God’s 'Stern' Side: A Drash for Parashat Re’eh, Friday 22 August 2014

I’d like to start my words this evening by referring to last week’s drash and some feedback I received.  As you remember, I spoke about unconditional love.  When I give a drash on Shabbat, I almost always post its transcript on my blog site:  rabbidoninoz.blogspot.com.au.  I also usually record my presentation digitally, and post the audio on my podcast site:  www.buzzsprout.com/15521.  If you need to be reminded of either of these URL’s, they appear in every e-mail I send, directly beneath my signature.  At the risk of sounding overly self-promoting, I would point out that these are great ways for you to see or hear what I had to see on weeks when you don’t manage to get here.  Or, if my words gave you some pause and you want to verify what I said.  Or any number of reasons.  The two media are there for your reference.

          This week’s Torah reading, Re’eh, starts with an important declaration that builds upon the way last week’s reading opened.  This week, Moshe Rabbeinu declares that we face a stark choice.  Blessing, if we follow God’s commandments.  And curse, if we disobey and follow other gods.  That’s pretty black-and-white, as binary as one can get!  Blessing if you follow the law.  Curse if you do not.  It doesn’t seem to offer any ‘wiggle room.’

          It is statements like this in the Torah that lead to the charge that the God of the Torah, of the ‘Old Testament’ as some of our neighbours call it, is a stern and unforgiving God.  It is juxtapositions of such statements, with the same God in the ‘New Testament’ being all about unconditional love, that lead to the fairly-widely-held perception that the Jewish tradition limits God, as it were.  That we emphasise the stern side of God, almost or even completely to the exclusion of seeing the merciful side of God.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, you have certainly heard such comparisons.

      But if Moses is painting a stark picture of the choices the people have, it is because Moses is all about making good choices.  Or to put it differently, his teaching and leadership is all about inspiring others to make good choices.

Think about it.  During the 40 years of wandering, which are coming to their conclusion as Moses is speaking these words to the people Israel, Moses’ and Aaron’s leadership have been tested and challenged repeatedly.  Moses is not trying to tell us to accept leadership at face value without question.  Rather the repeated message, as I’ve been pointing out over the months, is that challenges should be for the Good – for the mutual benefit.  But the challenges to Moses’ leadership, as chronicled in the books of Exodus through Numbers, are not motivated for producing Good among the people.  Rather, in experience after experience the challenges are about jealousy:  you’re in charge, but I want to be.  It’s not about the challenger having some insight that Moses lacks.

          In this week’s discourse, Moses is cautioning against disobeying God.  Because disobedience, in his moral universe, stems from wanting someone else to be in charge.  Think about it.

           Whenever we willfully break some rule, we are making a clear declaration.  We’ve been told to do ‘X,’ but we really want to do ‘Y.’  It’s about that preference for ‘Y’ over ‘X,’ but it’s really deeper than that.  Since we’ve chosen to break the rule and do ‘Y,’ we’ve rejected the authority of whomever told us to do ‘X.’ We’ve not only chosen to do ‘Y,’ but we’ve enthroned whatever it is that told us to do ‘Y’ as the ultimate authority.  Whether that voice was something from without, such as an alternative authority.  Or whether it was our own heart’s desire.  Either way, we have rejected one authority and enthroned another.  If the original authority, or command-er, was God Himself, then we’ve declared the alternative authority to be a god (lowercase ‘g’).  And that’s what Moses is talking about.

          Hence the starkness of Moses’ juxtaposition.  We can follow God’s teaching.  We can do that which will assuredly bring blessing.  Or we can enthrone another authority in God’s place.  Whether that authority is some idolatrous regime.  Or the regime of desire, which is also an idolatry when it draws us from following God’s law.

          God is not like a divine puppet-master, controlling us as if we were live marionettes.  We have free will.  At almost every moment in life we face choices.  Each one of those moments is an opportunity to make a Good choice.  Or one that is not so good.  And a Good choice ultimately leads to blessing.  Whereas a bad choice leads to curse…to ultimate misfortune.

          Now that sounds pretty stark.  Of that, there’s no denying.  But it is so ultimately true.  I’m sure that you know people who are basically good people, but who once made a bad choice.  A choice whose consequences have hounded their lives since then.  A ‘gift’ that keeps on giving.  One moment’s indiscretion changed the very course of their lives.  Now, not all bad choices have such far-reaching consequences.  Fortunately, we all make bad choices from which we ultimately recover.  Not all bad choices are forever.  But when we allow ourselves to repeatedly choose poorly, then we create in ourselves a tendency to make bad choices.  So in that sense, every choice matters.  Because if we ‘train’ ourselves to choose well in small matters, then when the really serious matter comes up we will more likely instinctively reach for the Good.

          To give an example.  We all know that we are instructed as Jews not to eat prawns, right?  So what would happen if tomorrow I would be out and just have an overpowering urge to eat prawns?  And were to give in to that urge?  What would happen?  Most likely, nothing!  Prawns are proscribed, along with a number of other foods, in Jewish law.  But if I were to give in to an urge to eat prawns, most likely there would be no apparent, immediate effect.  Except that I will have begun training myself to ignore God’s law.  And I would be increasing the possibility to flaunting God’s law on something that might be of much greater import.  Something whose effect would last far longer than the taste of prawns in my mouth.

          Viewed this way, it is easy to grasp Moses’ teaching.  Without having to see God as consumed with jealousy and judgment.  Rather, to see God as being, to use a contemporary term, holistic.  Because if we make ourselves used to flaunting, or ignoring God’s law, then we are setting ourselves up for curse.  For misfortune.  For falling short of our potential.  And that would be a tragedy.

          God has indeed placed before us blessing and curse.  And at any moment, we can choose either.  But that does not inform us that God’s nature is unforgiving.  Rather, it informs us that, when we make choices, there is often far more to that choice than we might want to see.  Sure, some choices are just a matter of preference.  Of taste.  But others are statements concerning who we ultimately see as being in charge.  So choose wisely.  Shabbat shalom.