There is no question that there are passages in the Torah which are
especially challenging to us for various reasons. Some are challenging because we might see
their content as irrelevant to us. For
example, the latter parts of the book of Exodus, and much of the book of
Leviticus. There we find many passages,
which detail the specifications of the Tabernacle, its furnishings, the
priests’ vestments, and their duties.
These features of Jewish life went away with the destruction of the
Second Temple. They have nothing to do
with our current practice. To relate to
them in our day and age, can be a challenge.
Some passages are
challenging because they reflect practices, or taboos against practices that do
not go along with the sensibilities of our day and age. One example is capital punishment. We like to think of our turning away from the
death penalty, at least in this and many other Western countries, as a turning
toward a more enlightened era of criminology without a vengeful element. That the death penalty is prescribed, at
least in the Written Torah, is challenging.
It makes us think of the Torah as reflecting an outdated sensibility.
Finally, some
passages are challenging because they reflect a Divine Justice that is
uncomfortable to us. For centuries, our
Christian neighbours have been asserting that the God presented in the Jewish
scriptures, or the Old Testament as they call it, is a God of severe
judgement. This, in contrast to the ‘God
of Mercy” reflected in the Christian New Testament. Many Jews who are not learned in our
scriptures have internalised this message.
When we come across a passage reflecting a God of judgement, we judge it
against this contrast and it makes us uneasy.
What if the Christians are correct?
Here is scriptural evidence of their claim, yes?
Our Torah
reading this week is one of those difficult readings of the third
category. The passage we will read and
examine tomorrow, from the 26th chapter of Leviticus, tells us the
fate that awaits us if we disobey God.
In graphic detail, it paints a picture of the sorry state of desolation
that awaits us if we turn away from God.
If the desolate
picture did not ring true, it would make the passage challenging in an entirely
different way. It would call into
question the text’s truth and therefore its claim to Divine inspiration. But the problem is that, if we read it with
open eyes and an open mind, it is difficult to refute that the curses predicted
therein have largely come to pass. To
read the predictions in the 26th chapter of Leviticus is to read a
fairly accurate account of Jewish history.
When we look at it in this way, we are guaranteed to be uneasy about it.
Because it indicts us in the most
certain terms. Both our ancestors and
us.
It is natural
to be repelled by the message of this chapter of Torah. We don’t like to hear when we’ve erred and
gone astray. Since the 1960’s we have
been living under the illusion that we’re just fine – we just sometimes lack
skills to rise to our potential. Remember
the 1960’s book, I’m Okay, You’re Okay by Thomas Harris? It was a runaway best seller and remains one
of the best-selling ‘self-help’ books of all time. Its message is that there is nothing
essentially wrong with any of us. Rather,
the difficulties we have in relationships stems from our lack understanding of
the roles that we assume, and in which we place others, that affect the social
transaction. This thinking is called
Transactional Analysis, or TA. Remember
it? Most of us forgot the terminology a
long time ago. Yet the mindset still
haunts – and flaws – our thinking today.
If we’re all essentially
okay, then we just need to tweak our processes in order to successfully live as
people, as Jews, and as a Jewish people.
But if we’re not essentially okay, then what we need is markedly
different. Then we need to do some
serious self-searching – both individually and as a Jewish people – to intuit
where we’ve gone wrong and how to make it right. And that process is not calculated to make us
comfortable. But comfort is not the
point.
Our own
worthiness aside, we’re still stuck with the dilemma I identified a moment
ago: the problem of the God of Severe Judgement. Even iff we’re ready to admit that we’ve
gone seriously astray we’re still stuck with the notion of a God whose justice
overpowers His mercy. Or maybe not.
Because we have
successfully internalised the notion of I’m okay you’re okay, we’ve lost
sight of the truth of Middah keneged middah.
This is the Jewish answer to ‘karma.’ It translates: measure for measure. It tells us that for every action, there’s
a re-action. An entirely predictable
reaction. Of course we’re aware of this
truth in science. But we forget that it
is a law in the moral universe as well. We
go through our lives acting out, completely forgetting that everything we do
resonates somewhere, somehow, with someone.
Why do we forget this principle?
Perhaps we want to forget it.
Or perhaps we have become so self-absorbed, that we simply cannot comprehend
it.
I think that
the latter is the problem. In helping
others through interpersonal issues, I’m struck by how the preponderance of
these are caused by fuzzy or non-existent boundaries. That is, we have a hard time determining where
our own person ends and someone else’s begins. Because of this, we plough through
relationships, blind to how we try to impose our will on others, blind to how
we fail to respect others’ wills. We act
out as if we were entirely autonomous, where we are not autonomous at all. We behave in ways that can be entirely predicted
to alienate others, and yet we act surprised when we do.
In our siddur
there is a lovely reading that expresses the ideal of Shabbat in contrast
to the work week. It informs us how we aught
to approach life differently on Shabbat.
There are days when we seek things for ourselves and measure failure
by what we did not gain. On Shabbat, we
seek not to acquire but to share. There
are days when we exploit nature as if it were a horn of plenty that can never
be exhausted. On Shabbat, we stand in
wonder before the mystery of creation. There
are days when we act as if we cared nothing for the rights of others. On Shabbat, we remember that justice is our
duty and a better world our goal. So we
embrace Shabbat: day of rest, day of
wonder, day of peace.
It’s a lovely
sentiment and, if we learn to do it, then Shabbat will stand out as a different
sort of day, a day when we can relax and acknowledge one another in joy. But unsaid in the reading is the hope that,
once we have learned to fence off Shabbat in this way, the mindset will infuse the
way we live the rest of the week. That the
Shabbat Way will, as it were, infect our ways all week. Then, Shabbat will truly be a taste of the World
to Come. And in the way we will live all
the time, we will have achieved the World to Come. Ken yehi ratzon…may this be God’s will.
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