The Humility of the Little Kaf -- How to Turn the Tide
As we head into the Shabbat of Parashat Tazria-Metzora -- which is also the Shabbat before Yom HaAtzmaut -- I want to share and build on the words of a colleague. In a compelling and powerful Dvar Torah published this week, Rabbi Aaron Leven wrote for the T'ruah list (a rabbinic social justice and human rights organization):
"Just days before Pesach, the Israeli Knesset passed a law that would enforce the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. Legal experts believe that the law is written in such a way that it would make it nearly impossible to ever apply to Jewish extremists accused of similar crimes.
Despite knowing for weeks that this government would likely succeed in passing this racist, discriminatory, and morally reprehensible legislation, when I received the news, I still found myself in a state of gut-wrenching shock. For anyone to claim that such a law is representative of Judaism is not only disgraceful, it is a chillul Hashem — a desecration of the Divine.
This week in our double parshah of Tazria-Metzora, we read about tzara’at, a plague of leprosy that can affect one’s body, clothing, or home. We read that when an Israelite encounters tzara’at in their home, they are to approach the Kohen (Hebrew priest) and say, “Something like a plague has appeared on my house,” "k'nega nirah li ba-bayit" (Leviticus 14:35). The Or HaChaim asks,
Why did the Torah not write that the owner says ‘plague,’ but rather as saying ‘something like a plague’? The answer is that the letter kaf (meaning ‘like’) teaches that even if the owner is very learned, and he has no doubt that the symptoms he has found are those of the tzara’at plague, he must not take it upon himself to pronounce judgment.
This little kaf is there to remind us of the sanctity of humility — to recognize that as human beings we do not have the right to pass judgment; that is only reserved for the Divine.
As I read the Or HaChaim’s commentary, I was reminded of our sages’ discussion of the death penalty in Masekhet Makkot. Despite capital punishment’s presence in the Torah, our rabbis felt deeply uncomfortable with carrying out any sentencing that did not, above all, preserve the sanctity of human life. In the opening chapter of Mishnah Makkot we read,
The Sanhedrin (the supreme court of ancient Israel) that puts to death one person in seven years is termed tyrannical. Rabbi Eleazar Ben Azariah says, ‘One person in 70 years.’ Rabbi Tarffon and Rabbi Akiba say, ‘If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been put to death.’ (Mishnah Makkot 1:10)
Despite a halakhic system that in theory had space for capital punishment, our rabbis were unequivocally clear — the death penalty has no place in our Jewish tradition..." (Rabbi Leven's piece continues... click here to read the whole thing.)
Like Rabbi Leven, I am dismayed by Israel's new death penalty law. I've also been horrified in recent weeks watching the escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and I recently joined together with many other Diaspora Jewish leaders in a letter to Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, trying to prevail upon him to curb their awful, unlawful attacks (click here to read that letter). As the State of Israel prepares to celebrate its 78th birthday this coming Tuesday night and Wednesday, both the legal and social changes feel like indicators that the country is moving further and further away from its founding vision, as articulated in Israel's Declaration of Independence, which reads in part:
"THE STATE OF ISRAEL... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."
Of course, as the saying goes, "those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." It would feel a little unfair to write about the extreme internal challenges facing the State of Israel without also noting the extreme challenges we face here at home in the United States, as we hurtle towards our nation's 250th birthday. Our country, too, desperately needs to learn the lesson from this week's parasha of the little kaf -- about the sanctity of humility and the need to curb our impulses to pass judgment or act with undue certainty. This week, the U.S. is the laughing stock of the world, with the American President having compared himself to Jesus and sparred with the Pope. Our country is waging war wantonly: our "Department of War" has been quick to carry out destruction on a scale that will take generations to rebuild, and effectively jumping to sentence-to-death so many civilians (in Tehran and beyond) who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In many ways, the antidote to all of this -- the unethical laws, the malfeasance and the lies, the destructive warfare -- would be the broad restoration of the little kaf explained above. In Tazria-Metzora, a single person who is willing to soften their assertions a little bit -- saying "Something like a plague has appeared on my house" -- creates just enough of a gap to allow in other people's opinions and room for Divine authority. If ALL of us were to speak softly in that way, our entire society would be transformed... with humility opening up the space for difference and disagreement, and pathways towards democracy and to peace.
We can feel the promise of the little kaf in Viktor Orban's defeat at the polls this week, where a record-setting number of Hungarian voters came together to deal a major blow to pomposity and false certainty. The little kaf is also a key element on the pathway towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians -- because it represents just enough softening to make way for holding one's own pain and the pain of another simultaneously. If you haven't seen it yet, I invite you to spend 20 minutes with Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon (they did an interview together with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show this week, about their new book The Future is Peace). As in past years, I also invite you to spend an hour on Yom HaZikaron (Israel's Memorial Day, which is marked on the day before Yom HaAtzmaut), watching the 21st Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Ceremony, hosted by Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle, and co-sponsored by Kavana (click here to register for this virtual event happening on Monday at 10:30am PT) -- it never fails to move me to tears.
This week, let's each try to restore the kaf in our world: to speak softly, to hold back on decisive judgments, to allow in just a smidge of humility. If we can help turn the tide and welcome humility back in, perhaps there is hope yet that the State of Israel might embrace its founding vision, and that here in America, we might yet build a society in which all of us can dwell with pride.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
