Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Deuteronomy 18, Prophecy

Jeremy Rosen | Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Deuteronomy 18, Prophecy

- We are continuing essentially a discussion of the political structure as well as the religious structure of the people, as opposed to rather specific laws that we’re coming to. And as I mentioned last week, the amazing thing about the Torah is that it presents different options for government, for management, and for religious leadership. So we are now going to look at some of these different options. We discussed last week the idea of a monarch and the important thing that if a monarch was to be appointed, that monarch had to be subject to the law. He could not be above the law, even though certain extra privileges were granted to the king, nevertheless, fundamentally, he had to be subject to the law. And indeed the Talmud mentions conflicts during the Maccabean era between the kings of the Maccabees who felt they were above the law like King Jannaeus or Yannai. And their struggle with the rabbis who’d said, no, I’m sorry. You know, even if your servant has done something wrong, you’ve got to stand trial for a crime that was committed. Now, throughout the period when there were, before David and Solomon, after the destruction of the temple, the exile in Babylon, there was the priesthood. And the priesthood by and large now is merely, if you like, a token of history, even though we preserve it both as history and therefore as, if you like, an indication of certain principles that we can deduce from how they treated the priesthood at that time, even though it’s no longer relevant, although I have to say it is still studied and it is still learned. And there are many Jews who look forward to rebuilding the temple, reintroducing the priesthood.

Although, to be honest, as I said before, I can’t for one moment, given the state of division within the religious world, let alone anywhere else, there will ever be a time when they’re going to agree on who the high priest is going to be, let alone anything more than that. So I want to look at this now as just an example of a form of governance, but with a religious dimension. So if you can turn to chapter 18:1. It opens by saying, “To the priests, all the Levites, everybody in the tribe of Levi, ‘cause the tribe of Levi is divided into those who serve as Levites. And those few from the house of Aaron who function as priests, Kohanim. Distinction between the two of them. And neither of these will have in Israel will have a tribal inheritance in Israel. They will survive or eat or live on the basis of donations to sacrifices and the temple. So you have two different divisions, the Kohen and the Levi. The Kohen’s job is to function essentially in making sure the temple runs effectively. And over time, there were different dynasties of the priests and these dynasties rivaled with each other, fought for power. And slowly, slowly the priesthood in fact morally declined to the position where people were buying the position of the high priest. So already the Bible indicates that there need to be limitations on the priesthood and they’re not supposed to own territory and land. And it contrasts, for example, to the experience of Joseph in Egypt, where during the famine, the priests were not expected to pay and and give up their lands or their property or their influence, for bread, for food. This is one of the concessions that Joseph made because he realized how important the priesthood was.

But it shows, and we know from Egyptian history, the priesthood was incredibly powerful. They were king makers and king destroyers. But in the Jewish structure, the priesthood primarily, but not exclusively focused on the temple. And the role of the Levites generally was to serve the community. They were not based in Jerusalem so much. They were spread around the place in different towns where they were given their territory, their place to live in these towns. It wasn’t their tribal territory. And there they had to take responsibility for the welfare, for the education, for all the, if you like, the governmental social functions that we now have governmental departments for. So in verse two. He will not have the Levites, and the priests, will not have this inheritance, tribal inheritance amongst the people because, their job is to serve God, serve the people through God, as I’ve said. And so how are these guys going to survive? In verse three. So we’ll start with the role of the priests. The priests will receive directly from the sacrifices that are made at the temple and they will receive automatically certain parts of the body of the animal. They will go directly to the priests for feeding or for use in any area whatsoever over. I was reading the book of history, of the destruction of the temple. The best one that I’ve recommended before is by a man called Goodman, Martin Goodman of Oxford University. This is another one by an American non-Jewish scholar.

But he emphasizes the extent to which every day during the siege and the siege went on for well over a year and for all that time they were still up to the last minute offering sacrifices in the temple, despite the mayhem and the death and the loss and in fact the starvation that was going on in Jerusalem, which in a sense seems to be somewhat so problematic, but that’s a different issue. But then in addition to the sacrifices, the priest would also get in verse four, the first a section, a kind of a tithe of the first products of the grain, the wine and the oil, and also the shearing, the sheep shearing, the wool of the, of the flocks, of the sheep. And that would also be a donation to them to keep them going. So they would be supported by the community, shouldn’t be supported by their own commercial activity. In verse five, because they have been picked out these Levites amongst the tribes in order to serve the community who, they and their descendants all the days. Well, then what happens in verse six when the Levites who are spread out amongst the country, whereas the Kohanim tended to be centralized in Jerusalem, what happens when he comes to perform in the temple? Because what they had was a rotation of Levites who were living around the place, coming up to Jerusalem for a rotation of service. There was what’s called the Mishmar and the Mahmad where either they stood by to witness what was going on or were actually working to make sure everything was going smoothly and supporting. Remember, Levites also were a permanent choir in the temple.

So they were the musicians with all their different expertise. But what happens when somebody moves around? What is he going to be supported by? Because otherwise he’s going to be living in a town of Levites that support themselves. So if he decides he wants to come and serve in Jerusalem, that’s an option for him. And he will serve in the name of God and all the other Levites with him who are standing there before God. They will be able to participate in these tithes to help them support, survive, and will rely on what is, which literally means what has come down to them from their fathers. If there’s in any inheritance, it’s not going to be inheritance of land, but it’s going to be some sort of what we call patrimony. Verse nine. Now, I don’t want you to be like the other nations. What do I mean by this? What I mean by this is that the other nations, the roles of the priests of the different kinds, was also one of what we would call magic oracles, predictions, dealing with the needs of the people medically, but also super, if you like superstitiously. So if you think of the role of priests in most of the cultures around the world at that time, they performed as witches, magicians, and other people using magic both to help and to control the masses. And so having said, first of all, we don’t want them to be involved in raising money and being wealthy and then power and all the money that goes with it. We want them to focus on service. We’re now saying, but we also don’t want them to function in what was common for priesthood at that time in solving people’s problems.

So I don’t want you in verse 10 of chapter 18, to find amongst you, anyone who makes their children pass through fire. Passing through fire was one of the functions particularly of the Canaanites, but of others too, of passing children through fire, dedicating them to God. Those who survived, survived their gods. Those who didn’t didn’t. And of course we know both from Greek mythology, how often children were sacrificed. So one, I don’t want you to take on the priesthood, things that other priests are doing around the world at that time, but also people who use magic, to divine what’s going to happen, to act as somebody reading your palm and predicting what’s going to be your life ahead of you and what spells you have to carry out in order to protect yourself and what other actions. And similarly, verse 11, who have encounters with other divine idolatrous images who start trying to raise up the dead or that’s as happened with King Saul and the Witch of Endor or going to any of these people who produce these kind of supernatural cures and helps and solutions and predictions because in verse 12. God rejects this approach to life and it’s because of, they were involved in these sort of things that, that God has replaced them with you. And therefore in verse 13, this is a very important line. Verse 13 says, tamim, which can mean tamim, can mean pure. It can mean innocent. It can mean complete. So Jacob is described as ishtam, as a man who is sometimes say, simple, but it’s not that. He’s contrasted to the devious hunter, Esau. So not devious, but straight, on the other hand, as we know. Jacob wasn’t always as straight as he might have been. But nevertheless this principle is you should be straight with God.

In other words, you should communicate if you are going to communicate spiritually just with a non-physical object, which is we are talking about the idea of God and being tamim also means you’ve got to be whole. That’s to say not do as so many people do, pick and choose one part. Let’s say, following the practice and ignoring the ethical or taking the ethical and ignoring the practice. You should be a complete person. You should be combining everything, the spirit as well as the letter of the law. Because again, I’m saying in verse 14, these people who you are replacing, there are people of soothsayers, witches, magicians and mind readers, palm readers and everything like that. Now when this is done, if you like, what’s the difference between this and psychiatry and reading the mind nowadays. Mind reading nowadays is a scientific process. It’s not based on random magic. It’s open to everybody. Everybody can see what the basis is and how it’s carried out. And therefore this magic, unpredictable, superstition, if I walk under a ladder, something bad’s going to happen. If a black cat walks in front of me, bad news, that’s not the way. But we now have another option to the priesthood. And this is the idea of the navi, of the prophet. Now we’ve discussed this idea before in the book of Deuteronomy when we talked about a false prophet. And a false prophet was somebody who could produce wonders, miracles, magic.

But if the aim of that was to encourage you to abandon Torah, that no matter what magic they did, you should never pay any attention to them. So what then is the role of the navi? Now the navi, the prophet is unlike the priest, the priest is hereditary. So you could say that Judaism on the one hand offers a model of aristocracy based on the priesthood and on the monarchy. But now you have a counterbalance, that Navi is a charismatic individual, unlike the priests and the kings not devote a position that is only given for men, but for women as well. A prophet, is somebody who rises through his or her own charisma and this is the sort of person that you should listen to. And what is his role? His role in verse 16 is that whatever God asked at Horeb, at Mount Sinai, when the community gathered there, where you agreed that you didn’t want to hear the voice of God directly, because you were rather frightened of the awesomeness of that. But you said, I’d like an intermediary. That initial intermediary was Moses. But now, and at that time, God agreed in verse 17. And God said to me, fair enough. So instead of my directly communicating with you, I’m going to speak directly through a navi. So verse 18. I will find a prophet for you. From amongst your people. Who is, if you like, one of you, one of your people. And I will put my words into his mouth and he will speak to you or she will speak to you. Whatever I command. And in the Torah, of course, we have two prophets. Moses is described as a prophet and Miriam is described as a prophetess. So you have this balance. They weren’t in themselves priests, although they came in the case of Moses and Miriam, from a priestly family. So verse 19. And if anybody does not listen, now, we don’t know if this means the prophet or a person. And then speaks in my name.

I will deal with him. So people are going to come up and say the words God spoke to me, I will sort of, this is a problem, but the one I appoint, I’m going to hold responsible. But what happens in verse 20? But if there’s a prophet who comes and prophesies something that I did not. And he speaks in the name of other gods or directs you towards another God, that guy deserves to die. So this is very dire consequences. As I’ve mentioned before, the death penalty is an indication of how serious this is taken. But if, and please God, we will go through the books of the Judges, Samuel, The Kings. There were always false prophet. Despite this statement, there were always prophets who claim to be God was talking to them, but in fact God clearly was not. And this was one of the things that brought about the collapse and destruction both of the first temple, and although most prophet prophets had ended with the return from Babylon, to some extent in the second temple, but after that time there was no prophecy anymore. And as we’ve said before, prophecy has now just being devoted to people who we can’t rely on and shouldn’t trust. And so instead of prophecy, we now have, if you like, the authority of experts of law, the supreme court so to speak, although that is now a term of abuse in certain quarters. So anyway, if a prophet prophesize falsely in verse 20, in verse 21, you’ll then turn around and say, but then how do we know if this guy’s a false prophet or not? Verse 22.

If a man prophesies and says something that will not happen. So for example, as the false prophets during the last days of the kingdom said, don’t worry, you stand up for Egypt as opposed to Babylon and you will be saved and clearly you were not saved, then we know that person is not reliable and you shouldn’t pay any attention. Of course ,a lot of prophecies were long range and so we didn’t live to find out if they were going to happen. But in fact, in retrospect, of course we can. So here we have a rather ambiguous solution, because if on the one hand you say that a person or prophet can make a prophecy or can say something a miracle and it will happen, but you shouldn’t listen to it, if in effect the message is abandon Torah. But now he says, but if the prophet makes a profit and it does come true, in a sense, you would have to believe him. So in essence what we understand this as meaning, essentially, is that the role of the prophet is to tell you if you go down this path, these are the consequences. And that is essentially what history in a sense can validate or not. If you go down the path as they did in the first and second temple of internal division and corruption, as they said time and time again, you’ll end up losing your land. And so we now verse move to verse 19, chapter 19:1. Part again of the structure of the community and how it should be run. A model, if you like, for counties, for states within the nation. So as we’ve mentioned before, there have to be cities of refuge because this is, if you like, the penal system of those days, not jails as such, but towns which were run by the Levites, where you would go for sanctuary or you could opt to live in and there you knew you would be safe.

I want you to divide three cities or towns in your land which guard is going to give you to inherit. And not only will you have these three cities, we know, of course, they’re going to be six, three on the West bank, three on the East bank, but also, and this is important. You divide up the way. And divide your territory into three separate roughly equal zones. So easy access to everybody, north, east, north, center, south. And criminals or murderers can run away there. And this is the message that I, that God is giving or Moses is giving as to how the legal system will work. Verse 4:19. And this is how this is going to work. He gets there and he lives there safely. If he killed somebody unintentionally, there’s no record of animosity or enmity between the two of them. An accident happened. For example, he’s with his friend in in the forest. Seen chopping wood. And he’s bringing the ax down and the heavy metal end of it flies off. And the metal, flies off the handle. hits a friend, mate, and dies. So any example of clearly accidental death. So he’s guilty of manslaughter, but he runs to this city where he can live. We’re worried in theory that the redeemer, because everybody had a near relative who were to take responsibility, both if that person fell on bad times, had to sell his property, he could redeem it or if somebody needed to take the the case to court or to plead for a member of the family. So this is not the, if you like, the person whose job it is to avenge the blood by killing necessarily, but by saying that the law is properly followed. It’s possible that in the heat of the moment or because he lives in a different society, he might attack this person and overcome on the way and he might kill him.

And to some extent we have to understand his reaction and we might not want to put him to death for what he’s done. Because he previously never hated this other person. So here also Go'el HaDam also has to be somebody who’s absolutely innocent, who himself hasn’t got up to monkey business. And this isn’t part of an ongoing vendetta, which is quite still to this day in parts of the world is very effective. So the idea of a vendetta is not acceptable. And so that’s why we have these three cities for them to run to before they can be brought to court, before justice can be executed. So we have to make sure that justice is there and the role of the Go'el HaDam is to see that justice is carried out. And so for example, any murderer could run away to the city of refuge and claim it was an accident and that’s why we had to clarify what the law would be and have due process. And so this is what I want in verse eight you to do in the cities, in the country that I’m setting up for you. But, once again, I reiterate verse nine. I want you to make sure you stick to these rules which I’m commanding you and I want you to love the God, lord your God to do this positively in a caring emotional way. And therefore you can add three more towns to this as you see fit. So giving you a minimum of three and a maximum of six. And the aim of this, to avoid innocent blood. God gives you. I don’t want blood. I don’t want people killing each other in the land as much as we can possibly avoid it. And unfortunately there’s no state, not even the Jewish state where there isn’t vendetta and when people aren’t killed unfortunately, but there at least there’s a proper constitution and we can follow it or at least we ought to. But as all legal systems, there are ways around it. Unfortunately. Verse 11.

But, but if there is somebody who does hate the other person. And he lies in wait for him, and he gets up against him, and kills him, he then runs to this city of refuge. And the elders of the city. And this is the question, which city, the city where the crime is committed or the city where he lived and they will take him from there. And when we see that they believe this is a crime of that kind. The Go'el HaDam and it’s the responsibility of the Go'el HaDam to see that he is brought to face justice. And verse 13. Don’t Pity. You have to remove blood a murderer from Israel. And it’s the right thing to do. So this raises an interesting issue about the question of capital punishment. First of all, because capital punishment is still to be found in the United States and parts of the United States of America. On the one hand, we want to make sure that there isn’t blood and murder going on and people who do murder getaway scot-free. On the other hand, neither do we want to start killing people without proper evidence, which is why we’re going to reiterate the importance of proper evidence and simply not taking things on circumstantial evidence. Let’s look at verse 14. And here’s another important principle that is often looked over. Don’t remove or take over the borders or the landmark of your neighbor, in which were previously fixed and established, in the inheritance which you have. Gives you his inheritance. Now, you might think this is not relevant to us since we no longer have those biblical borders and we no longer have the tribal system. So what is this telling us? Means don’t encroach on what is your neighbors. And this is the basis in Jewish law of insisting something such as copyright, something as intellectual property, something that belongs to somebody else because that person either owns it or invented it or took it on in those days, you cannot take that away from him or her. That equally is an important crime.

And the fact that this crime is put right next to murder in a sense is showing how important this is, because if you don’t have the rule of law, as many countries don’t, then you can’t rely on your property remaining your property. You can’t guarantee anything for your children for the future. You are in a sense, in a lawless state. And so in establishing the law, we come back and we reiterate verse 15. And we don’t even accept one witness, one witness, for any sin, for any crime, anything that might have gone wrong. We have to have at least two and more witnesses who actually saw what happened. So for all that we’ve talked about, so all that we’ve talked about in terms of a murderer being tried or in terms of accidental death or in terms of any of the crimes of the Torah, you cannot convict on the basis of one witness alone. Now, there is leeway and leeway is given to courts of law to say, look, I know I can’t convict this person of this crime, but I can say, in our opinion, this person is a danger to society. And as that, that person has to be protected. And the way, of course, to protect that person would be to put him in a community and keep an eye on him and make sure that he doesn’t go off the tracks. Verse 16. But then what happens when we have false witnesses? And it’s going to happen very often and it happens all the time in our society. Unfortunately, I just heard of a case of two rabbis being caught in an argument over property recently in which one of them clearly was not only telling a lie, but behaving in a way that is morally unacceptable. But it happens. So what happens when in verse 17, when to people who have a disagreement, become before the priests, and the judges. Who will be. So these cases always have to be heard. No crime can be just punished without due process. And when the judges go into the whole case. It is clear that this person is giving false witness. He’s telling a lie, he’s lying about his brother for all kinds of possible crimes. You now have the biblical response. 19.

You have to do to him exactly what he wanted to do to his brother. And you must dissuade, make sure this doesn’t happen. Now this is what is called in Hebrew and in the tongue particularly, Eid somem, witness who is telling a lie about another person in court. So he is going to court to tell a lie. Now, the talmud would obviously ask a question, okay. So assuming that, assuming that he gave evidence that somebody had committed a murder, does this mean you are going to commit a murder on him? It’s all right if this is a, shall we say, a financial fine, right? So he gave false evidence to commit somebody to pay a vast sum amount of damages. Then we know exactly how much he has to pay to compensate for what he wanted the other person to do as a fine, not necessarily all back to that person. But nevertheless, this would be the sort of compensation that death certainly is going a long way. And so once again, if you were to look at that part of the Talmud in my court that deals with, with false witnesses, you see how the development of the law from the very basic law in the Torah gets expanded and developed to make more common sense. But nevertheless, the broad principle is equivalence. You give equivalence. But then we come back to this whole question. Verse 21 of Deuteronomy 19, The Lex Ionis, the law of equivalent, which is a law that goes back to Babylon, long before the Jewish people. Don’t take pity on this man. or woman. Soul for soul. Eye for eye. Shame by shame. Tooth for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot, Nice expansion of this Lex Ionis. And of course the obvious question is if this guy has got no teeth, how the heck can you take a tooth for a tooth? And similarly, if a person, for example, has lost a leg and he is the guilty one, you take a leg from him, he’ll be completely crippled.

Or similarly an eye for an eye. If somebody only has one eye, then how if you take an eye for an eye and he’s completely blind, is that equivalent? And therefore, because the law is talking before it very clearly about financial compensation as one of the ways that you deal with false witnesses, that you deal with people who commit crimes of different sorts, we’re saying, and the Talmud reiterates in black and white, this is not meant to be taken literally. And you may argue, well that’s a Talmudic innovation, in which case, fair enough. But that’s 2000 years ago. So there are people who are chopping off hands for thieves and other things of that kind which would be completely unacceptable in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament goes back 3000 years, if not more. So this is something that has been part of our tradition for thousands of years. But the anti-Semites will find anything, and say, you see how vindictive the Jews are, an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. And this just shows how hatred will find a way to bubble to the evil surface no matter what the reality is. And no matter what the, if you like, the text in context itself says. Now, the next stage of the next chapter, chapter 20, is to deal with war. And war is something which is not a very nice subject. But unfortunately in our society and virtually every society, warfare has been a very, very significant and problematic part of human life. Warfare has been with us all the time, it will always be with us. And if we think it won’t, we are deluding ourselves in the same way that if we think humans are going to turn into angels. There’s no such chance of that happening.

So number one, we start with the idea of you have to deal when enemies come at you. When you go, chapter 20:1, when you go to war against your enemies. And notice these are people who are defined as enemies, not just people who are not your enemies. And you see before you, an arm coming at you and army coming at you, horses, chariots, more people than you, they’re stronger than you. Don’t be frightened. You know this is so in a sense relevant now, when we are surrounded by millions of enemies, not just hundreds of thousands, not just tens of thousands. Surrounded by enemies, we are told they might be more than you, but don’t be frightened. Now you may then turn around and say, oh, it’s very, very nice for God to say this. After all, look what we’ve just been celebrating or commemorating, the destruction of two temples, destruction of two states, they’ve been destroyed in the past. There’s no guarantee they won’t be destroyed in the future. So what are you telling me? ? Because God is with you. Took you out of Egypt. Well, given the earlier text, there is a caveat to all these. And the caveat to all this is, this is only if you are behaving in a way that God expects you to behave. But if you’re not behaving in a way that God expects you to behave, don’t expect God to come and intervene. Verse two. And so, before you go to war, The priest, the high priest or special priest for war, the anointed priest whose job is to go out to be with the people in the battle, not necessarily to be in the forefront, but to be with them, whereas the high priest would stay at home protected in the temple. So he comes and he gives you an address.

So here we’re talking about the importance of addressing the army before you go to war. Those of you will know perfectly well the famous Shakespeare speeches in which the young prince goes out ahead of the combatants and tries to raise their morale. So he will say, Israel. Listen Israel, notice. Israel is the opening declaration of the Shema, which we’ve already discussed before. You are coming to war against your enemies. This is not just to extend your territory. Don’t be frightened. Don’t be scared. Don’t panic. Don’t dread them. Because God is with you. To fight your enemies. But God is with you if you are with God. So it’s a two way thing, not a one way thing. But basically what he’s saying is if you feel you are right, if you are doing it for right reasons and fair reasons, then it’s your, shall we say, your morale that matters. It’s morale that matters more than numbers. And this morale lifting experience comes from to some extent your spiritual dimension, which gives you the idea that there is a difference between right and wrong. He goes to save you. In verse five, and then having started with a kind of a morale exhortation to keep your spirits up, God’s with you, don’t worry, go to fight. He then goes on and he says, but there are some people who we don’t want to fight. There are some people who are exceptions here. So step forward after the priest is the Shater.

He is the policeman or the military man who is controlling the forces. And he turns around and he says in verse 5:20. who is the person, who built a new house, didn’t have time to inaugurate it. Housewarming party. He should go and go back to his house. otherwise, he might die in war. Some other man will take over his house. He’ll be worried if he goes to war, I haven’t had a chance to settle my home. What about a man who planted a vineyard and hasn’t had time to see its first product? He should also go back home. Unless he dies in war. And another person will then dedicate or enjoy that harvest. Or what about a man who’s engaged to a woman? Hasn’t married her yet. He should go back to his house. As he dies in war. And another man will marry her. And I find this so painful at this particular moment because how many young men who were engaged have gone to war and died now. And how many people, young men who just married and with children have gone to war? And so here is a dream situation, but nevertheless, it does go to show that there is a case to be made out for priorities in who should be sent to war. And so in verse eight. . They carry on and they say, if anybody who’s afraid, a coward, he should go home, and not affect the morale of other people and turn their heart to. And then having done this with what’s left, they appoint the officers to go to war. And that’s where we will stop for today and we’ll open up and we will start looking at the questions. Sorry, I’ve, where are we? I need to find my questions again. Stop share. And here we are, questions and answer.

Q&A and Comments:

So once again, always rely on you Shelly. Thank you for always being there with the questions. That’s very important.

Q: There are several hundred years between entering Canaan under Joshua and the temple built under Solomon. Did the Kohanim and Levites have different roles under the Mishka as opposed to later on under the temple?

A: The answer, Shelly simply is no, because there still was a tabernacle and the tabernacle had both the sacrificial system and the auxiliary things, the ceremonies of the Levites. It was still the center where you had also the judges as well as the religious leaders. So this applied during the Tabernacle period.

Q: Romaine says, how does Hashem direct Jews in regard to others? Does he recognize need for contact with them?

A: That’s a very good question. During, that’s a question that applies during the prophetic era. But even during the prophetic era, there was a difference between God communicating in the sense of telling us what God wants us to do, which is through the constitution, through the law. The law is the word of God. So when in doubt, go back to the law. But there was also the idea of inspiration. An inspiration is behind the idea of the law. After all, Moses was inspired to produce the law. So this inspiration comes from God. So you have already the idea that there can be such a thing as divine inspiration. Now the question is how do you define what is divine inspiration? That is something that seems to have been part of the ancient tradition, which also had things like the oracular orim tabim, the breastplates with the lights that shone up and the ability to consult God. And therefore there was the idea in a sense to consult the will of God through the prophet. But once the prophet goes, and all these other ancillary things that were part of the early tradition of Judaism and now have fallen by the wayside, which also shows how important evolution is. They are in a different category altogether.

Q: Shelly says, doesn’t Tam in the Haga, the four sons mean the simple son? How do you reconcile the two?

A: Well that’s one translation, but it isn’t necessarily the only translation. That the Tam can mean somebody who doesn’t have an agenda, either right or left, taking thing at face value. The can be the person who just doesn’t know how to ask. That could be the child. That could be the simple one maybe, but term doesn’t necessarily mean the simple one.

Rita, many thanks. Thank you Rita, of faith. I believe somewhere in the town it says second temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred by the temple officers, people. Where the first time was destroyed because of idolatry, sexual promiscuity, and when others sin are forgotten.

Q: So where they’re saying different types of sinning, simply a device to emphasize a seriousness of unjustified hatred?

A: Faith, that’s an excellent question, but I think all those statements of why did something happen, looking at the circumstances that led up to the thing happening. So for example, in the case of the first temple, it was clear that the people in general were idolatrous, they were corrupt. If you look as we will come due course to look at the first chapter of Isaiah, you can see how corrupt morally, ethically, they were. So that is the reason given for the first temple. In the case of the second temple, we also know, just read the books whether it’s Josephus, it’s not an easy read, or whether you read the book by Martin Goodman or whether you read this book that I’m reading by a guy Rogers called "For the Freedom of Zion.” And you will see how at the time of the second temple, the Jews were fighting and killing each other unbelievably. There were so many factions of people, Jews who hated Jews, which is unnecessary hatred. Unfortunately I see some of that today and it’s something that worries me enormously. But basically what it’s saying is if by and large bad things happen, it’s because we have not behaved as well as we should have done. And that’s how they try to explain the loss of the temple. And the fact that other nations have become more powerful for a time and then risen and fallen. Was it because the Roman empire was decadent or just incompetent or what? And so in the same way we rise and fall on the basis of how we are.

Q: Shelly says, does building a house and planning a vineyard come before getting married?

A: You didn’t wait for the next one. Getting married definitely comes. Mention they’re not necessarily in order of priority, but in an example of the sort of things.

Carla, thank you very much for your clear explanation. Thank you Carla B and thank you Klara with a K. And Joan, how can one feel compassionate to enemies. One, I don’t know that you can feel compassionate for enemies. You can feel sorry when all people are killed, but if they brought it upon themselves, it’s very difficult. And this whole question of compassion for enemies is something which has been debated for years. There’s a famous, a book that was written by the famous Nazi, a Nazi hunter called Simon Wiesenthal and he wrote a book called “The Sunflower.” And “The Sunflower” is a book about the story where he was approached by a dying Nazi who asked him for forgiveness. And he simply couldn’t, because he said, from a Jewish point of view, you can only forgive somebody who has offended you or you have offended somebody. It’s only person to person. There’s no such notion as in Christianity or in Buddhism. Whereas you can forgive other people and if you like, like confession. And that you have a whole list of people after this very short book that he’s written, giving from the Jewish and non-Jewish world, different cultures, their opinion on whether you can forgive. So it’s something which is much debated as an acultural issue. And the answer is, if somebody started a war and if somebody attacked you, you attack them back. But that doesn’t mean to say you can’t feel sorry for somebody, for example, who’s made a human shield by Hamas. But on the other hand, we have to protect ourselves.

Israel, it’s interesting, there’s no exemption of those who study Torah. They have to go to wash. How do you understand this, great cheer, thank you. Yes. Well, the idea of only studying are not going towards to save people. Because you know, it’s interesting, the Talmud itself says, the Talmud itself says that this excuse might happen, people being allowed out of it might happen if it’s not an existential threat. Because if it’s an existential threat, even a bride groom goes out from the hopa to fight. And so clearly when I made earlier reference to those who died in this war, this was because this is an existential threat.

Joan cannot believe or hope that ignorance and stupidity is chronic and human characteristic. Good question, very difficult. I don’t know the answer to that. Somehow, there are still some good people in this world and it’s the minority that count. And as they say, God weighs his followers, he doesn’t count them. Mira, thank you very much Mira. And that’s always good to hear from you. And Sarah, thank you for explaining the text and this is where I will say goodbye to everybody and see you next week.