Judaism and the Myth of the Noble Savage And More Bava Basra 45-47

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Judaism and the Myth of the Noble Savage

Our Gemara on Amud Beis quotes a verse from Tehilim (37:21):

לוה רשע ולא ישלם וצדיק חונן ונותן

The wicked man borrows and does not repay, the righteous is generous and keeps giving.

The mystical interpretation of this verse is that God is the lender, the one who gives us our soul for safekeeping. The wicked person in the verse is a person in the act of committing a sin. God is being gracious and loaning him life and vitality all while he is borrowing in an evil manner, taking things from the world without giving them back by using them for their intended divine purpose, such as mitzvos (see Chasam Sofer Metzora, 23.)

As the recent dappim have focused on the legalities of how ownership is established and determined over various objects, we have also been studying the metaphysical dimensions in a parallel fashion. What does it mean to own something? What happens spiritually when something is possessed by somebody? What changes within the object, and the person, when ownership is transferred? We have begun to see the way in which a spiritual person who is connected to God can experience every interaction and every possession as meaningful and related in a personal manner. In a similar fashion we saw in the recent blog post for Bava Basra 43, even the thief while in the act of burglary can also be attached to God, ironically, asking for assistance.

There is a romantic myth of the “noble savage“. The oppressed industrialized man of the modern world, stifled from the pollution and the tall buildings. He imagines a brave native person riding a horse, looking at the sunset, and feeling at peace and connected with the land around him. Perhaps this has basis and that there were human beings whose civilization was built less by conquering nature and more by interacting with it. On the other hand, could it be just wishful thinking and backwards projection. Who knows? Did ancient tribes use every technology they had to exploit the land and hunt with the same reckless disregard as modern man? Perhaps only the limits of their technology didn’t allow them to reach the level of efficiency to fully loot their natural resources, as we have done during certain parts of the 20th century. Still, their attitude may have been the same as ours and they would’ve used up whatever they could. I don’t know, but the myth of man being in harmony with nature is appealing. Regardless of the historical and anthropological truths and distortions, I think that this idea is being expressed in the ethos of the mystical teachings we have been exploring in these last dappim regarding ownership. There is a conviction that everything in life that comes to a person is a part of the person’s experience and a way of interacting and experiencing God through the world that he presides over.

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Remember to Forget

As is part of the text of Shas, occasionally the ancient editors and compilers would insert mnemonic words and acronyms to sum up various sections and tracts. On Amud Beis an unusual mnemonic is used: “Amalek”.

Rav Yaakov Emden notes this irony. How is it appropriate to use the name of our dreaded enemy, Amalek, of whom we are commanded to wipe out its memory, as a means to remember? The verse (Devarim 25:19) commands: “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

Rav Yaakov Emden says this is a lesson that every evil in the world has a good potential which can be remedied from within. Even the wicked Amalek has a redeeming quality that, under the right conditions, can become activated. As the Gemara Gittin 57a states: 

מבני בניו של המן למדו תורה בבני ברק; מבני בניו של סיסרא למדו תינוקות בירושלים; מבני בניו של סנחריב למדו תורה ברבים – מאן אינון? שמעיה ואבטליון.

Some of Haman’s descendants studied Torah in Bnei Brak, and some of Sisera’s descendants taught children Torah in Jerusalem, and some of Sennacherib’s descendants taught Torah in public. Who are they? They are Shemaya and Avtalyon, the teachers of Hillel the Elder.

But there is something else going on as well. The verse itself ironically instructs us to NEVER FORGET to wipe out the memory of Amalek.” A poor way to forget something that you want to forget is to keep trying to forget it. Our brains are programmed to prioritize memories that have greater relevance and emotional meaning. Therefore, the more attention you pay to something, even to check if you forgot, the more significance it occupies in your mind. If the Torah’s full intention was to forget Amalek, it would not use bandwidth or “Klaf-width” to remind us how much we must hate Amalek. As the adage goes, “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” And, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

The irony is compounded in how the Rambam describes the mitzvah in his Sefer Hamitzvos 189:

That is that He commanded us to remember what Amalek did to us in its coming forward to do us evil, to hate it at all times, to arouse the consciousness of the people with statements to fight with it and to make the nation zealously hate it.  

The irony can be explained by considering that contrast allows for definition. There can be no good without evil in the exact same way that all the light in the world would be meaningless without darkness to act as a contrast. If one only sees light, he would be effectively blind. 

It is also possible to understand this in terms of what we discussed in blogpost psychology of the Daf, Bava Basra 42 about the paradoxical effect of religious oppression. An enemy sometimes allows the person to define himself in relation to wanted and unwanted qualities. The enemy does not even need to be a person or a nation; it can also be a concept, such as Satan or the Evil inclination. It is notable that the patriarchs faced familial and social enemies and rivals. Avraham, with his hospitality and charity, was the Anti-Sodom, Issac and Yishmael, Esav and Yaakov also were foils. From these experiences and narratives, the identity of the Jewish people was formed. 

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An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses a counterintuitive Halacha:

אמר רב הונא: תליוהו וזבין – זביניה זביני. מאי טעמא? כל דמזבין איניש, אי לאו דאניס – לא הוה מזבין, ואפילו הכי זביניה זביני. ודילמא שאני אונסא דנפשיה מאונסא דאחריני! אלא כדתניא:

If one was suspended, e.g., from a tree, and thereby coerced to sell a certain item, and he sold it, his sale is valid. What is the reason? The Gemara suggests that it is because whatever a person sells, were it not for the fact that he is compelled by his need for money, he would not sell it, and even so, his sale is valid. This indicates that a transaction performed under duress is valid. The Gemara rejects this: But perhaps duress that results from his own needs, such as his need for money, is different from duress that results from another, as in this case. 

A duress that comes from circumstances that are partially within a person’s locus of control, such as finance, is easier to accept than a sudden ruffian who accosts you, hangs you from a tree, and makes  “An offer you can’t refuse.” This might be due to the fact that personal and financial circumstances often have a slow buildup, allowing the person time to make peace with it, and accommodate the new reality. However, an aggressor comes upon the person suddenly, making it more traumatic and more difficult to adjust. In addition, in studies of trauma statistically, people have worse reactions to traumas that come from interpersonal activity as opposed to natural disasters. For example, on average, it is harder to recover from the loss of a relative who was murdered in comparison to the loss of a relative who died as a result of an earthquake. I think this is because as humans we are social animals and therefore cannot help but in some way have our status affected by the reactions of others and the relationships of others. Therefore, even a vile criminal and terrorist is still a person and that still impacts us differently, making us feel humiliated as a victim in comparison to a force of nature. 

We see from this distinction an interesting truth of human nature. When an event occurs that we can prepare ourselves for, that we could somewhat control, it is more easily internalized as our own failure or lack of personal strength or status, and therefore more damaging.