My children are now at an age of exploration. While they like to explore with different combinations of foods and will find a use for an object meant for one room in another place in the house, they are particularly fascinated with the concept that the earth moves. They can’t understand how that is fact when they do not feel it. They perceive movement  in a car, which sometimes leads to another type of mess, and they can sense the difference between moving and being stationary. One day last week, I saw the clouds moving over the Empire State building and decided to record it, to show to my kids. It gives a perspective of movement, of realizing how quickly we are moving and that we are really in motion. Context is everything.

After the famous opening salvo of our Parsha, the intense judicial pursuit of justice, and prior to the portion mandating following the opinions of the contemporary sages, we find a few verses pertaining to idolatry.

"לא תטא לך אשרה כל עץ אצל מזבח ה' אלקיך אשר תעשה לך. ולא תקים לך מצבה אשר שנא ה' אלקיך" (דברים ט"ז:כ"א-כ"ב).

“You shall not plant for yourself a tree for idol worship, any tree, bnear the Altar of Hashem, your God, that you shall make for yourself. And you shall not erect for yourself a monument, which HASHEM your God hates” (Devarim 16:21-22).

The Torah portion continues with describing someone who serves other gods, and illicitly bows to the sun, the moon or the stars.

In the aforementioned verse, the prohibition against the Asherah tree makes sense. But what is wrong with a monument? Why does Hashem hate it? The language seems particularly acute as it is curiously ambiguous.

Rashi notes that God likes altars fashioned from multiple stones. This one, however, which I envision would appear as a tombstone today, was used by the Canaanites for idolatrous purposes. Rashi states, even though it was beloved to God in the time of the patriarchs, now He hates it, since the Canaanites perverted its use for something profane.

Rabbi S.R. Hirsch notes that a monument is a stone taken from God’s creation, whereas an altar is built of several stones, hence represents the “devotion of human activity to God.” Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (Ozyanim laTorah) offers another type of distinction. He argues that monuments are for individual offerings to God; altars are for communal sacrifice. Yes, the forefathers built monuments. But once the Jewish nation accepted the covenant of Sinai, our focus was on collective service, not that of the individual anymore.

What struck me was how something was so beloved to God and, in a different context, became anathema. The forefathers and even Moshe offered gifts to God on monuments. But the Torah here relates that now, Hashem hates them. This is a powerful message, a Divine modeling for us.

Why is this particular passage found in the context of the judge? Da’as Mikrah suggests that since we are talking about rabbinic judges, they need to first address the issues of idolatry as that is the first prohibition in the Decalogue. “First the judges need to focus on issues of faith, to assure that there is no idolatry in the nation. The service of God needs to be pure and refined, and no iota of prohibited foreign cultures can be mixed in.”

I’d like to suggest that perhaps this idea can be found among the judges because while there is a rigidity to our system – following the sages even when they seem to tell us that our right is left and our left is right (read forward in the text!) – we also need to know that contexts can change things, for better or for worse. The Torah does not change: the world around us does.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein z’l was perhaps the most influential 20th century American halachist. His volumes of responsa are both exhaustive and definitive. He ruled on many sectors where modernity and Torah intersected and bore the broad shoulders of the judge mentioned in the Parsha. I would like to mention two rulings of his that allowed for degrees of change from what had transpired earlier, given the change of circumstance and context.

The first area is that of milk. Jewish law requires proof that milk is kosher. This means that something labeled milk cannot be assumed to be kosher. Not only does the milk need to be the product of an animal that is kosher (i.e. split hooves and cud-chewing), but the animal must also be healthy. An animal with a condition where it will not live a year is not kosher (that is the denotation of the word treife). This is called chalav yisrael, milk certified by a Jew. Jewish law does not make this a choice: milk, like meat, needs direct oversight. Rabbi Feinstein, however, saw that the safeguards in the United States provided by the USDA, ensured that the milk was indeed cow’s milk. He ruled that in the United States, one can rely on regular milk purchased at the supermarket, and ruled that it fell under the category of chalav yisrael. I have spoken to people who lived on the Lower East Side who have told me with certainty that he himself drank milk not certified as chalav yisrael. In other words, he relied on his own ruling. He did suggest that if one can purchase chalav yisrael, they should, and it behooves Jewish institutions to make the effort.  

The law didn’t change that milk needs supervision. Rav Moshe felt that the deterrent against a company that would dare switch cow’s milk with that of a non-kosher animal was strong enough; that the USDA would catch them and punish them and the company would not dare do it. He saw that the USDA could be counted on to ensure the kosher status of milk.

The definition of death in Jewish law has been the cessation of breathing for millenia. The Talmudic test for determining if death has occurred was placing a feather below the nostril. During Rabbi Feinstein’s later years, the medical community almost unanimously agreed that brain stem death was also death, even if one was still breathing. This distinction offers a great chance of harvesting organs from brain dead (i.e. dead) individuals, which can, of course, save the lives of others. Rabbi Feinstein spent countless hours with neurologists and cardiologists absorbing the science and ruled that brain death could indeed be halachic death. Many halachic experts disagree with Rabbi Feinstein, as is their right. Rabbi Hershel Schachter, the posek for the OU and the YU community, is in doubt over the issue, and as such, feels that we should be strict and wait for cessation of breathing. Remember, harvesting organs from someone who is considered alive, is nothing short of murder. But I would debate anyone who felt that Rabbi Feinstein did not have a right to his opinion and that American Jewry most certainly should follow Rav Moshe’s guidance.

This is another example of circumstances changing.

Permit me to share two vignettes, both revolving around the emerging state of Israel. The first takes us back to 1948 in B’nai Brak. One of the crown jewels of this central Israeli city is the yeshiva of Ponovezh, which was moved to Israel from its original location in Lithuania towards the end of World War II. Ponovezh is not known as a Religious Zionist institution. Its leaders, most notably the late sage Rabbi Elazar Shach zt’l, strongly and publicly battled Zionism. But every year on Israel’s Independence Day, the Israeli flag is flown on a pole outside Ponovezh, a rare sight in its B’nai Brak neighborhood. Rabbi Kahanman, who led the yeshiva from Lithuania to Israel insisted on flying it. He reminisced that when in Lithuania, the yeshiva was compelled to fly the Lithuanian flag by the Lithuanian authorities on its national holiday. As such, he reasoned, why should we not fly it on the date marking the birth of a Jewish state? To this day, the flag is flown annually at Ponovezh for this reason.

The second illustration is a sad one, as it marks the passing of a great Israeli hero, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Hakohen Cohen, the late chief rabbi of Haifa. His father, known as the Nazir, was one of the chief disciples of Rabbi A.Y. Hakohen Kook zt’l. He served as an officer in the IDF and was a beloved rabbinic figure all of his life. I had the fortune of driving him to and from the airport in Washington as he served as the keynote speaker for our shul’s Shloshim observance after the murder of Prime Minister Rabin, whom Rabbi Cohen knew well. He was the judge the Torah describes in the Parsha. He was a charismatic, handsome, loving character whose smile could melt away conflict. He married the daughter of Rabbi Herbert Goldstein, a renowned American rabbi, who held a prominent Manhattan pulpit. His wife’s grandfather was the late Harry Fischel z’l, one of the most important Jewish philanthropists of the early 20th century, who also lent his name (and money) to Amiel, the rabbinic training institute headed by Rabbi Cohen. Please read the obituaries in the Jewish media about Rabbi Cohen. But I would like to share one story about his wedding that I’ve seen “making the rounds” on social media.

Rabbi Cohen arrived at his wedding in Israel wearing his army officer’s uniform (you can amazingly see the video HERE.) Some found this inappropriate, given the gravity of the day and his amazing lineage. This issue caused Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Hakohen Kook, son and scion of Rabbi A.Y. Hakohen Kook, to comment. He said,

“I’m not sure the Shtreimel (the furry head covering sported by Chassidim on Shabbat and holidays) has achieved sanctity. It’s not 100% clear. After the fact, it has. But I do know that the uniform of the IDF, the army that protects the Jewish people and the Jewish nation is sanctified attire. That I know 100%.”

Indeed, context is everything. Were a man to wed in the fatigues of the Lithuanian army, protests would be warranted. But the Israeli uniform is much different. It’s not just any uniform.

The Torah is unchanging. But the circumstances to which it is applied is quite dynamic. While we do not have carte blanche to make changes (a rabbinic will is not a halachic way and I do not believe we Ashkenazim can abolish the kitniyos prohibition (legumes such as rice, soy, beans…) on Pesach, we do have to understand that our system does undergo change. But that change is external not internal.