Tag Archives: obligation

Parashat Bo: real freedom isn’t given by others but constantly and repeatedly created and maintained by ourselves

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When God re-enters history to bring the children of Israel back to their own land, as was promised in the covenants made with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob, the relationship between humankind and God is altered for all time. 

In the book of Genesis, when the first human beings freely disobeyed Gods orders and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the result was that they acquired divine characteristics, and so, in case they would go on to acquire the ability to surmount life and death and become immortal, they had to go.  Thrust out of Eden, humankind had to get on with looking after itself, with only the gifts God gave them to survive and to thrive.

Later, when Abraham met God and began to understand something about the nature of the absoluteness of God, a different relationship developed – one of mutual obligation – a covenant.  This relationship was passed down from father to son through the particular blessing, and “Covenant” became a particular family characteristic, shared through the generations and eventually the many and diverse descendants. For the family we know from the Book of Genesis grew, and over the generations became “the children of Israel” who were not so much a family, not so much a tribe, as a people, bound together by blood and name, but also by circumstance. 

As slaves in Egypt they had a shared experience far more powerful than the stories they shared of common ancestry.  As an oppressed foreign labour force they shared humiliation and pain and they shared dreams of freedom too.  The notion of a Creator of the Universe who cared about them as individuals must have seemed very far-fetched – a figure of legend rather than a real presence. Yet they clung on to the stories and the traditions, they knew their yichus, their family background stories and narratives that gave them identity, and they knew about the Covenant and the Promise that they would one day return to their own land, and be free.

When God re-entered history, and re-entered the relationship between the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it was to fulfil the conditions of the covenant made all that time ago, and to bring about real human freedom.  The story of the exodus reads as one of liberation from oppression, but scratch the surface a little and the liberation is a far greater one. It is the story of the true freedom – the freedom to be.

One of the most difficult ideas which confronts the reader of this narrative is that of Gods hardening the heart of Pharaoh.  It just doesn’t seem fair that Pharaoh is manipulated in this way; that he can’t back down and give up.  To the unwary reader God is portrayed as an unforgiving and devious God, barely giving the Pharaoh a chance to repent and change his mind.

But look at the whole story a little closer and something else emerges.  

Pharaoh operates on the assumption that not only can he refuse Gods requests, but that he can overrule God.  He assumes that his is the greater power; that the world operates on his say-so.  Any other ‘god’ is simply a less superior being than himself.  The battle that is waged between Pharaoh and God has to be one which destroys that assumption for all time: – as we pray at the end of the Aleinu “The Eternal shall be as a monarch over all the earth, On that day the Eternal shall be One and known as One”. 

It is the absoluteness of the Diving Being that must be recognised as this story unfolds, and with that recognition will come real understanding and hence real freedom. 

Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, his will is strengthened – he is empowered to act out fully his self-perception of his divinity, and no human weakness will prevent him from engaging in the battle between himself and God.  Each time he begins to falter,  he is buoyed up again by thinking himself in charge, in control of the world around him. He offers freedom and then rescinds his offer when the immediate threat is removed.  He feels himself to be in a position to negotiate; he thinks he holds all the cards and that is opponent will bend to his will.  His whole world view is cut off from the reality that we see the rest of Egypt begin to understand – his power is increasingly seen as irrelevant.

Yet still he carries on until his apparent divinity and power is shown up for what it is, he cannot keep his people safe, he cannot overpower his opponent in the battle for supremacy, he and his people are mortal.

After the terrible night that saw the deaths of the first born children and animals in all of Egypt, the children of Israel are sent on their way, thrust out yet again into an unknown future, yet this time at least they had a leader with a direct line of communication with God.

  The text tells us that before that final night and climactic terrible plague of death,  the children of Israel had to do something for themselves in a very public way – they had essentially to demonstrate their own confidence in God, and their contempt of Egyptian theology, by daubing their doorposts with blood from a newly slaughtered lamb, and many understand that the symbolism of this was huge – the lamb was one of the most powerful symbols of divinity used in Egypt.  Those who did this brave act were spared the effects of the passing over them of the Angel of Death; those who were not brave enough or sure enough to do so were treated like the rest of the Egyptians among whom they had chosen to stay, and their first born sons and animals were also killed. 

The Israelites were learning about real freedom throughout the plagues that were around them, they were learning that real freedom is in the self, and is not given – cannot be given – by another person.  They had light while the Egyptians had a deep darkness. 

So by the 10th plague the Israelites had learned about the freedom to be themselves and not be afraid of other people, and the Egyptians had apparently learned that what they assumed was their birthright to control their world did not in fact stand up.  They were not free to decide how the Israelites should live; they were not free to do exactly as they pleased at the cost of other people’s lives and with the consequent effacement of God. 

One might assume that liberation had truly been effected – both the physical and the mental and spiritual liberation of the exodus from Egypt. But the story goes on, describing exactly the human ability to disbelieve, to take refuge in habitual lines of thought.  For soon after the Israelites had left Egypt – an Egypt in mourning, devastated and destroyed by what had happened within its boundaries, the pharaoh picked himself up – no hardening of the heart this time – and sent an army with horsemen and chariots after them to bring them back.  And the Israelites, finding themselves between this army and the sea, feared greatly that the whole liberation was false, that they would be forced to return to slavery in Egypt. What happened then is a story everyone knows – the Israelites jumped into the water, the sea parted and the Israelites passed through but the Egyptians who followed were drowned.  Only when Pharaoh had lost his army, and all trappings of control, would he finally come to realise that he was not all powerful.  Only when the children of Israel took the plunge (if you’ll pardon the pun), and do what they had to do, and took a risk, did they come to believe in their own abilities to survive, in their own freedom.  The Song at the Sea begins with a telling phrase: ”When the people saw all that God had done, then they believed in the Eternal and in Moses God’s servant”. 

It took a huge amount of effort to force the Pharaoh and the Egyptians to realise that their economic and military control of the region did not in the end guarantee their freedom, and it took some huge risk taking on the part of the Israelites before they realised that their freedom lay within themselves, that it is not an external force at all.  All of the drama that went on in Egypt merely dressed the stage and acted as backdrop for the realisation that the freedom could have been found all along. It just took someone with a willingness to take a risk, and with a vision of freedom being available, for the whole scenario to play itself out.  From the expulsion from Eden through the repeated covenant relationship with Abraham Isaac and Jacob, God was there and waiting for the next stage. The story moved on with our willingness – or lack of willingness – to grasp freedom for ourselves, to recognise our role in creating freedom for ourselves and for others.

With all its obligations and responsibilities, its terrors and its pleasures, its risks and its rewards, freedom is scary. But unless we grasp it and work to keep it, and ensure that others are also able to enjoy it, we are not fulfilling our role in the world. As Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism recognised, “It is much harder to live a life of freedom and self-rule than to be ruled by others”. Yet this is the choice we must make, and Bible reassures us that in making it we will find we are not alone at all.

A Tree of Life – and life giving trees: Tu b’Shevat

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“One day Choni the circle maker was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree; he asked him, How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit? The man replied: Seventy years. He then further asked him: Are you certain that you will live another seventy years? The man replied: I found [ready-grown] carob trees in the world; as my ancestors planted these for me so I too plant these for my children”.            ( Talmud Bavli: Taanit 23a)

Trees are deeply important in our tradition, and also have their own relationship with God. They are prominent in our texts – mentioned at the Creation, vital to the narrative in the Garden of Eden; the Hebrew word for tree appears in the bible over 150 times and more than 100 different kinds of trees, shrubs and plants are named. The Mishnah follows suit, naming hundreds more plants in its legal codification. In all more than 500 different plants are named in our traditional texts.  Trees are a signifier of the connection the Jews have with the land, and reflect the relationship that we have with the Land of Israel – Moses repeatedly reminds us that we must care for the land and treat it well, and not only land but people – otherwise we will be driven out from there as other nations apparently were before us.  

Trees have a special place in how we create awareness of God. For they are not only part of the natural world, they are also used repeatedly in our texts as a metaphor for humanity, for life, for reaching upwards to God and rooting the self in the world.  Trees symbolise so much, they have a quasi-divine element, a quasi-human element. They feed us, they provide shelter, they bridge the generations, and they act as a bellwether for our moral state.

We read in Deuteronomy “ When you will besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees by wielding an axe against them; you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? (20:19)

This image, comparing the fruit tree to human beings, powerfully reminds us of the damage that can be inflicted in a war between people, and in obliging us to protect the trees reminds us of what we have in common with them. If we should not cut down the fruit bearing tree, how much more so should we consider the safety of the people being besieged?

We are about to celebrate the festival of Tu b’Shevat – the fifteenth day of the month Shevat. Originally Tu b’Shevat was simply the way by which the age of trees was measured for purpose of tithing and of orlah (the first three years when the fruit was considered strictly God’s property and not to be eaten by anyone). In effect it marks the boundary of a tax year.

After the destruction of the second Temple in the year 70CE the taking of tithes from fruit trees fell into disuse, but the date remained special in our calendars. The Mishnah recorded four new years  and their dates: – Rosh Hashanah le’ilanot (Tu b’Shevat) for trees, Rosh Hashanah for years, Rosh Hashanah lema’aser behemah for tithing animals, and Rosh Hashanah le’mel’achim for counting the years of a king’s reign.

The date of Tu b’Shevat has stayed in our calendar throughout the time we were without our land, celebrated and noted by communities all over the world. The Kabbalists of Sfat in the 16th and 17th century developed a ritual – the Tu b’Shevat Seder – to represent our connection to the land of Israel and also to reflect the mystical concept of God’s relationship with our world being like a tree.  The Seder consisted of eating the different types of traditional fruits grown in Israel and connecting the different types of these fruit with each the Four Worlds of Kabbalistic theology, drinking four cups of wine that were each mixed with different proportions of wine with each cup of wine symbolizing one of the four seasons, and reading texts about trees.

The mystics understand Tu B’Shevat as being the day when the Tree of Life renews the flow of life to the universe.  And they taught that by offering blessings on Tu B’Shevat, a person can help in the healing of the world. From this came the belief that since on Tu B’Shevat we offer a blessing for each fruit before we consume it, the more fruits we eat, the more blessings we can offer to help heal the world.

In more modern times Tu b’Shevat has been a gift to the Zionist movement and the return to the Land. They have used it as an opportunity to plant trees in Israel as a way of transforming  the land, as well as re-attaching ourselves to the physical Land of Israel. And most recently the Jewish ecological movements have adopted the day to remind us in  powerful messages of our obligation to care for the environment.

All these themes bound up in Tu b’Shevat are important and helpful to our own Jewish identity and spirituality. There is an overarching theme of healing the world through our connections with nature, of the importance and symbiosis of our relationship with the natural world. And in our relationship with nature, we express our relationship with God. Caring for our world is a sacred task. As we read in Proverbs (3:18)

עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר׃ 

[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who grasp her, And whoever holds on to her is happy.

Our tradition asks: “How can a person of flesh and blood follow God? … God, from the very beginning of creation, was occupied before all else with planting.  Therefore … occupy yourselves first and foremost with planting.  – Midrash: Leviticus Rabbah 25:3

It reminds us that  “If you have a sapling in your hand and people tell you that the Messiah has come, plant the sapling and then go and greet him” (Avot de Rabbi Natan)

12th Elul: repentance is not a substitute for responsibility

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The official ideology of Yom Kippur is found in the words of Resh Lakish, a third century Talmudic sage, and can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b–“Great is repentance, for the deliberate sins of one who repents become as inadvertent ones.”

In effect the argument is that Teshuvah, the action of repenting, causes the person to allow their real self to emerge, and as they move into a new direction they show that true self. The person therefore who sinned deliberately can be understood to have been not really themselves, and so, when they become their real self, those sins are clearly inadvertent – and inadvertent sin cannot be punished or judged in the same way as deliberately flouting the rules of behaviour.

It is a theology of new beginnings and a clean slate, teaching us that renewal is always possible; counteracting the guilt and despair we may be feeling about the bad choices we have made with the belief that good intentions for the future must redeem us and make up for the past.

It is certainly an attractive proposal, but the reality is that we can’t rely on Teshuvah to remake the world exactly as it was or should be. Teshuvah may be a potent force but it is not an all-powerful one. Even if it can change our deliberate sins into the more manageable and less terrifying category of inadvertent ones, it cannot erase the effects of those sins. If we were to truly face reality we would have to say that repentance is not, and never can be a substitute for responsibility. And more than that, we would have to acknowledge that some things cannot be rectified, however mortified and ashamed we may be to have committed them. What is done cannot always be undone, and the mark it leaves on our lives (and those of other people) will not be erased.

The word Kippur is related to the verb “to cover over”. When we try to make Teshuvah and to uncover our real and ideal self as we turn towards a good way of being in the world, we also cover over the mistakes we made and the bad actions we did. They do not go away, but we take away their power to hold us back, through our shame or our fear. I do like the notion of Teshuvah providing us with a new start, of the freshness of starting again unencumbered by a past that has the power to haunt us, but I shudder a little at the notion of a rebirth. For we are not in any way born again through our actions over the Yamim Noraim, we continue to live and continue to remember and continue to be the person who has real responsibility for our lives, but at the same time we cover over and leave behind the place that is stopping us from going forward into our new and more true way of being. Repentance is not a substitute for responsibility – repentance gives us the means to become much more responsible for who we are, and the power to use that responsibility to change not only ourselves but also the world around us.

 

Behar: to treat with respect is the essence of holiness

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The bible is very clear – everything we have belongs to God and is at best ‘on loan’ to us. And we have to treat it properly and with respect. Even the land must be allowed to rest, rather than be worked to produce more and more. Besides giving the land a chance to return to a good condition, the sabbatical year also meant that all people, whether they were rich or poor, would find themselves dependant on what the land produced naturally, as all of them would have to collect and gather the food that was there, rather than the usual experience of the richer ones harvesting a good amount and leaving a proportion in the field for the poor to glean. This would have been a transformational experience in that the ones who always had food would become aware of the conditions the poor faced all the time, and one imagines that the bible hoped this learning would motivate them to help support the needy.

Leviticus is a book that is primarily about the ritual system and how holiness is created, and reading some of the narrative here we become aware of the agenda of social justice that is threaded through it, how the world cannot be made perfect if justice is not available for all. Even during the shemitta year, the year when the land is to rest and recuperate, the obligation for tzedakah for the poor continues – in other words just because you are tightening your belts, you don’t forget the needs of others who rely on the help they get from society in order to survive.

Everything we have belongs to God and is, at best, on loan to us. When we harvest the land we leave food for the poor. When we help a fellow human being who is in financial difficulties we give them their dignity and are not to charge interest on any loan we give. The laws remind us that even the money we have is not ours to use as we please. It is a conditional loan, to be partially used for the benefit of others.

As we look into an uncertain future where politically, socially, financially we know that times will be tough and we will almost certainly feel ourselves to have lost some of the security we felt in earlier times, the message that comes through this part of Leviticus could comfort us a little – and could teach us a lot. We must – even now -continue our obligation to a just society where the gap between rich and poor must be actively narrowed (if not removed) on a regular basis. We must – even now – continue our commitment to tzedakah, to the dignity of our fellow human beings, and to our land. And if we maintain our understanding that each of us has a part to play in bettering the world, and that sometimes that process requires us to start again in a different way, then even now when following news sites may leave us feeling impotent angry and depressed, we can stop, take stock, and get on with helping to create a healthier and holier world.