“Over thousands of years, they wandered from their homeland in the Middle East to Europe and finally traveled to North America, bound by a shared history and rigid dietary restrictions. But these nomads do not keep kosher. They are kosher.”
With these words, the New York Times opened an article about a rare breed of sheep, known as “Jacob’s Sheep” which were brought from the Middle East to Spain by the Moors. From Spain they were imported to England where they were bred for wool and for meat. About 120 years ago the sheep were brought to Canada where they were kept in zoos, and, more importantly, the breed was kept pure while in Europe they were mixed with other breeds of sheep. These are very unusual looking sheep. The often have four or six horns instead of two and they are speckled and spotted, just like the sheep in Yaakov’s herd as described in this week’s Torah portion.
In 2014 an Israeli couple, a journalist married to a diplomat, learned about this breed of sheep, learned that they had gone extinct in the Middle East many years ago, and began plans to bring Jacobs Sheep back to Israel. As of this week, there are now 120 Jacobs Sheep in Israel – not exactly a flock of biblical proportions, but a pretty good start.
These sheep are called “Jacob’s Sheep” because they are speckled with black and white spots, just like the sheep that Yaakov selects for himself from the herd of his father-in-law Lavan. But I don’t think the most interesting element of the story of how Yaakov got his sheep is the particular breed of speckled and spotted animals that ended up in his herd and that may have returned to Israel this week. But to get there I want to tell another story first.
The Business Halacha Institute published a weekly double-sided sheet about monetary mitzvot, and there is an ask the rabbi column each week. Last week, the question was the following:
“I borrowed a book from the library and found an envelope inside with money. What am I supposed to do with the money?”
A member of our shul wrote to me last week because he was concerned by the answer that was printed:
Even if it is evident that the money was lost by a Jew… if most of the patrons of the library are not Torah observant, one may assume that the owner realized that he lost the money… and despaired, since they will assume that they will not be able to recover their money…and one is permitted to keep the money. If, however, the envelope was lost in a place where most of the users are Jewish, e.g., a Jewish library, the owner would likely not despair from recovering his money since he assumes that the finder would announce that he found money. This assumes, of course, that the envelope… contains identifying marks so that the owner could prove that the money is his, and as a result he does not despair.
This response seems to be discriminatory and it seems to be discriminatory in a way that is self-serving and dependent on frustratingly circular logic. Those who have been learning daf yomi know that if the owner of a lost object despairs of it being returned, then there is no corresponding obligation to return the item. The halakhah presumes that religious Jews are meticulous about returning lost objects, therefore religious Jews do not have to return lost objects when we are the minority since the original owner, whomever he or she may be, has certainly despaired. We can keep the found object because the original owner assumes that we will keep the found object.
How can we make sense of this expression of Jewish law? Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l has suggested that the obligation to return a lost object might not be a categorial and universal ethical obligation, but might instead be a particular obligation that emerges only from within an intimate community. This understanding helps us understand why halakhah has a theoretical distinction between classes of people to whom we do and do not return found objects, but would also lead to an obligation to return found objects in a place like the United States where Jews and gentiles form one community of mutual care and concern for one another.
But it is not necessary to make empirical arguments about whether or not Jews in modern America live in a golden age of ethical reciprocity. Thousands of years ago, at the dawn of rabbinic Judaism, Shimon ben Shetach confronted an ethical dilemma that would have seemed familiar to the library patron who found an envelope with cash in his book. Shimon ben Shetach, the Talmud Yerushalmi says, worked hard as a laborer in the flax business. It was backbreaking work and his students encouraged him to buy a donkey and switch to becoming a donkey driver which would be a more lucrative and less labor intensive way to earn a livelihood. The students purchased a donkey for Shimon ben Shetach and it was only after the purchase was completed that they noticed that the donkey had a precious stone tied to its neck. The non-Jewish individual who had sold the donkey had forgotten about the stone and forgotten that it was tied to the neck of the donkey that he had sold! Shimon ben Shetach’s students were ecstatic!
“Our teacher’s financial worries are over!” they proclaimed. But Shimon ben Shetach was silent. He did not smile. He did not rejoice.
Finally, he erupted in angry disgust, “Do you think that Shimon ben Shetach is a barbarian?!”
In the words of the late Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik of Chicago, “Shimon ben Shetach gives a remarkable definition of the term “barbarian.” According to him, anyone who fails to apply a uniform standard of mishpat, justice, and tzedek, righteousness, to all human beings regardless of origin, color, or creed is deemed barbaric.”
In the 14th century, the Provencal scholar Rabbi Menachem haMeiri wrote that all of Jewish law’s discriminatory distinctions between Jews and non Jews were only applicable in relation to the idol worshippers of ancient times but that moral and ethical people, whatever their religion, must be treated equally in all civil laws, including the obligation to return lost objects.
In the early 20th century Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffmann of the Berlin Rabbinic Seminary, a flagship Modern Orthodox institution, wrote as well that when Jews live among decent neighbors, we are meant to treat them with decency and equality and that certainly includes returning their lost objects. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik railed against contemporary Jewish “barbarians” who embraced discriminatory halakhah and my own teacher, Rabbi Yehuda Amital wrote that returning a lost object to a gentile was praiseworthy if undertaken as an expression of the guidance of one’s inner moral compass.
What we have here, is not just a series of halakhic arguments but a mesorah, a chain of tradition that starts with Shimon ben Shetach, is given a broad theoretical basis by Rabbi Menachem HaMe’iri, and becomes part and parcel of the religious heritage of Modern Orthodoxy in Europe, Israel, and in the United States.
Many of you have heard me complain about books of Halakhah written in English. Somehow the authors of these books believe that if you can’t read Hebrew, you don’t deserve to know about lenient options in Jewish law. Some books even print lenient opinions in Hebrew footnotes while the English body of the text prints only strict opinions. In recent years, as I’ve discussed with some of you before, there has been a welcome proliferation of English language books about Halakhah written by Modern Orthodox scholars ands that are willing to share lenient halakhic opinions with English speaking readers. The translation of Rav Melamed’s Peninei Halakhah series into English is perhaps the most important example of this trend.
But Modern Orthodoxy cannot just be about leniency. Our community’s religious life will not have balance if we are a community that is only characterized by easy solutions and a collection of lenient halakhic positions.
The commitment to return lost items to gentiles as well as Jews is a stringency and it’s a stringency that has characterized Modern Orthodoxy for generations at least as much as our community is characterized by the embrace of advanced secular education, religious Zionism, or Orthodox Jewish feminism. This is our humra, this is an area of Jewish law where we must be strict.
Yaakov understood this too. When he begins his journey back to Eretz Yisrael, Lavan, Yaakov’s father in law purses and catches Yaakov’s family. A confrontation ensues. Laban accuses Yaakov of sneaking off in the night as a thief. Yaakov defends his integrity by saying:
טְרפָה֙ לא־הֵבֵ֣אתִי אֵלֶ֔יָ אָנֹכִ֣י אֲחַטֶ֔נָה מִיָד֖י תְבַקשֶ֑נָה גְנֻֽבְתִ֣י י֔ום וגְנֻֽבְתִ֖י לָֽיְלָה׃
“That which was torn by beasts I never brought to you; I myself made good the loss; you exacted it of me, whether snatched by day or snatched by night.”
Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin explains that the different phrases in the verse allude to different causes of loss, each one of which Yaakov made whole. Tereifah – a sheep torn by a lion or wolf. Stolen by day and stolen by night – refers to armed bandits. Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin goes on to clarify that Yaakov accepted greater responsibility than a standard “shomer sachar” or paid watchman. He went beyond the strict halakhic requirements in his care for his father-in-law’s flocks.
I’m thrilled that Jacob’s sheep have returned to Israel. But the significance of Yaakov as a shepherd was not that he created a collection of speckled and spotted sheep. The significance of Yaakov as a shepherd was the meticulous way that he cared for his employer’s animals and guarded them beyond what was necessary and took responsibility for accidental and unavoidable losses more than was necessary. That conscientious attitude can mean a lot more for the future of Israel than some exotic sheep flown in from Canada.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 