Weekly Torah Portion Mishpatim

The Obligation to Improve One’s Character

Thousands of years before animal rights activists came on the scene, Jews were kind to animals. The source for causing cruelty to animals is found in this week’s Torah portion.

If you see the donkey of someone you hate crouching under its burden, should you refrain from helping him? You should make every effort to help him. (Exodus 23:5) (Exodus 19:1-2)

It is obvious from the verse above that we are not allowed to walk by a donkey that is bent over due to its load. When we analyze the words of the verse we notice that we’re not just talking about any donkey; we’re speaking of your enemy’s donkey. One can’t let his/her personal gripes interfere with the suffering of an animal even if it does belong to your enemy. It’s not the animal’s fault that it belongs to your enemy.

In addition to the Mitzvah above, there is also a Mitzvah to help someone load his donkey. It doesn’t have to be a donkey; if a person is putting packages or luggage into his car it is a Mitzvah to help him. The Talmud has the following query: What happens when one’s friend needs help to unload his donkey and at the same time there’s a Jew he hates who is loading his donkey, whom should he help? Most people would help their friend for two reasons: (1) we don’t want to help our enemy and (2) my friend’s animal is suffering under its load. The Talmud has a different perspective and says that the Mitzvah is to help the one you hate because by doing so you are subduing your yetzer hara (evil inclination). But, asks the Talmud, if preventing animal suffering is a Torah mandate, then unloading one’s friend’s donkey should surely take precedence over loading his enemy’s donkey because this has nothing to do with friend or enemy, it is a simple case of giving precedence to a suffering animal. The Talmud explains that even though causing cruelty to animals is a Torah prohibition, working to remove hatred in your heart for a fellow Jew takes precedence. If an animal must bear the burden of its load so that a Jew will not harbor hatred so be it; the main thing is for us to work on ourselves and develop our character traits.

It is clear from above that one should help his enemy load even though his friend’s animal is struggling under its burden. If self improvement (doing something kind for your enemy to remove the hatred in your heart) takes precedence over a Torah prohibition (causing pain to an animal), it must be that working on one’s character traits is a Mitzvah in the Torah. If it was simply a nice thing to do it wouldn’t push aside a commandment, a Torah prohibition (causing pain to animals). We see from here the great stress that Judaism places on character development.

I heard the following story from my Rabbi, Rav Aharon Feldman, the Rosh Hayeshiva (Dean) of Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore. He was living in Israel and it was shortly before the holiday of Succos. He didn’t have any myrtle branches to combine with his Lulav and Etrog to fulfill the Mitzvah of shaking the Four Species on Succos. It was the early 1960’s and myrtle branches were scarce in Israel and even though they not available at any store at any price nevertheless he greatly desired to do the Mitzvah. He found out there was someone who had extra and he went to his house and asked if he could buy some. The man went to a bed in the room, lifted the pillow, pulled out a damp towel, opened it and inside there were three moist myrtle braches, the exact number needed. Rav Feldman asked how much he owed and the man said that he wouldn’t take money for them. Rav Feldman insisted and the man explained: “I am working on the character trait of being a giving person and decided that I wanted to give these to someone who needed them; I resolved not to charge for them.”(1)

We learn an important lesson story. When someone has his priorities straight he realizes that whatever money he might make from selling a high demand commodity is worthless in comparison to the “profit” he will accrue for the lifetime achievement of improving one’s character. A monetary gain is fleeting and is sometimes gone in a day or two but the difficulty of the moment—giving up something valuable simply to work on being a giving person—is something that lasts forever. If someone we knew acted as this great man did, people would consider him a fool. Imagine giving up a ticket to the Duke vs. UNC game played at Cameron Stadium (2) to someone just because you thought it would help to make you a kinder person! What is admirable behavior from a Jewish perspective seems irrational and idiotic in the world in which we live.

One might ask, if we are obligated to work on our character—as we see in this week’s Parsha--why wasn’t this commandment written explicitly in the Torah? The Vilna Gaon explains that character perfection is more important than anything else and the requirement to have good character traits wasn’t written in the Torah because they are the entire Torah. (3) In his commentary on the book of Proverbs he makes the following sobering conclusion: the essential reason for life is the constant conquest of character traits. If one isn’t working on his character, one is wasting his life

Jews with good character traits make better fathers, mothers, parents, and community leaders—in short, they turn the world into a better place. We weren’t born with these noble traits, we have to work hard to acquire them. Fortunate are the men and women who accept the challenge.

Good Shabbos,


Rabbi Chanoch Oppenheim
Charlotte Torah Center
5824 Providence Road
Charlotte, NC 28226
(704) 367-1225
rabbi@charlottetorahcenter.com
Visit us at www.charlottetorahcenter.com

(1) Rabbi Benyamin Silver was the benefactor in this story. In addition to the many scholarly works he has authored, he became known as master of character perfection. Many people still seek his advice in how to overcome negative character traits and strengthen the positive ones.

(2) If you’re not from North Carolina and want to fully understand this example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina%E2%80%93Duke_rivalry and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Indoor_Stadium

(3) Commentary of Vilna Gaon on Megillas Esther 10:3