Yes, the Torah Cares about Your Feelings—and It Sometimes Doesn’t Approve of Them

Axiomatic to the traditional concept of Jewish law is that its demands override subjective emotions; thus, as a general rule, halakhah requires a person to pray at prayer times, even if he isn’t feeling prayerful. But, explains Josh Yuter, it hardly follows that Judaism is insensitive to the vast range of human emotion. For instance, the Talmud teaches that “one who embarrasses his fellow in public, even if he has Torah and good deeds, has no portion in the World to Come”—and surely embarrassment is a subjective response. The more complex question, for Yuter, is the extent to which the rabbinic tradition is willing to adjust halakhic obligations out of sensitivity to people’s feelings:

Sometimes concern for people’s emotional states can even override established halakhah. Under normal circumstances, it is forbidden to acquire property on Shabbat. [One exception is] the case where someone is dying [and has no written will]. The sages decided that he may articulate a legally binding will on the Sabbath, so that his mind will not be further disturbed and worsen his already weak condition. . . . We also find cases where people may decline to fulfill an obligation because they feel it to be beneath their dignity. Deuteronomy 22:4 commands that one must return a lost object, but the Talmud qualifies that an elderly person for whom returning the lost object would be undignified is exempt.

[W]e also find examples where the Torah either commands one to feel certain emotions or at least demands one to regulate particular emotions.

The Divine Presence is said not to rest only upon those who are melancholy or in a state of excessive levity, but only upon those who experience the joy associated with fulfilling commandments. . . .

Emotional regulation applies to both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. When certain sages became too joyous at weddings, another sage had to intervene in order to reset his colleagues’ emotions. . . . The Talmud directs us to [the passage] where the prophet Elisha, experiencing a state of anger, needed a musician to play for him in order to ready himself for prophecy (2Kings 3:14-15).

Read more at Lehrhaus

More about: Elisha, Halakhah, Judaism

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF