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Parshat Mishpatim-Shekalim February 14, 2015 25 Shevat, 5775 TORAH Artscroll, 416 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Parshat Mishpatim Hertz, 306 Jobbik, otherwise known as himself discovered what was being begins early. Even newborn the Movement for a Better said and decided to check whether the babies cry when they hear Maftir Hungary, is an ultra- claims were true. .hey were. 2fter another child cry. 5e have mirror Artscroll, 484 nationalist Hungarian political 2uschwitz his grandparents, once neurons in the brain that make us party that has been described 0rthodo7 Jews, decided to hide their wince when we see someone else Hertz, 352 as fascist, neo-Nazi, racist, identity completely. 5hen his mother in pain. Homo sapiens is the and anti- emitic. It has was 13, her father told her the secret moral animal. HAFTORAH accused Jews of being part of but ordered her not to reveal it to anyone. zegedi now knew the truth Yet much of human history has Artscroll, 1212 a #cabal of western economic interests$ attempting to about himself. He decided to resign been a story of violence, Hertz, 992 control the world: the libel from the party and find out more oppression, injustice, corruption, otherwise known as the about Judaism. He went to a local aggression and war. Nor, MEVORCHIM CHODESH ADAR Chabad 8abbi, lom9 :;ves, who at historically, has it made a Molad Protocols of the Elders of (ion, a fiction created by first thought he was joking. significant difference whether the 11:59:2 pm Nonetheless he arranged for zegedi actors in this story have been Wednesday evening members of the Czarist secret service in Paris in the late to attend classes on Judaism and to barbarians or citizens of a high Ros C odes 18,0s and revealed as a come to the synagogue. 2t first, civilization. T ursday Feb. 19 forgery by .he .imes in 1,21. zegedi says, people were shocked. and Friday Feb. 20 0n one occasion the Jobbik He was treated by some as #a leper.$ .he Greeks of antiAuity, masters party asked for a list of all the But he persisted. .oday he attends of art, architecture, drama, Jews in the Hungarian synagogue, keeps habbat, has poetry, philosophy and science, Times government. 1isturbingly, in learned Hebrew, calls himself 1ovid, wasted themselves on the the Hungarian parliamentary and in 2013 underwent circumcision. internecine Peloponnesian 5ar elections in 2pril 2013 it between 2thens and parta in the 0andle ,i1htin1 5:08 pm secured over 20 percent of 5hen he first admitted the truth last Auarter of the fifth century the votes, making it the third about his Jewish ancestry, one of his BCE. .hey never fully recovered. Friday Min ha 5:10 pm largest party. 4ntil 2012 one friends in the Jobbik party said, #.he It was the end of the golden age of its leading members was a best thing would be if we shoot you of Greece. Hashkama 8:00 am politician in his late 20s, so you can be buried as a pure Csanad zegedi. zegedi was Hungarian.$ 2nother urged him to Fin de siCcle Paris and Dienna in Parsha Shiur 8:30 am a rising star in the make a public apology. It was this the 18,0s were the leading comment, he says, that made him centers of European civilization. Main Shul 9:00 am movement, widely spoken of as its future leader. 4ntil one leave the party. #I thought, wait a Yet they were also the world6s minute, I am supposed to apologize leaders in anti- emitism, Paris Beit Midrash 9:15 am day in 2012. .hat was the day zegedi discovered he for the fact that my family was killed with the 1reyfus 2ffair, Dienna Youth Minyan 8:30 am was a Jew. ome of the at 2uschwitz?$ 2s the realization that with its anti- emitic mayor, :arl members of the party had he was a Jew began to change his life, Eueger, whom Hitler later cited as Shiur 4:05 pm wanted to stop his progress it also transformed his understanding his inspiration. and spent time investigating of the world. .oday, he says, his Min ha 5:05 pm his background to see focus as a politician is to defend 5hen we are good we are little whether they could find human rights for everyone. #I am lower than the angels. 5hen we Shabbat Ends 6:18 pm anything that would do him aware of my responsibility and I know are bad we are lower than the damage. 5hat they found I will have to make it right in the beasts. 5hat makes us moral? Sunday Feb. 15 7:30/8:30 am was that his maternal future.$ 2nd what, despite it all, makes grandmother was a Jewish humanity capable of being so Mon. 6:35/7:45 am survivor of 2uschwitz. o was zegedi6s story is not just a curiosity. inhumane? Plato thought that his maternal grandfather. Half It takes us to the very heart of the virtue was knowledge. If we know Tues., Wed. 6:45/7:45 am of zegedi6s family were killed strange, fraught nature of our something is wrong, we will not during the Holocaust. e7istence as moral beings. 5hat do it. 2ristotle thought that virtue Thurs., Fri. 6:30/7:45 am zegedi6s opponents started makes us human is the fact that we was habit, learned in childhood till spreading rumors about his are rational, reflective, capable of it becomes part of our character. Min ha 5:20 pm Jewish ancestry on the thinking things through. 5e feel 1avid Hume and 2dam mith, two internet. oon zegedi empathy and sympathy, and this intellectual giants of the cottish ,atest Times for Shema/Shemoneh Esrei (iddus is February 14 9:31/10:24 am sponsored by February 21 9:26/10:20 am David and Diane Rein .e/t Shabbat in memory of er mot er, Terumah Helene M. Fin, -.l 0andle ,i1htin1 5:17 pm on t e occasion of t Min ha 5:20 pm er 10 ya r-eit. 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11 23 (516) 487-61 Shabbat Announcements Parshat Mishpatim-Shekalim 5775 Enlightenment, thought that morality came from emotion, fellow feeling. In 8wanda, Hutus called .utsis inyenzi, cockroaches. 1ehumanize the Immanuel :ant believed that it came through rationality. 2 moral other and all the moral forces in the world will not save us from evil. principle is one you are willing to prescribe for everyone. .herefore, for :nowledge is silenced, emotion anaesthetized and reason perverted. e7ample, lying cannot be moral because you do not wish others to lie to .he Nazis convinced themselves Fand others) that in e7terminating the you. 2ll four views have some truth to them, and we can find similar Jews they were performing a moral service for the 2ryan race. uicide sentiments in the rabbinic literature. In the spirit of Plato, the sages bombers are convinced that they are acting for the greater glory of spoke of the tinok shenishba, someone who does wrong because he or God. .here is such a thing as altruistic evil. she was not educated to know what is right. Maimonides, like 2ristotle, thought virtue came from repeated practice. Halakhah creates habits of .hat is what makes these two commands so significant. .he .orah the heart. .he rabbis said that the angels of kindness and charity argued emphasizes the point time and again: the rabbis said that the com- for the creation of man because we naturally feel for others, as Hume mand to love the stranger appears 36 times in the .orah. Jewish law is and mith argued. :ant6s principle is similar to what the sages called here confronting directly the fact that care for the stranger is not some- sevarah, #reason.$ thing for which we can rely on our normal moral resources of knowl- edge, empathy and rationality. 4sually we can, but under situations of But these insights only serve to deepen the Auestion. If knowledge, high stress, when we feel our group threatened, we cannot. .he very emotion and reason lead us to be moral, why is that that humans hate, inclinations that bring out the best in us M our genetic inclination to harm and kill? 2 full answer would take longer than a lifetime, but the make sacrifices for the sake of kith and kin M can also bring out the short answer is simple. 5e are tribal animals. 5e form ourselves into worst in us when we fear the stranger. 5e are tribal animals and we groups. Morality is both cause and conseAuence of this fact. .oward are easily threatened by the members of another tribe. people with whom we are or feel ourselves to be related we are capable of altruism. But toward strangers we feel fear, and that fear is capable of Note that these commands are given shortly after the e7odus. Implicit turning us into monsters. in them is a very radical idea indeed. Care for the stranger is why the Israelites had to e7perience e7ile and slavery before they could enter Morality, in Jonathan Haidt6s phrase, binds and blinds. It binds us to the Promised Eand and build their own society and state. You will not others in a bond of reciprocal altruism. But it also blinds us to the succeed in caring for the stranger, implies God, until you yourselves humanity of those who stand outside that bond. It unites and divides. It know in your very bones and sinews what it feels like to be a stranger. divides because it unites.