Neurotic Fear vs Fear of God and More Avodah Zara 65-68

65

Neurotic Anxiety and Fear of God

Our Gemara on Amud Aleph tells us about an encounter between Rava and a Gentile, Bar Sheshakh, who was not an idolator, but may have been an atheist, cynical of all religion:

Rava brought a gift to a minister named Bar Sheshakh on their festival day. Rava said: I know of him that he does not worship idols. Rava went to him and found him sitting up to his neck in rose water, with naked prostitutes standing before him.

Bar Sheshakh said to him: “Do you have anything as fine as this in the World-to-Come?” Rava said to him: “Ours is better than this.”

Bar Sheshakh said: “Is there anything finer than this?”

Rava said: “You have the fear of the government upon you; we will not have the fear of the government upon us in the World-to-Come.”

Bar Sheshakh said to him: “As for me, in any event, what fear of the government is there upon me? I am a powerful man.”

While they were sitting, a certain royal officer [peristaka] came and said to Bar Sheshakh: “Rise, as the king requires you to appear before him.” As he was going out, he said to Rava: “May any eye that wishes to see evil upon you burst, as it is clear that you were correct.”

Rava said to him: “Amen.” And then Bar Sheshakh’s eye burst.

Resise Layla (54) expands on the sentiment expressed in this aggadah. Bar Sheshakh — even if he did not realize it — suffered under fear of the local dictator. However, a Jew has no fear because God is his King. This is what is meant in the High Holiday liturgy: “Uv’chein tein pachdecha al kol ma’asecha” — “And indeed let Your fear be upon all of Your creations.”

To illustrate, I heard a story about Rav Soloveitchik on a Rabbi Rosner Daf Yomi Shiur. A prominent psychologist asked the Rav:

“In the High Holiday services, we pray that God’s fear should be upon all creations. Psychologically speaking, fear and anxiety are destructive forces, making people ill. Why would we pray for that?”

The Rav answered: “If you have only the fear of God upon you, you are free from other fears and anxieties.”

66 Cask and You Shall Perceive

Over the next two dappim, various conceptualizations arise about the nature of what transfers or actualizes prohibited food substances. Is it the taste? Is it the name — that is, if two substances are both called “wine” but have different flavors, are they considered a mixture of distinct items or of similar items? This impacts whether or not they can be nullified in majority. Furthermore, if the non-kosher substance mixes but it has — or causes — a foul taste, does that affect the kashrus?

These halachos point toward a deeper philosophical point: Is there an objective reality, or is reality defined by our perception and interpretation of matters?

Before you are quick to say, “Of course there’s an objective reality — otherwise, how is anything true?” … it’s not that simple. Consider sight and sound:

We are not actually seeing color. What we see is the contrast and the way a surface interacts with light, reflecting certain wavelengths into our retina, which then stimulates specific nerve patterns. In reality, every color is actually “all the colors except that one” — because the surface is absorbing all wavelengths except for one, and reflecting that one to us.

Sound, likewise, is nothing more than vibrations in the air causing our eardrum to resonate, which our auditory nerves translate into what we call “sound.” in a vacuum, such as outer space there would be no sound at all. It’s possible to imagine a creature that “hears” color and “sees” sound. (Indeed, if you place sand on a metal sheet atop a speaker, the sand will dance in patterns in response to the music — effectively, “seeing” sound.) Bats or Dolphins “see“ mostly with their ears, and certain adept blind people are able to get around by using clicking noises and sonar, known as echolocation.

It doesn’t stop there. Language itself is evocative — internal ideas and experiences matched to combinations of sounds we call words. It’s difficult to say if words truly mean the same thing to each person. Cross-cultural differences magnify this: in Japanese, certain formal apologies also carry shades of “thank you.” In l’shon kodesh, “shalom” means “peace” and “hello” — because of the conceptual associations embedded in the word.

The Baal HaTanya notes that in l’shon kodesh, the two main words for “things” are davar (literally, “word”) and chefetz (“desired object”). This indicates that things do not exist independently, but only relative to what is articulated and/or desired. ( https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2271263/jewish/How- )

Many modern philosophers grapple with this. George Berkeley (1685–1753) took it farthest with “esse est percipi” — to be is to be perceived. He argued that physical objects have no independent existence outside of minds perceiving them. Reality is a collection of ideas in the mind, sustained by God’s continuous perception. Without perception, nothing exists. This dovetails intriguingly with quantum physics’ “observer effect.” ( https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/ )

The Torah’s principle of Torah lo bashamayim hi (Bava Metzia 59b) — that the Torah’s application rests in the Sanhedrin’s subjective judgment — can be understood in this light. So too with kavua vs. bitul b’rov (Kesuvos 15a): majority nullification is not just statistics but about how reality itself is “composed.”

A more down-to-earth approach would be that even divinely ordained halacha must operate in the physical world, bound by human perception — “A judge has only that which his eyes see” (Sanhedrin 6b). But then, why did God design a world where truth is perception-bound leading to inaccuracies and potential injustice? That question is more easily answered if there is truth to the idea that reality is perception.

67 Kosher on the Inside as well as the Outside

Our Gemara on Amud Beis quotes (Devarim 14:21):

You shall not eat anything that has died a natural death; give it to the stranger in your community to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people (am kadosh) consecrated to your God.

In another verse (Shemos 22:30) referring to an animal torn apart by beasts:

You shall be holy people to Me (anshei kodesh): you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field.

The Kesav VehaKabbalah notes the subtle difference. In Devarim it says am kadosh — a holy nation. In Shemos it says anshei kodesh — holy people.

“Kadosh” as an adjective describes someone who acts with holiness, while “anshei kodesh” as a noun describes people whose essence is holiness itself, detached from material indulgence. The former is a broader, national level; the latter is rare and individual. The former is a person who behaves in accordance with Torah values such as extension and kindness and sacrifice, which are the ways of a holy person. The latter is a person who has become holy himself, has internalize these values deeply.

The verse about tereifah (animal torn or fatally diseased) refers also to the prohibition of eating sacrificial meat outside the Temple (Chullin 68a) — an extra level of holiness, abstaining even from the permitted when it is removed from its sanctified context. That is why it uses anshei kodesh. Consumption of food is symbolic for engaging in the physical world, and being sure that this food remains within the boundaries of the temple, is symbolic of maintaining a higher level of purity and abnegation.

I would add: a neveilah (unslaughtered carcass) is visibly defective. A tereifah may look fine but has an internal defect — detectable only upon examination. So too, anshei kodesh are holy from within, not just in outward behavior, this is why the verse uses that description in regard to the tereifah.

68

Manna, with Ketchup Please

Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses ta’am lifgam — when a non-kosher substance mixes in but imparts a foul taste, which may permit it.

The Boruch She’amar Haggadah applies this to the Dayyenu liturgy. For Dayyenu to make sense, each kindness from God in the poem must be valuable on its own. “If God gave us french fries, it would be enough; but He also gave us ketchup” makes sense. The reverse doesn’t, “If God gave us ketchup, we would be happy even if we didn’t get french fries,” because ketchup alone is no gift.

So how can Dayyenu say: “Had He provided for our needs in the desert for forty years, without feeding us manna, it would have been enough”? If we had no food, how were our needs met?

The Boruch She’amar explains: the manna’s extra quality was that it could taste like anything (Yoma 75b). Even if God had given us plain, unexciting food — enough to survive — that would have sufficed. The manna was a luxurious bonus.

He adds: if manna could taste like anything, why did the people crave meat (Bamidbar 11:4)? Because its default flavor was “like wafers in honey” (Shemos 16:31), and honey mixed with meat can produce a foul taste (Shulchan Aruch YD 103:4, Avodah Zara 39b). That is why, honey boiled in a gentile pot might be still considered permitted, because even if the meat flavor from the wolves and the honey, it would not add a pleasant flavor. Thus, manna could not mimic meat flavor satisfactorily.

This also resolves the seeming contradiction: If the Torah states that the manna tasted like honey dipped and wafer, how does that align with the tradition that the Manna could taste like anything? Based on the Boruch Sheamar’s conceptualization, we can say that the substance of the Manna tasted like honeyed wafers, while other flavors were overlaid as aroma or nuance. This is just like the pot of honey that absorbed the meat flavor from the walls of the pot, which had a foul taste. So too, the flavor that people wished onto the Manna we’re not the substance, but rather an aroma or additional flavor. And that is exactly why a flavor of meat, would clash with the Manna’s  inherent “honey” base.