The Model of Rigidity and the Model of Flexibity in Religious Judaism

Prayer: Its Foundation and Its Application in Religious Life

1. Berachot 26b

אִיתְּמַר, רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא אָמַר: תְּפִלּוֹת אָבוֹת תִּקְּנוּם. רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי אָמַר: תְּפִלּוֹת כְּנֶגֶד תְּמִידִין תִּקְּנוּם.

2. Rambam, Mitzvat Aseh 5 (and see Hilchot Tefilla 1:1)

הוא שצונו לעבדו, וכבר נכפל זה הצווי פעמים באמרו ועבדתם את ה' אלהיכם, ואמר ואותו תעבודו. ואע"פ שזה הצווי הוא גם כן מהצוויים הכוללים כמו שביארנו בשורש ד', הנה יש בו יחוד אחר שהוא צווי לתפלה. ולשון ספרי ולעבדו זו תפלה…

3. Hasagot HaRamban, Nachmanides’ Critique

ואין נכונה בזה שכבר בארו חכמים בגמרא תפלה דרבנן כמו שאמרו בפ"ג דברכות (דף כ"א) לענין בעל קרי שקורא ק"ש ומברך על המזון לאחריו ואינו מתפלל והעלו הטעם בזה אלא ק"ש וברכת המזון דאורייתא תפלה דרבנן… ונאמר שהיא מצוה לעת הצרות שנאמין שהוא יתברך ויתעלה שומע תפלה והוא המציל מן הצרות בתפלה וזעקה, והבן זה.

4. Ramban on Vayikra 26:11

לא אמרו שנתנה רשות לחולה להתרפאות, אלא כיון שחלה החולה ובא להתרפאות כי נהג ברפואות והוא לא היה מעדת השם שחלקם בחיים, אין לרופא לאסור עצמו מרפואתו, לא מפני חשש שמא ימות בידו, אחרי שהוא בקי במלאכה ההיא, ולא בעבור שיאמר כי השם לבדו הוא רופא כל בשר, שכבר נהגו.

5. Rashi on Berachot 60a

ושאין דרכן של בני אדם וכו'. כלומר לא היה להם לעסוק ברפואות אלא לבקש רחמים:

6. Rashi on Kiddushin 82a

טוב שברופאים לגיהנם - אינו ירא מן החולי ומאכלו מאכל בריאים ואינו משבר לבו למקום

7. Rashi on Pesachim 56a

ששה דברים עשה חזקיה המלך, על שלשה הודו לו, ועל שלשה לא הודו לו...גנז ספר רפואות, והודו לו… שגנז ספר רפואות לפי שלא היה לבם נכנע על חולים אלא מתרפאין מיד:

8. Rashi on Sanhedrin 17b

ותניא כל עיר שאין בה עשרה דברים הללו אין תלמיד חכם רשאי לדור בתוכה ... רופא … למול תינוקות:

9. Rambam Commentary to the Mishnah Pesachim 4:9

This Mishnah is not related to the law, but I see fit to explain it for because there is benefit in it. This "Book of Healing" was a book that had healing practices which the Torah does not permit to use as healing [such as idolatrous practices and astrology]... I have explained this matter at length because of the other explanations that I have heard, even explained to me, that Solomon authored a book of medical remedies so that an individual who fell ill could consult his work and, by following his medical advice, become well, and when Hezekiah saw that people did not rely on God and instead followed the prescriptions in the book, he removed it from circulation. Do you hear the nonsense [of this explanation] of the matter, and how mistaken it is? It ascribes a degree of foolishness to Hezekiah (and to the Sages who supported his efforts) that we would impute only to the basest rabble! According to their superficial and mistaken imagining, if a hungry man assuages his hunger with bread and thus overcomes the “sickness of hunger,” shall we say of him that he has thereby forsaken his trust and belief in God? Even fools can tell them that just as I thank God at the time of eating for having provided sustenance and allowed me to remove my hunger and to survive, so is He thanked for having provided the medical remedy that heals me. I would not even have bothered addressing this issue if not for the fact that so many people are mistaken about its interpretation.

(ט) ששה דברים עשה חזקיהו המלך על שלשה כו': זאת ההלכה היא תוספתא אבל ראיתי לפרשה לפי שיש בה תועלת. ספר רפואות היה ספר שהיה ענינו להתרפאות בדברים שלא התירה תורה להתרפאות בהן…  ואני הרביתי לך דברי בזה הענין לפי ששמעתי וכן פרשו לי הענין כי שלמה חבר ספר רפואות כשיחלה שום אדם או יקרנו שום חולי מן החולים היה מתכוין לאותו הספר והיה עושה כמ"ש בספר והיה מתרפא וכאשר ראה חזקיה כי בני אדם לא היו סומכין על הש"י הסיר אותו וגנזו. ואתה שמע הפסד זה המאמר ומה שיש בו מן השגיונות?! איך יחסו לחזקיהו מן האולת מה שאין ראוי ליחס כמותו לרעועי ההמון, וכמו כן לסיעתו שהודו לו?! ולפי דעתם הקל והמשובש האדם כשירעב וילך אל הלחם ויאכל ממנו בלי ספק שיבריא מאותו חולי החזק חולי הרעב א"כ כבר נואש ולא ישען באלהיו נאמר להם הוי השוטים כאשר נודה לשם בעת האכילה שהמציא לי מה שישביע אותי ויסיר רעבתנותי ואחיה ואתקיים כן אודה לו שהמציא לי רפואה ירפא חליי כשאתרפא ממנו ולא הייתי צריך להקשות על זה הענין הגרוע לולא שהיה מפורסם

10. Rabbi David Abudarham, 14th century, 

The reason women are exempt from time-bound commandments is because women are subservient to their husbands to do what he needs. And if she were to be obligated in mitzvot that are time-bound, it is possible that there are times in doing a mitzvah, her husband will command her to do something. And if she performs mitzvot of God and leaves aside her husband’s command, woe to her because of her husband! And if she performs her husband’s command and leaves aside the mitzvot of the God, woe to her because of her Creator!  Thus, God exempted her from his commandments, in order to ensure peace with her husband. So great is this that we find that the Ineffable Name, written in holiness and purity, is erased in water, in order to place peace between man and wife.

והטעם שנפטרוּ הנשים מהמִצוֹת עשה שהזמן גרמא, לפי שהאשה משוּעבדת לבעלה לעשות צרכיו. ואם היתה מחוייבת במצות עשה שהזמן גרמא, אפשר שבשעת עשיית המצוה, יצוה אותה הבעל לעשות מצותו. ואם תעשה מצוַת הבורא ותניח מצותו, אוי לה מבעלה! ואם תעשה מצותו ותניח מצוַת הבורא, אוי לה מיוצרה! לפיכך פטרהּ הבורא ממצותיו, כדי להיות לה שלום עם בעלה. וגדולה מזו מצאנו שהשם הגדול הנכתב בקדושה ובטהרה נמחה על המים, כדי להטיל שלום בין איש לאשתו.

11. Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law, 18

The rivalry between God and husband over female obedience is not merely a picturesque way of explaining the exemption of women from certain mitzvot. Indeed it seems to underscore a profound point, though I am not sure it was one intended by the author of Sefer Abudarham. The halakhic and religious position of women is strained by a tension between two views of women. God, in the "rivalry" of our text, holds a fundamental theological and ethical position which recognizes no stratification of human beings, no inferiority of women to men. All persons are of equal value, spiritually and morally, and all human life is equally sanctified. On the other hand, the husband represents an attitude grounded in daily life and social reality, where there are distinctions of religion, class, learning, and of course gender. Women are inferior to men in economic power, social standing, legal rights, and religious role and importance. While in ultimate moral and spiritual terms a woman's life is equal to a man's, her concrete, day-to-day life is marked by subservience to men. This tension appears in Genesis in the two creation myths. In one account woman is created equally with man "in God's image," and in the other account is created to meet man's needs.

12. R. Joel B. Wolowelsky, Women, Jewish Law, and Modernity, 20

Extending this analysis, we should expect to find two Eves paralleling the two Adams, Eve the first was created as a full partner with Adam the first - “male and female He created them” - and shares his legitimate urge to control nature, to know and understand. And Eve the second also searches for membership in her masorah community. [People] are mistaken in thinking that there is only one Massora and one Massora community: the community of the fathers. It is not true. We have two massorot, two traditions, two communities, two shalshalot ha-kabbala - the massora community of the fathers and that of the mothers.   The male masorah is that of discipline of thought as well as discipline of action. The female masorah is the appreciation of the presence of the Almighty. The fathers taught generations how to observe the Shabbat; mothers taught generations how to greet the Shabbat and how to enjoy her twenty-four-hour presence.   Of course, these too are pure types; everyone is expected to both know the laws of Shabbat and appreciate its presence. The “dialectical halakhah” demands that here too people move back and forth between two approaches to the world,   Those for whom egalitarianism is the sole motivating force in their lives are focused only on the Eve-the-first existence. Those who reject in toto the demands of contemporary women do not appreciate the necessity of everyone living with the tension of two types of masorah communities. They all forfeit the creativity that comes with full allegiance to our dialectical existence.

13. Rabbanit Chana Henkin, “Einah Metzuvah v’Osah in a Post-Modern World,” http://www.nishmat.co.il/lesson/29/

Let me return to the relationship between einah metzuvah v’osah and post-modernism, and the contemporary infusion into Judaism of religious vibrancy by women. When the post-modernist engages in prayer or ritual, he puts a premium on his own inclination and spirit. The advantages, from the Jewish point of view, lie in the spontaneity and genuineness of the activity, while the dangers lie in the ease of passage from distaste for rote performance of religious obligations, to distaste for religious obligations themselves. Thus the two models — einah metzuvah v’osah, on the one hand, and metzuveh v’oseh, on the other hand — complement each other. Einah Metzuvah v’Osah gives us freedom, spontaneity and meaning. Metzuveh v’Oseh ensures that we are worshipping God, not ourselves. By the nature of their role in Judaism, women partake of both. Perhaps, in addition to infusing Jewish life with a vital energy and religious excitement, women might give over to men a thirst for religious spontaneity, eino metzuveh v’oseh, some uncommanded religious initiative, with which to enrich their metzuveh v’oseh.

Rabbi Soloveitchik

The religious experience is not the primary gesture. It is only secondary. The point of departure must never be the internal subjective experience, no matter how redemptive it is, no matter how colorful it is, no matter how therapeutic it is, no matter how substantial its impact upon the total personality of man…   We can never determine what is a religious experience in contradistinction to a hedonic mundane experience. We know of many hedonic emotions which are provided with enormous power, which are hypnotic, and, at first glance, redemptive…   Yahadus expected the religious experience to follow the religious act. The great romance follows the divine discipline. Not the reverse. Moshe said that if one fulfills the mitzvah of Tzitzis, a glance at the purple thread will produce in him, perhaps, the experience of infinity. If one proceeds from action to experience, the blue color of Techeiles will remind him of the mystery of existence and our link with God.

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein

The Ramban's conclusion is forceful and unmistakable: When God is pleased with a person's conduct, he has no need of physicians. The Ramban's approach so disturbed Rav Chayim Soloveitchik that he was inclined to believe that the offending words were not the work of the Ramban at all, but rather an interpolation by a later copyist! Rav Chayim's far-reaching claim lacks a textual and historic basis, and I personally cannot accept it. Clearly, however, the tradition that informs Rav Chayim’s words is the central one in Judaism. ...This activist approach regarding medicine parallels the activist Jewish approach with respect to spiritual endeavors. In Christian theology there is a time-honored tradition-rooted in the words of Paul and transmitted by Augustine, Luther and others—that sees human redemption as being dictated solely from Above. In Luther's formulation, any human attempt to achieve spiritual or ethical perfection is a grave error, for it bespeaks arrogance. Man, in his view, is a despicable creature who cannot achieve redemption except through divine intervention. Rather, a person can only wait passively for grace, just as a woman (according to his metaphor) waits for conception to occur after the seed has been implanted in her. The Halakha, in glaring contrast, is founded on the touchstone of free will, on the principle that human effort constitutes the essential component of spirituality.