Spiritual and Ethical Issues in the Bamidbar Stories by Dr. Meir Tamari ìAnd your camp shall be holyî; The Nazir [1] The three camps of Israel who wandered through the desert - that of the Mishkan with the Kohanim encamped round it, that of the Leviyim protecting it on all four sides, and that of the people in their tribal formation - were the prototype of national living in Eretz Yisrael. So the census and details of the camp were followed by three laws; guilt offering for acting deceitfully and treacherously against G-d, the laws of Sotah and those of the Nazir. "The laws against deceitful acts corresponds to the expulsion of all tum'ah from the Camp of Israel, showing the Presence of G-d in the social conduct of the people; Sotah showing the presence of G-d in family life parallels the Camp of Leviyim with its ritual purity; while the Nazir parallels the Ohel Moed showing the presence of G-d in the individual's striving for moral freedom" (S. R. Hirsch). The spiritually fascinating aspect of these three types of treachery is that they do not result in material or physical damage to the another party and so do not become liable for a sin offering, CHATAT. Rather, there is ASHAM, the guilt offering, since they are all deal with moral and ethical issues facing the individual concerned; hence in all of them the Torah talks about dealing deceitfully with G-d; Ma'al BaShem. "A man or woman who shall commit a trespass against G-d..." (Bamidbar 5:6-7); here this refers to theft from the convert or stranger, who may not have heirs who can claim on his behalf. But there is a more detailed version in Vayikra (5:21-23), that applies to our relations with every- body. Vayikra refers to all the fines and sacrifices to be brought in atonement for sins of M'EILA, acts of treachery. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of such acts. The first consists of the misappropriation of the property of the Sanctuary for private use and the second one is the misappropriation of other peoples' property. Illegal or misuse of other peoples' property through whatever means, is exactly the same as the abuse of something that may be considered as the holy property of G-d. A clear enunciation of this is Rabbi Akiva's comment on the opening verse of Vayikra 5:21. "If a person will sin and commit a treachery against Hashem", when one repudiates one's agreements or one's obligations, this is a trespass against G-d Who is always the third party to a contract or a transaction (Sifri). This principle is Judaism's major means of protecting us from economic immorality. If we recognize that what we are doing wrong is a crime against the All-Seeing and Almighty G-d, we would behave appropriately. The verse continues to spell out in detail just what it considers to be a treachery against Hashem. "By lying to his fellow regarding a deposit or a pledge or a loan or a robbery or has oppressed another or has found a lost article and dealt falsely therewith"; all of them are applicable to the most sophisticated and most modern economies. A deposit made on some- body else's behalf makes the recipient a trustee of the depositor like money given in trust to agents, lawyers or bankers. The use of such funds for one's personal benefit or for purposes not stipulated by the depositor or ones which expose the depositor to greater risks that he is unaware of, is just this trespass both against the depositor and against G-d. The value of the assets, their identity and evidence of ownership pledged as security for loans received, depend in no small measure on the honesty of the debtor. The use of offshore accounts, the creation of straw corporations and imaginative accounting methods are all tools in the falsification either of the identity or of the value of these assets. Imaginative accounting in order to hide existing liabilities and thereby decreasing the real value of the pledged assets would be a trespass against Man and against G-d. The Rambam includes in the laws of robbery, the biblical injunctions against oppression, withholding payment of wages, and the deliberate withholding of a recognized debt (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot G'zeila). Rabbi Chisda gave as an example of the oppression referred to in our verse, when he said, "Repetitively saying to your creditor, go and come back tomorrow and then I'll pay you - this is oppression" (Baba Metzi'a 111a). Our verse in Vayikra concludes regarding one who found a lost article, but either has not publicized that he has found it or refused to return it to the legal owner. This obligation has been extended to cover the prevention of loss of assets due either to natural forces or to the maneuvers of humans. It is taken in conjunction with the dictum, "You shall not stand on your brother's blood", to make us prevent other people from harming others, economically. Sins, causing damage or violating the property rights of others, require far more than the bringing a korban ASHAM, for their atonement (Sefer HaChinuch, mitzva 95). In such cases the guilty person has to pay back the default and only then may he bring the korban. It is not possible to achieve atonement before rectifying the damage, "for sins against our Maker, Yom Kippur atones, however, for those against other people, Yom Kippur does not - unless one first rectified the damage and appeased the injured party" (Mishna Yoma 6:9). There is an even more fascinating moral dimension to those sins for which ASHAM is required for atonement. In all the examples described above, one who admits his guilt is liable in addition to the korban, also to pay to the injured party a fine of 20% of the value of the wages, loan, deposit or found article withheld. However, in the case where the perpetrator took an oath in court falsely denying any wrong doing and witnesses were brought proving otherwise, he is only liable to return the wage, loan deposit or found article. Because there has been no remorse or no t'shuva, only discovery of guilt, he has actually done nothing to repair the damage he caused. Therefore, Torah does not allow him atonement of any sort, neither through the ASHAM sacrifice nor through the payment of the 20% fine. [Ed. note: the fine of a fifth is actually 25% of the value of the principal - the resulting penalty is one fifth (20%) of the total amount paid, i.e. the principal and the fine. E.g. If the principal has a value of 100, the penalty of CHOMESH, a fifth is 25, which is 25% of the 100, but is 20% of the 100+25 = 125.] [The Parshat Ha'azinu Homepage]
|
