We must be careful not to judge our judges – and protect them

Eli Knight

Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein and other rabbis together with the Beth Din, are effectively judges in our times.

In my opinion their job is to get as many Jews into heaven (Gan Eiden as possible). Unfortunately it is a job where one cannot measure the results. Nevertheless, it is not up to the masses to judge the judges as this could lead to further disasters.

Nadya Wynchank in her letter in last week’s Jewish Report, raised a good question about embarrassing someone – how far do we have to go not to. Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar seemed willing to give up her life.

This also leads to a question: What is embarrassment? There is a mishna where a woman sued a man for removing her hair covering and she was awarded exorbitant punitive damages for embarrassment by the judge, Rabbi Akiva.

The defendant in an effort to prove that the woman did not suffer embarrassment, laid a trap for her. He left oil on the ground which the woman scooped up using her hair covering. He then told Rabbi Akiva that for her not having her hair covering on, is no embarrassment and the damages should be considerably lowered or even totally annulled.

However, Rabbi Akiva said that the judgment still stands.

We have to ask why this is so. One answer is that the soul feels an embarrassment, even though the head doesn’t. This could be shown at an extreme level where women who sell themselves often can’t face themselves and have to resort to drugs etc, despite the fact that they are not embarrassed to ply their “trade”.

The arousal from a woman’s singing could also be on a sublime level and not as imagined only on an overt direct manner. And when a man hears a woman sing, it could prevent him reaching great spiritual heights, as we see from Moshe who refused to suckle from an Egyptian woman because he realised he was going to be the transmitter and the first step in the oral Torah.

These people on great spiritual heights, who like an athlete, perfect themselves by spiritual exercises and avoiding any spiritual blemishes, are what protects us, as we see in last week’s parsha where Moshe asks the spies to check if they have a tree. Rashi explains a tree as being a tzadik who can protect them.

Before the Holocaust many of our trees had passed away including the Chofetz Chaim.

Let’s rather learn the lesson from the parsha, namely from the spies and those who against Moshe’s judgement sent them, and not suffer the consequences of not believing in our Torah leaders, judging them and believing that because we have a degree or even a PhD and have learnt a smattering of Torah that we, like the senders of the spies, should make all sorts of calculations and undertake research which could lead to our demise.

Johannesburg