Seidemann: Catching a poisoned apple

From the other side of the bench

By David Seidemann

A Broadway producer couldn’t have staged it better.   There I stood in the middle of an apple orchard in Congers, New York picking apples with my family. They give you a pole that seemed five times my height and four times my weight. For every apple I picked that fell into the bag attached to the pole, five more whizzed by my head, falling to the ground. What a racket. I’m convinced that after all of the “guests” leave the workers pick up the apples we inadvertently knocked to the ground, saving them backbreaking work.

So I stood, pole in hand, trying to avoid the wild swings of other amateur migrant workers, and the barrage of falling apples. And who do I bump into but the world-renowned lecturer, Rabbi Jonathan Rietti. We stared at each other holding the poles as if they were lances. We laid down our arms and wished each other a good Yom Tov. Then our conversation turned quickly to apples. Not just any apple, not just any fruit, but the fruit of the forbidden tree, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad; that famous tree which banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Yes, a Hollywood setting: two Jews trying to select the “proper apple” while avoiding the apples falling around us. And when? Days before we read the very Torah portion with the episode of a snake, two trees and two adults who ignored specific instructions.

So what is the deal with these trees? What was the Tree of Life? Why were they allowed to eat from it? Why was it the center point of the garden?  What was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad? Is any knowledge “bad”?  Why were Adam and Eve forbidden to eat from it? If they couldn’t eat from it, what was its purpose? Why do we read that portion of the Torah immediately after Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succos? What is the practical application for us today?

In the few hundred words I have left for this week, here goes. The Tree of Life from which Adam and Eve could eat was placed precisely in the middle of the garden. No one had better claim to its fruit, as it was equidistant from all points in the garden. It represented total objectivity. It was the Tree of Torah, the Tree of Mesorah; the Tree of the Word of G-d; of absolute faith; the Tree of Ruach Hakodesh (divinely inspired vision). Had Adam and Eve confined their dietary intake to its fruit, then, without question, their entire lives would have been in the genre of “G-d decrees, man follows.”

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad was the subjective tree. It was a tree whose fruit introduced subjectivity into man’s being — both good and bad. It was the tree of rationalization. It was the tree that allowed man to disguise good in what was really bad. It signaled the downfall of man because that tree allowed for the planting of seeds of doubt and suspicion between man and his fellow man, and man and G-d.

No longer was there an empirical truth. Instead, excuses and rationalization permeated man’s actions. Maybe others could live a life like that, but not Adam and Eve, not those created directly by G-d and not those who follow G-d’s Torah today.

After drawing closer to G-d through fear on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and through love on Sukkos, Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah, the mood dissipates.

We start to make excuses for our subjective approach to our relationships with friends, family, and G-d. What is tolerated today, what is rationalized today, would never have been acceptable in a world of objective truth and falsehood. Let me give you a painful example from my daily work.

A man abuses his wife? Rationalized by the man as, “She deserved it.” A woman tolerates his abuse? Rationalized by the woman as, “I must have deserved this.” I know whereof I speak; this is my line of work, and this is not hyperbole. I’ve heard the husband justify the abuse, and I’ve heard the woman offer explanations as to why she deserved it. A generation later, the son of that couple abuses his wife. Oh, that’s easy. Rationalized as, “That’s what I saw in my house!”

I can almost understand the rationalization of, “I was a victim, so now I’m a tormentor.” But what I cannot in any way accept is the rationalization of shuls and yeshivas that prop up, accept donations from, bestow honor upon and lick the bootstraps of men who refuse to pay child support, refuse to provide for their ex-wives pursuant to a divorce agreement, and abuse their wives both before and after the divorce.

I’ve heard it. I’ve seen the rabbis look the other way, enabling abusers to continue their abuse by thinking, “I can’t be wrong, look at how I am held in high esteem by this or that institution.” For the record, I’ve seen woman abuse men almost as often as I’ve seen men abuse women. But more often than not, the man has a rabbi or an institution to hide behind, to feed his ego, to take his money.

Shame on any such man, shame on any such shul or yeshiva: you are both serving poison fruit. Men who abuse their wives and children should be excommunicated, shunned by every Jewish institution. Their money should not be taken. If your yeshiva must close without their money, so be it. You are aiding and abetting. Close your shul if you have to. Close your yeshiva if you have to. Take a poll of your members. Ask the fine young men or women you are educating. I am sure all of them would tell you, “We don’t want to daven or learn in an institution funded by money from men who behave like that.”

It’s time to see the forest for the trees.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein.  He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com.