Pesach Thought 1: Hesed and the Prisoners Dilemma

I

We read at the seder- "Let all who are hungry enter and eat; let all who are in need come and celebrate the Passover"

Why the repetition? They actually refer to different things. The second (Kol Ditzrich) means all who are in need but not all who are in need of bread. The person may indeed be a millionaire who who doesn't go wanting. They may have plenty of food but no home or family. The invitation for this person is not to come and eat but to spend and celebrate Pesach in the company of others.

It sounds very nice to reach out to people who might be lonely. However, if you think about the invitation, it is a prima facie absurd act. What are you asking the millionaire to come share with you? What are you going to give him? Maybe you should provide the company but ask him to bring the finest champagne and Pesach food. But no! We invite him so he can partake of the lechem oni- The bread of affliction! A bit of matzah!

Maybe an answer can come with an understanding on the nature of hesed- where, on the seder night, we showing loving-kindness to others. Here is how R' Soloveitchik describes Hesed:

Hesed denotes, in practical terms, the vastness of kindness, contributing more than one's capacity, giving away more than one had a chance to store, accommodating more than one's narrowly bounded existential area will permit. In short, hesed means compulsive kindness, spontaneous sympathy... Hesed does not depend on the actual size of one's possessions, upon numbers and figures. It is rather, a spiritual attitude...

We give away more than our capacity! We take a paltry piece of Matzah that hardly nourishes myselfand yet I break it in half to give the rich man! Surely this is irrational. How can we understand this?

II

A nice way to look at this is with the help of the iterated prisoner's dilemma! There are lots of nice ways to dress this experiment up to link it with real life situations and make it realistic, but let's just illustrate it using a simple points version.

People on computers in two rooms have the chance to press 'co-operate' or 'defect', and they don't know what the other person has pressed until the experiment is over. There are various points you can earn depending on what you choose compared to what they choose. The aim of the game is to have as many points as you can- and points mean prizes!

Here is an example table of points for different combinations:

Player 1 Player 2->	Cooperate	Defect
Cooperate	3, 3	0,5
Defect	5, 0	1,1

So what is the rational move to make in the game? One should defect because:

1. You have more opportunities of scoring if you defect. There is only one combination out of four where co-operating wins points.

2. If you defect, you will at least get a point whatever happens.

3. The top prize for defecting is more than the top prize for co-operating.

4. By co-operating you have no means of getting more than your opponent.

This can be seen clearly if the table looks like this:

Player 1 Player 2->	Cooperate	Defect
Cooperate	win-win	lose much-win much
Defect	win much-lose much	lose-lose

When you look at an individual's benefit in an individual situation, the best thing to do is to look out for number one. That is the bog-standard Prisoner's Dilemma and is indisputable. What then about the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma? As the name suggests, it is the same experiment repeated many times with the same people, where the points are cumulative. What's the rational thing to do there?

I'm no mathematician but it still seems to be to defect. All other things being equal, it is better to defect. As an individual over many cases, you have more chance in the long term of getting points by defecting. However, experiments show that this is not the case. Individuals get more points by co-operating with each other. I don't just mean that there is a more even distribution of points (more people with more points than before). I don't mean that on average individuals get more points by co-operating (but with some making the biggest profit by defecting). No- it is to the benefit of each and every individual to co-operate despite the math saying otherwise.

Why? What the mathematics doesn't take account of is the human issue of 'trust'. Where you suspect your opponent of going to defect, you will yourself defect. Where there are scant points available, and you think you are going to miss out on them, you will do everything to get each and every point you can. You think you are going to lose everything! Some may co-operate because they think it is the right thing to do (at least in a real-life version rather than points version). Most, for good reason, won't; and you end up in a situation where everyone defects and you only get 1 point each time.

What happens if you do trust the opponent? Remember that you have never met the person, don't know their temperament and have no assurance that they will co-operate. And vice versa. But what if you do? You are more likely to co-operate yourself and then they will begin to trust you and so, reciprocate. In this way, you will get 3 points each time and end up, individually and collectively, with more. People think acting for the 'common good' means being 'charitable' and giving up on individual benefit. Yes, if you are focusing on each act as an isolated act. Overall though, the common good is your individual good.

III

How does this bear on the lechem oni?

Slaves don't share! Where you are worried about where your next meal is going to come from, you will grab what you can and when you can. If there are very limited resources available, you want to make sure that you get your fill. You don't have the wherewithall to think about others because the only way to survive is to eat what you have been given. It makes no sense to give away your bread.

The slave is certainly 'hard done by' and has been forced into a situation which was no fault of their own. Yet... they have a defective personality! They are not just a slave by situation but have a slave personality. If you just look after yourself (although perfectly rational to do so), you cannot contribute to wider society. They are disqualified from being witnesses, are unable to marry and are freed from time-bound mitzvot. Slaves are excluded from anything that involves a true relationship or where one has to rely on them for the good of the whole.

Conversely, what of those who do well in a society of competition? The overall rationale is to get more resources than other people and to stay ahead of the game. That is how they got to where they are. Of course, they may sometimes be 'charitable'. They may sometimes give up some their wealth and choose to 'co-operate'. However, the master-slave relationship continues unabated.

The giver is doing something self-consciously 'generous', out of the normal order, and expects to be thanked. The receiver simply gobbles up the food knowing that it may not happen again. They remain 'dependant' on the whims of the more powerful or rich person. If it's not something they can expect, they may as well take the opportunity to 'defect' and take full advantage of the rich person's rare 'co-operation'. There can be no free relationship between these people. The powerful person is lonely and can't have any relationships- everything is about the goods he gets or generously gives. It is not hesed.

Where then can there be hesed? You will find it where there is the biggest sacrifice. The mark of someone who goes from slavery to freedom is their sharing their insufficient amount of bread- their bread of affliction! They "contribut[e] more than one's capacity, giving away more than one had a chance to store". It's an irrational move on their part if one considers the individual act and or even many individual acts over time. They gamble their survival, where there is no expectation that the master will reciprocate. The master may just stamp home his/her advantage and dominate more. It is a risk but only through "compulsive kindness, spontaneous sympathy" can you be free.

"Why you being so hard on the poor slave? Why is all the burden and responsibility on them? Why you being so easy on the big, fat, oppressor?" Let's first make it clear that the richer or more powerful person has to reciprocate and 'give back' to the poorer or weaker person. If not, the process is dead. They have to accept restrictions on their liberty in order to enhance the liberty of others. They can't just think about what is rational for them now but what is good for everyone always. In fact, they have to make the first move. Remember the first line of our text was "Let all who are hungry enter and eat".

However, whilst it is not the fault of the slave that he is under external conditions of oppression, it is only the slave who can lead the way to true freedom. The important point to bear in mind here is that it is the oppressor who is most "in need". It is essential that the poor's physical needs are met and so - let him come eat. But the powerful- despite their wealth or power- has the debilitating spiritual condition of loneliness. Nothing they can do, as I said above, can lead to a true relationship because even giving money away cements the power relationship.

Only through the absurd gesture of the slave sharing his bread of affliction can those "in need" be redeemed from solitude. Only from something as genuine as this can you have a chance of forming free relationships. The restrictions both parties accept upon themselves are not simply altruistic but good for everyone materially and spiritually. Maybe there will be equality after all.

Only through telling a story so absurd and seemingly irrational as the Jews exodus from Egypt, can we learn about a free society. Only through recounting an event so grounded in faith and trust do we have a chance of creating freedom for everyone, everywhere.

Were our matriachs and patriachs saints? Chas Ve-Shalom!

I’ve come across a beautiful passage from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the coolest guy this side of Christendom. It is one of the quotes that manages to articulate something so fundamental and yet so rarely said. Something so inspiring and something that there is a desperate need to internalise. It focuses on the very core of Jewish philosophy, the Biblical narrative and the people we are called on to be.

But first, let’s consider that fundamental tenet of Judaism: man is not G-d! Moreover, it is the most beautiful message of Judaism that need not (nay, should not) aspire to be so. Neither is man an angel. All man can aspire to be is man and that is enough! There is no being perfect or transcending our status as men (our soul escaping our body, so to speak); there is only living up to, as best we can, our potential as human beings. Yes- human beings, homo sapiens, humans animals. “Perhaps more than man-as-divine-person, man-as-an-animal needs religious faith and commitment to a higher authority. G-d takes man-animal into His confidence and reveals to him His moral will” (Soloveitchik).

Judaism does not see man as divine-person torn by satanic revolt, falling away from his G-d-Father. There is no Original Sin whereby our very nature precludes us from having a relationship with G-d. No… it is man as an animal, with his animal drives, pleasures and instincts that is called upon to serve G-d. Just consider that it is the very same things that constitute our evil inclination, are the very same things that are our ‘good inclination’. If we sin, that says absolutely nothing about our nature, and everything about the sin.

“Man’s haughtiness becomes for Christianity the metaphysical pride of an allegedly unconditioned existence. Jewish biblical pride signifies only overemphasis upon man’s abilities and power.” (Soloveitchik)

If our nature is not other-worldly, then we are not at fault for not being so. The problem is that we are not being properly and morally this-worldly. Note that we- physical beings- are tzelem Elokim: in the image of G-d. Does this mean being the same spiritual ‘stuff’ as G-d? Of course not. It means precisely being an image, a reflection, a receptacle of G-dliness on earth. This means we are commanded to ‘walk in G-d’s ways’: to visit the sick, to help the poor, to be a creator of worlds etc. We are commanded to find G-d a makom (a place) on earth. And through our actions, we are that makom. G-d’s presence rests ‘within the four cubits of halakha’: i.e. with mans’ actions on earth. To be tzelem Elokim is to be the opposite of other-wordly. Not to be G-d but the image of G-d i.e. do what you have to be quintessentially human.

Judaism’s notion of man-as-animal is the great leveller. Of course, we aren’t (or better, don’t need to be) just man-as-animal. We, if we so choose, can be an animal but have a soul. Or if we want we can just be man as a random example of the species homo sapien. But the fact that, as philosophers would say, we are all ontically the same (the same in essence) means we all start from the same place and can all reach the same heights:

As it says in Judges, “I call heaven and earth to witness, be a man a Jew or a non-Jew, man or woman, manservant or maidservant, only according to their actions will the spirit of G-d rest upon them”.

This applies, and this is my point in this piece, quite generally. There is no essential difference between Moses and you or the Gedolei Torah and the woman down the local fish-market. They have just the same yezer hara- the same physical drives- as Joe Bloggs, Plonie Ben Plonie and Jane Doe.

Consider the following: The Torah doesn’t tell us where Moses was buried. Why? Our tradition tells us that it is so that no-one will make a pilgrimage to that site or be inclined to make Moses, as such, central to the religion (i.e. he will not turn into an object of worship or an aid to worship). Moses as-such is no different to anyone else. In fact, he points out himself that “I am slow of speech and tongue”. We learn that he is ‘a very humble man, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth’. We see hear that there is no equivalent to the Christian ‘son of G-d’ because his leadership wasn’t based on any specific set of ‘natural’ or ‘supernatural’ qualities. It is not vested in his personal authority, charisma, or essential nature. It is not in the person of Moses (as Christians believe it is in the person of Jesus) but in the message- in the Torah. It is not because of any special attribute of his person that he became leader but because he became a receptacle of G-d’s will and G-d’s word. And that is incumbent on each of us!

There is no need for the Torah to hide Moses’ human nature from us. He sinned. The greatest man (ani ma’amin) that ever lived or will live (contra Chassidus, moshiach will not be at his level), sinned. Fell short. He got punished. He got buried who knows where, outside of the Land of Israel. So, on the one hand, we agree with Nietzsche that we are “human, all too human”. Yet this isn’t a cause for denigration of Moses’ personality or as an excuse to have a ‘will to power’, to assert our dominance and to inanely follow our desires (i.e. the very opposite of Moses). It is not the case that if we cannot live up to an ideal, that it shouldn’t be pursued. No- the story is there to teach us the very opposite. Despite- and maybe because of- his human nature, he was the only person to see G-d ‘face-to-face’. If human-Moses can have that relationship with his fellow men and with G-d, then we can to. It does not need a demi-G-d or son of G-d to do so.

So now the quote from Rav Hirsch:

“Our ancestors were never presented to us as angelic models to emulate in every respect; indeed, had they been presented to us as angelic creatures, their example for us to follow in our own lives would have been far less ideal and instructive than it actually is. If we were to discover no shortcomings in their personalities, they would appear to us like higher beings who, free from all human passions and weaknesses, never had to struggle against sin and were never in need of an incentive to virtue. We could conclude that, given our own human imperfections, any effort on our part to emulate their saintly qualities would be doomed to failure. Precisely by not concealing their shortcomings from us, the Word of G-d has brought our patriachs and matriachs closer to us as human beings, humans like us exposed to the same struggles and temptations. And if, nevertheless, they attained that high sense of morality and loyalty to their calling that made them worthy of G-d’s nearness, they thereby demonstrated the heights that are within our power to obtain, depite our weaknesses and imperfections”

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This is a message that greatly needs to be ‘eaten up’ in modern times where we do portray Biblical figures as basically blameless (e.g. see the Mussar treatment of ‘the sins of great men’) and where we have hagiographies where gedolim are ‘different kind of people’ who never struggle, who are always right, and are moulded into whatever the writers would like their demi-god to be. It takes us away from the great men they actually are and the reasons why they are such great man. It takes us towards the ‘person’ and away from the message. They are not great because their message is correct (because their Torah learning is great) but their message is right just because they say it (G-d forbid). Something is not seen as forbidden because it is not the right way to live but invoking the authority and charisma of the gedolim (and bending or manipulating what they actually say) to ban what they (i.e. not what the gedolim) want banned. An example of this is the following written by Rabbi Moshe Tendler (son in law of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein):

"Occasionally intentional falsehoods are included [in biographies of gedolim] to pervert the truths of their lives. . . . By [a biography of my father-in-law, Rabbi Feinstein] perpetuating such falsehoods as Reb Moshe never reading the newspapers when in fact he read them “cover to cover” daily, they sought to remake him into their perverted image of what a gadol should be. The fact that neither I nor my wife or children were interviewed by them nor shown the galleys confirms the intentional plan to present a fraudulent life story for some less than honorable purposes.

[Instead R. Moshe:] read the newspaper every morning at the breakfast table, whatever newspaper it might be—the socialistic Forward, or the Tag, or the Morning Journal and then the Algemeiner Journal.

Consider the following from an interview with R' Nosson Sherman:

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How do you respond to critics who accuse ArtScroll biographies of whitewashing history by characterizing great rabbis as saints without faults?

Our goal is to increase Torah learning and yiras shamayim. If somebody can be inspired by a gadol b’yisrael, then let him be inspired. Is it necessary to say that he had shortcomings? Does that help you become a better person? What about lashon hara? You know in today’s world, lashon hara is a mitzvah. Character assassination sells papers. That’s not what Klal Yisrael is all about.

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Does this fit with what R’Hirsch said? Does yirat shamayim (fear of heaven) come from being inspired by an ideal figure? Are we to be inspired to become a better person by their charisma, or to come to G-d through them? Is it really character assassination to say people had shortcomings and they played a part in their decisions? I don’t think so, let’s look at the great people our gedolim really are and maybe we can follow their example and walk in G-d’s ways. Maybe, just maybe we, like them can be “human, all too human”.

Were our patriachs saints? Chas ve-Shalom!

Parshat Ki Tissa

“Go- get down; for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.” The golden calf, in this week’s parsha, seems almost to lead to a complete breakdown of G-d’s relationship with Israel. The gemarra explains “Go-get down” as telling Moses “get down from your lofty station…. Now that Israel has sinned, what are you to Me?” Equally, Avraham ben HaRambam makes the point that no longer are Israel “my [G-d’s] people” but “your [Moses’] people… this rabble whom you concerned yourself with”. G-d wants to destroy the Jewish people and only special pleading Moses prevents this from happening.

Parshat Ki Tissa, through the story of the golden calf exemplifies the Torah’s approach to the dual aspects of belief and practice. The Torah is not a book of philosophy or theology, science or history, or esoteric, mystical knowledge. This is not to say that these disciplines are not valuable and they may even be necessary to appreciate the work of creation. However, what is of primary concern is our place in creation; with the relationship between G-d and the children of Israel being the primary subject matter of the Torah. It is in this light that beliefs and practices must be viewed; mediated through the prism of covenant. The gripe of the Torah in relation to the golden calf does not seem to be that the children of Israel, per se, had a philosophically incorrect view of G-d. Neither are the moral standards of idolaters, of much concern to the Talmud, the primary issue. Instead, idolatry here can be conceived as, or resultant from, the breakdown of the relationship between G-d and us.

Let us illustrate this further. There is no intrinsic holiness in the Jewish people, or the land of Israel or in the tablets of the law (etc). Moses smashing the tablets amply demonstrates this. As R. Meir Simhah explains “The moment Israel sinned and transgressed what were written thereon, [the tablets] became mere bric-a-brac devoid of sanctity”. These things only get holiness from being associated with commands from G-d. Israel made the mistake of endowing the golden calf with intrinsic holiness. But what precisely was the mistake? It was not in itself the belief that the golden calf represented G-d (although strictly false) or the practice of using symbols (etc) in order to worship Him. G-d himself later commanded that there be statues of the cherubim be placed inside the mishkan (earlier in the Torah but chronologically later) to serve as the portal between the physical and spiritual worlds. The only difference between the acts is that G-d commanded us to have the cherubim.

Physical things are there to be used and so seeing intrinsic holiness in them (deifying them) is like saying G-d is there to be used. Israel “making G-d in its own image” leads to an unhealthy view of what a relationship should be about. When they say “Rise make us a god who will lead us” they want a G-d who will fight their battles for them and give them psychological comfort. They are not worshipping G-d-qua-G-d, but G-d-qua-the person who does stuff for me. Of course, it is no relationship where one party is the dominator and the other to be dominated. A key element of relationship is sacrifice; giving even when one cannot get in return.

Ki Tissa imparts important lessons as to our place in the world. There are times when we have to advance, subdue and conquer. We have to do science, create technology, and participate in civil society. Yet there are times when we have to resign, retreat and sacrifice. When we pray to G-d and keep the mitzvoth, we do simply because we are commanded; and not to derive personal gain. Both advance and sacrifice are important aspects in life and without one or the other, there would be no covenant.