Is this why your pet hates your friend?

Many cat- and dog-owners have wondered why it is that their domestic pet sometimes takes an apparently irrational dislike to of your friends or family members. You find yourself wondering what was the problem: was the human in question using the wrong deodorant, or did that person give your animal a surreptitious swipe when you weren’t looking? Or is there more to it?

One person who clearly has no doubt as to the cause is Rabbi Yisrael of Kozhnitz.

At Avot 4:5 R’ Yochanan ben Beroka teaches this:

כָּל הַמְחַלֵּל שֵׁם שָׁמַֽיִם בַּסֵּֽתֶר, נִפְרָעִין מִמֶּֽנּוּ בְּגָלוּי, אֶחָד שׁוֹגֵג וְאֶחָד מֵזִיד בְּחִלּוּל הַשֵּׁם

Everyone who desecrates the Divine Name in secret is punished in public. When it comes to desecration of the Name, it’s the same thing whether one does it negligently or deliberately.

Why are wrongful acts a desecration of God’ name if they are done in secret? No-one else knows about them. Or do they? In his Ahavat Yisrael, R’ Yisrael suggests that a Heavenly Voice proclaims that a desecration of God’s name has been committed.

There’s an obvious problem with this suggestion. If this Heavenly proclamation does take place, how come we never hear it. R’ Yisrael has an answer. The Heavenly Voice is actually silent, which is why we don’t hear it. It’s a heart-to-heart communication which we intuit through our feelings. Since it’s not a verbalized statement it can be both perceived and comprehended not just by us humans—if we are sufficiently receptive and sensitive—but by animals too.

Is this why your dog becomes aggressive or frightened when certain visitors turn up, and why your cat warmly welcomes some friends but keeps a frosty distance from others? There is no hard proof to demonstrate that this is so, and anecdotal evidence of instances where this has apparently happened can generally be explained by other means. Though, while stories of sapient animals discerning the good from the bad are the stuff of which much good fiction has been made, Jewish tradition is broad enough to embrace them: thus we learn how the donkeys of R’ Chanina ben Dosa and R’ Pinchas ben Yair refuse to eat food that had not been tithed or which had been stolen by their new owners (Avot deRabbi Natan 8:8; Bereshit Rabbah 60:8).

Perhaps the real message of R’ Yisrael’s understanding has nothing to do with Heavenly Voices at all. The point he seeks to make is that we should be more sensitive to the activities of our fellow humans and not ignore any warning signs and misgivings we may have about their honesty and probity. If this is so, we face the challenge of synthesizing it with Avot 1:6, which demands of us that we should judge others on the basis of their merits and give them the benefit of the doubt.

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Finding our way in the dark

The mishnah that opens the second perek of Avot concludes with a theme that we have often discussed: God’s ability to see and hear whatever we do and say, and then to keep a record of it. At Avot 2:1 Rebbi (R’ Yehudah HaNasi) teaches:

הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, וְאֵין אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַֽעְלָה מִמָּךְ, עַֽיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹֽזֶן שׁוֹמַֽעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶֽׂיךָ בְּסֵֽפֶר נִכְתָּבִים

[Translation] Contemplate three things, and you will not come into the grips of transgression. Know what is above you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.

This message is clear: God knows everything you do. If you want to keep on His good side, and literally in His good books, all you have to do is behave in accordance with His wishes.

There is another, quite different message. In his Avot Yisrael, the Kozhnitz Maggid gives this teaching a historical perspective.

From the days of Moshe Rabbenu till the beginning of the Second Temple era we had the benefit of prophetic guidance from above; our lives were permeated by the light of the Torah as refracted through the prism of prophecy. Our sages and seers could clearly discern God’s will and guide us accordingly. This is the mishnah’s seeing eye.

Later in the Second Temple period, when prophecy was removed from the world, we were metaphorically in the dark. Our sages however, through their ruach hakodesh—holy spirit—could still tune in to the sound of a bat kol, a Heavenly voice that steers us along the path God marks out for us. This is the mishnah’s listening ear.

Now, for our sins, we have the benefit of neither prophecy nor bat kol. But all is not lost. We still have something special to guide, strengthen and inspire us in our attempt to get closer to God. That is the written text of the Tanach, the 24 canonical books of the Jewish Bible, together with their commentaries. Here we find a reference to the final part of the mishnah. By implication, the deeds to which Rebbi refers are those we should be doing if we correctly discern the message.

So even without the light of prophecy or a Heavenly voice to guide us, we can’t just give up the task of doing God’s will in a changing world. It’s up to us to do the best we can—and it is for us to provide a seeing eye and listening ear of our own when seeking to trace God’s will through exposition of His literature.

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Keeping the line open

My late mother-in-law was slow to adapt to the technology of mobile telephony. After much persuasion, she agreed to have a cellphone and would occasionally even use it to call us. But when we tried to call her on it, we usually unsuccessful. Why? Because she had not put her phone on. “We tried to call you”, we explained, “but you haven’t put your phone on”.  Her response? “I didn’t put it on because I didn’t know that you would be phoning me”.

At Avot 6:2 Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi teaches:

בְּכָל יוֹם וָיוֹם בַּת קוֹל יוֹצֵאת מֵהַר חוֹרֵב וּמַכְרֶֽזֶת וְאוֹמֶֽרֶת: אוֹי לָהֶם לַבְּרִיּוֹת מֵעֶלְבּוֹנָהּ שֶׁל תּוֹרָה

[Translation] Every day, a heavenly voice resounds from Mount Horeb (Sinai) proclaiming and saying: "Woe is to those creatures who insult the Torah”.

The question has often been asked: if a heavenly voice is emanating from Mount Sinai on a daily basis, why doesn’t everyone hear it? My mother-in-law provides the answer. If the line is open, if the potential recipient is prepared to receive a message, that message will get through. If not, however great the effort that goes into its the transmission, the message will vanish into the ether and no-one will ever know it existed.

We may think that we know all that we need to know in terms of Torah; we lead good Jewish lives and that’s quite enough for us, thank you. But this should not lead us to assume that we can turn off our receptors. The Torah may remain constant and unchanging through the generations, but each generation faces its own challenges. That’s why Torah teachers have to rise to the occasion and show how Torah remains relevant, indeed vital, in any period of change.

We must remain receptive if we are not to miss the messages that speak to the relevance of Torah. If we fail to keep our line open, we may miss the chance to appreciate how ancient wisdom and tradition can reasserts their values in the space we currently occupy. And that would be an insult.

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