The Exquisite Balance of Torah

גר ותושב אנוכי עמכם תנו לי אחוזת קבר עמכם ואקברה מתי מלפני.

When Avraham Avinu is requesting a burial plot for Sarah Imeinu, so he introduces himself as a ger vetoshav. Excuse me one minute, I'm just gonna try to, excuse me just one. Avraham Avinu introduces himself as a ger vetoshav, as a stranger and a resident. Rashi already suggests how to reconcile that seemingly contradictory description. When you come to the airport and there are two lines for passport, you either go to the US citizens line or you go to the other line. You're either in the line for one who's a ger, a stranger, or one who's a toshav, who's a citizen. So Rashi says the peshuto shel mikra is גר מארץ אחרת ונתיישבתי עמכם. I'm originally not a native ben chet, I was born elsewhere but I settled, a naturalized citizen. Umidrash Agadah, and then the Aggadic reconciliation, integration of the two terms ger vetoshav: אם תרצו הריני גר. If you want, I'll approach in the capacity of a ger, I'll ask you that you should please sell it, I'll pay top dollar. ואם לאו אהיה תושב ואטלנה מן הדין. But if not, I can exert rights to it because

שאמר לי הקדוש ברוך הוא לזרעך אתן את הארץ הזאת.

Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu has already given me this land. The Rav has a very, very famous pshat in this pasuk of ger vetoshav, yet a third pshat. In his published material, you can find it in a couple of places. I'm gonna read a few lines now from the English version of the Chumash Drashos, but the Rav also has it in his English essay Confrontation. גר ותושב אנוכי עמכם. The Rav says what is our position vis-a-vis civilization in general, with respect to science, to Western culture, towards the countries in which we live? The answer is enshrined in the brief self-introduction of Avraham Avinu to Bnei Chet. Certainly I'm a resident, I'm one of you, I engage in business as you do, I speak your language, I take full part in your social-economic institutions. I even serve in the armed forces and am ready to defend the country should it be attacked by an enemy. I work with you in the laboratory, in the laboratories, endeavor to overcome illness. I produce and develop the country, I'm a resident in the fullest sense of the word. But at the same time, I'm also a stranger, and in some fields a foreigner. I belong to a particular world, one that is completely foreign to you. It is a world in which I am at one with the Creator. It is a world populated by characters unknown to you, with a tradition that you do not understand, with spiritual values that seem impractical, so impractical in your eyes, pragmatic Bnei Chet. It's a world full of altars and sacrifices. sanctity and of purity. Now let's try a little bit to discuss what the Rav says here and also use it as a springboard. On the one hand, a Jew has a singular destiny, he has a singular mission, he lives in a different dimension. Hakadosh Baruch Hu when he offers us the Torah says ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש. We're a goy kadosh. Each and every one of us, individuality notwithstanding, within our individuality, is part of a goy kadosh. What does it mean to be a goy kadosh? So generally, we translate kadosh as holy. The better English translation is not holy but consecrated. That's what the etymology of hekdesh is in Lashon HaKodesh. It means something that's been set aside for a specific purpose, which is what consecrated in English captures that meaning, expresses that meaning. And that's why, even though we generally encounter rubba d'rubba, the overwhelming majority of the time we encounter kedusha and hekdesh in a very positive, in the most positive contexts, but really it can be in a negative context also. In Chazal, one finds hekdesh l'avoda zara. In the Chumash, we find לא תהיה קדשה ולא יהיה קדש. Because what it means is to be set aside for a specific purpose. If it's a noble purpose, so then we call that consecrated, hence the translation of holy. But if it's for the opposite, it's also a type of, again, designation, a type of being set aside for a specific purpose. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, it means that we're a consecrated nation. We're a nation who are consecrated. The Rambam writes in a teshuvah that what it means to be a goy kadosh is that we're oriented in everything we do towards one goal. We're oriented towards avodat Hashem, yediyat Hashem. We're consecrated to that. And that's our singular unique identity, our singular unique mission. And that's what it means that we live in a different dimension. It's not that we are also religious. It's not that that's one element of who we are and what we are. That is, entirely and exclusively, who we are and what we are. We live in that dimension. A different dimension. It's an entirely different dimension because of our unique identity, our unique destiny, our unique mission. And in that sense, we're gerim. We're foreigners, we're strangers. Can't be fully integrated on that level, in that sense. We're living in a different dimension. But Jewishness, not only doesn't it preclude, not only does it not preclude or exclude. humanity, humanness, it requires it as well. And that's what the Rav says Avraham Avinu distilled into two words, גר ותושב אנכי עמכם. In what sense are we also toshavim? In what sense are we citizens? Because we share in certain universal concerns and certain universal values in certain universal commitments. There's a commitment to the welfare and betterment of society. הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות means in whichever malchus, it doesn't mean only if a person is living under Malchus Yisrael. It means if a person is living non-under Malchus Yisrael. There's a concern for the welfare of society. There's a common commitment to and valuation of chochma. Whether the chochma takes the form of scientific knowledge, whether the chochma takes the form of psychology, insights into learning disabilities, there's a common commitment to and valuation of chochma. And there's a simple concern on the human level for other people.

אפילו הגוים צוו חכמים לבקר חוליהם ולקבור מתיהם עם מתי ישראל,

bikur cholim, kvuras hameis, ולפרנס עניהם בכלל עניי ישראל, support of the poor, mipnei darchei shalom.

הרי נאמר טוב ה' לכל ורחמיו על כל מעשיו ונאמר דרכיה דרכי נעם וכל נתיבותיה שלום.

It's a kiyum in vehalachta bidrachav. טוב ה' לכל ורחמיו על כל מעשיו. That's how David HaMelech describes Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Any description of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is normative for us based on the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav. The sequence of the two phrases that Avraham Avinu employs is crucial: the ger vetoshav. When we're suffused with Torah, so then we're in a position to know and confidently also fulfill the mandate to be a toshav. We know where to draw the lines. We know where collegiality is possible and therefore warranted, and we know where, such as interfaith dialogue, where there's no room for that kind of cooperative ventures. Through the lens of the ger, we know how and in what ways and to what degrees to be toshavim as well. Torah, Ribbono Shel Olam's Torah, Toras Hashem temima. is an exquisite balance. משל למה הדבר דומה the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the human body, it's an exquisite balance. When there's an imbalance, when there's too much of something in the system, too little, so then the whole system is off and it doesn't function properly. In the context of the human body, it expresses itself, it translates into illness rachmana litzlan, in more extreme cases into death. Ribbono Shel Olam created with an extreme, an exquisite balance. And Torah is like that also. Torah is an exquisite balance. When one overemphasizes or de-emphasizes something, what does it mean to overemphasize or de-emphasize? To over or under emphasize vis-à-vis the way the Torah emphasizes it. If we magnify the mandate of toshav beyond that which the Torah says, if we look for our values in society, if we look for our religious guidance in society, if we extend the mandate of toshav beyond what the Torah intends it, so that obviously creates a dangerous, destructive imbalance. But that's also true for the mandate of ger. If we overextend the mandate of ger, so that it precludes any element of toshav, if the particularism and the uniqueness of what it means to be a Jew becomes antithetical to what it means to be a person and share in certain universal areas and elements, so that also creates a dangerous and destructive imbalance. Every, there's so many couplets in Torah where the right balance has to be maintained. Ahava veyira, there has to be the right balance. Any time you have a beautiful, exquisitely designed system, balanced system, if we tamper with it, the system doesn't work, and it yields and generates all kinds of dangerous distortions. When we cultivate the dimension of geirim to the complete and total exclusion of toshavim, so much so that instead of having the correct appreciation and valuation of chochmah, instead we have complete and wholesale bitul, contempt, because it's something that belongs to the toshavim and we're only geirim. So that creates a dangerous distortion and imbalance in the Torah's exquisitely balanced system. Medical knowledge, medical protocols, scientific realities, all belong to The domain in which we're toshavim. It's almost impossible to describe the cost that has been paid in the past months for that lesson to be taught. It's not Torah, it's a distortion of Torah to contemptuously debunk or just apathetically ignore chochmas ha-refuah and all its halakhic implications. Because chochmas ha-refuah has halakhic implications. Sakana, safek sakana are medical realities. The halakhic course of action is a response to a medical reality. When Shlomo Hamelech said אל תהי צדיק הרבה, he was referring bein hayetar to such scenarios. Maybe it seems more righteous to be accentuating the element of ger over toshav. But the response to that is that it's true that the element of ger is more accentuated and more extensive, far more accentuated and far more extensive than that of toshav, but the Torah's already done it. Toras Hashem temimah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Torah is perfect. If you draw a picture, obviously a person can't do anything that's perfect, but imagine for illustration's sake, you draw a picture and it's perfect, and then you try to embellish it a little bit, so by definition it's going to be kol hamosif goreia because you can't improve upon perfection. And any attempt to add further, no, the picture's perfect. Leave it alone. Anything the artist is going to try to add, if the picture's already perfect, has to, it can only, it can only and it must, diminish and spoil. So just as Chazal tell us in a different context that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says אי אתם רחמנים יותר ממני, it's also true that אי אתם צדיקים יותר ממני. And the Torah said that our unique destiny, our unique mission, our unique standing, the fact that we live in a different dimension, all that notwithstanding, doesn't preclude certain universal, universally shared chochma, in particular we're talking about chochmas ha-refuah is one such example. And in general, this yesod that a person can't latch on to one pasuk in Chumash, one maimer in Chazal, to the exclusion of other psukim in Chumash, other maamarei Chazal. The same way it's true in this context that a person can't read the pasuk as though it says ger without toshav, equally true a person can't read chas veshalom that it says toshav without ger. But that's true in so many other contexts. As important as something is, it's not given to us to make it more important than the Torah does. One pasuk in Chumash, the Torah intends to be integrated with another pasuk in Chumash, with all psukim in Chumash. One halacha has to be integrated with other halachos. I can't latch on to one halacha, to one mitzvah, and at the expense of others. And it's important, very important, that when we live that way, we should have the confidence and conviction of knowing that it's not being less religious, it's being more authentic. It's not being less frum, it's being more emmestik. And that awareness of authenticity and truth is something that should mechazek us to continue and to maintain that derech. Kol tuv of course, everyone should be well, be safe.