Freedom and Jewish law

A Personal View, corrected Jan. 27, 2024

Freedom Within Traditional Jewish Law

In the previous two essays here, I wrote about freedom and how freedom does not exist if there are no boundaries. In this essay I will give some basic information about the structure (such as it is) of Orthodox/Ultra-Orthodox/ Hasidic/Traditional Judaism. However, mostly I am writing about my experience as someone who came to this tradition as an adult. My appreciation for boundaries is covered in last week’s essay; here I discuss what I personally noticed and conclusions I have drawn about this lifestyle.

This is by no means an academic look at the subject. Laws pertaining to the functioning of society as a whole and the issue of rabbinic courts are just lightly touched on; there are many sources for deeper research if someone is interested. This essay focuses on Orthodox Judaism of the individual, home, family, and society from my perspective.

What Traditional Judaism Is and Is Not

Judaism is by no means monolithic. There is no central organization and no hierarchy that applies to all Jews. This is because Judaism is not, strictly speaking, a religion. According to Oxford Languages,[i] a religion is “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.” While it is true that, according to the tradition, God gave the Jewish people a passel of laws, these laws prescribe a way of life. When adhered to, they create a society where people have free will with a strong boundary: impinging on the rights of others is forbidden, and an unbiased court system exists to adjudicate.

The society includes private and public property, entrepreneurship to meet the needs of citizens, an emphasis on helping the needy, including poor, unwell, young and old, and a strong family structure. This way of life is to make life on this physical plane enjoyable, although troubles are provided as stimuli for personal grown and development. The prescription for this life was given by God to one small family of shepherds that lived in a rocky land with deserts, mountains, a big seashore, and little water, a land that was promised to this family for forever. Membership in this family is transmitted biologically through the mother: if the mother is Jewish, so is the child. It is possible to convert to Judaism, although it is a complicated and often lengthy process.

As the Jewish people grew, they dispersed from their little, rocky homeland. Some set up trading centers around the edges of the Mediterranean Sea. Others were exiled, first by the Babylonians and later by the Romans. In those days there were no good means of communication. Dispersed though they were, the Jewish people brought their lifestyle, the oral tradition of laws, and their manuscripts with them. There is evidence that even as early as 700 BCE women as well as men were literate and numerate (able to understand and calculate with numbers).[ii]

The tradition was not solely dependent on tales told around a campfire. It was maintained, with great similarity, in Jewish communities throughout Europe, northern and possibly central Africa, and Asia, by a carefully taught oral tradition. After the Roman dispersion in 70 CE, leaders in the homeland and in Babylon decided the tradition needed to be codified and written down. Thus two Talmuds were written: the Babylonian, which is considered primary, and the Jerusalem, which while also important is today studied by more advanced students. These documents were carried to and taught in Jewish communities wherever they existed. The basic laws from the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) were always central; however, over the centuries local ways of interpreting or carrying out the laws crept into the far-flung communities. The basic traditional prayerbook dates from ninth century CE[iii] and although there are minor differences, it is still the basis of the prayerbooks used by all groups that adhere to traditional Jewish law.

Over the generations, Jewish scholars have written countless works about Judaism, many of which are still studied today. Our scholars and, to some extent, many less educated followers of the tradition, speak of works and authors who have been dead for over a thousand years as though they were writing yesterday. This is because the problems that they discuss are the same ones that afflicted our ancestors—because we are all human. Only the details have changed, whether the problem is an ox that gores or a teenager whose erratic driving takes out a mailbox.

While belief in and respect for God is part of the Jewish lifestyle, that sticky little element of free will was deliberately injected into life. It means that not everyone who adheres to or lives within this social framework will believe in or respect God. However, since “who is a Jew” depends on who the mother was, belief or unbelief does not answer that question.

To those who say, “Jews don’t have a claim to Israel because they are not a people, they are just a religion like Christianity:” you are simply wrong.

A Lot of Laws, a Lot of Groups

Well known to the general public is that (traditionally) Judaism has a lot of laws. Many Christians believe that the God of the Old Testament is legalistic: if Jews don’t follow the laws, they will be denied salvation. The traditional Jewish view of the afterlife is extremely different from that of Christianity and will be discussed in a future article here. For the purpose of today’s article, it is enough to explain that our laws are about creating a livable society by honoring God and all His works, not about getting us into another world.[iv] We do not in any way believe in a God who is keeping a legal scorecard that determines our salvation.

Jewish law does, though, include 613 laws. Of these, 365 are negative commandments—do not steal, do not commit adultery, and so forth, while 248 are positive commandments—keep the Sabbath, honor parents, provide for widows and orphans. The laws are not one-size-fits-all, either. Some apply to men, others to women; some to members of the priestly tribe, the cohanim; some to married people; and so forth. Even laws that at first glance appear to apply to everyone do not. The commandment to fast on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is an example. Children are not required to fast; nor are people whose physical health would be put in danger if they fasted.

One of the requirements of Judaism is to develop unbiased courts of law. Justice is extremely important for a well-functioning society, so our laws provide a clear mechanism for adjudicating disputes and punishing criminals. However, Judaism has no central government or hierarchy, and courts can be opened by or even just called into existence to listen to a particular case and then closed. These courts are not all connected, nor do they police personal behavior. People who believe they have been wronged bring cases to them; there are no Jewish-law police looking for wrong-doers.

Many of our laws are for individuals and our private interactions with other people of types that would rarely if ever end up in court. Other laws are for our interactions with God. For laws of these two types, there is no mechanism for enforcement. It is a matter of expectations. Even as a child in a nonreligious home I was taught to behave well because that was what God wanted. There were no threats of Hell; it wasn’t a “behave or else.” It was, “Make God happy by doing the right thing.”[v]

Throughout the ages there have been people who are well-educated in the Jewish tradition: rabbis and others who have gone through a yeshiva education (school of Jewish law and tradition). These are often called “yeshivish” and sometimes mitnagdim. But not everyone has that kind of Jewish education. The Hasidic movement, which began around 1750, started as a way of giving the unlearned access to and understanding of the laws. While it also has rabbis and yeshivot and encourages strong Jewish education, the focus of the hasidim is less on the details of the laws and more on following the laws with joy and enthusiasm.

When I became observant (long before I moved to Israel), I first joined the most modern group of traditional Jews, then moved to the yeshivish, and finally to the hasidim. Now living in Israel I attend a synagogue that is mostly Religious Zionist, but my philosophy is still largely hasidic. Much of what I am about to explain applies more to hasidim than to mitnagdim. But even within these groups, there are shades and groups, much like different Christian denominations.

My Experience with Freedom and Jewish Law

While there may be some rabbis, or perhaps even communities, where leadership is keeping score on the behaviors of congregants, this was not done in any of the synagogues I belonged to and is not the norm among any groups I am familiar with. Belonging to such a community is (outside of social or family pressure) voluntary. No authority is tasked with checking up on a Jewish person’s behavior. There are no committees that enter our homes with a checklist to see how we measure up. We are, as individuals, instructed to remind others of laws that we see them breaking—as long as they appear open to the correction and we do not embarrass them in public. The Torah describes public means of enforcing some of the laws, but most of these are not done in our day.

We have confession of our sins, but not to an official of the religion. Our only confessions are (1) between ourselves and individuals we may have wronged,^[vi] to whom we must apologize before asking forgiveness from God; and (2) privately between ourselves and God.

Besides the division of positive and negative laws, our laws fall into two types. Some laws are between the individual and God, such as loving God, praying daily, or saying blessings over food. Others are social, between individuals. Supporting the widow and orphan, loving your neighbor as yourself, and visiting the sick are three examples. We each have responsibilities both for other people and for ourselves.

Living in a System of Laws

In general, children raised within the framework of Orthodox Jewry start learning self-control (restraining their desires and emotions) at a very early age. Of course not all children learn good self-control; children generally emulate the behavior of their parents. When a parent does not take the laws seriously, loses self-control often, or lives in chaos, the children will have trouble with self-regulation also. However, even in these situations the children apparently are better-regulated than children in homes with no expectations or structure. The low crime rate among Jews, even those at the poverty level,[vii] testifies to this.

One of the vehicles for teaching control is Sabbath laws.  Activities that are forbidden on the Sabbath include anything based on any of the 39 forms of work that were used to create the Mishkan, the tabernacle that traveled with the Israelites during their 40-year sojourn in the desert.^[viii] Items whose use is forbidden on the Sabbath are called muktzeh.

A story from a friend shows how the centrality of laws can affect a home. This friend said that her toddler was fascinated by electrical outlets, which in the USA are close to the floor (in Israel they are almost table height). She had covered the outlets with child-proof covers, but one outlet was sparking if anything was plugged in. One day when an electrician was expected at the same time that she would be getting older children off to school, she had uncovered the outlet in advance. She figured she could just direct him to it without interrupting her morning routine. Suddenly from across the room she saw her toddler approaching the outlet with his metal baby fork in hand. It wasn’t the Sabbath, but she screamed, “Muktzeh!” The child jumped away, dropped the fork, and found a toy to play with.

Little children learn that they cannot have ice cream after a meat meal, because Jewish law requires a waiting period between eating meat and milk. They learn that they must show their parents honor; disrespecting parents (and elders in general) is forbidden by Torah law. And because these are laws in a law-abiding home, there is consistency.

(On the other hand, I know of middle-aged adults with antipathy toward the tradition who were raised in a home where the laws were inconsistently followed at home and blatantly broken outside of the home. I suspect their antipathy stems, at least in part, from their confusion from the mixed messages and for having been denied things at some times that were acceptable at others—a case of blaming the laws instead of the parents who misapplied the laws.)

Children who are raised within a home where Torah laws are followed learn other lessons in addition to self-control. Gratitude for God’s many gifts becomes ingrained because of the blessings of enjoyment we say over food, even just a cookie or piece of candy. Children learn to pay attention to the natural world through the blessings over fragrant blossoms, over rainbows, thunder, lightning, and many other things.

An example is as simple as eating fruit. Produce in Israel is seasonal,[ix] and autumn is the season of persimmon. Recently I ate some for the first time this season. Although this might seem like a tiny milestone, I recited both the blessing over fruit and the blessing of gratitude for having reached another year and another opportunity, in this case the chance to eat persimmon.[x] Before I started paying attention to the law, I don’t think I even noticed when I ate something I hadn’t had in a while. Yet noticing and making a blessing moves eating from the mundane into an occasion.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

While it is true that reciting these blessings can become rote, they still provide a mechanism for gratitude and will still at least occasionally spark the desired appreciation.

One of the biggest differences between the Jewish way and the secular is the belief that sex is a holy act when performed between married people according to Jewish law. Couples who come to traditional Judaism after years in secular America generally report that their intimate lives are greatly enhanced by these laws, which raise sex from the purely physical (animal) act it is when people “hook up.” The intense attraction felt by young couples is handled without premarital sex by very short engagements, sometimes just a matter of a month or six weeks.

Uneven Application

Depending on our individual experiences and psyches, different laws appeal to us differently and thus are easier or harder than for others. Most people follow the laws unevenly. Someone, for example, although knowing the kosher food laws, may choose to eat vegetarian food in a non-kosher restaurant, while someone else who is very particular about whatand where he eats might neglect to recite a blessing before eating. Some people choose not to follow any of the laws between themselves and God, but they give a lot of charity and are meticulous in their fine treatment of others. There are also those who are very particular about the laws between themselves and God, but might cheat customers or spread gossip.

This is because, knowing the laws, we have true choice. We have boundaries: the laws. We can choose to ignore a boundary, but it is there if we need it. It can even provide a barrier between us and behavior that we find distasteful.

An example is the young female soldier who once told me that every week, women soldiers she did not know came to her and said, “I understand you are Orthodox and are chaste. I am under a lot of pressure from some soldier(s) to have sex. I do not want to, but I do not know how to tell them no. They have so many good arguments!” My acquaintance said she told them, “Just say, ‘No, Jewish law says that is wrong, and I will not do it.’” She provided the boundary that these young women needed but had never learned—not at home, not at school, and not in a permissive society.

As adults accepting Torah laws, we understand that we can do with the laws what we will. They are commandments; we are taught that they serve an important purpose for the world as a whole and we are expected to live by them. But we are human, and no one is keeping score except an all-seeing but invisible God who generally hides His presence from us so as to give us free will.

Conclusion

For me, living within the framework of Torah law is much easier and more comfortable than living in the secular world, where I was continually confronted by demands and expectations that I found uncomfortable, stupid, or confusing. I gained a sense of structure that was missing from my childhood. I learned to recognize small things that make my life richer, the everyday gifts that the grandmother in my story of the same name mentions. And I learned to trust in the God who created and taught my people a system that, if adhered to perfectly, would create a perfect world.

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[i] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+religion&oq=define+religion&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDE5MjlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8, accessed Jan. 15, 2024

[ii]According to Proverbs 31:10-31, written around 700 BCE, women had many economic responsibilities: manufacturing, selling, and buying. I remember seeing, more than 50 years ago at the Numismatics Museum of the Eretz Israel Museum, an exhibit of market weights that were cast with the weights so that the shopper as well as the merchant could read the weights; this indicates that women as well as men could read the weights. Marked weights such as these were, as I recall the museum exhibit, uncommon or nonexistent in most other cultures.

[iii] Oldest Jewish Prayer Book on Display for the First Time, Government of Israel Prime Minister’s Office, September 18, 2014. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/spoketfila180914 , accessed Jan.15, 2024.

[iv] In fact, an ancient cabalistic principle that was brought forward by the Hasidic movement that began around 1750 is that through following the laws we bring holiness into this world, therefore raising the world’s spiritual level.

[v] As I wrote, I realized this is an excellent example of how the traditional way of life is transmitted by secular, liberal parents. My father was an agnostic; my mother also did not have a strong belief in God. Both were upset when I adopted a traditional Jewish lifestyle and neither ever forgave me for rejecting the liberalism that they held so dear.

[vi] Shuchat, C., To forgive is divine: 6 steps to reach true forgiveness, https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/3039144/jewish/To-Forgive-Is-Divine-6-Steps-to-Reach-True-Forgiveness.htm, accessed Dec. 27, 2023.

[vii] Hornstein, J., Jewish Poverty in the United States: A Summary of Recent Research. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Owens Mills, MD 21117, February 2019, https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-42/2892/jewish-poverty-in-the-united-states%2520Weinberg%2520Report.pdf , accessed Jan. 14, 2024.

[viii] The time of wandering between the exodus from Egypt and settling in the Promised Land. Introduction to the 39 Melachot - Chabad.org explains the basis of these laws and The 39 Melachot - Chabad.org lists the foundational activities (the av in the first article) on which the prohibitions are based.

[ix] Unlike the USA, which imports a lot of fruits and vegetables so virtually everything is available all year long, in Israel these foods are seasonal. For example, large, tender celery, a year-round staple in the USA, is not available in our hot summers; limes are only available for a few weeks; and there are times avocados are unavailable.

[x] “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.” Translation from https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/91120/jewish/Shehecheyanu.htm , accessed Jan. 14, 2024.