When I was in the military, we had an expression: Mandatory Fun. Whenever the command would organise a
recreational activity for the purposed purpose of morale-building or
team-building, we would mutter about Mandatory Fun. It was at once a dig at the leadership,
who thought that organising some activity – and then requiring everybody
to attend – was going to raise morale or strengthen team spirit. And a dig at the very nature of
military life, where everything is commanded…apparently also, recreation.
It would remind me
of the stories my father, alav hashalom, used to tell me of his army
days. The First Sergeant would get the
company in formation and ask for six volunteers. And of course, nobody would raise their
hands. They’d either been forewarned or
had learnt their lesson on a previous occasion:
in the army, never volunteer for anything! So after the sergeant’s call for
volunteers, everybody would grab onto their trousers lest their hand
accidentally go up. And the sergeant
would simply shrug and point at six men:
Okay, you’ve volunteered!
So military life,
one learns, is like 1984. Just as
Orwell’s Big Brother could rename the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Love,
so too the military calls compulsion ‘volunteerism’ and ‘fun.’
Traditional Jewish circles have long argued,
as the military does, the value of voluntarism and free-will. These days, the argument seems to have
fizzled out. There is little value in
volunteering to do something – or refrain from something – as opposed to being
compelled. At least on the surface, this
seems illogical.
The Traditionalist
today, will tell you that there’s no particular merit in participating in
communal worship, for example, if it’s not mandatory for you. In other words, if you’re a woman or a
gentile. Women are exempt from worship
because it is time specific. If they
thought it was a good thing to attend worship anyway, they might neglect
child-rearing. Gentiles are exempt from
worship because, well, because they’re gentiles. So in many traditionalist settings, women are
allowed to attend but not made to feel especially welcome. And gentiles?
They will often never get past the door-keeper.
Why should they
attend? If they’re not required, there’s
little-to-no merit in doing so. At
least, that’s what appears to be the dominant view today. Attending worship – among other things –
isn’t about feeling good. It’s about
responding positively to an obligation.
If one hasn’t got that obligation…why bother?
Again, at least to
some of us in our own sensibilities, illogical.
Most of us have been trained to see that which you do voluntarily, as of
greater merit than what you do out of compulsion. But today, at least in some sectors of Orthodox
Judaism, that is not seen. I believe that
what drives it, is the fear that Jews will come to a point where they don’t feel
obligated. And when they do…goodbye. I look at my own congregation. I know which members of our group feel obligated.
They are the ones who attend almost without
fail. If they happen to miss because something
else gets in the way, they feel guilty and reorder their priorities so that the
next time there will be no conflict. The
ones who attend not out of obligation, will let just about anything get between
them and coming. I say this not to chasten
anybody. Rather, I say it to give at least
some credence to the notion that obligation is, at the end of the day, superior
to feeling moved to do something.
But the Torah
doesn’t quite convey that message. In
today’s reading, in verse two of the first chapter of Vayikra, Leviticus, we
read: אדם כי יקריב
מכם קורבן לה'...תקריבו קורבנכם – If a person from amongst you will yakriv
a korban to Hashem…you should takrivu your Korban. I’ve not translated the Hebrew verb yakriv/takrivu,
or the noun Korban for a reason.
Both are often translated ‘sacrifice,’ which works grammatically as
either a verb or a noun. But ‘sacrifice’
does not entirely capture the spirit of what it’s about. The root of both words – ק.ר.ב. – means ‘draw near.’ So
the act of bringing forth an offering, and the object offered itself, both
serve to enable the offeror to ‘draw near’ to Hashem. And we’re definitely in the territory of voluntary
offering, here. So G-d’s message
regarding something done voluntarily is, Bring it on! Just because I didn’t command it of you, doesn’t
mean that it doesn’t serve an important purpose! And not only that, but the linguistic
connotation is that it will draw one near to G-d.
Look, we all know
that normative Judaism is not, strictly speaking, Biblical Judaism. We have a name for Judaism that is based
exclusively in the Written Torah: Kara’ism. There’s nothing intrinsically evil about Kara’ism.
But the Jewish people decided centuries
ago that it was beyond the pale, something outside the Jewish tradition
even if it was started by Jews. So we
sometimes roll our eyes at our neighbours who have read ‘the Old Testament’ and
ask us about the mechanics of bringing a bullock for a burnt offering at the
temple. If we’re patient and the
neighbour is one whom we consider sincere, we might try to explain that Jewish
practices today are not the practices laid out in the Book of Leviticus: because the Temple no longer stands, yada
yada yada.
Whilst we believe that certain dicta
in the Torah – like ‘an eye for an eye’ – have never been understood
literally, that there is merit in voluntarily bringing an offering, has only
fallen into disrepute in some Jewish circles fairly recently.
It’s relatively easy to nod off to
sleep during the weeks that we read the parts of the Torah that are about the
ancient sacrificial system. Yes, there
is a strong logical tendency to shrug off the parts of the text that don’t
particularly apply to us. But if we did,
we would miss some important lessons like this one. There is indeed great merit in making an
offering even when it is not required of us.
Or of praying. Or of keeping the
Sabbath. Or kashrut. It is important to recognise, and respond to obligations.
But volunteerism is not for naught. Shabbat shalom.
No comments:
Post a Comment