Vayishlach: Relating to Goyim/Secular

The Rishonim used to review Parshas Vayishlach before any any time he had to travel and interact with with the Roman authorities that in Parshas Vayishlach he saw a blueprint for how how a Jew is is supposed to interact with with the Umos Haolam.

כה תאמרו לאדני לעשו כה אמר עבדך יעקב עם לבן גרתי ואחר עד עתה.

So Rashi of course quotes two pshatim im lavan garti לא נעשיתי שר וחשוב I didn't become an important dignitary there's nothing for you to resent me nothing for you to hate me or עם לבן גרתי ותריג מצות שמרתי. Why does Yaakov Avinu think that it's of interest to Esav whether taryag mitzvos shamarta or taryag mitzvos didn't you should know that you should know that I've not only been putting on tefillin every day I've been putting on תפילין של רבינו תם and haven't gone daled amos belo torah belo tefillin I'm not sure. So it'chayn that sometimes when a person is talking to other people part of what he says or at least on one level part of what he means when he says things he's talking to himself. Sometimes a person needs to be mechazeik himself a person needs to remind himself and that level of meaning doesn't really relate to and truth is isn't really intended to be communicated it's more bein adam le'atzmo than it is bein adam lechavero. And the two pshatim of Rashi so im lavan garti what Yaakov intends for Esav's ears is לא נעשיתי שר וחשוב I was a stranger and what he needs for himself to be mechazeik himself he needs to say that taryag mitzvos shamarti. And that's a very very important lesson lemaseh especially living in chutz la'aretz so we literally live side by side and oftentimes in in the workplace and maybe in other venues are involved in cooperative ventures and as as it should be the Rav's famous drasha in ger vetoshav. But precisely because all that's true it's very very important that we remind ourselves of the taryag mitzvos shamarti a Jew has to have a feeling of otherness. And it'chayn in addition to what we just said about the relationship between the two different levels of what garti means that one's intended for Esav one's intended for Yaakov Avinu himself it'chayn that both are intended for Yaakov Avinu himself and that these two things are linked. I remain a ger I remain a stranger because taryag mitzvos shamarti. And a person again all the appropriate involvement and cooperation notwithstanding but precisely because of that a person has to constantly reinforce that sense of otherness. You know when Haman libels Bnei Yisrael to Achashveirosh and he says

ישנו עם אחד מפזר ומפרד בין העמים ודתיהם שנות מכל עם ודת המלך אינם עשים

so it's the last half which is the which is the libelous part that ודתי המלך אינם עושים that the Jews aren't loyal law-abiding citizens. That's where the slander is because it obviously has never been true. But that דתיהם שונות מכל עם that they live differently, that they're other. So that part is true and that part is supposed to be true and it's supposed to be something that is integral to a person's self-perception, to a person's identity is that a Jew means having a sense of otherness. Too often we reduce the difference between Taryag and Sheva to mathematics, to 606, and it doesn't add up to a sense of otherness. And it expresses itself, it's what underlies certain weaknesses that we have. Let's say when it comes to a standard of dress. Obviously it's more of a nisayon for women than it is for men. But if we had a sense of otherness, again if 7 versus 613 wasn't just numbers and wasn't just a quantitative difference but there was a sense of otherness, so משל למה הדבר דומה. Sometimes you come to, not so much here, maybe a little maybe here in Yeshiva also you see it sometimes but certainly in communal shuls. So sometimes you'll see a doctor who's a resident. So he comes to shul in the morning he's wearing the, what do they call them, the hospital scrubs. So if anyone else would dress that way you would feel self-conscious, you would feel that this isn't an appropriate way to dress. But if you're a doctor and others know you're a doctor, so then it's a natural way to dress and the doctor appropriately feels comfortable and feels natural in that dress and we who see the doctor also react that way also. He's different. He's not in any other profession. He's a doctor and at this stage of his career that's the way he's supposed to be dressed. So because the self-identification that the person has and for that matter the identification that others have, the way this person is, again both the way he perceives himself as well as the way we perceive him, he's different and therefore it's natural that he's going to dress differently. If we had the sense of otherness again that there would be much more of a natural reaction, again it's obviously this example is much more of a nisayon for women than for men. It would be a natural reaction that a bas Yisrael doesn't dress that way the same way a doctor dresses a certain way, that's part of the professional expectation and later in the career so most people don't walk around in the white coats and if you put the white coat on an accountant he'd feel very funny, he'd feel very very strange. And it's the natural thing and the appropriate thing for the doctor because there's a sense of otherness. To take an example which perhaps is again relevant at this stage in life, later it sort of fades considerably. Even when we think about secular studies and we think about the role of chachmah. So again the marei mekomos are all well-known, the different approaches in the rishonim acharonim all very well and voluminously documented. But there is a tendency sometimes to within the camp that That assigns value to chochmah and to secular studies to sort of just adopt the gentile humanistic definition of what's valuable in terms of chochmah and what not. If there would be a sense of otherness, so then, no, it's not— okay, so what is so so all the marei mekomos about chochmah and other things, but l'maiseh, so what disciplines do they include and what disciplines don't they include? Lav davka that everything that Erasmus thought was chochmah, that he's the posek achron in terms of what what we would consider chochmah to be. In the the culture or the subculture in which we live, again, certain things taken for granted, and the more we would have a sense of otherness, the less we would take it for granted. We take for granted that something like listening to the radio is a pretty innocent and innocuous activity. Take that for granted. In our our society, it's whatever, I don't know, maybe people don't listen to the radio anymore, they're too busy online, so radios and I don't know, people don't listen to the radios anymore, I don't know. I don't know, people in my generation used to listen to radios, I don't know, maybe they don't listen anymore. L'maiseh, a significant percentage, I assume it hasn't changed too much, but it used to be the case that a significant percentage of the news was about two of the gimmel aveiros that yehareg v'al ya'avor. Was about all the shfichas damim and about all the gillui arayos. The the scandals that that make the news are are often have to do with gillui arayos, and and the shfichas damim is is always a leading candidate for to be the the leading leading story. But we just sort of take for granted that that's innocuous and that that's innocent, even though l'maiseh, it doesn't do anything for taharas hamachshavah. Doesn't do anything at all for for that area of of one's avodah. So why is it that that all these things go unquestioned? And if anyone questions it to us, so our knee-jerk reaction is that's so extreme and draconian and and unthinkable. Because there is no sense of otherness. There's a sense of of again, all the— again, without without upsetting the balance of the rav's drasha in ger v'toshav and without looking to to diminish what involvement a person is supposed to have, but none of that is supposed to erode the sense of ger, the sense of otherness. And if we would have a sense of otherness, we wouldn't take anything for granted. If we really had the sense of otherness that a Jew is supposed to have, then we wouldn't take anything for granted about gentile society. We wouldn't take what's so basic and axiomatic to its to its its culture, its newspapers, other forms of media for granted. Even in whatever, I don't know, I'm not sure to to whatever extent they still exist, but even in whatever pockets of morality exist in in today's society, so obviously it's totally alien to the society in which we live, the separation of genders that halacha puts forth. The אל תרבה שיחה עם האשה is something which is obviously a a value and a musag which is totally alien to the society in which we live. And it's because of that. That basically we're so out of tune with it because again there is no sense of otherness vis-a-vis the culture and society in which we live. And what happens when we don't have that sense of otherness is that without realizing it we adopt, we absorb all kinds of assumptions, values, lifestyles, axioms, and the fact that tznius, the fact that kedusha clearly, clearly according to the Torah's lifestyle involves a again a separation between genders and אל תרבה שיחה עם האישה is something because we're lacking in the sense of otherness, so that's one of the areas of halacha in which we can improve because it doesn't come naturally and we're not even sensitive to it because of the degree to which we're lacking this sense of otherness. When it comes to how much gashmius we have in our lives, here too we are I think unknowingly and unconsciously heavily, heavily influenced by Western notions and by Western standard of living. And when we seek to when we learn the Rambam in Hilchos Deos about the derech habeinenis so beinenis, you know, becomes inflated because of the preoccupation if if not the obsession that exists in our society with the physical comforts and pleasures. And the root cause of all these things, the reason that these things penetrate into our lives and our communities without our even being sensitive to it, the root cause of all these things is that lack of a sense of otherness of as a result of taryag mitzvos shamarti that equals garti. That ger hayisi. There's a sense of otherness. What's the positive definition of the otherness again beyond its quantitative manifestation in the 606 additional mitzvos?

כי עם קדוש אתה לה' אלקיך ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש.

There's an absolutely remarkable Teshuvos haRambam. He's talking about the different issurim involved in the Arabic poems by virtue of the lyrics, by virtue of the music, by virtue of the instrumentation and then the Rambam says but in general וכבר התבאר האמת במופת again this is the Hebrew translation וכבר התבאר האמת במופת. It's been the truth has been amply demonstrated. and expressed vehi shehakavana banu that the what the how our destiny what's intended for us sheniyeh goy kadosh. And what does that mean? So what's the Rambam's definition of what it means to be a goy kadosh? What is it that that sense of otherness is for what? Otherness to to achieve what?

ולא יהיה לנו מעשה ולא דבור אלא בשלמות או במה שמביא אל השלמות

that what we aspire to in order to live up to that label and destiny of goy kadosh is a lifetime's avoda, but to the best of our ability that whatever we do, whatever we say, should be oriented towards shlemus. Kadosh means sanctified, set aside for something. That's why it can it can have the most negative connotation of of one who was mufkar or mufkeres liznus to be set aside. So in its most positive sense so kedusha means, again, the reasons that this sense of otherness is that a Jew is always on a mission. And that mission is that a Jew is always in pursuit in his avodas Hashem of shlemus. And that's the standard by which to measure whatever we do. My father zichrono livracha once told a story that when he was a young boy, I don't know exactly how age and how what age, he had a book, I don't know what book it was. And his father saw him with a book and he looked at the book and he said I don't think there's any yiras shamayim to be had from this book. Between the lines of the comment sounded like that there wasn't anything objectionable in terms of the content, it wasn't it was just there wasn't any yiras shamayim to be had from that book. And remember my father zichrono livracha commenting how that that one comment, he said, spoke volumes to him. It's a paraphrase of what this Rambam says

ולא יהיה לנו מעשה ולא דבור אלא בשלמות או במה שמביא אל השלמות.

Again, it goes without saying when a person needs to relax and relaxes in an appropriate fashion, that's also mevi el hashlemus and that's also preoccupation with shlemus. Doesn't mean that a person's going to be wound up and tense. The same Rambam has his description in Shemona Perakim of going for a walk and looking at the trees and and the harchavas dadaas that that gives or if it's exercise whatever it is, we're not talking about not relaxing as a person needs to refresh himself and and to recharge his batteries. But we're talking about beyond that, when a person when a person can be directing his actions so we have a sense of otherness because we're on a mission. And the mission is to be a goy kadosh, to try to calibrate that whatever we do maaseh, dibbur, and presumably machshava as well should be bishlemus או במה שמביא אל השלמות.