Kreuzberg Commentary on Pesachim Daf 50

Opening Remarks

By Jeremy Borovitz

Sometimes, as Jews, we do things differently.

There is the law that was handed down to us at Sinai, and then there is the way we took those laws and passed them down and extrapolated and commented and passed them down some more. We've been celebrating Passover since Sinai, even a bit before, and the feelings of anticipation of the holiday are as familiar as the celebration itself. There is so much to do in preparation, cleaning out the chametz from our houses, preparing the sacrifice or the meal, baking the matzot -- and at some point, some people decided to work on the day before Passover, and others didn’t.

And customs developed locally. People did what their parents did and their grandparents before them, and then people started traveling for work, and also they would travel to somewhere else for Yeshiva week and "do I do one day or two days of Yom Tov?" and "can I eat Kitniyot (legumes)?" and "where is the line between being a part of the community and respecting the traditions from whence I came?"

"Take on the chumras (legal stringencies)," they told us. Be strict. But also, follow the local custom, because we don’t want to create dispute.

And so, we are left with a choice: Do we do what those around us are doing, or do we do what our parents taught us? Is my Judaism supposed to be more of a reflection of Berlin, Germany or Paramus, New Jersey?

In a city like Berlin, in a neighborhood like Kreuzberg, where so many people came from somewhere else, this question is all the more real.

What is our custom?

How will we celebrate our religion, heritage and culture? How will we venerate our sacred texts?

And how will we weave together a commentary that expresses a bit of who we are, while still being rooted in the words that have been passed down to us?

This is the second commentary of the Kreuzberg Kollel---a collective of students, teachers, artists, dancers, bartenders, journalists, musicians and everything else that makes us who we are. This is our minhag: to read the text, word by word, sugya by sugya, one chapter at a time, and to allow the text to pass through us. We are a vehicle by which our ancient oral tradition will be processed and passed on. We are the mouthpieces of our tradition, of our communities, and of ourselves.

This is our Chumra: to learn for the sake of learning, but also for the sake of sharing. For the Talmud was not meant to lie dormant in our minds and souls but rather must shoot out of us to the farthest corners of the internet, or at least to Sefaria, so that our voices can magnify new voices, so that the Kol Torah (Voice of Torah) of the world can be absolutely deafening.

Siman Bracha, Kavannah ("A Sign of Blessing, Intention")

By Deborah Cohen

Before we go to the meaning of siman bracha and kavannah, let’s ponder a bit on (natural) time. We will see later that they are interconnected.

Imagine you had no watches, no clocks, no cellies you could look at to discern what time it is. You might then want to see when the sun is setting to know when the day has ceased. When a new moon is dawning suavely, you’d know Rosh Chodesh. Or when the produce of the land you’re tending to stops growing, you’d stop eating it during a Sabbatical year. The edges of these timelines are a bit fuzzy, but they do the job (mostly). Their fuzziness renders them open to “remixes” at certain places, i.e. to regional specificities – minhagim (local customs) happen. Considering drawing timelines during daytime: How would you decide when the morning ends and midday starts? When does evening start? What would you base your timeline- drawing between “then” and “now” on? And why is this even important?

If you perform labor after crossing a timeline, you will not receive a blessing (siman bracha).

Time configures the meaning of our actions, i.e. their moral and spiritual value. Connected to that is the question if they will receive siman bracha or not. There is a right time for (in)action, and certainly a wrong one.

Considering what we know about performing labor on Shabbat and other festivals versus Pesach eve:

מה נשתנה? (How is this different?)

Here’s a case. Performing labor on

• Shabbat and festival eves. From mincḥa onward: if you transgress, you won’t be excommunicated. It’s not explicitly prohibited, but you won’t see a siman bracha from your labor.

• Pesach eve. From midday onward: if you transgress, you’ll be excommunicated, as this is explicitly prohibited. But when does midday start?!

The case is about the fuzzy beginning of Pesach and the mitzvot connected to it. It’s about halakha (Jewish Law), and about minhagim that endow certainty to fuzzy timelines. To follow the path(s) properly and without transgression of timelines, we have to know what time it is. There is no universal “now”, but we have to know the “now-frame” we can move in without being out of/over the now of Pesach eve. Otherwise, we might be excommunicated, and most certainly, we won’t see a siman bracha.

Oh... It’s about punishment and reward, too.

II. Fulfilling mitzvot

Turns out, in order to receive a reward, i.e. siman bracha, from fulfilling a mitzvah, it is OK to perform it not for its own sake. In the Mishnah (Pesachim 50a:23-50b:1), apart from the importance laid on the categories of time and place, there is an allusion to the notion of intent, +/- kavannah.

Here’s another case (brought up by Rava in Pesachim 50b:5).

Topic: Receiving a reward for fulfilling a mitzvah with and without kavannah. Case: Rava raised a contradiction between the following two statements.

• (A) “For Your mercy is great unto the heavens, and Your truth reaches the skies” (Psalms 57:11).

• (B) “For your mercy is great above the heavens, and Your truth reaches the skies” (Psalms 108:5).
  The Gemara helps out: (B) is valid in the case of someone fulfilling a mitzvah for its own sake. I.e. this person’s kavannah, their body and their soul, are completely filled by the longing to come closer to HaShem (God). Their kavannah is like a laser beam directed at the renewal, deepening, and thereby at the entirety of doing their relationship to HaShem.
  (A) is valid in the case where a mitzvah is not performed for its own sake. Yet that still gets a siman bracha, as at least this person is engaging in the fulfillment of the mitzvot and this in turn fosters the hope that one day, also their kavannah will be calibrated entirely like in (B). Keep on practicing. Your kavannah, currently scattered light, will turn to a laser beam one day.

III. Consequentialism and Deontology

When I read the contradiction Rava posed and the answer of the Gemara, I was reminded of Philosophy class. There, I learned that there are different schools of ethics trying to find criteria to assess the moral value of an action. Consequentialism is a position

that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. [...] Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act (or on some views, the rule under which it falls) will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative.

Hence the name: Consequentialism. You’re looking at the product of your actions. Thus in the example above, even if fulfilling a mitzvah is without pure kavannah, it produces the fulfillment of a mitzvah and is considered good nevertheless.

Yet the hope expressed in Pesachim 50b:5 is a turn from Consequentialism into Deontology. Immanuel Kant was a big promoter of deontological ethics.

Kant argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong, but the motives of the person who carries out the action. Kant's first argument begins with the premise that the highest good must be both good in itself and good without qualification. [...] He concludes that there is only one thing that is truly good:

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.

Kant then argues that the consequences of an act of willing cannot be used to determine that the person has a good will; good consequences could arise by accident from an action that was motivated by a desire to cause harm to an innocent person, and bad consequences could arise from an action that was well-motivated. Instead, he claims, a person has a good will when he "acts out of respect for the moral law." People "act out of respect for the moral law" when they act in some way because they have a duty to do so. Thus, the only thing that is truly good in itself is a good will, and a good will is only good when the willer chooses to do something because it is that person's duty, i.e. out of respect for the law.

“Acting out of respect for the law” is a crystallization of a complex process. Putting it in our discussion, it is set on constant exercise of mitzvot, and the resulting internalization of the respect for the law, i.e. duty. It can be felt when diverging from duty, e.g. as remorse or repentance. Both remorse and repentance become redundant if there is no “law-breaking” they refer to. It can also be felt by siman bracha as a spontaneous, i.e. natural answer to one’s good deeds. In the Gemara, this kind or quality of fulfilling a mitzvah is preferred, as it is an expression of a deep respect for the law, not because one anticipates any positive consequences. Yet it also recognizes our humanness and acknowledges fulfilling mitzvot in a consequentialist way. Better that than not fulfilling mitzvot at all.

IV. Anticipation to get a siman bracha – Pure or thwarted?

The Gemara continues to list labors and kinds of wages that never see a siman bracha. Of special interest to me was Pesachim 50b:10. There, it is said that if scribes who write Torah scrolls, phylacteries (tefillin), and mezuzot would become wealthy from their craft, they would no longer write these items. There is no belief that the purity of their kavannah will persist once the scribes start anticipating a siman bracha on their wage. This counts also for the merchants selling those items, and the merchants’ merchants... It seems that the wage, i.e. money, is prone to thwart those persons’ kavannah into a mere consequentialist doing of things not out of respect for the law, but merely for their personal, financial benefit. Therefore:

All those participating in the “work of heaven” (from writing Torah scrolls to selling the sky- blue dye for ritual fringes) never see a sign of blessing. YET: If they engage in these activities for their own sake, e.g. to ensure that there will be more sacred items for the public, they do see siman bracha.

This again points to the fact that our kavannah is not set in stone but can be changed – for the better or worse. It is as if the Sages do not want to heighten the risk of the kavannah being corrupted, and in order to do so. they “test” the kavvanot. Implicitly, they ask: Would you still write Torah scrolls, even if you won’t see a sign of blessing from your work?

A thorough consequentialist: “Nah, I’m good.”

A thorough deontologist: “Hell yeah! I wanna make sure my people get the Torah. ‘For the mitzvah/law is a lamp, and the Torah/Teaching is a light, and the way to life is the rebuke that disciplines’” (Proverbs 6:23).

We have to know the time and place for our actions to renew, deepen, and thereby enact our relationship to HaShem. We should mean it and perform actions for the Holy, not the worldly consequences. But if our inner lights are scattered, no worries. Their light is light, and with practice (Torah, Talmud, some rebukes – and a lot o’ luvin’, in my humble view), it’ll be a laser beam one day.

What Pesachim 50a and Pesachim 50b taught me about a controversial mechitzah (prayer separation) in Graz, Austria.

By Karen Engel

I lived for many years in Graz, in southern Austria. The Jewish community there is small and not very religious – but belongs to the “Einheitsgemeinde,” the umbrella Jewish community of Austria which identifies as orthodox. Ever since the end of the war, after the community offices of the local Jewish community were restored and given back to the community, the community held religious services with separate seating for men and women, but without a mechitzah. Even when the Graz Synagogue was rebuilt and reopened in 2000, with a bimah (prayer leader's platform) in the center of the sanctuary, the women sat on the right side of the bimah, and the men on the left. Even before the war, the Jewish community in Graz was quite assimilated and liberal-minded. Made up of a diverse population from Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia the Graz synagogue was the first in Austria with an organ, and the pre-war rabbi, David Herzog, had initiated Bat Mitzvah ceremonies for women. Even the first rabbi of Graz, Samuel Mühsam, would decry in his sermons how most Graz Jews in the late 19th century not only ignored Jewish traditions, but also only attended synagogue on the High Holidays, and often even failed to observe such fundamental holidays as Pesach. More than 100 years later, there was still a Jewish community in Graz, still quite diverse, and frankly quite assimilated.

Then in 2016, the new chief rabbi of Austria came to Graz once and mandated that the women had to go up to the balcony of the relatively new synagogue to pray. This balcony had never really been used for services because the acoustics of the synagogue, a modern building made with glass walls and adorned with a huge glass dome, were simply terrible. One could hardly even hear the shaliach tzibur (prayer leader) when on the ground floor. Furthermore, the synagogue was huge, built for 300 people, but at most 15-20 people would attend Shabbat or holiday services, if at all. There were times that it was difficult to build a minyan even for Yom Kippur – so even the separate group of men and women on the ground floor were not only quite distant from each other, but also kind of lost in the space. But more than anything else, it felt demeaning and offensive to be treated as second class members and exiled to the balcony. We women protested, but were told to observe “shalom bayit” (peace in the home) and not make a fuss. The new director of the Graz community, appointed by Vienna, also paid Viennese members to attend services in Graz who were used to women in the balcony in Vienna and supported the new minhag in Graz. In addition, a high mechitzah was built in the former community room which had served as a prayer room before the new synagogue was built.

To argue against the mechitzah or the balcony in terms of the egalitarian values of the Reform or Conservative denominations would fall on deaf ears in the Austrian Einheitsgemeinde and the new, more religiously strict rabbi. But the passages in the Pesachim 50a/50b in the Talmud are quite eye-opening. They deal with the importance of custom, and that even if a community chose to follow a custom that was more restrictive than halakhah, visitors to the community were required to follow the custom.

The Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 214 also determines that “A practice accepted by an entire community remains with them and their children, even if the children never accepted it. This is even the case when a city accepts a custom without being instructed by a rabbi. Those who visit them from outside the city have to take on their strict practice, as well as the strict practices of the city they left.” But what if the custom is more liberal than accepted practice in halachah? Does this principle still apply? According to the Shulchan Aruch, this applies to both stringencies and leniencies (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 214:2).

Moreover, the practice in the Graz synagogue did not question separate seating, it only questioned the use of a balcony and the mechitzah. The Graz minhag was not unusual. Many synagogues in the 20th century which considered themselves orthodox did not have mechitzot. In fact, the strict institutionalized enforcement of separate seating is something that only developed towards the end of the 19th century as orthodoxy set out to combat liberalism, and non-orthodox Jewish developments. It was only very recently that the Orthodox Union (the main body of Orthodox synagogues in the United States) adopted a policy of not accepting synagogues without a mechitzah as new members.

There is no evidence that the lack of a mechitzah led to frivolity or sexual distraction. In 21st century Austrian culture men and women mix continuously – at work, university, at cultural and social activities. One could also apply the principle of “regilut,” that is, routine. Several rabbis, such as Rabbi Eliezer ben Joel of Bonn (Ravyah, 1140–1225, an early Ashkenazic authority), and Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe (a leading seventeenth century sage of Poland) have urged relying upon what is commonplace in matters of modesty. Rabbi Jaffe wrote “Possibly because now women are very commonly among men, sinful thoughts are not so [likely to be aroused], for they seem to one as white geese, for they are so customarily among us, and since they [men] are used [to this], they pay no heed.”

I think one can make a strong argument that instituting the mechitzah and delegation of women to the balcony in 2016 is a violation of the Graz minhag and should be revoked.