The Authentic Torah Conscience

By Rabbi Alan Yuter
Posted Monday, July 3, 2006

Why is it that Jews have to be so different? We live by a different calendar, we eat different foods, we have a special language, we do things that no other nation does.

We ask for special accommodations for Shabbat, we ask for special foods on airlines, we insist that we cannot go with the flow of the larger culture, all because we are willing to and feel that we must be different.

I believe that we find the answer to this question in this Parashat Shelach's Torah reading. Moshe Rabbenu appoints twelve leaders, twelve princes, to explore the land of Israel. Ten bring back a negative report, two bring back a good report. The people, the nation, listened to the ten pessimists, and they would not listen to the two optimists. The optimists are the real Jewish heroes. What exactly is the Jewish optimist, the ideal Jewish model?

The ten spies, the ten explorers, the ten great men of prestige, honor, pedigree, and renown, who brought back the bad report were ten leaders, ten people who, by rights, should be taken seriously. They represented what was taken, or mistaken, to be the Israelite ideal. They were gedolei Yisrael, officially if not practically, the great leaders and heroes of Israel, the heroes of culture whom we are trained, conditioned, and commanded to obey, salute, and to defer. In realty, the great one's were not really so great. One is great by doing right consistently. True greatness is found in character, not position; in conscience, not office; in disposition, and not reputation. These people who were known to be great were in fact very small. They had no faith in God because they had no faith in themselves. They did not have the courage to say the truth, they were afraid of new challenges, of conquering the land. How can we be honest to God if we are lying to ourselves?

The Torah records the spy narrative so that we, the readership of a later place and time, space and history, appreciate the true Israelite ideal and act rightly. Therefore, the Torah records that Joshua and Caleb, were right. Their good conscience was in the minority, and they were right, anyway.

Caleb and Joshua were men of conscience, they were neither slaves to convention nor were they cowards. They reasoned, if God can take us out of Egypt and split the sea for us, would God be unable to conquer cities that are so scared of each other that they are living in walls, in fear of siege?

The Torah is teaching the following lessons:

1. The majority is not always right. The truth is according to Torah, not the majority. The only time that we assume the majority is right is in the Sanhedrin. Caleb was from the tribe of Judah, in the South, and Joshua, from the North, Efrayim. They were the only two adults who came out of Egypt who actually crossed the Jordan river. Even Moshe did not make it. God does not side with the majority when the majority is wrong.
2. Religiously conscience is crucial. One can have all of the apparently right answers, carry the correct pedigree, strut his or her stuff, be honored at dinners, be cited as a big donator or great rabbi, and still be wrong. But the authentically religious Jew is neither conventionally reasonable nor socially prudent. The Jew is daring, pious, and because the Jew believes, the Jew acts on that belief. This is the Jew who is guided by Torah law, and not by community convention, especially when the two are in conflict.
3. The Jew does not by habit go with the flow. Because the generation Israelites that sent the spies and listened to their ill-fated report, that generation was condemned to die in the desert. When the Jew goes with the flow, the Jew stops living like a Jew. That kind of Jew is in grave danger. The great ones of the ageare not always perfect, either, and the conscience of the little Jew, the minority Jew, the minority opinion, must be given a hearing. The great Israeli Rabbi David HaLevy taught that the student who defers to a great sage even though he is convinced that is wrong issues false rulings.

Had we listened to the minority report after we left Egypt, great tragedy could have been avoided. Had we had the courage to challenge Hitler when we could, would WW II be needed?

In our time, everyone is concerned with face, how things look. We make sha, shtill, do not make waves, do not be controversial. So when the Torah community is shamed, be it by an assassins bullet, by drug money being laundered by a Yeshiva, by an illegitimate computer college for yeshiva students, by lobbying politicians who bring down businesses to prop up yeshivos, we do not bring credit on ourselves. We are not permitted to steal from the larger society in order to finance what we mistake to be our religious way of life. If we cannot be Jews of conscience, we are not living the Jewish ideal.

To be a good Jew sometimes requires that we go against the flow. Moses' successor's name is Yehoshua bin Nun, Joshua, the son of the fish."Joshua" means "God will save." A fish reproduces often by going against the current in order to spawn. If the fish does not go against the flow, the fish will not survive, says the midrash. So too the Jew. We must be willing to be a minority, in order to survive; we must act upon our Torah instinct, our religious conscience, if we take Torah seriously. And when we see wrong, we must as individuals be willing to try to make it right.

For only then can we be like Kalev and Yehoshua,
for only then will we merit to enter the promised land.

The ideal Jew has to be a good person.
More important than being frum is being fine
Doing good is more important than looking good.
Nobility is of character and not of power.
The good Jew is not the Jew of silence.
The good Jew is not the Jew whose religion closes with the checkbook.
The good Jew is not the Jew who knows a lot but does not act on knowing.
The good Jew is not merely the ritual virtuoso.
The good Jew is the Jew who,

1. Is informed of the Torah,
2. And acts on the basis of information and good conscience
3. living the image of God
4. and who acts in a godly way.

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