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HEAD CHECKS
The common practice in much of Israeli and even in sections of Jewish society generally is to issue and accept post dated checks – head checks. Many pay their tuition in that fashion and redeem their charitable pledges that way as well. Some even pay their personal debts and obligations with head checks.
When I was a lawyer I had a client who though substantially wealthy, always paid his obligations with post dated checks. I informed him that technically that was not really too legal and in any event since he had the necessary currency available, why did he insist on this practice. His response was that when you give an individual or an institution a post dated check that person or institution will undoubtedly pray for your continued good health and success – at least until the check finally clears the bank.
There is really a certain amount of intuitive logic to that viewpoint. In any event issuing and/or accepting a head check is an act of faith and trust. The issuer is somehow convinced that he will see that the check will be made good on the due date and the acceptor of that check also declares his faith in the issuer that the check will be payable on the due date. Thus a more intimate relationship than usual is created between the two parties involved. The relationship is now governed by a feeling of mutual trust, wary and doubtful as the parties may really be of each other.
The God of Israel has issued us a number of long term outstanding head checks. There is a head check outstanding, though it has been partially paid in our time, regarding the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. There is another head check outstanding that promises a return of the people of Israel to a Torah way of life and to true service of God in their personal and national lives. There is a very large head check still outstanding regarding messianic times and the glory, peace, serenity and independence that that era will bring to Israel and eventually to all of humankind.
And there are numerous other head checks outstanding concerning universal peace and disarmament, a fair system of prosperity and a unified recognition of God’s sovereignty over all human affairs. The Jewish people have trusted implicitly that these head checks will all be redeemed and paid in full. The rub in the matter is that all of these head checks are undated. We do not know exactly when they can be presented for payment at the heavenly bank.
Thus the quality of faith and trust that always accompanies post dated checks is compounded in the case of God’s commitments to us. Undated head checks are truly a matter of trust in the issuer. Over the long history of the Jewish people Jewish trust in the issuer of those head checks to us has remained constant. Only in our time have we begun to see that some of them are perhaps currently redeemable.
A dispute has raged in the Jewish world over the past two centuries whether these checks can be presented for payment even if the issuer has apparently not specifically informed us that the due date has arrived. This was and is constantly represented in the contentiousness of the struggle over the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel.
To a certain extent we can all agree that partial payment on that head check has been made. The question is whether a head check can be redeemed in partial payments or whether the whole amount due must be paid at one shot. We really have no instruction on that matter and therefore we exist in a state of confusion and doubt regarding the trust that we placed in the redemption of that check.
And the issuer of that head check remains outwardly silent on this important matter, which only adds to our doubt and lack of clarity on the subject. The head check regarding the ingathering of the Jewish exiles to the Land of Israel has also, in the main, been cashed, even though millions of Jews voluntarily choose to remain in their lands of the Jewish Diaspora. It seems therefore that the checks will be redeemed piece meal and not all in one complete fell swoop.
Since the head checks were undated we really have no cause for complaint or despair. We hope and pray to see all of them fully redeemed soon, but until then we must retain our trust in the issuer of these head checks and our firm belief that the entire amount will be paid to us with a full heart and open hand.
Shabat shalom
Berel Wein
