Bedikat chametz

The mitzvah of checking for chametz occurs on the evening before Pesach. I can't find the source now (erev Pesach and I'm in a hurry), but my recollection is that the reason for checking at night by candlelight, rather than during the day, is that it is easier to find chametz at night than during the day.

This seems totally counterintuitive. Obviously, you would think, you can see better during the day so checking should be done then. Isn't it totally backwards to think you could see better at night?

I think the reasoning goes as follows. Nowadays we have two things that ancient people did not: modern building techniques and electricity. Once upon a time most people lived in closely spaced stone huts with small if any windows. Thus, most of their indoor areas were necessarily rather dark. Without electricity, the only way of lighting these areas was with candles.

So checking for chametz by candlelight made perfect sense: it meant using the most efficient possible indoor lighting. But why at nighttime? If most indoor areas received little light from outside, daylight would do little to help the checking. But it would interfere with checking, for the following reason. People's eyesight adjusts to the amount of light they perceive, and even a person who did bedikat chametz inside would probably go outside the building every so often. Upon reentering the home, everything would appear dark even with the available indoor lighting. But at night, it would be just as dark outside as inside. People could check the corners of their houses in the most effective way – with all the available indoor lighting (candles), and with the sensitivity in vision that was unavailable during the day.

Obama

This is why I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, and McCain in the general election.

That's despite the fact that I support most of his domestic policies, including the recently passed health care bill.

Brit Milah and reproduction

(Disclaimer: For a blog that supposedly represents the “beis”, this blog contains very frequent references to sex. It is tempting to ascribe this to the fact that I'm a single male, and thus think about these things all the time (Kiddushin 29b). But I prefer to ascribe this to the fact that sex, in the right circumstances, is an unavoidably important part of life. Most of the stories in Tanach are about sex or death, because those situations bring out the strongest emotions and present us with the hardest moral choices. It is natural, then, that many of the divrei Torah worth writing about should involve sex as well. The topic must of course be addressed with sufficient decency and reserve, but I try to do that, and hopefully I succeed.)

“I am El Shaddai: walk before me and be wholesome. I shall place my covenant between me and you, and I will make you very very numerous. As for me, behold my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of many nations. Your name shall no longer be called Avram; your name shall be Avraham, for I have made you the father of many nations. I shall make you very very fruitful, and make you into peoples, and kings will descend from you. I shall uphold my covenant between me and you and your offspring forever after you, as an eternal covenant – to be God to you and your offspring after you. I shall give you and your offspring after you the land of your dwelling, all the land of Canaan, as an eternal inheritance, and I shall be their God.” (Breishit 17:1-8)

In these verses, the introduction to the covenant of “brit milah” which God makes with Avraham, the main focus is on offspring – how many there will be and how many nations they will become. To make this more concrete, the birth of Yitzchak (the first such offspring) is foretold. Later on, it is stated that the punishment for breaking the covenant (by not being circumcised) is “karet” - being “cut off” from your people. According to one prominent explanation, this means the end of one's family tree due to lack of descendants. If so, this is a fitting punishment, the exact reversal of the reward of having many descendants.

Why is circumcision the sign of this covenant? The obvious answer is that circumcision involves the sexual organ, and thus represents the covenant's focus on reproduction. But this answer is insufficient. Surely there are other, less violent, ways of symbolizing reproduction. Why must the symbolism be achieved by cutting off part of the body, even a useless part?

Perhaps the following comparison will help illustrate why. Circumcision consists of the removal of a piece of skin or a membrane from the surface of the male genitals. Women, too, possess a membrane on the surface of their genitals. It too is removed at some point in their lives, stereotypically, when they begin married life. The removal is a necessary condition for them to become pregnant and have children. Perhaps male circumcision is meant to parallel this change in the woman's body. Just as the woman's genitals must be exposed before a couple can have offspring, so too the man's genitals be exposed.

Of course, there is a difference between the modifications. Rupture of the hymen is a natural process, and is a physical prerequisite for pregnancy and birth. Circumcision, in contrast, does not benefit for the reproductive process (on the contrary, it somewhat resembles castration, which prevents reproduction). But for a believing Jew circumcision is equally a prerequisite to birth, since in return for it God rewards us with offspring. The foreskin is a spiritual “impediment” to birth, just like the physical impediment in the woman's body. Removing both “impediments” demonstrates our faith in God's control of the world: that it is run by reward and punishment, not only by deterministic natural processes.

Midrash Tanhuma (Tazria) tells the story of a Roman who asked Rabbi Akiva whether circumcision did not contradict the idea that things made by God are perfect, and thus in no need of human improvement. R' Akiva replied with the example of bread: a loaf of bread is surely superior to wheat kernels, but God only made the kernels, and left us to finish the job by grinding flour and baking bread. Similarly, God made the human body, but left the final job of perfecting the body to us.

The midrash speaks of the male body, but its message applies equally to the female body. When human beings have children, we participate in creation just as God originally did. This is one of the most significant and Godly moments of our lives. As the Torah views it, both male and female bodies need perfecting before this can occur.

Thoughts on Ki Tisa

[God] gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. (31:18)

What is the point of the tablets? Israel had already heard the Ten Commandments as well as all the mitzvot in parshat Mishpatim. What is the point in getting the Ten Commandments again, this time in written form?

I think that the answer is that written tablets signify a more serious and formal commitment than the verbal statements (19:5, 19:8, 24:3, 24:7) that God and Israel had previously made to each other. It is often said that Sinai was like a marriage between Israel and God. More precisely, we can say that the verbal statements were like an engagement, and the actions that followed like a marriage. In halachic terminology, the tablets were a “shtar kidushin” (and the two keruvim hovering over them in the Mishkan, like “edei kidushin”). When Moshe took the tablets to Israel, he was effectively delivering the marriage document (or, in modern terms, the wedding ring) to the Jewish people. Once it was delivered, the marriage would be formalized.

The Mishkan, whose description dominates Sefer Shemot after the giving of the Torah, is the “home” in which God and Israel would dwell after their marriage. God's command in parshat Terumah begins by saying “They shall make me a mikdash, and I shall dwell among them.” (25:8) R' Yaakov Medan shows that the word “mikdash” technically refers to the tablets, not to the sanctuary as a whole. Thus, God's dwelling among us is a result of our possession of the tablets. Once we receive the “wedding ring”, we can then move into our shared home with God.

At that very moment when Moshe came down with the tablets, Israel chose to betray God by worshiping the Golden Calf. The midrash (Shabbat 88b) likens this to a bride who cheats on her husband(-to-be?) while under the chuppah. This midrash receives a much stronger basis when we consider the role of the tablets. Moshe broke the tablets upon realizing he could no longer bring them to the Jewish people. The “ring” could not be delivered while the bride was consorting with someone other than the groom. After forgiveness was obtained for the Golden Calf, a new “ring” had to be forged (the second tablets), and a brand new wedding ceremony performed.

[God] said: “You may not see my face, for a person may not see my face and live.” (33:20)

If we take this verse literally, we run into two problems: we do not want to say that God has a body (and face); and it's not clear why seeing such a face should entail death. But what basis do we have for taking it non-literally, and if we do take it non-literally, what exactly does it mean?

I think the answer comes from Vayikra 20:5: “And I shall put my face against that man (ושמתי את פני באיש ההוא) and his family, and I shall cut off him and all who stray after him, to stray after the Molech, from among their people.” There, having God's “face” opposite you means to be fully exposed to God and His intervention in the world.

Perhaps the same is true regarding Moshe here. A major theme of the Golden Calf episode is that Israel had to be separated somewhat from God, because otherwise Israel's occasional sins would lead to punishments that Israel could not bear. “You are a stiff-necked people; if for one moment I would go up in your midst, then I would [be forced to] destroy you.” (33:5) Something similar appears to happen here with Moshe himself. Even he could not survive the most extreme level of closeness to, and scrutiny by, God. Thus he was limited to seeing God's “backside” - that is to say, an encounter in which God was not “looking at” him, or scrutinizing his actions.

Here and elsewhere Moshe is said to speak to God “face to face”. We are forced to say that this encounter was less intense than “seeing” face to face. Perhaps “speaking” face to face simply means a normal dialog in which both sides can say what they want to say. (Since prophecy is often described in Tanach as a physically overwhelming trance-like experience, such a dialog by Moshe would be quite unusual and impressive). Meanwhile, “seeing” God means something much more intense. God is often physically represented in Tanach by something like a fire or tornado. To “be seen by” either of those, that is to sense their proximity to you, is physically dangerous, So is “being seen by” God.

[God said:] “...for I will not go up in the your midst; for you are a stiff-necked people; lest I consume you on the way.” When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned; and no man put on his ornaments. Hashem said to Moshe: “Say to the children of Israel: You are a stiff-necked people; if I go up in your midst for one moment, I shall consume you. Therefore now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.” And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mt. Horev onward. (33:4-6)

In these verses, there are three separate mentions of the Israelites' “ornaments”. They go as follows: (A) Israel does not put on their ornaments, (B) God tells them to take off their ornaments, (C) From then on Israel does not wear ornaments.

Part (B) is hard to understand. Why is God telling them to remove ornaments that have already been removed? Here are two possible, and complementary, answers.

1) As part of their mourning, Israel chose not to wear ornaments. But that was temporary: when the mourning ended, as it naturally would, they would resume wearing ornaments. God in effect commanded that they never again put on ornaments. The next verse tells us that they obeyed the command, and from then on ornaments were never worn.

2) Different words are used in each of the three mentions of ornaments. In (A), Israel does not put on (“lo shatu”) ornaments. In (B), God tells them to take off (“hored”) ornaments. In (C), Israel does not wear (“vayinatzlu”) ornaments. Perhaps, as part of the mourning, Israelites did not put on additional ornaments, but kept on the ones they were already wearing. God then told them to go a step further, to take off the ones they were currently wearing. From that point on, Israel neither put on nor kept wearing ornaments – they were entirely “stripped” of ornaments.

Why this distinction between putting on and keeping on ornaments? Perhaps, the reasons for not putting them on and not keeping them on are distinct. Mourning, presumably, means you should be indifferent to your appearance. Thus it's inappropriate to spend time beautifying yourself by putting on ornaments. But precisely because you are indifferent to your appearance, you do not bother to think about ornaments you're already wearing, so the fact that you're wearing them is not a problem. (This is even more true if, as is possible, the ornaments already being worn were part of normal and expected dress and had little “ornamental” value.) Thus, mourning is perfectly consistent with the Israelites' not taking off the ornaments they were already wearing.

When God told Israel to take off even those ornaments (or, according to the other explanation, keep all ornaments off permanently), He had a different purpose in mind. Remember that the Golden Calf was made from Israelite earrings (Shemot 32:3). Thus ornaments were potentially dangerous raw materials for idolatry. God told the people to stop wearing ornaments completely. Perhaps this reduced the risk that another Golden Calf would someday be made, and it certainly provided a constant reminder of the sin and a warning that it not be repeated.

Thus, God's command was not a reflection of mourning, but of distancing from idolatry. The people's not putting on ornaments was selfish in a way – a result of their distress at the recently announced punishment. Their removal of ornaments was selfless – a way of promoting moral behavior. God noticed their response to the punishment, and had them “tweak” it slightly. By this slight change, the people's actions were channeled in a more moral direction.

This moral improvement was held in their favor just a few days later. The people received forgiveness for the Golden Calf, not only because Moshe asked for it, but because the people began to deserve it. It is a sign of God's kindness and love for us that He initiated the very change that was later used as justification for our forgiveness.

One might think that by forgiving the people, God chose the path of mercy over strict justice. But in truth, there was no deficiency of justice in God's decision. Rather, the attribute of mercy was used to changed the situation, until the “merciful” conclusion became truly just.

On-time flights

As described here, many US airlines have been increasing the scheduled durations of their flights. The point is that a higher fraction of actual flights will arrive within the scheduled time, increasing the airline's "on-time" ratio and thus improving its standing with consumers. This is deceptive since, contrary to customers' expectations, on-time ratio changes while the flights themselves all take exactly the same time.

I think the best way to avoid this problem is to calculate on-time ratio in a different way. Flight time should not be compared to an arbitrary scheduled time. Rather, the FAA should take all flights between a given pair of airports in a year, and calculate the average physical time it took to fly between them (or, perhaps more usefully, the 75th percentile of flight times – the time that 75% of flights between these airports were faster than). If a given flight beats this average, it is considered "on-time". Thus, a totally objective on-time ratio can be developed.

Some tweaks may be needed to make such a formula fair, for example, comparing flights only to other flights with the same plane model or at the same time of day. But in an age when everyone and their sister are coming up with new sabermetric measurements, the difficulty of number crunching should not be an issue.

The color red

The color red provokes a stronger emotional reaction in people than any other color. Things designed to attract attention – like stop signs, warning signs, and the cape waved in front of a bull – are very often colored red. Why red, and not a different color?

I think the reason is as follows. The three primary colors are red, green and blue. Green and blue are very common in nature – they are the colors of plants and the sky, respectively. Red, in contrast, is rare. Since red is the only primary color we don't see all the time, it is effective at attracting our attention.

Demographics

Some notes from a trip to the CIA World Factbook.

Comparing the growth rates of India and China, it seems that within 5 years India will surpass China to become the world's most populous country.

Also, a look at fertility rates shows that world population growth is concentrated in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The rest of the world has, or can expect, a low rate of population growth (a few small countries are exceptions though).

And Iran has the world's lowest fertility rate (births per mother) except for Europe, four East Asian countries, and several small island countries. Perhaps indicating that despite (or because of) the fundamentalist government policies, the population has become quite secular.

Metaphysical dualism

The title of this post is a philosophical term, so profound-sounding that when I learned it in high school philosophy class I thought it was incredibly cool. It refers to a theory first popularized by the ancient Greeks, most notably Plato. According to this theory (see here), the world consists of two kinds of things: physical matter, and intellectual ideas or “forms”. To take an example, the chair I'm sitting on consists of an arbitrary collection of carbon and hydrogen atoms, and also approximates the “form” describing what a “chair” is in its ideal nature. These “forms” are considered to be part of reality, and in fact the most important part of reality, despite their lack of physical presence in the world.

As is typical with this kind of philosophical idea, dualism cannot be proven not “right” or “wrong”. At most, it can be considered useful or non-useful depending on how much it helps simplify complicated philosophical problems. In any case, dualism has had an immense influence on succeeding thought. Early Christians, medieval scholastics, and early modern philosophers like Descartes in turn adapted it as a central part of their philosophies. Perhaps the most basic idea distinguishing Christianity from Judaism is dualist: that the material world is inherently corrupt, and should be abandoned in favor of spiritual quests and declarations of faith. Since modern intellectual culture in large part descends from Christianity, even non-Christians today (at least in Western cultures) will find it hard to avoid thinking in dualistic terms.

The goal of this post is to point out one error that results from dualistic thinking. The critical point is that Biblical Hebrew dates to before Plato's time, and thus does not share the assumptions of dualistic thought. In particular, a verb in Biblical Hebrew frequently refers to both a thought and an action. In dualism, thoughts and actions are as different as any two things in the world can be, and it's inappropriate to use the same word for both. But in the Bible's non-dualistic language, thoughts and actions that typically go together share a word, and the meaning is inferred from context. Not realizing this leads to many incorrect translations.

In the following table I have listed several Hebrew verbs. For each, I list what it means as a thought, and as an action. Finally, I give examples of Biblical verses, translated in the usual way, for which I think the other of the two meanings would make much more sense.

Verb	Thought	Action	Mistranslated verses
YDA	know	experience, acknowledge	Tree of knowledge of good and evil Adam knew his wife
ZChR	remember	address, implement	God remembered his covenant Please remember and strengthen me [Shimshon]
AMR	intend	say	Do you [Moshe] speak in order to kill me?
ShMA	obey	hear	We will do and we will hear.
DAG	worry	take care of, ensure
SMKh	be happy	celebrate	You shall celebrate on your holiday (Chazal: "'Celebration' means meat and wine")

I'm guessing there are other such verbs – feel free to suggest in the comments.

Vayaaminu bashem uvemoshe avdo

Bnei Yisrael "believed" at the very moment they became permanently free from Egyptian oppression.

Once they saw that there really was justice in the world, they were capable of belief in God.

(From here)

Egyptian clothing

"Each woman shall request from her neighbor and housemate, silver and gold vessels and garments, and you shall place them on your sons and your daughters..." (Shemot 3:22)

Ancient Egypt was known for its immoral behavior (see Vayikra 18). If so, and given the hot desert climate, Egyptian clothing was likely quite immodest. Why then would God command the Israelites to take, and presumably wear, the Egyptian clothing?

Looking carefully at the verse, we can see the answer to the problem. The Jewish women requested clothing not so that they could wear it, but so that their children could wear it. An Egyptian miniskirt (or whatever other garment), while very revealing when worn by an Egyptian woman, would be completely modest and acceptable when worn by a young Jewish girl.

(Source: R' Mordechai Eliyahu)

:-)

Game theory

Some notes from a lecture on “Game theory and policy” given by Prof. Robert Aumann at my university a few weeks back. Much of the lecture focused on specific political issues and was not worth writing about, but here are some interesting things I heard.

1) A "game" is any situation where you try to ensure that the other person's choices serve your interests.
2) It is rare for both sides to have absolutely opposite goals; for example, rentor and landlord both want a contract to be signed on SOME terms.
3) Israel's enemies are not irrational, rather, their rationality is what makes them dangerous.

First date

(From here. The translation could probably use some work.)

We walked together at night and it was dark. There was no moon, and the stars provided little light.

We walked and you were silent; we continued to walk...

And you were still silent. It was hard, but I had to give this a chance. Because you are like a princess, introverted and modest. What does your voice sound like?

After five hours of walking and thunderous silence, I almost gave up.

When I lay down at your feet, I heard the commander summarize: "End of night navigation! Welcome to the camp! You navigated 12 km in difficult terrain, without light, while carrying a heavy load on your backs. Six hours from now, we will resume travelling."

I put down the backpack and sighed. Then I heard your voice, so clear and pleasant, a voice still full of longing, "The land of Israel is acquired through suffering." You whispered bitterly, "You heard my silence for five hours, but I heard your silence for two thousand years." I felt embarrassed. Why was I thinking about myself the whole time, how did I not sense your pain? I was ashamed.

Suddenly you appeared in all your beauty, exquisite, bedecked in a wonderful flower dress. On your neck, Kiryat Shmonah was emplaced like a stunning diamond necklace. I wish I could remember more, but I placed my head on your shoulder and only the next morning did I wake up. And travelled.

The end of a night navigation with the patrol division...

The new year of the trees

Today was Rosh Chodesh Shvat. This means that Tu Bishevat, the new year of the trees, is coming soon.

In fact, though, there is a disagreement as to which day the new year of the trees falls on: the 15th of Shvat, like we say, or the first of Shvat. This disagreement is brought in the Mishna, Rosh Hashana 1:1:

There are four new years.
The first of Nisan is the new year for kings and holidays.
The first of Elul is the new year for animal tithes. R' Elazar and R' Shimon say: The first of Tishrei.
The first of Tishrei is the new year for years, sabbaticals, and jubilee years, for planting and vegetables.
The first of Shvat is the new year for the tree, says Beit Shammai. Beit Hillel says: The 15th [of Shvat].

What is the basis of the disagreement between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel about the date of the final new year?

Beit Shammai's reasoning appears to be simplest. The other three new years in the Mishna all fall on the first of the month. Logically, it seems months should be subsets of years, so that a month should not be split between different years, and years should begin on the first of the month. We know that's the case for three out of the Mishna's four new years, and it makes sense to say the same for the fourth new year.

Beit Shammai, therefore, seems to have a strong argument for their date. Why does Beit Hillel reject this argument and choose a different date?

It seems to me that Beit Hillel sees the new year for trees as primarily being in the category of holidays, not new years. The 15th of the month brings up associations of the holidays Pesach and Sukkot, which also begin on that date. Perhaps Tu Bishvat should be seen as a holiday as well.

(Why are holidays so often on the 15th? Here's my guess. Holidays are times of communal events and interaction. On the 15th, when there is a full moon, people can get together at night as well as during the day.)

In addition to their dates, Pesach and Sukkot are similar in that they each last 7 days and are dates of aliyah leregel. Furthermore, they take place in the 1st and 7th months of the year. This places them exactly 6 months – half a year – apart from one another.

Interestingly enough, there is also a holiday exactly 6 months away from Tu Bishvat: Tu BeAv. Even more interestingly, its basic theme may be about trees, just like Tu Bishvat. The Gemara (Taanit 30b-31a) brings several explanations for why Tu Beav was celebrated. The explanation about the tribe of Binyamin is best known, but the final explanation given is that on Tu Beav they would stop cutting down trees to be used as firewood on the altar. After Tu Beav, the dry heat of summer was not sufficient to prevent worms from infesting the wood and making it invalid for Temple usage.

The holidays of Pesach and Sukkot are closely tied to the grain harvest. Around Pesach time the grain is growing to maturity, and the harvest does not begin until after Pesach (the law of hadash). Sukkot is called “the holiday of gathering” (Shemot 23:16) and corresponds to the gathering in of wheat stalks which had been left all summer to dry in the field. Thus Pesach marks the beginning of the agricultural year for grain, while Sukkot marks the end of that year.

It is possible that Tu Bishvat and Tu Beav have a similar function, for trees rather than grain. Tu Bishvat, as we know, marks the beginning of the new growth of trees. Tu Beav, according to the explanation we brought, marks the end of the period in which trees are cut down. Just like Pesach and Sukkot delimit the agricultural year for grain, Tu Bishvat and Tu Beav delimit it for trees.

In Devarim 8:8, the blessedness of the land of Israel is described in terms of the seven species which grow in it: “A land of wheat and barley, and grapes and figs and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and [date] honey”. The first two species are grains, while the remaining five are trees. Both grains and trees are responsible for the agricultural bounty we enjoy when living in the land. It seems that likewise, both grains and trees are linked to pairs of holidays, whose dates serve to define the produce's respective growing seasons.

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Partly drawn from here, and some source I can't now locate which made the 15th->holiday connection. It's also my 500th post on this blog, mazal tov!

Interesting views

"The most effective barrier to fundamental delegitimization [of Israel] is personal relationships. In every major country, Israel and its supporters must develop and sustain personal connections with the entire elite in business, politics, arts and culture, science and academia." (Haaretz)

It's a net positive that the secular Israeli media ignores (relative to other Israelis) the deaths of settlers at the hands of Arabs, because it decreases the motivation of Arabs to attack, as there is less apparent impact on Israeli society. (Arutz Sheva)

Moshe's leadership qualifications

The Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 4:10) says that "one does not appoint a king except to perform judgment and war".

Moshe did two things before being forced to flee Egypt. He killed the Egyptian, thereby protecting the Jew who was under attack. The next day, he tried to resolve a conflict which had developed between two Jews.

By fighting back against Egyptian oppression, and trying to obtain justice between Jews, Moshe performed both of the tasks expected of Jewish kings. No wonder he was chosen as Israel's future leader.

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Source: R' Yuval Sherlo in Tzohar LeShabat for this week, parshat Vaera

Pritzus

A person who dresses immodestly in public is trying to attract people's attention.

If you get upset about their inappropriate dress, then congratulations, they have succeeded in getting your attention. You are now thinking about their sexuality. Which is exactly what they intended.

They are trying to make a scene - in the most literal sense. Your best response, as is usually the case when people make scenes, is to make a point of just ignoring it.

Airport profiling

Since the attempted "underwear bombing" a few days ago by a Nigerian Muslim, it has suggested more than ever that the US begin using some form of passenger profiling, rather that absurd levels of checkpoint screening and behavioral restrictions, to prevent future attacks. The model is Israel's security system, which despite the presumed high motivation of terrorists has not suffered a successful attack in decades (since the current system was set up).

I generally think that it's worth preserving the lives of many people even at the cost of the convenience or feelings of a few people, and thus, you would expect that that I would support the use of a profiling system in the US. But there are two reasons why I hesitate.

First, the Israeli airport security checkers ask passengers a variety of questions, and try to ascertain from a person's emotional responses whether they have hostile intentions or something to hide. Such a determination must take a lot of intelligence and training to be done accurately. TSA personnel in the US do not have a reputation for this kind of competence, and to hire or train people to do this for all US passengers (many more than in Israel) would be incredibly expensive.

Second, in addition to the psychological methods, I'm sure Israel also profiles people based on their origin. I occasionally hear reports of Arabs who say they have been questioned for hours in an aggressive and humiliating manner at Ben Gurion airport. While the reliability of any single report may be doubted, I am sure Arabs in general get more heavily scrutinized than Jews. Anyway, this method works because there are really only two, relatively homogeneous populations in Israel: Jews and Arabs. The US has much more diverse populations of both "suspicious" people (i.e. Europeans or blacks who converted to Islam) and "non-suspicious" people (i.e. Hindus or Sikhs). So profiling (which can be ineffective if done wrong) would be harder in the US than Israel. Not useless, but significantly harder.

In short, I don't think it will be easy for the US to design a system that works as well as Israel's. That said, some easy things can be done, like not aggressively checking grandmothers and babies. I don't think a terror attack has ever been committed by an old lady in a wheelchair and, in all honesty, there's no reason to think that such attacks would start now.

Blessings in the Torah

This post has been removed in preparation for publication elsewhere.
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Thanks to M.K. for teaching me part of this and motivating me to think of the rest.

Altneuland

I skimmed through Theodor Herzl's book “Altneuland” (available here), published in 1902, curious to see how it corresponded to Israel today. I skipped the parts describing the Jewish state's mostly socialist political arrangements, and focused on descriptions of the landscape and infrastructure.

In general, the correspondence to modern Israel was quite good. I most identified with the following paragraph:

The serpentine road opened wider and wider prospects. Now the city and harbor of Haifa lay before the entranced eyes of the travelers. On the near side the broad bay with its zone of gardens; beyond, Acco with its background of mountains. They were on the summit of the northern ridge of the Carmel. To the right and to the left, to the north and to the south, a magnificent expanse lay spread out before them. The sea glittered blue and gold into an infinite horizon. White-capped waves fluttered over it like gulls toward the light brown strand. David ordered the driver to stop the car so that they might enjoy the unique view. As they alighted, he turned to Freidrich. "See, Dr. Loewenberg, this is the land of our fathers."

This, of course, exactly describes the view from the apartment I lived in last year. (And “serpentine” is definitely a good description of the roads here.) The only difference between Herzl's vision and the modern view is that “the broad bay” between Haifa and Akko now consists of factories and suburbs, not a large park.

Features such as Haifa Bay and the Dead Sea Works, both predicted in the book, have turned out exactly as described. Other projects mentioned, such as a canal to the Dead Sea, are still on the drawing board. The book's focus on Haifa is a result not only of the early Zionist emphasis on settling the North, but on the fact that airplanes had not yet been invented, making Haifa's port the main place of entry to the country. The modern city of Tel Aviv was only founded a few years later, in 1909.

Despite Herzl's generally prescient vision for the Jewish state, there is one detail I cannot forgive him for. In one place, he described a train line going through Tzfat. Anyone who has ever been on the windy mountain roads to Tzfat knows that it's the absolute last place in Israel that a train line would ever be built to.

Thoughts on Miketz

Reuven spoke to his father, saying: "You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him [Binyamin] to you. Deliver him to my hand, and I will bring him back to you. (42:37)

Yehudah said to Yisrael his father: "Send the youth with me, and let us rise and go, and we will live and not die, us and you and our children. I will be the guarantor for him [Binyamin], from my hand you may demand him, and if I do not bring him before you and display him before you, then I will be guilty before you forever." (43:8-9)

Yaakov rejects Reuven's offer, but accepts Yehudah's. What difference between the offers justifies Yaakov's differing reactions? Here are three possibilities. Only the first is well known, but the second and especially the third may be equally important.

1. What they said: There is much room for (speculative) analysis here, and I will just give one idea.

At first glance, Reuven's offer might seem better than Yehudah's. It is measure for measure: as punishment for losing his father's son, he will have to lose his own sons. His offer of two sons in return for Binyamin recalls the Torah's double punishment for theft, or else, alludes to Rachel's loss of two sons. All of this is evidence of Reuven's sensitivity and willingness to take on responsibility.

But Reuven's proposal also contains fatal flaws. Killing his sons would clearly be a case of two wrongs not equaling a right - Yaakov will hardly be appeased about the loss of a son by also losing grandsons. And, of course, the killing would be unjust because Reuven's sons have done nothing to deserve death. (Reuven could not offer that he himself be killed, because that would deprive Yaakov of yet another son - exactly what the offer is trying to avoid.) Capital punishment is appropriate in certain situations, but in return for losing Binyamin it is morally unacceptable. Reuven tries hard, but his offer severely misjudges the moral issues of the situation.

In contrast, Yehudah offers an moral consequence for losing Binyamin - that he be considered guilty, but that nobody should be killed as a result.
Perhaps Yehudah is alluding to Reuven's offer when he says "we will live and not die, us and you and our children". Unlike Reuven, he says, he does not contemplate any of Yaakov's grandsons ("our children") dying as a result of failure on the trip to Egypt. Having specifically rejected the problematic aspect of Reuven's offer, it's no wonder his own offer is accepted.

2. Who said it. When Reuven disgraced himself with his father's wife Bilhah (35:22), he likely lost not only his birthright, but his father's trust as well. Yehudah had no comparable scandal (the Tamar case was likely less serious, and anyway Yehudah took full responsibility for it in the end). So Yaakov was more willing to rely on Yehudah for such an important mission.

3. When they said it. When Reuven made his proposal, the brothers had just come back from Egypt and had plenty of food. Yaakov's rejection may have just meant that he intended to wait for as long as possible before returning to Egypt. Perhaps the famine would end and no trip would be necessary? But by the time Yehudah made his proposal, all the food had been eaten (43:2), and Yaakov had no alternative but to let the brothers go.