The five Megillot are read, each at its time, over the course of the year. For the most part, it is easy to understand the connection between the Megilla in question and the time it is read. Eicha, naturally, is read on the 9th of Av, the date of the destruction of the Temple; Esther is read on Purim , the holiday that commemorates the events described in that Megilla. Perhaps somewhat less obviously, Shir HaShirim is read on Pesach. Pesach commemorates the exodus from Egypt, and according to the interpretations of Chazal, Shir HaShirim describes metaphorically the history of the Jewish people and its relationship to God (see Rashi, for example, on Shir HaShirim). In the early summer, on Shavuot, we read Rut, which describes events that occurred at that time of the year (during the barley harvest). In addition, Rut the Moabite takes on a life of Judaism and commitment to Torah, her own personal acceptance of the Torah, which parallels the Jewish people’s collective acceptance of Torah on Shavuot.

The reading of Kohelet on Sukkot, however, seems to be a bit out of place. Sukkot is the ultimate holiday of happiness. ושמחת בחגך… והיית אך שמח (and you shall rejoice on your holiday… and you shall be particularly happy) is a verse stated about Sukkot (Vayikra 16:15). Kohelet, on the other hand, is one of the most depressing, least encouraging works of Tanach. It focuses on the inevitability of death, the temporality of all worldly things, and the lack of ultimate value in any human endeavor. The end of the Megilla seems to find some comfort in a life of fear of God, but this seems to be only partial comfort to those who take the message of the body of the book seriously. Is Kohelet read on Sukkot only because it is the “only one left,” the last Megilla after the other four have been “taken?”

I do not have a complete answer to that question. I am not sure that I can explain the dissonance between the happiness of Sukkot and the despair of Kohelet. But I would like to point out a way in which Kohelet matches another theme of Sukkot. According to the Mishna, during Sukkot a person is to make his sukkah permanent and his house temporary (Sukkah 2:9) . The home which symbolizes permanence and solidity gets treated as something temporary and time-bound. The booth, temporary and time-bound, becomes something permanent and consistent. Similarly, when we left the established civilization of Egypt we were protected in God’s temporary dwellings in the transience of a desert existence (Vayikra 23:43). That is to say, on Sukkot we reflect on the temporality of the things we consider most permanent, by treating the temporary as permanent and vice versa. I suspect that we read Kohelet on Sukkot because we are to focus on the idea that we should not expect concrete walls and elaborate insurance policies to protect us from the temporality of life and inevitability of death. If there is ultimate meaning to be found, it is in the fear of God and the fulfillment of his commandments, for in fact the walls of our houses are really no more permanent than the walls of our Sukkot.

One of the great frustrations of anyone who observes the Jewish calendar are the conflicts that emerge when dealing with the secular rhythms of American life. The audible sigh of relief that the Chagim fall on weekends can be heard in many quarters.

It is curious that Jewish holidays are never on time. They are always early, or late. I’ve never heard it said that Rosh Hashana is on time this year. Nevertheless, the Jewish new year is in sync with the academic calendar. Both begin the year at around the same time.

School starts usually in Elul, just when we are preparing ourselves for the New Year. It is the only time the academic and Jewish calendars coincide. I don’t count Chanuka and xmas only because it was xmas that enhanced the importance of Chanuka. Certainly, there was nothing inherent in Chanuka that would make one take a break from school.

A major theme of Rosh Hashana is that not only our community, but the entire world is being judged at this time. It is a season of new beginnings for the entire world community. Elul is a time to change patterns of behavior that have proven to be destructive just as the school year affords those opportunities. This type of personal work is much easier when the general culture is also beginning a new term. Let everyone see themselves as preparing for the first day of a brand new term.

It’s a new semester folks, and change is possible.

This article was originally posted on scorchintorah.blogspot.com

Last Thursday, I was among over 80 attendees from many countries listening to Rabbi Brovender on webyeshiva.org. He elucidated a couple of kinot (liturgical poems of lamentation) and gave the following insight. When the Prophet Jeremiah in the fifth chapter of Lamentations, asks that God should “Remember what we once had”, what is the Prophet assuming? That God can forget? What does it mean for God to remember, and what does that teach us about Jewish memory?

Going back to Noach, memory is also invoked. It says after the flood that “God remembered Noach”. It wasn’t like there were that many people around for Noach to get lost in the shuffle. So, what does memory mean in a Divine context. Rabbi Brovender then said, when the Prophet enjoins God to remember what we once had, he doesn’t imply that God has forgotten. He is asking God to activate the dynamic of what once was that has presently been put on hold.

Similarly, in one of the kinot when it says that “God didn’t remember the covenant with Avraham”, it’s not that God forgot, but rather that the process has been halted, and he petitions that the process be renewed.

As Faulkner once said: Not only is the past important, it’s not even past.

The class was given in memory of my teacher and Rabbi Brovender’s colleague and friend Rabbi Jay Miller. I think Rabbi Miller would have liked it.

It is true that the things that are most common to us are often the things we know the least about. They are part of our natural routine and so we don’t question them. For many, the intricacies of breathing only become understood when that process is interrupted. Otherwise, there are many of us who happily walk around totally unaware of the science behind that which allows us to function.

Our spiritual habits are no different. People say אמן or “Ayyymen” all the time, assuming they both know what they mean and what it means–or maybe mindlessly parroting an accepted mimetic tradition, and knowing neither.

Last night, in the late summer of my years, I learned and then taught about the importance of this one word–not only in liturgy, but in everyday discourse.

The word Amen makes a brief appearance in the Talmud. It is a word with power. Resh Lakish says when said with gusto that it opens the gates of heaven. Ben Azzai cautions with a severe warning that one should never “orphan” an Amen, but it should always be connected to a bracha. Amen means nothing on its own, but becomes powerful only when it is responding to a blessing.

Well, what is it doing? What does it mean? What are we doing when we say it? Most people when they say amen are affirming what has been said to them. But it is more than that. Amen is an acronym for Al Melech Ne’eman אל מלך נאמן (God, the faithful king) and by saying it we affirm that all God’s promises will eventually come to pass.

People often improvise their own wishes in life where people affirm these impromptu blessings with an enthusiastic Amen. They are indeed affirming the words of the speaker, but they are also bearing witness that the One who created the world is in charge of fulfilling these wishes. We, impudent snots that we are, invoke Him even in circumstances where we are implicating Him in promises He has not made. It’s a sort of spiritual activism in which one should engage with some care, for a misplaced Amen the Gemara says, is a dangerous thing.

Amen is testimony. Amen is affirmation. Amen, at its best is done in response to others, so Amen does not only connect us to God, but our relationship with others–it is an opportunity to unify the commandments between people and God and the commandments between human beings in just one word.

No wonder it can open the gates of heavens.

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I don’t know the situation in the various places across the world the WebYeshiva reaches, but in the Northeast where I live, it is increasingly common to meet people who classify themselves as Orthodox Jews, but whose views on human sexuality are shockingly at odds with those of the Torah. To call some of that into question, I thought it worth reminding ourselves of a few basic facts.

The attitudes to which I refer have an extreme and a moderate version. The extreme one says that people’s sexuality is their own private matter–as long as it does not hurt anyone else– and is therefore not really any of our business. In this perspective, homosexuality is fine, open marriages into which the parties enter of their own free will are fine, and the only problems with pedophilia and bestiality are the presumed negative effects on the child or animal involved (children are assumed not to be able to give informed consent to such activities).

The moderate version, so common in certain circles as to be almost rampant, recognizes that the Torah does not allow for such an ethic, but makes one or both of two points: First, that we live in societies that do not base their values on Torah law, so we cannot impose our views on others, and, second, that while we may disagree with these choices and see them as wrong, it is not our place to do anything about it, since these actions are private and therefore a matter purely between the participants and God.

For the first, I think it important to note that the Torah does not condone such sexuality—homosexual or adulterous—for Jews or non-Jews (premarital sex is only a problem for Jews, but my impression is that the people whose attitudes I am critiquing would see that as a private matter as well). If so, it seems impossible for a Jew to muster a sanguine attitude when the society around him or her condones conduct Torah law sees as a capital crime. Jews’ definitions of right and wrong are supposed to be shaped by the Torah’s perspective– to the extent that the Torah expresses what it sees as a universal value, applicable equally to all human adults, an observant Jew would be obligated to advocate, in whatever legitimate ways, for the actualization of that value within whatever society that Jew inhabits.

That would be true of all forms of conduct which the Torah prohibits. Sexuality has the added issue of the Torah’s seeing its wrongful expression as damaging not only to the participants, like all sin, but to the society as a whole. In the story at the end of Parshat Balak, the Jews’ copulating with the daughters of Midian was a national crime, not a personal one, and the plague stopped when Pinchas demonstrated the community’s opposition to such acts.

Similarly, the Torah tells us that the Land of Israel spewed out the Canaanite nations for their wrongful sexuality, a sign that these sins affect the whole ecology (the physical environment in addition to the society). Finally, the majority of the sins for which the Torah ascribes karet, excision from the Jewish people, are sexual, meaning that wrongful sexuality impinges on our right to see ourselves as members of the community in good standing.

Living in exile—including those who live in a State of Israel where Western values still reign supreme—we must always ask ourselves which of the values of the surrounding society are consonant with those of the Torah, which might enrich our understanding of what the Torah was trying to tell us, which are in tension with the Torah, and which are contradicted by the Torah.

The Western view of sexuality as a private matter between consenting adults which generally does not hurt others is, to my mind, one of the prime locations today where Jews mistake a value that is diametrically opposed to what the Torah wants for one that is consonant with Torah. We need to remind ourselves, here and elsewhere, that the values and ideal of the world around us are not always ours, that as עובדי ה’, servants of God, we sometimes need to walk a separate and lonely path. The advantage of that path is that it brings us closer to our Creator, and lets us partake in perfecting the world in the Kingdom of Holy One.

In our prayers and our conception, we speak and think of the recently completed holiday of Shavuot as זמן מתן תורתנו, the time of the giving of our Torah. This misidentification highlights a paradox that should heighten our appreciation of the tragedies of the Three Weeks, the period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av.

Shavuot is not, in fact, זמן מתן תורתנו, at least not according to our current practice of Jewish law. In a long discussion starting on פ”ז., 87a, in Massechet Shabbat, the Talmud presents a debate between R. Yose and Rabanan as to whether the Torah was given on the 6th of Sivan (the first day of Shavuot) or the 7th. Based on the rule that יחיד ורבים חלכה כרבים, when an individual and a group have a debate the halacha follows the group, we would ordinarily rule according to Rabanan, which would then put the giving of the Torah on what we celebrate as the first day of Shavuot.

That debate, however, also has ramifications for our practice of the laws of Nidda commonly translated as Family Purity. There, common practice follows the opinion of R. Yose, which would mean that the Giving of the Torah happened on the seventh of Sivan, a day after Shavuot. Hundreds of years of rabbinic discussion of this issue has yielded many solutions to how to reconcile the two, but further problems make clear that the Torah did not originally think of Shavuot as a Giving of the Torah holiday.
For example, the Torah dates Shavuot as forty-nine days after the offering of the Omer. Since by Torah law the calendar was supposed to be set by eyewitness testimony, those forty-nine days could end on either the 5th, 6th, or 7th of Sivan, only one of which is the anniversary of Matan Torah, the Giving of the Torah.

Most problematic, though, is that the Torah itself never connects these two events, a shocking lacuna if the Giving of the Torah was in any way central to the experience of Shavuot. As the phrase in Hebrew goes, עיקר חסר מן הספר, the essential point is missing; if מעמד הר סיני, Standing at Sinai, was part of the fabric of Shavuot, the Torah should have at least alerted us. Whether or not the date was the same, the Torah does not seem to care.

Instead, the Torah speaks of Shavuot as a holiday of שתי הלחם, of the giving of two loaves of bread, a celebration of the offering of new produce in the Temple for that year. We can leave the full exposition of that idea for just before next Shavuot, but it reminds us that the loss of the Temple rendered the holiday itself almost incomprehensible.

That is one example of what we too often fail to realize, but to which the Three Weeks call for us to resensitize ourselves, the extent to which the loss of the Temple has altered the religion God actually gave us. Shavuot serves as one good example, where a holiday focused on renewing our relationship with the Temple has instead been turned into a holiday of renewal in our relationship to Torah. This fits well with the Talmudic dictum that מיום שחרב בית המקדש אין לו לקב”ה בעולמו אלא ד’ אמות של הלכה בלבד, from the day the Temple was destroyed, God only has in this world the four ells of halacha. Accurate as that statement is (and well as it represents what occurred with the holiday of Shavuot), we too often neglect the beginning of the statement—מיום שחרב בית המקדש, from the day the Temple was destroyed. The Talmud implies not only the truth of our current reality but also that the pre-Destruction reality differed, and the reality we long to return to will differ as well.

Some aspects of that pre-Destruction reality worth considering, since it is the first set of those that might soon return in full force, is the set of halachot that come into play only when the Yovel is in force. For that to happen, we would need a majority of world Jewry to be living in Israel, which is demographically likely in the next half-century. According to most authorities, that would also require שבטים במקומם, the various tribes inhabiting their proper sections of the Land of Israel.

With that occurrence, Shemitta would once again apply on a Torah level (removing any question of a היתר מכירה, a sale of the Land for the year, for example), and the possibility of accepting גרי תושב, resident aliens, would return, significantly altering our relationships with non-Jews in the Land of Israel (at least if we operate with halachic categories). In addition, buying and selling real estate in the Land of Israel as well as lending money in general would change.

All that might come to fruition in the near and natural future, without the coming of Mashiach or the rebuilding of the Temple.

Those two events—which we say we long for—would include a return of סמיכה, the original ordination that gives the Sanhedrin broad legislative and judicial powers, including the right to absolutely determine halacha for the entire Jewish people (in contrast to today, where every community follows its particular rabbi) and to administer the death penalty when necessary.

The return of the Temple would bring with it animal sacrifice, which includes the Paschal sacrifice, the Yom Kippur service of the High Priest, and the libation celebrations of the holiday of Sukkot. All of these, almost alien to our imaginations, are part of what we are supposed to mourn during the Three Weeks. Just as we can no longer fully imagine Shavuot in the way the Torah meant it, I fear we can no longer fully imagine these other important aspects of the religion the way God gave it to us. And that itself seems cause enough to mourn.

After writing an article for WebYeshiva on Orthodox Judaism and piercing, I received an unexpected number of questions about Judaism and tattoos. It became apparent that first, many people feel the two subjects are associated, and second, there are also quite a few people who are simply uncertain about the general laws concerning tattooing in Orthodox Judaism. For these reasons, I felt an appropriate second contribution to the Webyeshiva would be an exploration of tattooing in Orthodox Judaism.

While there is some real opportunity for discussion when it comes to the validity of individual piercing in Judaism, there is little scope for argument when it comes to tattooing – at least concerning the process of getting a tattoo itself. Having said that, tattooing is extremely popular throughout all spheres of the Western world, and it is still very much in vogue many years after it appeared as a normative alternative trend in America. There have been several articles written about Jews and tattooing. (The Jewish Week 10/01/2004 - God In The Tattoo Needle) There are even plans for a documentary on the subject. (http://www.tattoojewmovie.com) Indeed, there are several tattoo magazines which have dedicated entire issues to Jewish-themed tattoos. Society at large and the Jewish community in particular seem quite enthralled by the subject, and there remains a great deal of misunderstanding over the prohibition and its ramifications. To be sure, while on campus, many of my less religious Jewish students were considering getting tattoos, or had gotten tattoos before they became religious, and wanted to know what they should do now. In light of these realities, this article will endeavor to illuminate the halacha behind tattooing and to examine some of the myths and realities relating to Jews and tattoos.

To be the bearer of bad news (for those of you who would like a tattoo), the Torah tells us very unmistakably in Vayikra (19:28):

You shall not make a cut in your flesh for the dead, and a tattoo shall you not place upon yourselves – I am HASHEM.

[כח וְשֶׂרֶט לָנֶפֶשׁ, לֹא תִתְּנוּ בִּבְשַׂרְכֶם, וּכְתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע, לֹא תִתְּנוּ בָּכֶם: אֲנִי, יְהוָה]

While that is the end of the conversation from a biblical perspective, there is some debate about how one violates the commandment itself – what constitutes a tattoo, and what the actual nature of the prohibition is. Within the context of what constitutes a violation of the prohibition, the mishna in Makkot tells us:

One who makes a tattoo is (liable). If one wrote but did not prick the skin, or if one pricked the skin but did not write – one is not liable until one writes and pricks the skin, with black ink or blue dye or with anything that makes a mark.

[ג,ו הכותב כתובת קעקע--כתב ולא קעקע, קעקע ולא כתב--אינו חייב: עד שיכתוב; ויקעקע בדיו, ובכוחל, ובכל דבר שהוא רושם. רבי שמעון בן יהודה משם רבי שמעון אומר, אינו חייב עד שיכתוב את השם, שנאמר "וכתובת קעקע, לא תיתנו בכם: אני, ה'" (ויקרא יט,כח).]

For one to transgress the biblical prohibition from the perspective of the mishna (and indeed all later codifiers), one need perform both the pricking and the inking; either one by itself is not enough. The other facet of the discussion which is of interest is the discussion in the gemara:

Rav Acha the son of Rava asked Rav Ashi: Does R’ Shimon ben Yehuda in the name of Rav Shimon mean that one is not liable until they wrote the specific words, “I am Hashem”? Rav Ashi answered him: No. What it means, rather, is as Bar Kappara taught, citing a braita that: One is not liable unless he writes the name of a pagan deity, as it says, “And you shall not make tattoo marks in yourselves; I am Hashem. The implication is I am Hashem, and there is no other deity. I.e. you are not to mark yourselves in subservience to another deity.
Rav Malkiya said in the name of Rav Adda bar Ahavah: A person is forbidden to put ashes on his wound to heal it, because it appears like tattooing, since the ashes leave marks in the skin after the wound has healed.

[ג,ו הכותב כתובת קעקע--כתב ולא קעקע, קעקע ולא כתב--אינו חייב: עד שיכתוב; ויקעקע בדיו, ובכוחל, ובכל דבר שהוא רושם. רבי שמעון בן יהודה משם רבי שמעון אומר, אינו חייב עד שיכתוב את השם, שנאמר "וכתובת קעקע, לא תיתנו בכם: אני, ה'" (ויקרא יט,כח).]

Based on this gemara there seems to exist the theoretical possibility that one does not actually transgress the biblical prohibition unless one actually tattoos the name of God onto one’s skin or alternatively one is tattooing some type of idol worship onto his or her body. On this topic, it should be noted that the gemara simply offers these possibilities for consideration, without stating a halachic conclusion. Suffice to say, we see that the gemara takes the prohibition so seriously that one is forbidden under rabbinic edict to use ash on a wound for refua purposes lest it even look like he was tattooed after the wound heals.

Under all circumstance the best one can hope for is that a typical tattoo without kavana (intent) of idolatry is rabbinically prohibited, (Beyond the scope of this article is the possible problem of chukot hagoyim when getting a tattoo in this day and age. While it is true that most poskim hold that practices that are initiated by non-Jews for logical reasons and are not negative in nature are not considered chukot at all, it is not clear to me that tattoos would fall into this category) as tosafot suggest: [בכתובת קעקע - מדאורייתא ליכא איסורא עד שיכתוב ויקעקע בדיו ובכחול כדתנן בפ"ג דמכות (דף כא.) ולר' שמעון אינו חייב אפי' כתב וקעקע עד שיכתוב את השם פי' שם דע"ז כדמפרש התם בגמרא ומיהו איסורא דרבנן איכא הכא דאפי' אפר מקלה אסור ליתן על גבי מכתו מפני שנראה ככתובת קעקע ואפי' הויא הכא איסורא דאורייתא מ"מ הוי גט כדאמרי' לעיל כתבו על איסורי הנאה כשר אע"ג דאסור לכתוב דהא מיתהני באיסורי הנאה.
תוספות מסכת גיטין דף כ עמוד ב ]. However it is entirely possible that any tattoo falls under the biblical prohibition under all circumstances. Certainly the Shulchan Aruch (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deia 180:1) does not seem to make any distinction regarding one’s intent when getting a tattoo:

Tattooing involves making a cut in one’s flesh and filling the slit with ink or with any other dye that leaves an imprint. If one did it [made a tattoo] in the flesh of another person it is as if they did it to themselves.

Regardless of all of the above, according to all authorities, one who was forced to get a tattoo is absolutely not held responsible. The most obvious group of people who would fall into this category are holocaust survivors who were tattooed with numbers by the Germans. Anyone forced to get a tattoo is held blameless.

The rest of this article will address several myths surrounding a Jew who in fact did get a tattoo. There appears to be conventional wisdom regarding three specific issues related to tattoos on Jewish persons. First is that a Jew with a tattoo cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Second is the possibility that a woman (or man) with a tattoo cannot ever go to the mikveh because the tattoo is a chatzitza (obstruction). Finally, there is the notion that one clearly should remove the tattoo when one becomes cognizant of the prohibition.

The most prevalent rumor, that a Jew with a tattoo cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, is simply inaccurate. My speculation is that this myth arose from a time when, in an effort to keep Jewish practice safe and consistent throughout the shtetl, people who were not shomer mitzvot (observant) were not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery. This powerful deterrent had no connection with tattoos per se, but applied to anyone who did not keep the Torah fully. In this day and age, this deterrent is no longer in place regarding the Orthodox community at large, but the idea persists relating exclusively to one with a tattoo because it is a transgression whose evidence remains on the body. After all, any learned ba’al tshuva will be indistinguishable from those who are frum from birth over time. No one can look at a person and say, “Aaah – you were not always shomer Shabbat!” but a tattoo is permanent visible proof that at some point one violated the Torah, knowingly or unknowingly.

Concerning the mikva, when a person goes to the mikva they must take care that there is nothing on their person which could be considered a barrier between the water and themselves. Examples could include dried paint on the skin, a band-aid, a piece of jewelry or what not. I have heard many suggest that if a woman (or man) had a tattoo they would not be able to go to the mikva because the tattoo would act as an obstruction between the skin and the water. This is simply not the case. While it may be a source of embarrassment for one who has a tattoo to go to the mikva, it is simply not a halachic problem. I suspect, although I cannot prove, that this idea came from ignorance about what exactly a tattoo is, or how the process works. It may be that people assume that tattoos are some type of surface scab, above the skin. In reality, tattooing involves the placement of pigment into the skin’s dermis, the layer of dermal tissue underlying the epidermis. After initial injection, pigment is dispersed throughout a homogenized damaged layer down through the epidermis and upper dermis, in both of which the presence of foreign material activates the immune system’s phagocytes to engulf the pigment particles. As healing proceeds, the damaged epidermis flakes away (eliminating surface pigment) while deeper in the skin granulation tissue forms, which is later converted to connective tissue by collagen growth. This mends the upper dermis, where pigment remains trapped within fibroblasts, ultimately concentrating in a layer just below the dermis/epidermis boundary. (Tattoo Lasers by Suzanne Linsmeier Kilmer, MD, MS) We see, therefore, that a tattoo actually sits below the surface of the skin and cannot present a problem of chatzitza.

Finally, I have heard many Jews and even some rabbis say that a person who has a tattoo has an obligation to remove it immediately. It is not at all clear to me that this is accurate or would automatically be the case. Removing a tattoo is not a simple prospect and is actually a somewhat complex surgery. Pre-laser tattoo removal methods include dermabrasion, salabrasion (scrubbing the skin with salt), cryosurgery, and excision, which are sometimes still used along with skin grafts for larger tattoos. Today, “laser tattoo removal” usually refers to the non-invasive removal of tattoo pigments using Q-switched lasers. Laser tattoo removal can be quite painful, and prescription strength topical anesthetic creams or injections of anesthetic solutions are usually used to manage pain. Even laser surgery often leaves some scarring. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo_removal)

As discussed in the piercing article, there is a question about when the prohibition of wounding oneself applies when it comes to cosmetic surgery. The Minchat Yitzchak argues that the prohibition against wounding oneself is relevant only if it is done in a destructive or disrespectful manner. Rav Moshe Feinstein is the most lenient of contemporary poskim on this issue, arguing that in the case of aesthetically motivated surgery which is neither destructive nor disrespectful, the prohibition against wounding is not relevant at all. Based on these sources, it would seem that if a person had a valid reason to remove a tattoo, they could do so – either because they were deeply embarrassed by the tattoo, or they were afraid of ruining a chance at a shidduch for example. It is not, however, clear from these sources that one should or could get a tattoo removed if it does not bother them. In fact, even according to Rav Moshe, it might be prohibited for someone to remove their tattoo if it does not bother them. After all, getting the tattoo was prohibited no matter what. Removing the tattoo does not remove the fact that one got a tattoo; it simply removes the visible proof that one did.

In conclusion, while there are many reasons a person may want a tattoo, and while there may be arguments for why a tattoo could be personally meaningful or even spiritual, it is objectively prohibited. At the very least it is prohibited rabbinically, but any tattoo may very well be prohibited Biblically. Having said that, once a person gets a tattoo, while it may carry real social stigma it does not carry any lasting halachic ramifications to the bearer whatsoever.

In an oft-quoted Gemara in Bava Metzia 62a, the Talmud confronts the following situation:
Two people are traveling on a distant journey in the wilderness. One has a canteen of water. Were the men to share the water, they would both die, but if one only drinks, he will remain alive in time to seek help. Ben Petura rules that it is preferable that both drink from the water and die, rather than one witnessing his friend’s demise. Rabbi Akiva disagrees: the Torah says that your brother should live with you”; Chayecha Kodmin - your life takes precedence over his life.

At first blush, Rabbi Akiva’s position here flatly contradicts the famous verse in Sefer Vayikra, V’ahavta L’reyacha Kamocha – which bids each of us to love our fellow Jews as ourselves; seemingly, we are each expected to love our fellows to the same extent that we love ourselves! To complicate matters, Rabbi Akiva himself, quoted by the midrash, hails this verse as the central principle of the Torah – “V’ahavta L’reyacha Kamocha - Zeh Klal Gadol B’Torah.”

The verse mandating love of a fellow Jew also ends with a strange “PS”: Ani Hashem – “I am the Lord.” Who did we think was dictating the Torah to Moshe until now? To unravel our mystery, let’s examine the concept of love as it is addressed by the Torah. In the Kriat Shema, we are bidden to fulfill the lofty commandment of Loving G-d: “And you shall love the Lord, your G-d, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your means…”On this verse, the Sifri states:

Rebbe says, ‘Why was this said? Because it says, And you shall love the Lord your G-d with all of your heart. – (But) I do not know how to love G-d! The Torah therefore says, And these words which I command you this day shall be on your heart. Take these words to your heart, because through this, you will come to know He Whose speech brought the world into being – and you will cleave to His ways.’

In other words, the rather amorphous obligation to love G-d is achieved through adhering to the directive of the next verse in Kriat Shema: through learning and focusing on Torah, we can each come to know G-d and cleave to His attributes.

Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, in his classic work, Meshech Chochma, deepens our understanding of the Sifri: Love, says Rav Meir, can follow one of two models: When a poor man who receives tzedakah from a wealthy man, says that he “loves” his benefactor, he is really expressing a love born of hitnagdut, opposition, even antagonism. The less fortunate man surely wishes that he himself had such wealth; unconsciously, he may feel at odds with the giver. The emotion the recipient identifies as “love” actually reflects a self-love; such love gives birth to a tension between himself and the wealthy man, a tension only relieved with the receipt of the gift. Only once the rich man shared his wealth with the poor man does this antagonism subtly subside.

However, says R. Meir Simcha, “love that focuses on the other, the recipient of the love, flows from the equality and similarity between the two parties – such as a Torah scholar who loves another…” When I appreciate that which binds me to another, I develop a deep affinity for that person, regard for his essence. One who has mastered the art of playing the violin who attends a violin concerto can have a deep appreciation of the talents of the guest performer; a student of art will be mesmerized by the sophistication of a Rembrandt far more than the uninitiated.

Which model best fits our love for G-d? His unbounded wisdom, infinite nature, and incorporeality surely make Him an unlikely object of this second, more profound brand of love. How can we say that our love of G-d stems “from the equality and similarity” between ourselves and G-d?
Our relationship with G-d instead seems to more naturally fit the first model of love: we love him as recipients of his beneficence. In our daily Tefillot, we look to G-d as the provider of life, wealth, and blessing. Sadly, it appears that our love of G-d is ultimately actually a love of self. This is the key, says the Meshech Chochma, to understanding the question of the Sifri, cited earlier:

….it says, And you shall love the Lord your G-d with all of your heart. – (But) I do not know how to love G-d!

The Sifri notes that the Torah requires us to love G-d with all of our hearts. This implies a thorough, almost selfless love of our Creator. “But I do not know how to love G-d – to this extent!” Asks the midrash: How can a mere mortal be anything but a lover of himself, a selfish recipient of Divine bounty? Man’s self-serving focus can surely not be what the Torah intended by its mandate to love Hashem Elokecha B’chol Livavicha! What is the Sifri’s answer?

And these words which I command you this day shall be on your heart. Take these words to your heart, because through this, you will come to know He Whose speech brought the world into being – and you will cleave to His ways.’

Torah learning paves the way for the Jew to cleave to Divine attributes such as compassion and mercy. Through Torah study, a Jew penetrates G-d’s wisdom, begins to understand the Divine mind. Incorporating the Torah into our consciousness and living a life consistent with Torah – creates a common ground between us and G-d. It fosters a degree of “equality”. It paves the way for the more profound selfless love stemming from an appreciation of G-d’s true essence.

Such a perspective sheds light on the mitzva of Ahavat Re’a, love of a fellow Jew. In Rav Meir Simcha’s view, “when you love a fellow Jew, do not love him for the honor or other payment that he will give you.” Should you do so, you would merely love yourself. Such a love often triggers the exact opposite result: It prompts us to seek out relationships of greater inequality – since such friendships provide us with greater self-serving satisfaction. Rather, we must love our fellow Jew in response to that which links us – our common heritage as children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, as members of a covenantal community that worships G-d and serves as a beacon to the nations of the world.

This approach solves the problem we raised earlier: How can Rabbi Akiva simultaneously bid us to love our fellow Jew as ourselves, but permit us to drink from the canteen in the desert at the expense of another’s life? According to the Meshech Chochma’s approach, that question was premised on a fundamental misreading of the intent of the verse: The term “Kamocha” in the verse, V’ahavta L’reyacha Kamocha, does not require us to love our fellow Jew to the same extent to which we each love ourselves; the Torah does not expect us to forfeit our lives on behalf of others. Instead, “Kamocha” describes the reason for, and the nature of, the love that the Torah asks us to experience. The Torah challenges us to see the common bonds that link each of us with our fellow Jew.

This approach even helps answer another question we asked earlier: Why does the verse mandating love of others end with the expression Ani Hashem – I am the Lord? Did not G-d dictate the entire Torah to Moshe? Does Hashem’s Divine name not permeate the entirety of Torah and mitzvot?
Says the Meshech Chochma:

וזה אני ה’, שזה דוגמת אהבה כאשר אתה צריך לאהוב אותי וכאשר אני אוהבכם…והשי”ת אינו מקבל שום תועליות משום נברא, ואדון עולם אשר מלך בטרם כל יציר נברא, וכן תאהב לרעך…
“This is what I am Hashem means: The love of your fellow Jew should follow the model of how you must love Me, and how I love you… Hashem, May he be Blessed, receives no benefit from earthly creatures, since He existed prior to the world’s creation. So, too, should you love your fellow…”

After a short break, back from the sea, zeal renewed, strength restored, I realize what a gift teaching is. There I was, sitting outside with my laptop near Rechovot Beach, but actually next to a small bay on the other side of the ocean. It was time for my Maharal class given on the Web through webyeshiva.org. My students who appear from California to Poland on my screen through their webcams are ready for Torah from רחובות.

The Maharal opens the second chapter of Netiv Torah (The Pathway to Torah) with a Talmudic passage from the Tractate of Ta’anit (Fasting).

Why is the Torah likened to water? As it is written, ‘Let all who are thirsty come to the water.’ (Isaiah 55:1)

Just as water from a high place always seeks out a low place, so too, Torah is only maintained in one whose awareness [of self] is lowly. (Ta’anit 4a)

The Maharal explains that Torah is pure intellect and has no connection to the material world. Therefore, in order to receive Torah, one must be in a state of humility. Humility is what the modern Hasidic masters would call the Bitul Hayesh, the nullification of self. The opposite of which is Gasut Ruach (grossness of spirit, arrogance). Arrogance is the most material, and the crassest of all qualities. Why the most material? Because of its emphasis on size, on being bigger, and being the best. By definition, the arrogant are subjected to the realm of form and matter, and that is their limitation. No matter how big you are, you are only that size and no more.

The humble, however, by nullifying self as much as possible, have forfeited the realm of size, for something a tad more than nothing. Thus paradoxically, they have no limitation. Like water, the humble have transcended size by going to the low place, and therefore are capable of receiving and maintaining the Torah.

Rabbi Yehoshua Bar Chanina was speaking to the daughter of Caesar. She observed, “What magnificent wisdom contained in such an ugly container!” Rabbi Yehoshua asked, “In what kind of vessels does the Caesar keep his wine?” “In vessels of earthenware,” she replied. “People as important as you keep wine in vessels so common?” He queried. “What should we keep them in?” she asked. “In vessels of gold and silver”, he answered. She did as he suggested and the wine turned to vinegar.
The Caesar asked her, “Who told you to do this?” “Rabbi Chanina did”, she said. The Caesar asked Rabbi Chanina, “Why did you tell my daughter to do this?” Rabbi Chanina replied, “Just as she told me, so I told her (Ibid)

The Gemara wonders whether it is possible for the handsome to learn? The answer is that they can, but if those who were handsome were less good looking they would have learned more.

This story demonstrates that the most precious of liquids is only preserved in the humblest of vessels. Torah, like these liquids, require the utmost care in order to be preserved. That care requires all who wish to receive it to be self-ignored and Torah absorbed.

This is a beautiful story I heard not once, but many times from my heilige Rebbe Reb Shlomo Carlebach, tzl. Maybe you know it already, but that’s okay because some stories are meant to be told and heard over and over.

Once a chasid came to the Holy Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and asked him for help with a passport so that he wouldn’t need to go to the authorities to get it. The Rebbe went into his room for a few moments and came out with a blank piece of paper. The chasid was a little freaked out but the Rebbe assured him it would be fine. It takes so much emuna to walk up to the border and hand the guard a blank piece of paper. But that is exactly what the chasid did. Baruch Hashem, all went well – the guard looked at the “passport” and treated him like a king and helped him throughout his journey. The chasid came home and all was well.

Many, many years later in 1935, a Munkatcher chasid went to the Rebbe of Munkatch, the Rebbe Chaim Eleazar Shapira, and asked him for a special passport to help him as he had to go to Nazi Germany. The chasid asked him for a passport like the one the holy Reb Levi Yitschak had given his chasid.
The Munkatcher went into his room and was there for three hours. He came out with his face red from crying. He also handed his chasid a blank piece of paper but the paper was wet with tears. The Rebbe said that really our generation is not on the level of this kind of passport so promise me that you will never tell anyone about it as long as I live.

The chasid came to the Nazi border and the guard asked for his passport. The chasid gave him the blank piece of paper. The guard began exclaiming that it was a great honor to have him come to his country and gave him a letter to the police of each town so they will take care of you and protect you. He received a car and a driver and they paid for his hotel rooms and baruch Hashem, he too arrived home safely.

The Munkatcher Rebbe died the following year. Three years later the chasid became very sick and he realized his time for this world was about up. He called his family close to him and told them the secret of his holy Munkatcher passport and he asked that the passport be in his hand when they bury him.
Reb Shlomo told us that every Gemara starts on page two – page one is blank – Hashem gives us a Munkatcher passport so we can learn Torah. And when you are at the Holy Kotel and you realize that, “tachlis”, there is not much to really see there but you begin to daven from your heart the gates of Heaven open - it is because Hashem is giving you a holy Munkatcher passport.

May we all give each other “Munkatcher passports” – may we all open the gates for each other, may we all open the gates and let our walls down and no longer ever feel separate from Hashem, from our children, from our spouses, from our nation and from ourselves!!