Letters Nov. 2024

Noah and the Raven

Avi: Hi. How are you? Just thought today on the Rashi about the raven not leaving [the ark] because of suspicion of Noach and the raven’s mate? What is the idea?

Rabbi: Noach was disturbed with his travails; anyone would be when the world is flooded. He was bothered by the extermination of life requiring its regeneration, embodied in the species’ procreation, the area in which he expressed some aggression. He didn't have issues with the species that had seven of a kind onboard, because killing one dove would not make extinct that species. So he expressed it in the species that only had two birds aboard the Ark, the Raven. By sending one away, he would make extinct the Raven, with only the male Raven left.

The point is is that the renewal of the species was the focus of the Flood and it was in this area that Noach expressed some unconscious aggression by terminating a species.

Rabbi Israel Chait taught that Moses acted similarly when he made the mistake about circumcising his son (Exod. 4:24). This error was due to Moses’ resistance to the mission: a mission of God’s covenant with the Jews, expressed circumcision (Gen. 17:10, Exod. 12:43-48). So it was in this specific area that Moses expressed resistance.

Tzedaka

Omphile Tshipa: Can you please explain what tzedaka is. I have been under the impression that tzedaka is “rightness” (doing what is right). However in Rabbi Chait’s work “Avos 5-6,” he quotes this verse:

For I have selected him, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is tzedaka and justice” (Gen. 18:19)

By citing both, tzedaka and justice, Hashem seems to be differentiating between the two.

Rabbi: Maimonides distinguishes tzedaka from mishpat and chessed (Guide, book iii, chap. liii):

We have explained the expression chessed as denoting an excess [in some moral quality]. It is especially used of extraordinary kindness. Loving-kindness is practiced in two ways: first, we show kindness to those who have no claim whatever upon us; secondly, we are kind to those to whom it is due, in a greater measure than isd ue to them.

The term tzedaka is derived from tzedek, “righteousness,” it denotes the act of giving every one his due, and of showing kindness to every being according as it deserves. In Scripture, however, the expression tzedaka is not used in the first sense, and does not apply to the payment of what we owe to others. When we therefore give the hired laborer his wages, or pay a debt, we do not perform an act of tzedaka. But we do perform an act of tzedaka when we fulfill those duties towards our fellow men which our moral conscience imposes upon us: e.g., when we heal the wound of the sufferer. Thus Scripture says, in reference to the returning of the pledge [to the poor debtor]: “And it shall be tzedaka (righteousness) unto thee” (Deut. xxiv. 11). When we walk in the way of virtue we act righteously towards our intellectual faculty, and pay what is due unto it; and because every virtue is thus tzedaka, Scripture applies the term to the virtue of faith in God. Comp. “And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. xv. 6), “And it shall be our righteousness" (Deut. vi. 25). 

The noun “mishpat; judgment," denotes the act of deciding upon a certain action in accordance with justice which may demand either mercy or punishment.

We have thus shown that chessed denotes pure charity; tzedakah is kindness, prompted by a certain moral conscience in man, and being a means of attaining perfection for his soul, whilst mishpat may in some cases find expression in revenge, in other cases in mercy.

Rabbi Israel Chait elaborated: 

Tzedaka means righteousness, Mishpat means justice. Justice means that each person is treated in the same way: if a poor man works for an hour, he gets the same wage as the rich man, and vice versa. When we take it upon ourselves to make sure that this is so, that is righteousness. We may even have to put our lives on the line; we must do everything we can to ensure that justice is carried out in our society. In doing so, we are righteous. 

This is all on a private plane. On a higher level, if we see that certain people do not receive what they deserve, in other words they are impoverished, we even the score and provide them with what they need to remove their poverty. In other words, we correct what nature has done, or failed to do. This is righteousness on a higher plane, we call this Tzedaka.