impact of moral relativism and scientific determinism has been to weaken the metaphor of the journey and the map. For on this interpretation of the human condition there is no map and no considered journey, only our unchosen desires and the techniques of satisfying them. 

I believe this to be a disastrously diminished view of human life, and moreover, few of us believe it. Which of us, faced with a plumber who does not show up, or a lawyer who gives us the wrong advice, seriously believes that no one is to blame; that it is genetic determinism or maternal deprivation? Which of us would defend wife-battering on the grounds that there are cultures in which it is a male prerogative, even a legitimate assertion of patriarchal authority? Blessedly, we are neither determinists nor relativists. We know that people can be disadvantaged in different ways, and we work to minimise them. But we also know that human will triumphs over circumstance. We know that different civilisations have their own moral conventions. But we know brutality and injustice when we see them, and we do not defend them because they have their own cultural integrity. The illusion of relativity may be fostered by television programmes on ethical dilemmas to which ten experts give ten different answers. But we know that the existence of hard cases does not prove that all cases are hard, any more than the existence of grey refutes black and white. 

What has added to our confusion, however, has been a blurring of the boundaries between politics and morality, most notably in the failure to keep apart the quite different concepts of “right” and “rights.” Not everything that we have a right to do are we right to do. The first is a matter of politics, the second, of morality. We have a legal right to be rude but it remains morally wrong. We have a right to do what the law of the land does not forbid. But within the range of legally permitted acts are some which are morally right, some wrong and others neutral. How could we confuse the two? Yet confusion there is. 

Much of it is the legacy of John Stuart Mill. More than most, Mill found Victorian society deeply oppressive. He wrote a famous tract, On Liberty, in which he argued against what he called, following de Tocqueville, the “tyranny of the majority.” Liberty, he argued, depends not only on the form of government but on its limits. Democracy could threaten freedom if it meant that the majority passed laws which excessively intruded into private life. The principle he advocated was that “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” A century after he wrote it, that argument was victorious throughout the democracies of the West, as one country after another liberalised laws relating to divorce, abortion and homosexuality. The result was – or should have been – to open a gap between law and morality. Acts might be wrong, but it was against the principle of a free society to punish them with the force of law. Legal right and moral right became two quite separate things. 

However, Mill went significantly further. He argued that not only laws could be oppressive; so could public opinion. We can be as inhibited by censure as by a court of law: 

Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by means other than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them. 

Society should refrain from judgement. In this further step, Mill was wrong, even incoherent. For if a society has any moral principles at all, it will seek to inculcate them. And it cannot do so without holding up some conduct for approval and some for disapproval. To call this a form of tyranny is stretching language beyond the bounds of sense. It is one thing to sentence a writer to death for blasphemy, quite another to express moral outrage and censure. The one is a clear limitation on freedom. The other is one of its inevitable conditions. There can be no experiment without risk, nor can we eliminate from the moral life the occasional need for courage. It was not tyranny that Stravinsky experienced when his audience booed the first performance of “The Rite of Spring.” It is not tyranny when we express our disapproval of a way of life. Without disapproval there can be no approval, and hence no moral teaching, and hence no moral community. 

The greatest of modern libertarians, Friedrich Hayek, said that for Mill, “freedom means chaos.” He added: 

Whether or not we wish to call coercion those milder forms of pressure that society applies to nonconformists, there can be little question that these moral rules and conventions that possess less binding power than the law have an important and even indispensable role to perform and probably do as much to facilitate life in society as do the strict rules of law. 

Despite this, Mill’s second argument today holds sway, in the form of violent antipathy to public expressions of traditional moral judgement. Had Mill foreseen how his essay had given rise to the concept of “political correctness” he would have been appalled, for what he saw as the tyranny of the majority has been replaced by the tyranny of an influential intellectual minority. The political battle for legal rights has been succeeded by the moral battle to render “lifestyle choices” immune to criticism: to turn what I have a right to do into what I am right to do. This is intolerance in the name of tolerance, and will indeed lead, unchecked, to chaos. 

Civilization hangs suspended, from generation to generation, by the gossamer strand of memory. If only one cohort of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its children what it has learned from its parents, then the great chain of learning and wisdom snaps. We owe it to our children, as parents, to our pupils, as teachers, and to our fellow citizens, as heirs to a civilisation, to hand on what we have learned. Just as we fight for the conservation of ancient buildings so we must fight for the conservation of moral traditions. Just as we protest the destruction of rain-forests, so we must protest the destruction of the institutions which sustain our moral environment. That is the imperative of moral judgement: not to blame but to build, not to condemn but to guide. And if it now needs courage, we owe it no less.

"Faith in the future"

The Mishkan As A Counter To Dualism

The speaker provides a deep philosophical and theological exploration of Parshat Terumah, weaving together Torah verses, Talmudic narratives, Midrashic insights, and Kabbalistic concepts. The central theme of the lecture is the absolute unity of God (Monotheism) versus the heresy of Dualism (the belief in independent forces of good and evil), and how the laws of Terumah and Tumah serve to clarify the Jewish perspective on this cosmic battle.

Here is a comprehensive breakdown of the speaker’s key points:

1. The Call to Build the Mishkan

The lecture opens with the foundational verse of the weekly Torah portion: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they take for Me a portion (Terumah)... from every man whose heart makes him willing." (Exodus 25:2).

Rashi’s Interpretation: Rashi explains that the phrase "for Me" (lishmi) means "for My sake" or "for My name."

The Midrashic Context: A Midrash cites Moshe who asks how finite humans can possibly build a dwelling place (the Mishkan/Tabernacle) for an infinite God. God responds to Moshe that it does not require a massive global effort; rather, even a single Jew can build a dwelling for God, provided they do it with a completely unified, devoted heart ("whose heart makes him willing").

2. The Talmudic Challenge: The Sadducee vs. Rabbi Abbahu

To understand the deeper meaning of Terumah, the speaker introduces a famous story from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 39a) involving a theological debate between a Sadducee (referred to as a Tsduki, representing a heretical sect) and the sage Rabbi Abbahu.

The Sadducee's Challenge: The Sadducee notes that God asks the Jewish people for Terumah. Because Terumah is traditionally given to a Kohen, the Sadducee deduces that God Himself must be a Kohen. The Sadducee then poses a trap: If God is a Kohen, He is subject to the laws of purity. When God buried Moshe, He would have become Tamei. How, then, did God purify Himself? He could not have used a Mikvah, because the Prophet Isaiah states that God holds all the waters of the world in the palm of His hand.

Rabbi Abbahu’s Answer: Rabbi Abbahu replies that God did not immerse in water; He immersed in fire, quoting Isaiah 66:15: "For behold, the Lord will come in fire."

3. The Philosophical Meaning of the Dispute: Monotheism vs. Dualism

The Sadducee’s question was not just a clever riddle; it was a profound philosophical attack.

The Heresy of the Sadducee: The Sadducee was arguing for Dualism—the belief that Tumah (impurity/evil) is an independent, cosmic force separate from God. The Sadducee was suggesting that if God interacts with death and impurity, God becomes subject to it. He was attempting to prove that God is not entirely supreme, but rather shares the universe with a rival force of evil.

The Echo of the Primeval Snake: The Sadducee connects to the Nachash in the Garden of Eden. The Snake tricked Chava by promoting Dualism. The Snake claimed that God ate from the Tree of Knowledge to gain power, implying that "Good and Evil" are independent forces that even God relies upon.

The Jewish Response (God’s Fire): Rabbi Abbahu’s answer—that God immerses in fire—is a total rejection of Dualism. When humans become impure, they use water. Water does not destroy impurity; it simply separates or distances the human from it. However, God uses fire. When Tumah comes into contact with the Divine, it does not contaminate God. Instead, God's infinite holiness acts as a fire that completely annihilates and consumes the impurity. Evil has no independent power; in the presence of the Divine, it burns away to nothing.

4. The Structure of Holiness: Terumah, Kohanim, and Yisrael

This theological concept applies to the practical, daily lives of the Jewish people through the laws of Terumah and the division of the nation into Kohanim (Priests) and Yisrael (regular Israelites).

Why We Separate Terumah: In agriculture, a Jew must separate Terumah (the holiest portion) and give it to the Kohen. The remaining produce (Shirayim or Chullin) is kept by the regular Israelite.

The Paradox of Holiness: The Sadducee might argue that if the Terumah is holy, the leftover produce must be unholy or abandoned by God. The speaker refutes this. By separating the Terumah and dedicating it entirely to God, we are actually proving that the entire crop comes from God.

The Tzitzit Analogy: To illustrate this, the speaker uses the analogy of Tzitzit (ritual fringes). Only the strings on the corners of the garment are explicitly designated for a Mitzvah (holy commandment). However, the presence of those holy strings elevates the entire mundane garment.

The Role of the Israelites: The Kohanim represent the pristine, separated holiness (Terumah). However, the regular Israelites (Yisrael) have an equally crucial, albeit more difficult, spiritual task. They are commanded to take the mundane, "leftover" parts of the world (Chullin) and elevate them. God intentionally designed the world with a mixture of holiness and mundanity so that the Jewish people could descend into the mundane and bring it back up to God.

5. Conclusion: The Purpose of the Mishkan

The speaker brings the lecture full circle back to the construction of the Mishkan in Parshat Terumah.

When God created the universe, He created it with complete goodness [and with the potential for evil (to allow for free will)].

The Mishkan, too, had to be built with absolute, unadulterated purity.

This is why the Torah stresses that the Terumah for the Mishkan must come from "every man whose heart makes him willing." It requires a singular, unified heart—one that rejects the Dualistic notion of separate powers and recognizes that God is One, entirely Supreme, and the ultimate source of all reality. By giving Terumah with a pure heart, the Jewish people recreated a pristine space where God's presence could dwell completely untainted by the dualities of the mortal world.

The Laughter Of Adar

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1. The Month of Adar and the Essence of Laughter

The discourse opens by noting a Halachic concept: if one has no other choice, the Megillah can be read at any time during the entire month of Adar. This is because the miracle of Adar is defined by the concept of "V’Nahafoch Hu"—the sudden turning of sorrow into joy, and mourning into celebration. This power of reversal permeates the entire month.

The 12 months of the year correspond to 12 human faculties (sight, hearing, action, etc.). The faculty corresponding to the month of Adar is Laughter (Tzchok). Of all earthly creatures, only humans possess two specific faculties: Speech and Laughter. Laughter here is not merely the physical act of chuckling, but the profound cognitive ability to grasp the concept of absurdity and sudden shifts in reality.

The Mechanics of Laughter:

True laughter is a spontaneous reaction to the unexpected. When the human mind expects a logical, orderly progression of events, and suddenly a sharp, unpredictable turn occurs, the natural reaction is an outburst of laughter. Therefore, the "punchline" of any joke relies on it being completely unexpected.

In the Divine realm, this exists as well. The Psalmist writes, "He who sits in heaven laughs, the Lord mocks them" (Psalms 2:4). God’s laughter occurs when human beings or nations build massive, seemingly unshakable systems of power, expecting an inevitable outcome, only for God to create a sharp, sudden turn of events that collapses their reality. The realization that all their grand plans were ultimately a "joke" is the Divine Laughter.

2. Two Archetypes of Humanity: Esav (Action) and Yishmael (Speech)

Humanity can be divided into two foundational archetypes, represented by the biblical figures Esav and Yishmael. When God offered the Torah to the nations before giving it to Israel, He approached the descendants of Esav (Mount Seir) and Yishmael (Mount Paran), but they rejected it. Israel accepted the Torah by declaring "Na’aseh V’Nishma" (We will do and we will hear).

Esav / The Archetype of Action (Na'aseh): People rooted in this archetype are highly practical, driven by action, and focused entirely on bringing things into tangible reality. They have no patience for abstract concepts. On the negative side, because they view obstacles merely as things to be removed, their ultimate corruption is Murder.

Yishmael / The Archetype of Speech (Nishma): These people are focused on words, meanings, dialogue, and ideas. They are often physically lazy but highly active in the realm of imagination. On the negative side, because they are driven by the unbridled imagination, their ultimate corruption is Immorality/Adultery.

Words naturally connect people, while physical actions often separate people into their own private endeavors. Esau is considered the "waste" (spiritual fallout) of Isaac, whose trait was strict judgment. Ishmael is the "waste" of Abraham, whose trait was boundless kindness (connection). Jacob, the father of the Twelve Tribes, synthesized both perfectly, leaving no spiritual waste.

3. The Ultimate Evil: The Synthesis of Esav and Yishmael (Amalek)

While Esav (Action/Murder) and Yishmael (Speech/Immorality) are dangerous on their own, the text warns of a terrifying scenario: when these two forces combine. This unholy alliance is the spiritual root of Amalek.

Historically, this was seen in the alliance of Balak and Balaam who sought to curse Israel. Balak was a man of Action (representing Esav's power), while Balaam was a man of Speech (representing Yishmael's power). Together, they form the entity of Amalek (the letters of Balak and Bil'am combine to form the spiritual root of Amalek).

This terrifying hybrid exists prominently in the modern era. Today, we witness forces of extreme, brutal violence and murder (Esav) that are immediately backed by sophisticated systems of propaganda, speech, and media messaging (Yishmael). This coordination creates a system of evil that threatens the very existence of Israel.

4. The Antidote: "Na’aseh V’Nishma" (Doing before Hearing)

How does the Jewish people combat this ultimate evil? Through the mechanism they used to accept the Torah: placing Na’aseh (Action/Commitment) before Nishma (Hearing/Understanding).

In modern terms, relying purely on intellect, debate, and understanding (Nishma) will not defeat the evil of Amalek, because Amalek has already hijacked the realm of speech and ideas. The only way to survive is through an absolute, unconditional submission to the Yoke of Heaven—doing God's will purely out of loyalty, even before the intellect grasps it.

This concept is symbolized by Moshe during the war with Amalek. The verse states that when Moshe raised his hands, Israel prevailed. The sages explain that raising his hands above his head symbolized elevating the "hands" (Action / Na'aseh) above the "head" (Intellect / Nishma).

5. Yitzchak (Isaac) and the "Last Laugh"

There are two types of laughter:

The Laughter of the Fool: This is cynical, mocking laughter. It is the laughter of the modern world, which scoffs at faith, revels in taking down the honorable, and is rooted in the arrogance of Esau and Ishmael. It is represented by Ishmael "mocking" (metzachek) in the book of Genesis.

The Holy Laughter of Yitzchak: Yitzchak’s very name means "He will laugh." He represents the ultimate, Divine "last laugh."

Yitzchak’s entire existence is a paradox that mocks the laws of nature. He was born to a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old barren woman. He was bound on the altar (the Akedah) and, spiritually speaking, is viewed by God as if he were burnt to ashes. Yet, he lives. The sages point out that the name Yitzchak (יצחק) can be split into Ketz (קץ - meaning "End") and Chai (חי - meaning "Life"). He represents life springing forth from the absolute end—life emerging from ashes.

Currently, the world seems upside down. Believers are mocked by the cynical "laughter of the fool." However, in the Messianic era, the ultimate V'Nahafoch Hu (reversal) will occur. As Psalms 126 declares, "Then our mouths will be filled with laughter." The world will witness that all the mighty, secular systems of action and speech were a fleeting illusion, and faith was the only reality. The final day of history will not be an "end," but rather a "birth"—just as the miraculous birth of Yitzchak shattered the natural trajectory of his elderly parents' lives.

Conclusion

The lesson ends with a powerful call to action. To survive the modern onslaught of Amalek's cynical narrative, a Jew cannot try to outsmart the world using intellect alone. One must reject the "laughter of the fool" and cling to the absolute, unshakable commitment of Na'aseh before Nishma. By maintaining this pure faith, the Jewish people will merit to see the ultimate "reversal" of the month of Adar, where sorrow and mourning are miraculously turned into eternal joy and true, holy laughter. [הגרמ"ש] 

The Moral Context Of Crime

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Some time ago my wife and I were walking down a busy shopping street in London in the middle of the day and the middle of the week. The pavements were crowded. The streets were full of shoppers. Behind us was a group of six children of school age, between twelve and sixteen years old. Gradually I became aware that something was wrong. They were walking a little too close, a little too purposefully. One of the group had gone on ahead of us. The rest were in tight formation behind. 

It dawned on me that they were about to make a raid on my wife’s handbag. We crossed the road and began walking rapidly in the opposite direction. The children followed. We felt a slight push, then nothing. When we reached the next corner, we turned around. The children were gone. I asked my wife to look in her handbag. Her wallet had gone. We phoned the police. They took the details. But they were not seriously interested. They didn’t even ask for a description. We understood. Things like this happen. Children miss school and go out for a day’s shoplifting or casual theft. There is not a lot we can do about it except take precautions and get insured. 

Crime, and certainly juvenile crime, has multiplied to the point where it has become part of our normal expectation. If you have a car, it gets stolen. If you have a house, it gets broken into. If you walk alone down certain streets at certain times, you count yourself lucky if you are not attacked. This represents a significant erosion of our human environment, of our sense of security and trust. 

At moments like this, our thinking about crime should shift into a more fundamental mode. A certain level of law-breaking occurs at all times in all non-totalitarian societies. But for the most part it is exceptional, a deviant phenomenon. In these circumstances we relate to crime in terms of the institutions of society which are directly involved: police, the courts, judges, the law, and the sanctions applied for breaches of the law – punishments and penalties. 

We may ask questions about the effectiveness of these various elements. Do we have enough police? Do we apprehend a high enough proportion of offenders? Are the courts successful in identifying and convicting the guilty? Do judges apply appropriate sentences, and do those sentences succeed in their several aims of retribution, deterrence and reform? 

But there are moments in the history of a society when we are bound to ask larger questions. The Bible provides several eloquent examples: in the days before the Flood, for example, when the “earth was corrupt in God’s sight and the land was full of violence” or at the end of the book of Judges when “everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes.” 

So it is in any society when crime figures escalate rapidly without any obvious explanation. We have now reached that point in both Britain and America. In Britain the crime rate has risen more than tenfold since the mid-1950s, and despite the scholarly debates as to whether this represents actual, perceived or reported crimes, the escalation, especially since the late 1970s, is undeniable. 

The figures for juvenile crime in the United States are particularly alarming. Though they are not fully mirrored in the British statistics, nonetheless there is enough evidence of dysfunctional behaviour amongst the young, from alcohol and drugs to petty crime and violence, to give people in Britain pause for thought too. 

It may be that we will decide that we simply have to adjust to higher levels of crime in the world of the future, just as we may have to adjust to different patterns of work and employment. But the cost, surely, will be very high indeed in three directions: for the victims, for the perpetrators, and for all of us and the climate in which we live. A society of more, and more armed police, of video surveillance and alarms on every car and house, of barricaded shops and locked churches and synagogues, a society in which neither the young nor the old feel free to go out at night, in which the rich build protected enclaves while the vulnerable become the victims, is not one to which any of us can look forward with any promise of collective trust or grace. 

Precisely because we do not wish for such a world, we have been engaged in deeper thinking for some time. What, we ask, are the roots of crime, its fundamental causes, the fissures and fractures in our social system? But this deeper thinking has so far failed to yield significant results. There may be a relationship between crime and unemployment. But we know that the crime rates rose, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at a time of low unemployment and high economic growth. There may be a relationship between poverty and crime. But poorer countries than Britain have lower crime rates. There may, quite simply, be more things to steal: videos, computers, audio systems and cars. But that leaves open the question of why in some countries cars can be left unlocked, and in others even the most sophisticated security systems fail to deter. In short, the research thus far has failed to provide simple answers, perhaps rightly so since crime itself is a complex human phenomenon. 

Rather than yield to despair, however, let us turn the problem on its head and ask the fundamental question: not why do some people commit crimes, but why do some people not commit crimes? Not why do people break the law, but why do people keep the law? 

Framed this way, the question takes us to the very roots of our civilisation, and to its twin foundations in the Greek and biblical traditions, for it is just this issue which lies on or near the surface of much of the Hebrew Bible. It was most famously asked within Greek philosophy by Plato, in the form of the story of Gyges’ ring. Suppose, he said, you had a ring which made you invisible. You could commit a crime and no one would know it was you. What would stop you? Today that remains a highly relevant question because for every hundred crimes committed, only fifty are reported, thirty recorded, seven solved and only two result in a conviction. 

Plato’s own answer was notoriously unsatisfactory, the response of the intellectual throughout the ages. It lay simply in knowledge. We are rational creatures and if we know that something is wrong, we will not do it. The Bible was more realistic. It knew that we are perfectly capable of doing things we know to be wrong, because we have an almost infinite capacity for convincing ourselves that they are right. The Hebrew Bible’s own answer is that crimes are never undetected. They are witnessed by God before whom we will one day come for judgement. 

Even the Bible, though, had to confront what the book of Psalms calls “the fool who says in his heart there is no God,” just as Aristotle had to face the problem of the weakness of the human will. Knowledge of God or the good were not in themselves sufficient. A more encompassing account had to be given of human action. What emerged from both traditions was a response so simple and profound that at most stages of our history we have simply taken it for granted. It was this. 

We are, by our nature, social animals. We need societies, and therefore we need laws. The laws that govern human behaviour are unlike the laws that characterise natural phenomena. They are prescriptive rather than descriptive. They do not just happen. They need to be enforced. How, then, are they to be enforced? 

At the core of both traditions is the fundamental principle that it is better for laws to be self-imposed than imposed by external agencies. They are transmitted from one generation to the next by habit and example. They are acquired pre-reflectively before they become the subject of reflection. They are learned in early childhood through the family and reinforced in later life through education, the community and social sanction. The rules are objective, known and shared by everyone, and a central task of society is to ensure that they are internalised by the young and thus perpetuated and adhered to over time. The entire mechanism of law-enforcement occupies only a subsidiary place in this scheme. It is what happens when the mechanism breaks down. The main burden of the system is internal, not external, restraint. Law enforcement begins in the mind, not on the street. Better to control oneself than to have to be controlled by others. 

At stake in this conception is a fundamental idea about human dignity, namely that we reach our full dignity as human beings when our behaviour flows from our own decisions rather than from threats of external force. That is the difference between what Locke used to call liberty and licence. It is what Burke had in mind when he said, “Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.” 

Because not all of us would arrive at these laws by our own reflection, and because they must be handed on to the young before they reach the age of reflection, society depends on its mechanisms of moral transmission being in good order. That involves general consent to certain laws as expressions of the collective good. It involves the family as what sociologists call the agent of primary socialisation. And it involves a supportive role for schools, voluntary associations and local communities. Without these, the process of moral transmission will fail, and many things besides law and order will begin to disintegrate. 

What has happened – and it is the single most important thing about our social environment – is that these structures have very largely broken down. The story of that breakdown has been told many times, and there is no need to rehearse it here other than to say that it is a story in two chapters. The first belongs to the history of ideas, from Kant to Nietzsche and John Stuart Mill. The second belongs to sociology and to that period in the 1960s and 1970s when ideas that had been circulating among an elite for over a century became lived reality for a whole generation. Today we live with the consequences, some good, others little short of disastrous. 

We no longer believe in an objective moral order. Instead we think of the good as something to be pursued individually rather than sought collectively. Education is no longer seen as the induction of the young into the rules and virtues of society. Rather, it has become a way of helping children make private choices as individuals. Above all, we are in danger of witnessing the end of the family as a stable and persisting unit through which future generations are nurtured and internalise the rules we have so painfully arrived at on our collective journey through history. If one of the consequences has been a rise in crime among the young, how could it be otherwise, since we send them so few clear moral signals and are dismantling the one structure – the family – within which we can effectively do so? 

Let me be clear. I am not laying the blame for the rise in crime on the breakdown of the family, still less on one-parent families. Instead I am suggesting that a complex set of interlocking processes has taken place in which the breakdown of the family has been both a consequence and an accelerating cause. In such circumstances I am reminded of the question which, according to the Talmud (Berakhot 32a), Moses asked God: given such a background, what should Your children have done not to sin? 

When one in four children is born outside marriage, when one child in three grows up without a father, when four marriages in ten end in divorce, when the very concept of parental responsibility is seen as an affront to women’s right to pursue careers and men’s right to pursue their inclinations, when the responsibility for socialising and controlling children has been abdicated in favour of the state in the form of schools, councils, and the police, what shall some children do not to turn to crime? 

Let us not underestimate the momentous significance of this change. We have deconstructed the mechanism of primary socialisation. We have abandoned the task of teaching our children a clear sense of right and wrong, perhaps because we are no longer sure that there is such a thing. When our children need us, we are not there. We have given them videos, but not our time, computer games, but not our guidance, condoms, but not an ethic of self-restraint. Who can blame them if they translate our relativist ethics into the proposition that what is right is what I feel like doing and can get away with. We have placed the full burden of the maintenance of social order on external agencies. We have moved the enforcement of law from “in here” to “out there.” In the name of liberating our children we have done what a future age will surely see as abandoning our children. In so doing, we have effectively turned our backs on the biblical tradition on which our conception of a free society was built. 

I believe that no civilisation can go far down this road and yet survive. This is not a matter of party-political controversy, but a matter of social ecology, of the conservation of our environment of law-governed liberty. 

Far more interesting than the questions a society asks about itself are the questions it pointedly does not ask about itself. Whereas we have had vigorous debates in Britain about the relationship between crime and the economy on the one hand, crime and law enforcement on the other, the debate we have not had is about the relationship between crime and the devastated moral landscape we have created for our children. Whenever it seemed to be about to begin it was shot down with Macaulay’s famous remark that “nothing is so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” 

If we cannot have this debate, then we will indeed have arrived at the stage about which Livy said, contemplating ancient Rome, “We have reached the point where we cannot bear either our vices or their cure.” At such a point a religious voice becomes invaluable because it brings to the relativities of our time the perspective of a long ethical tradition. From that perspective, I sense the need for a prolonged and rigorous conversation between educators, judges, the police, politicians of all shades, religious leaders and parents about what we need to do to repair the broken cross-generational transmitters of moral rules and virtues. 

If that conversation is to begin, one proposition must be ruled out at the outset, the proposition that has been used to silence debate thus far: namely that the stable family, and with it an objective moral order, have died like the dinosaur, never to return. This fallacy deserves to be challenged. It is not so. There are certain things that, as private individuals, we cannot change. We cannot single-handedly end unemployment, or bring world peace, or save the whale. But we can affect our children. Over them we have an influence greater than any pop star or politician. And a greater responsibility, because it was we who brought them into being. We severally took the family to pieces, and severally we can put it back together again. 

A society in which the whole burden of law and order is placed on the police, the law courts and parliament is unsustainable. It cannot be done, nor should we wish it to be done. If we believe in personal moral responsibility, then we believe that a law-abiding society is created by the habits of self-restraint, cultivated in early childhood and reinforced thereafter by the moral signals we send. To put it simply; every law enforced in the heart means one less policeman on the street.

"Faith In The Future"