Finding Yourself By Winging It

Bava Basra 163

Our Gemara on amud aleph discusses the standard width of a line in order to determine the acceptable width of a blank section between the closing line of a contract and the witnesses’ signatures. As we discussed on daf 162, this is a safeguard against cheating, preventing the later insertion of fraudulent obligations and conditions.

The yardstick used by the rabbis is comprised of two words, which contain tall and short letters, so as to account for extra space typically required above and below a line:

Space enough to write the Hebrew word lech, and then the Hebrew word lecha, this word on top of that one. These two words each consist of the two letters lamed and final chaf; the former has a projection that fully occupies the interlinear space above it, and the latter has a projection that fully occupies the interlinear space below it. Writing these words one under the other, then, would require an additional interlinear space above and below both lines.

Of course the most famous use of letters that manifests this up-and-down are the word and letter combination which is from G-d’s first direction to Avraham (Bereishis 12:1):

G-d said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

The Hebrew phrase is “Lech lecha,” and is difficult to translate. Literally it is saying, “Go to yourself,” which doesn’t make sense. The popular interpretation, based on the Midrash and Rashi, is “Go out for yourself,” meaning this journey will bring greatness and goodness to your life.

Kli Yakkar says a beautiful peshat. The phrase actually does mean to go to yourself. Hashem was saying, “Go and discover yourself. By going inside and connecting to your soul, you will become your true self and thereby bring about prophetic attachment to G-d.”

The process of finding oneself in G-d, and G-d in oneself, is somewhat reminiscent of the Rambam’s famous interpretation of Jacob’s ladder in his dream (Guide for the Perplexed I:15). It is notable that the angels in Yaakov’s dream first ascend the ladder and then descend. That is not logical as presumably angels originate in heaven, so the order should be descending and ascending. The answer hinges on what is the true translation of “angel.” In Biblical Hebrew the word we translate as angel is malach, which actually means messenger, (see for example Bamidbar 20:16 where it is used in a secular sense). This is why prophets are also referred to as malachim, since both prophets and angels bring G-d’s message and are His messengers.

Therefore the “angels” in Yaakov’s dream are those who bring the word of G-d down to people, be they actual angels, prophets, or those who teach the word of G-d in their words and deeds. Now we understand the order: One first ascends in order to achieve spiritual connection and then descends in order to bring down the word of G-d.

Yaakov was to continue his grandfather’s mission, to discover his full self, his soul, and thereby bring the word of G-d to others. This is poignantly portrayed in a dream that he has when leaving his birthplace. He, like Avraham, had to embark on a long journey, externally traversing the physical world, but internally by becoming his fullest self.

It occurs to me that this idea is symbolically represented in the actual letters of the words, “Lech lecha.” The lamed reaches above the line to Heaven and chaf extends downward to bring the message to Earth.

One last point I cannot resist. I try to employ true understanding of Biblical Hebrew to decontaminate from subtle incorrect cultural attitudes and beliefs. These mindsets and worldviews are unconsciously incorporated as a result of powerful influences on thought that come from the implicit categorization and depictions in each language. We must always strive to use our best objective thinking to comprehend and translate Torah and be wary of words that may be loosely similar in English, but actually are different.

A scholar pointed out to me an example that had not occurred to me, as I was duped by the English word. In English we have basically one word for angel, but in Hebrew we have many, such as keruvim, ofanim, chayos hakodesh, and seraphim (see for example, Yechezkel’s vision, chapter one of Sefer Yechezkel). The Hebrew Bible never depicts malachim as having wings; only perhaps ofanim, chayos hakodesh, and seraphim, and most famously the cherubim on the ark and in Shlomo HaMelech’s Temple. Therefore, we have been duped by hundreds of years of Christian paintings, which ended up becoming part of our mental and physical art gallery. I do not know any Jew who studies Yaakov’s dream or who sings Sholom Aleichem Friday night without imagining winged entities. We have been bamboozled and deprived of true comprehension. Malachim are messengers, heavenly or otherwise.

You might think, “This is all semantics – who cares if we think angels have wings or not?” It is important to notice the subtle influence of language on thought. If we think of angels with wings whenever we see the word malach, we are missing an opportunity to understand more. G-d has many messengers aside from angels. We certainly ought to welcome angels to our Shabbos table, and hope we merit that G-d will send His messengers to bless us. These may be human intellectual and moral faculties that G-d enlightens us with, prophecy, or hopefully even divine entities, such as angels. But one thing for sure to keep in mind is that they do not have any wings!

Effectiveness Of Forced Confession

Bava Basra 167

Our Gemara on amud aleph records a situation where the sage Abaye suspected through circumstantial evidence that he was being presented with a fraudulent contract. It states that he exerted some form of pressure and coercion in order to induce a confession, and indeed the person did confess.

This brings up an interesting point of the reliability of forced confessions. As a result of DNA testing and the Innocence Project, there have been numerous situations where convictions were overturned and discovered to be incontrovertibly false. Many of these landmark cases involved detailed confessions by the accused, despite the fact that the person was ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence which showed that an entirely different person had committed the crime, and was ultimately convicted. This has caused soul searching and ethical turmoil because confessions have been a mainstay of the criminal justice system. Furthermore, what possible psychological explanations can account for a defendant not only confessing but providing many details to a crime he never committed?

According to researcher Mark Godsey writing in a Chapman Law Review article:

The DNA exonerations to date have revealed something particularly remarkable for those who study confessions. In 25% of the cases of wrongful conviction, the innocent person falsely confessed… Now, scores of case studies involving actual false confessions exist, and they raise troubling questions.

The 2012 film The Central Park Five tells the story of five African and Hispanic-American boys, 14 to 16 years old, who in 1989 confessed to the brutal assault and rape of a female jogger in New York City’s Central Park. Solely on the basis of these confessions, four of which were videotaped, the boys were convicted and sentenced to prison. The tapes themselves were compelling, as every one of the defendants described in vivid – though often erroneous – detail how the jogger was attacked. Thirteen years later, Matias Reyes, in prison for three rapes and a murder committed subsequent to the jogger attack, stepped forward to claim that he was the Central Park jogger rapist and that he acted alone. Reinvestigating the case, the Manhattan district attorney’s office questioned Reyes and discovered that he had accurate and independently corroborated guilty knowledge – and that the DNA samples originally recovered from the victim’s body belonged to him.

…There are a variety of reasons that contribute to false confessions. There is a certain methodology of police interrogation that can cause people to doubt their own truth, or impulsively confess in the belief of an overall better outcome.

This is accomplished via a psychological approach to interrogation designed to increase the anxiety associated with denial and to decrease the anxiety associated with confession to make it easier for a suspect to confess as a means of coping with the interrogation. In the Reid technique…this objective is achieved by isolating the suspect in a small, bare, soundproof room to create a non-supportive environment, and then engaging in a nine-step process that combines the use of positive and negative incentives referred to broadly as maximization and minimization.

The process as a whole is designed to lead suspects to see confession as their most expedient means of “escape.” Once the suspect is persuaded to admit guilt, the trained interrogator seeks to convert that admission into a narrative confession, on tape or in writing.

He further states:

A second interrogation tactic that can induce confessions from innocent people is the presentation of false evidence. In the process of confronting suspects and refusing to accept their denials, U.S. police will sometimes present supposedly incontrovertible evidence of guilt (e.g., a fingerprint, blood or hair sample, eyewitness identification, or failed polygraph) – even if that evidence does not exist – as a way to convince suspects that resistance is futile and that confession is their best option. In the United States, it is permissible for police to outright lie to suspects about the evidence… Empirical research, however, warns clearly of the risk.

One final factor that contributes to false confessions is amazingly counterintuitive. Ironically, genuine innocence can be a risk factor for a false confession:

Innocent people believe that the truth – and their innocence – will prevail. Kassin and Norwick (2004) found, in a mock crime experiment, that innocent suspects are more likely to waive their Miranda rights to silence and to counsel even when in the presence of an officer who appears guilt-presumptive, hostile, and closed-minded…Still other research shows that innocent people do not use self-presentation “strategies” in their narratives when talking to police…; they offer up alibis freely, without regard for the fact that police would view minor inaccuracies with suspicion…; and they become less physiologically aroused in response to the stress of interrogation…

The sense of reassurance that accompanies innocence may reflect a generalized and perhaps motivated belief in a just outcome, making the suspect ironically naive about the adversarial nature of prosecution. Of course young people and those of compromised intellectual or mental faculties are far more susceptible to all the above tactics.

These ideas about psychology, truth, and coercion are not just important in terms of society, but even for parents and educators who sometimes are in the position of having to discipline by extracting a confession.

This is why although Beis Yosef (Choshen Mishpat 99) technically agrees with our Gemara, and states that a judge should rely on his intuition and browbeat or threaten when something feels fishy, such coercive practices should only be performed by a beis din of great stature. The rabbis should be renowned for their wisdom and personal piety. He says that in our times there has been a proliferation of unqualified judges, and there is great danger that boundaries can be crossed and innocent people prosecuted unjustly.