Letters to the Editor – Sukkot & Simchat Torah 5786
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In the Tisha B’Av edition of HaMizrachi (Vol. 8, No. 3), Rabbi Ari Kahn examined a Talmudic story in his article “The Carpenter, His Apprentice and His Wife.” The following letter to the editor from Professor Rochel Alpert references that article. Here is a brief recap of Rabbi Kahn’s essay:
Rabbi Kahn examined a Talmudic story (Gittin 58a) about the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash. In this account, a carpenter’s apprentice lusted after his master’s wife. When the master needed money, the apprentice offered to lend to the wife directly. After spending three days with her, the apprentice falsely claimed she had been violated by others on her return journey. He then advised the master to divorce her, offering to lend money for the divorce settlement. The apprentice subsequently married the divorced woman and, when the debt came due, forced his former master to work as their servant, pouring wine while they dined. The Gemara states that when the master’s tears fell into their cups, the fate of the Jewish people was sealed.
Rabbi Kahn initially presented this as a story of calculated cruelty driven by sinat chinam, noting that the destruction of the Second Beit HaMikdash stemmed from such hatred rather than sexual immorality. However, toward the article’s end, he offered a psychological reinterpretation. He suggested the master “appears to be an abusive personality who craves control,” and that the apprentice and wife were actually “two victims of an abuser conspiring not just to escape, but to destroy their tormentor.” In this reading, they felt justified in their actions, believing they were teaching their “terrible, abusive tormentor” a lesson.
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I read Rabbi Ari Kahn’s “The Carpenter, His Apprentice and His Wife” with much interest. It seems to me that the concrete incidents cited by the Gemara as the proximate causes of the destruction are often overlooked, in favor of a more cerebral / “middot” approach towards the blight of sinat chinam. Rabbi Kahn retells the terrible incident reported by the Gemara, one which, one must add with terrible dismay, rings true today.
Unfortunately, Rabbi Kahn then takes what was a sober and detailed recounting of the incident, and, in one hurried paragraph, turns to a “psychological” re-evaluation of the story, with almost no textual basis. The carpenter – whom we have seen presented as the meekest of men, asking his own apprentice for advice – we are now told, “appears to be an abusive personality who craves control over his victims.” Indeed, the reason that the apprentice and his now-wife feel no remorse is not, Rabbi Kahn assures us, because they are sinners and overtaken by base desires, but because they truly believe that they are now getting back at their “‘terrible, abusive’ tormenter… They did not think they sinned.”
Rabbi Kahn’s only support for this rather dubious psychological reading, beyond his suggesting that a (less controlling?) person would normally launch an inquest and set out to find his wife, seems to be the very fact that the carpenter’s wife and his apprentice betrayed him in such a striking manner. This would seem to be a case of “blame the victim” in the highest order. The gates of interpretation, it is true, remain perennially open – but surely they shudder at explanations that seek to cast aspersions where none can be found.
Perhaps even more troubling, however, is the fact that an incident which the Gemara presents as a primary case-study of what it is that effected the destruction – has yet again been robbed of its power. Today, as then, people and their yitzrei hara have never needed excuses. It will not do to give speeches where “sinat chinam” has moved to some elusive, theoretical realm of working on one’s middot – no, the Gemara comes out loud and clear, and, with a sledgehammer, as it were, makes it clear to those who might not realize, that the destruction came as a result of that sinat chinam in action and the terrible deeds that were committed. But it equally and entirely misses the point to write exegeses that seek to somehow “humanize” or somewhat “explicate” the heinous acts committed.
There is no need to name names, but the Orthodox world today has, unfortunately, its fair share of people who share more than a passing resemblance to those portrayed in this and other narratives recounted in Perek Hanizakin. It is, of course, an extremely admirable characteristic that even very fine and upright people seek to improve themselves – hence, the “dakus shebedakus,” middot approach of sinat chinam. Likewise, it speaks only positively that some of us cannot even imagine how such crimes could be committed, were it not for some mitigating factor. Yet this is not the way of the world – not at the times of the destruction, and, sadly, not today either. As we shall read in the coming week, uviarta hara mikirbecha: Evil must be called out, including within our ranks, be it in Bnei Brak or Baltimore, Israel or America.
Rochel Alpert
Judaic Studies professor, Lander College, Touro University