Bungee jumping for charity – the Jewish view
1. On 10th June the Jewish Student Chaplaincy organisation is arranging a charity event in which chaplains and past and present students will jump from a 140ft Bungee Crane.
2. A parent of present students asked me to comment on whether this is permissible in halochoh. Clearly, it is not.
3. Searching the internet reveals a commonly-advanced statistic for bungee jumping of a fatality average of 1 in 500,000 jumps. That, of course, is generally compared favourably with driving a certain distance or crossing the road or being struck by lightning.
4. But the comparisons miss the point for halachic purposes. I am required to guard the life that God has given me and not to expose myself to unnecessary risks, for which purpose “necessary” is determined by reference to whether the risk is reasonably proportionate to the need to undertake the potentially dangerous activity.
5. Since there is no need to fall off a crane attached to a piece of elastic, the acceptable level of risk in doing so is nil.
6. “But it’s for charity” – this makes no difference. If it would be wrong to do something without the excuse of raising money, it is wrong to do it despite that excuse. Indeed, charities should generally be more careful than they are about profiting only from permitted activities (and not, for example, selling £100 tickets for a chance to win a car, which is gambling of a kind strongly disapproved of in halochoh).
7. Worse than that, if a charitable motive encourages people to do something that they would have enough sense not to do otherwise, the charity is transgressing the Biblical prohibition of putting a stumbling block before the blind.
8. Someone who wants to bungee jump as part of an athletic exercise, or for sight-seeing purposes, and as part of a carefully calculated assessment of the small risk against the great pleasure they expect to feel, they may have a halachic justification. (Whether that would apply to a person with dependent family is, of course, more doubtful.) But in this case people who would otherwise have no wish to jump off a crane, and may actually be frightened of doing so, are being encouraged to conquer their instincts (which some may recognise as common sense) because of the gratitude that they feel for the chaplains.
9. The Jewish chaplains are uniformly wonderful people whose dedication and service are exemplary. Their care of our students is superbly inspirational; it should, however, extend to discouraging past and present students (and themselves) from jumping off a crane, which is generally regarded as an unwise thing to do.
“There is risk in life … just be sensible”? – a Jewish view of the Grand National.
1. According to the winning Grand National trainer Paul Nicholls, despite consecutive races in each of which two horses have suffered injuries as a result of which they have been put down, the show should go on. He said to BBC Sport: “There is always risk in sport. A lot of people have to grow up, and realise that it is life. … We’ve got to be realistic about this. The horses have the best of everything they could have. They probably have better health care than we have. … If people are going to continue to participate in sport, there is going to be both a human and animal risk.”
2. There are two obvious fallacies here on which Judaism has a strong and clear message, based on three principles.
3. Principle one: there is a Biblical requirement to take reasonable care of my own life and health.
4. Principle two: there is a Biblical requirement to take as much care of other people’s life as of my own.
5. Principle three: animals are entitled to the same consideration, being God’s creatures; and, in particular, it is forbidden to cause them unnecessary suffering.
6. Sport is not forbidden in Jewish law even if it entails risk: as Nicholls rightly says, there is risk in life, and the Biblical command to take care is to take reasonable care in the context of pursuing a full life, of which exercise and sport are part. But I can assess for myself how much risk is appropriate and reasonable, and make an informed choice whether or not to participate. Horses cannot. So Fallacy number one: “people have to realise that it is life” – it is acceptable for me to decide for myself what is a reasonable risk, but it is not acceptable for me to decide for an animal that it should be exposed to serious risk of injury and pain, for the gratification of my own or other humans’ wish for excitement.
7. “The horses have the best of everything they could have.” Fallacy number two: chessed – kindness – does not create ownership or obligation. If I look after horses nicely, that is my choice not theirs; even if they were capable of feeling gratitude, I do not have the right to assume gratitude and to transfer it into a willingness to repay an assumed obligation by suffering pain and injury to gratify me.
8. Sport is sometimes described as being something of a religion to some people; there is certainly one clear point of analogy here, the need to guard against the temptation to excuse something that is clearly wrong on the grounds of a broader purpose.
Crises and Conscience – Preparing for Choices
1. A number of survivors from the Costa Concordia either woke up, or should have woken up, with slightly troubled consciences this morning.
2. According to survivors, attempts to prioritise women, children and the infirm in boarding the lifeboats were obstructed by able-bodied men insisting on remaining with their families.
3. Those who succeeded in forcing their way into life-boats may never know whether, or to what extent, they were responsible for others’ trauma, injuries or even possibly death.
4. Perhaps they won’t think about it or care; or perhaps they will justify their actions to themselves.
5. And it is, of course, easier for me to hope and imagine that I would have behaved better in the same circumstances, than to be sure of it; as the Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot) say, don’t judge someone until you stand in his or her place (which is of course impossible).
6. But thinking about all this does remind me of what I believe to be a central purpose of religion; to learn how to control myself in trivial ways and at unimportant moments so that I will be able to display self-control in significant ways and at times of crisis.
7. The Chofetz Chaim said that no choice in life is difficult to make – but it is often very difficult to know when I am making a choice, or what choice I am making. To analyse my own behaviour, and the options open to me, carefully and critically at a time of crisis requires a habit of self-examination and self-discipline.
8. People who behave like animals at the best of times are unlikely suddenly to discover human decency at the worst of times.
9. People who, through religion or in other ways, aim during “normal” times to rise above the purely animal instincts and to direct their behaviour through self-control and thought for others, have at least a chance of being able to behave decently under pressure.
10. If I push through a bus-queue today, I am more likely to push through a life-boat queue tomorrow; if I think about decency while waiting for the bus, I increase my chances of behaving decently while waiting for a life-boat.
11. That may not affect my success in life – many people who behave like the worst kind of animal appear to achieve the best kind of material success; but I believe that it will affect my chances of nurturing inside me something that is not too closely bound to the purely material world to live on after my physical death.
Yehudah, Beit Shemesh, the Chief Rabbi, the Pope and Responsibility
1. Since my post saying that the Chief Rabbi is wrong in telling the Pope that religion is the answer to restoring the “soul” to Europe, I have been wondering what is the answer.
2. Since my post about the nutters in Beit Shemesh shouting at little girls in the name of religion, I have been watching the media discussing who is really to blame.
3. Last night my son Yisroel gave an excellent shiur on the week’s parashah, Vayigash, at the end of which he focused on the fact that the word “vayigash” emphasises that Yehudah finally steps forward to accept personal responsibility for his brothers’ welfare and thereby justifies his hereditary position of leadership.
4. Personal responsibility seems to me to be the key to lots of things.
5. In one of the Father Brown stories GK Chesterton has the priest comment on the use of early lie-detectors; he says they are as useless as the medieval idea that a murder suspect is made to touch the corpse and if blood flows it is a sign of guilt: “Blood flows, fast or slow, in dead folk or living, for so many more million reasons than we can ever know. Blood will have to flow very funnily; blood will have to flow up the Matterhorn, before I will take it as a sign that I am to shed it.” This reminded me of an old post of mine entitled “What if God’s a Christian?” (which annoyed a few people), the essential thesis of which was that I should live on the assumption that my religious beliefs might be wrong, and avoid doing anything that, without religion, I would have to be ashamed of. Father Brown’s refusal to shed blood based on belief in superstition or trust in machinery is an assertion of personal responsibility for his actions – neither religion nor anything else should be used as a cover or excuse for my own action or inaction.
6. So: (1) the “soul” of Europe will be restored when children, and adults, are taught how and why to take personal responsibility for their actions.
7. And so: (2) the real problem of Beit Shemesh is that 30 malicious nutters are being allowed by 10,000 passive chareidi residents to taint the chareidi reputation, because the 10,000 are failing to accept personal responsibility for the need to do anything positive to protect children from being abused in their name.
How Many Chief Rabbis Does it Take to Light a Candle?
1. I was at the Chanukiah lighting at the Kotel this evening, and very moving it was too – but one aspect of it brought to the front of my mind a thought that has been lurking undiscovered in the background for some time.
2. The Sephardi Chief Rabbi lit the Chanukiah and then spoke, very appropriately and movingly. And when he had finished we were all ready for a bit of dancing. But, of course, we had to have another Chief Rabbi first, for the Ashkenazim. There was nothing in particular for him to add – and the atmosphere was only dampened by his contribution. Then the Minister for Education felt the need to point out at some length that he wasn’t planning to give the Kotel back to anyone, which presumably nobody in particular had been expecting him to do today anyway. And then in order to dissipate any remaining fragments of atmosphere, some other random blighter said it all over again.
3. Then we would have danced, but almost everyone had gone home (including the musician!)
4. Although it wouldn’t have dealt with the Minister and the random blighter, it would have been a much better start to have just the one Chief Rabbi. And it does ring a little hollow to have them standing there going on about the indissoluble unity of the Jewish people when there are two of them!
5. The Chief Rabbi is not a position that requires sectarian loyalty; indeed, it should be above it. Nor is there any good reason I can think of why we couldn’t have just one Chief Rabbi of Israel. For halachic matters where there are differences between ashkenazi and sephardi attitudes, he could take advice, as they must have to anyway where there are other variant minhagim. And he could then talk about Jewish unity as if we (as well as he) meant it.
6. The only possible argument I can think of against having a single Chief Rabbi is that the position is more about politics, influence and control of budgets than it is about religion; and that must be too cynical to be true, mustn’t it?!
7. Happy Chanukah – and roll on a genuinely united Jewish people.
The Chief Rabbi, the Pope and the Soul of Europe
1. According to the Jewish Chronicle, in the Chief Rabbi’s lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University he said: “When a civilisation loses its faith, it loses its future. When it recovers its faith, it recovers its future. For the sake of our children, and their children not yet born, we – Jews and Christians, side-by-side – must renew our faith and its prophetic voice. We must help Europe rediscover its soul.”
2. It strikes me that this is about as inappropriate a moment as one could find for it to be suggested that all that Europe needs to rediscover its soul is co-operation between the Catholic church and institutionalised Judaism.
3. Organised religion in general seems to be doing as much as any other force in today’s world to sow the seeds of dissension and violence. While the Catholic church has particularly acute present crises of conscience, all the major religions about which I know anything at all seem to be contributing more to the sum total of human misery than to the sum total of human happiness.
4. The Chief Rabbi is undoubtedly right that Europe – and not just Europe – is in moral crisis, and to describe that as needing to rediscover the soul is entirely apt. Hundreds of thousands of people of all ages are desperately in need of moral direction and focus; and the lack of these is leaving a horrendous mark on the development of societies throughout the world.
5. But what these people need is not a new gang to belong to, or a new dogma to excuse intolerance and thuggery; rather they need help to rediscover the inherent appreciation of moral values that are the image of God in which we are all created. All religions worthy of the name – and many non-religious philosophies and approaches to life – are capable at a personal level of reigniting a human being’s spark of holiness; but organised religion, as distinct from personal religion, is as in need as anyone else of rediscovering its soul; and until it has healed itself it will not be ready to be part of the solution rather than an exacerbation of the problem.
Miracle-workers and money
1. The latest copy of the free London Jewish Advertiser – a useful advertisting magazine which I have always liked and admired because it has never pretended to carry any kind of substance other than advertising – contains an advertisement that one can only hope is simply a cruel and tasteless fraud.
2. The text of this full-page advertisement says as follows: “A G-d fearing man of great ability who lives in Israel, can heal people of cancer from one day to the next. He asks with every lashon of bakashah that women DO NOT contact him but a man should contact him or her behalf. Please speak only in Hebrew as the man doesn’t understand English at all. There are 2 things that need to be prepared: 1. To prepare a CT scan where there is a cancerous growth. 2. To phone the man abopve to arrange a mutual third party who you will agree to deposit an agreed amount of money, either at a Beis Din, Rav, lawyer etc., and to pay the agreed deposit to the third party. The man will then prepare a tikun and then to get a new CT scan from the hospital. If the illness has gone within 1 WEEK, then he will take the money as agreed from the third party. IF, HOWEVER, the illness has not gone then the man will not take any money at all!”
3. Hopefully, this is just a plain and simple fraud, in which case presumably someone will by now have arranged for the police in Israel to do the necessary.
4. But what was the Advertiser thinking of printing this stuff? The Advertiser is circulated to houses with mezuzot in orthodox Jewish areas, and is aimed at the orthodox Jewish community. Presumably, if someone wanted to insert an advert for pornography, the advertisement would be refused. Is there nobody capable of exercising enough editorial discretion to work out that this advertisement is either (a) a simple fraud, or (b) at the very least, every bit as tasteless as an advert for pornography?
5. Either this man has special powers or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, the advertisement is a crude attempt to extort money from the vulnerable. If he does, the advertisment is a crude assertion that these powers are to be made available only in return for payment, which is contrary to every notion of orthodox Judaism as I understand it.
6. What troubles me is that this is by far the first – although certainly the crudest and most tasteless – emergence of attempts to exploit religious credulity within the orthodox community. The number of glossy brochures for orthodox charities which now openly promise “yeshuos” – salvations – and publicise past miracles received by donors, seems to increase all the time. And several miracle workers – blatantly advertised as such – have been brought to the country and publicised in straightforward marketing exercises.
7. So it is time for the Jewish community to reassert that we are a community united by religion, not by superstitution, and that we are not all entirely stupid.
8. The power of prayer and blessing is an intense and real part of the Jewish religion – but it has never meant miracles to order, and those whose prayers and blessings are genuine, and therefore will sometimes be efficaceous, bestow them in a selfless and altruistic manner, without thought of payment whether on a conditional basis as suggested by this advertisement or otherwise.
9. An advertisement proclaiming powers to control divine intervention and offering to exercise them in return for payment is such a shameless parody of the concepts of blessing and prayer that the editors of the Advertiser should have seen from a mile off that to include it in their magazine would have been to subject their readers to gross offense.
10. Hopefully the next issue will carry an unequivocal apology.
Beit Shemesh Beastliness: Two Questions and an early New Year’s Resolution
1. Watching YouTube clips of so-called chareidim lining up in the last few weeks and days to bellow bestially at young girls going to and from school – in protest at their holy neighbourhood (which the school isn’t in) being sullied by the immodesty of short socks for five-year olds, has made me ask myself two questions and form an early pre-Rosh Hashanah resolution.
2. Question No. 1: How can these people seriously think that behaving like this is consistent with adherence to anything worth calling a religion?
3. Question No.2: If these men are meant to be chasidim, where are their Rebbeim, why don’t they know what their followers are up to, and if they do know it why don’t they or can’t they stop it?
4. New Year’s Resolution: Bli neder, I do not intend to give a single penny to any individual or organisation who asks for charity unless and until they sign the following declaration with which I will present them: “I unequivocally condem the behaviour of those so-called chareidim who bellow bestially at the schoolgirls of Orot, Beit Shemesh on their way to and from school; I acknowledge that this behaviour demonstrates apalling moral delinquency and utter spiritual bankruptcy; and I encourage this declaration, with my signature, to be brought to the attention of those gedolei Torah who are meant to be the leaders of these disgusting animals.” Those seeking a donation will have to sign the declaration and append their names, addresses and sectarian affiliation.
Yeshivah Inspections – Points of View
1. Last week’s Hamodiah carries an indignant out-pouring about the enormities inflicted on the yeshivah world by two Government inspectors who arrived in the middle of a rosh yeshivah’s shiur and attempted to insist on verifying the students at once without waiting for the end of the shiur. They were ejected by zealous students, the rosh yeshivah complained to the Government, and at least one meeting was organised at which the yeshivah world erupted into a self-righteous hysterical frenzy of scandalised victim-hood.
2. The Torah-true response to the incident would, of course, have been upon the following lines.
3. “What a disgrace it is for the Torah world that by the crooked behaviour of a number of so-called yeshivahs in claiming Government grants for non-existent students the Government has entirely reasonably found it necessary to inflict upon us the shame of having our claims verified by inspection of attendances; what a lesson this humiliation should be for us that by purporting to be orthodox and learned Jews our behavour should be beyond reproach or we heap insults on the Torah itself; let us at least try to restore our self-respect as a community, and a perception of decency in the eyes of others, by cooperating with the inspectors in a humble and helpful fashion; and, in particular, let us not waste even more of the public money by keeping the inspectors waiting just because we happen to be in the middle of learning – learning can wait, but reestablishing the honour of the yeshivah community cannot.”
4. Simples?
Messiah Delayed – Moschiach Can’t Get Through
1. When the Rabbis wrote, basing themselves on the verse in Psalms 95 “… today if you would listen to his voice”, that the Messiah sets out every day to travel on his donkey to the Western Wall they were, of course, speaking allegorically. Nowadays he goes by bus.
2. He starts every day at the bus-stop just outside one of the non-religious kibbutzim in the North of Israel. He waits patiently among a crowd of Israeli youths who stand around talking and joking with each other. Many of them are smoking, none of them is dressed particularly modestly, and the nature of their language is not always of the cleanest. “But, after all”, thinks Moschiach, “they don’t know any better – they come from a non-religious culture, and if they’re no better than any other group of humans at least they’re no worse.” He struggles onto the bus trying not to feel too disheartened, and stands because the seats are all taken: then one of the girls notices an elderly man or woman standing and abruptly motions one of her companions to make way. Moschiach sits down feeling slightly reassured.
3. Moschiach changes buses at the central bus station in Tel Aviv. He waits among a crowd of businessmen and businesswomen on their way to Jerusalem for mid-morning meetings; some men wearing kippot and some not, some married women covering their hair and others not. They ignore each other and jabber into their mobiles or poke away at little keyboards. When the bus comes they all shove on treating each other with entirely passive hostility. “But, after all,” thinks Moschiach, “they’re busy, thinking about making money to look after their families, and if they’re no better than any other group of humans at least they’re no worse.” Then one of the businesswomen happens to glance up and see an elderly woman or man standing, and abruptly motions a businessman she’s never met to make way. Moschiach sits down feeling distinctly hopeful.
4. Moschiach changes buses again at the central bus station in Jerusalem. He waits among a crowd of soldiers going to the Old City. They stand around smoking and talking morosely. When the bus comes they use their kit-bags as battering rams to make their way through the crowds and fling themselves down in the seats, eyeing the other passengers struggling on after them with disinterest or mild animosity. “But, after all,” thinks Moschiach, “they’re nervous and preoccupied, and they’re little more than children with adult responsibilities thrust on them, and if they’re no better than any other crowd of soldiers at least they’re no worse.” Then one of them sees an elderly man or woman crushed against the mountain of kit-bags and without much grace gets up and motions at his seat. Moschiach sits down feeling rather excited.
5. The final change of bus is in Meah Shearim, just outside the Toldos Aharon courtyard. Moschiach looks around: the placards on the wall proclaim that only the modestly dressed may walk through this holy neighbourhood; everywhere the signs of Torah learning and Torah observance meet the eye; shops piled high with holy books, men and boys on their way to or from learning sessions talking animatedly of their studies, women shepherding their young families along the narrow pavements; walls placarded with pronouncements of the great rabbis of the generation; the air buzzes with the “chareidi” Torah atmosphere. Moschiach is elated.
6. Then the bus comes. The crowd of chareidim charge at it without a thought for who came before or after whom. Men push women aside with unthinking violence. The elderly are shoved away unless they show an aggression that ill befits their years. Children are separated from their parents and dragged or pushed back impatiently. The rabbi who was preaching kindness and the unity of the Jewish nation just a few minutes ago is squeezing himself into the front of the queue although he only just got there. Moschiach sighs, and turns away. As the bus pulls out the rabbi thinks he saw an elderly woman standing on the pavement: he looks back, but he was mistaken – there is nobody there.
