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CHUMASH CANDESCENCE
PARASHA BECHUKOTAI
LEVITICUS 26:03-27:34
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
"Grime and Punishment"
This week's parasha ends the Book of Leviticus. If there has been a
recurring motif in this book it has been "Kedoshim Tih'yu--You shall be
holy." We have discussed in d'vrai Torah the many ways of achieving
holiness, spirituality and a set-aside feeling. In this Parasha
Bechukotai, translated as "My decrees," we read how God promised
blessings if we work toward holiness and promised curses if we do not.
These curses, called "tochachah" (admonitions) are so horrendous that in
many traditional synagogues they are whispered when the Torah portion is
read. An abridged version of the blessings and curses are repeated in
Deuteronomy Chapter 11. This makes up part of the Shema prayer in
traditional sidurem (prayer books), but has been deleted from the Reform
prayer books.
The Reform movement does not adhere to the traditional notion of reward
and punishment by God. They do accept the idea of God as the true
judge. They acknowledge that His judgment is not always understandable or
discernible. We know that bad things do happen to good people. We also
know that good things happen to bad people. However, how to we know who
is truly bad and who is sincerely good? Those judgments are better left
to God. We as Jews are correctly taught not to judge our fellows.
The emotional "grime" in which we find ourselves wallowing is
punishment enough for those of us who have drifted away from holiness.
Our Midrash says in Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:12 that "the gates of repentance
are always open." Psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote in his "Collected
Letters" (vol. I, page 162) that "no one who is a Jew can become a human
being without knowing that he is a Jew, since this is the basis from
which he can reach out to a higher humanity." In other words, the joy of
living justly is its own reward.
As Jews who have a code of ethics to
follow, the guilt that we feel inside when we ignore our mandate is
punishment enough. As King David said in Psalm 16:07 "I bless God who is
my counselor, but in the night, my inmost self instructs me." The authors
of the Torah and our great sages can only teach us. It is we who must
study, choose and follow. Even for those who wish to live their lives
without divine ethical guidance, at some point will understand the verse
from Genesis 4:10, "Your brothers blood is calling out from the ground."
When that realization comes to one who has lived with little
spirituality, it is tochachah enough.
If God had not commanded us to obey His mitzvoth would we have an
ethical imperative to behave properly? We know the concept of the seven
Noahide Laws from Genesis that all men are commanded to obey. They
parallel the Ten Commandments minus Shabbat and honoring one's parents.
The "God laws" are combined. Are these ethics independent of Halakah
(Jewish law)? And are ethics built into our system of Jewish laws? Many
traditional views say "no." We do as God commands and if ethical
behavior is a benefit, fantastic. The liberal Jewish view however gives a
resounding "yes" to both questions.
On the seal of my Alma Mater, the University of Pennsylvania, it is
written, "Leges sin more vanae," laws without morals are vanity. Since
the Torah does allow us to drink wine and eat certain meat, does this mean
we are allowed to be drunkards and gluttons? Maimonides clearly says that
there must be an ethic independent of the Torah as we must abstain or do
in moderation those things that Torah did not expressly forbid.
There is a command "and you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of God."
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah talks numerous times in the Gemorah of the
value assigned to doing good outside of the context of a specific
mitzvah. As modern Jews we do not do good for the sake of a reward. We
do it because it is the right and moral thing to do.
When we do something not good we do teshuvah (repentance, returning). This is not because we
are afraid of the curses we read in this week's portion, but because we
each accept voluntarily the moral imperative to correct our wrongs. We
do not live our lives obsessing over reward and punishment.
Our self-definition from Talmud Tractate Yevamot 79A sums up our views. We are
"compassionate ones and bestowers of kindness." We might be eating pork
if we were not commanded not to do so, but we certainly would not be
committing murder if we were not commanded to not do so. This is one
reason why the Reform rabbis deleted the verses of curses and blessings
from their prayer books.
Liberal Jews have proclaimed themselves to be not bound by ritual
halakah. However, we strongly embrace the anthropo-mitzvoth. We, as we
discussed a few parashat ago, must truly love our neighbors as ourselves.
We have an obligation to go beyond the law when it comes to man-to-man
obligations and behaviors.
Rabbi Yohanan said in Tractate Bava Metzia 30B
that Jerusalem in 70 CE was destroyed because people followed "din Torah"
(the Law of the Torah). He explained that they followed the letter of the
law, but not the spirit of the law. They did not practice "lifnim mi
Shurat ha Din" (beyond the letter of the Law).
They were destroyed . It is not just correct for a Jew to do ritual
minutia while ignoring the plight of those around him. That would be
keeping to the letter of the law, but not to the spirit. When we endeavor
to keep to the spirit of the law, we progress toward holiness. We help
fulfill the theme of Leviticus of Kedoshim Tih'yu (you shall be holy).
As we have seen above, Jews have an obligation to go beyond the letter of
the law. Our essence as Jung describes it is to know what it means to be
a Jew. We have an obligation to study and to reason and not just to
follow blindly. In Tractate Sanhedrin 74A, Rabbi Rava renders an opinion
concerning the man who was given a choice to "kill or be killed." Rava
tells the man to allow himself to be killed because "who says your blood
is redder than his?" The other rabbis agree with Rava even though no
scripture is quoted. This is referred to a "s'vara," literally reasoning.
Jewish reasoning, as Rabbi Y. Etshalom writes, "is the reasonable result
of ethical and religious norms inculcated in Jewish culture and society."
Jewish tradition has always respected and valued life for its own sake.
It is not just enough to be right; we must be good. We must not only
follow the mitzvoth outlining our behaviors toward our fellows, we must
go beyond them.
The Ba'al Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement, wrote, "For the
want of the thing that you lack is in the indwelling Glory. For man is
a part of God, and the want that is in the part is in the whole, and the
whole suffers the want of the part. Therefore, let your prayer be
directed to the want of the Whole."
When we are connected to the Divine
Presence by holy acts, we are dwelling with God. The word for this
presence, the Sheckinah, comes from the Hebrew shin-kuf-nun (to dwell).
When we do our best to strive for holy spirituality we bring forth the
Ruach Kodesh, the Holy Spirit.
The ultimate enlightenment of humanity is
when we all act compassionately and lovingly toward one another according
to Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. This is when God will "pour out His Holy Spirit on
all flesh" (Joel 2:28). Please note that the idea of the Holy Spirit is
not Christian in origin. It is a Jewish concept borrowed by St. Paul (ne
Saul) in his development of the theology of the Godhead.
So from where do our blessings come? Where should we place our hope?
Jeremiah in chapter 17, verse 13 from this week's Haftorah gives us
the answer. "The Hope of Israel [Mickve Israel] is God." He teaches us
not to depend of our fellow frail man's ways but to trust in God's
teachings. In a later verse (17:14) we read what has become a prayer in
our Amidah (page 63, Gates of Prayer): "heal me, God, and I will be
healed; save me, and I will be saved."
Some of the first Jews who came to what is now the State of Georgia, USA, in 1733,
placed their faith in God. They believed that they were
partners with God. They named their Congregation Mickve Israel, the
Hope of Israel. It is the third oldest congregation in the USA in Savannah, GA.
We ask God to help us, but we must also help ourselves. We ask
God to heal us, but we must also heal ourselves. We ask God to grant us
"rain in our season" (Lev. 26:04), but we must plant the seeds. We are
the ones that are God's co-workers in Tikun Olam, the repair of the
world.
By striving to do justice, do good deeds, act kindly and lovingly, with
hope and trust in God, we hopefully will avoid the tochachah's disasters
described in this parasha.
"Chazak! Chazak! Venitchazeik! Be Strong! Be Strong! and May We All Be
Strengthened!"
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
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