PARSHAT BEHAR
(5768)
WHAT WE OWN
“If your kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his holding, his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his kinsman has sold.”
(Leviticus 25:25)
Some of the most powerful laws in the Torah are in this week’s portion. Every seven years we let our land lie fallow; leaving it to feed the poor and those in need. Every seven years we forgive loans. Every fifty years all property goes back to its original owner. If a person is in dire financial straits and must sell himself or herself into indentured servitude, the nearest kinsman must redeem him or her. Do not withhold your hand from the poor. Do not loan money on interest.
There is one underlying idea that serves as the basis of all of these laws. Nothing we own belongs to us. Ultimately everything we own belongs to God. It is obvious that when we die we cannot take our material possessions with us. But even while we are alive, our land and our possessions are simply for our temporary use. We are not the owner. As the Psalmist taught, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”
This view from the Torah deeply affects how we understand prosperity. Certainly poverty is not a virtue. But prosperity carries with it obligations. Our possession may be a gift from God and a blessing. But wealth also entails responsibility to others. Bernard Baruch, the wealthy financier and advisor to presidents tells of how he made his first million. He told his father, expecting his father to share his excitement and enthusiasm. His father was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “Bernard, what are you going to do with it?” Baruch told that story throughout his life.
If we begin with the notion that everything we have is not really ours, but a gift from God for our temporary use, it affects how we see our prosperity. A simple example – Jewish tradition teaches that we say a blessing of thanksgiving before making use of anything we own. We say a blessing even before drinking a glass of water. How much more so should we say a blessing when we put on a new dress or suit, begin driving a new car, turn on the new computer or any other electronic gadget, and certainly when we move into a new home. Millions of people in the world cannot conceive of owning what most of us take for granted. Our possessions are a blessing.
But what do we do with them? Here we can learn one of Judaism’s most powerful ideas – the notion of tzedakah. Tzedakah, although usually translated as charity, is really quite different. Charity begins with the premise that our wealth and our possessions belong to us. They are ours to do with as we please. We can hoard them and keep them to ourselves. But out of the goodness of our hearts we choose to share them with people less fortunate or with institutions and organizations that work to make this a better world, then we are being charitable. Charity is a virtue.
Tzedakah is not a virtue; it is an obligation. We do not own our possessions, ultimately they belong to God. God shared them with us conditionally, that we give away a certain percentage of everything we have. If I write a check to the synagogue, the Jewish federation, or some other worthy cause, I am doing so because the money I earn is not truly mine. It was given to me on the condition that I give some of it away. That is why the best translation of tzedakah is not charity but justice.
We live in the “me generation.” We all want things. “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” As mentioned already, there is nothing wrong with prosperity. But prosperity comes with obligations. Perhaps we should take a moment, look at everything we own, thank God for the gifts of all these things, and decide what we are prepared to give away. In some ultimate sense, what we really own is what we give back to the world. That is the lesson of this week’s portion.
PARSHAT BEHUKOTAI
(5768)
WHY DO MITZVOT?
“If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.” (Leviticus 26:3-4)
Why keep the mitzvoth (God’s commandments)? The beginning of this portion gives a very simple answer. If we walk in God’s statutes and follow God’s commandments, God will give us rain in due season. That seems like a very unlikely reward. If you are a farmer (or a Floridian tired of a brown lawn and forest fires), then rain seems like a blessing. But if you are a bride who always dreamed of an outdoor wedding, then rain seems like a curse.
This portion is filled with blessings and curses. If we walk in God’s ways, we will be blessed; if we disobey God, we will be cursed. And so many Jews seem to believe this quite literally. “Rabbi, I fasted on Yom Kippur hoping that God would reward me with a good year, and everything went wrong.” “Rabbi, I always tried to do the right thing in the eyes of God, and yet I became sick.” “Rabbi, my neighbor has broken every one of the Ten Commandments, and yet each year he becomes wealthier and wealthier.” So many people believe God is some kind of heavenly vending machine; put in the right coin and get the right result. The world does not work that way.
The Talmud tells the story of Elisha ben Abulya, a rabbi who became a disbeliever and a heretic. What made him give up his faith? He saw a little boy obey his father, climb a tree and send the mother bird away to take the eggs as the Torah commands, and then fall to his death. Elisha was horrified. He threw off his yarmulke and shouted out, “there is no judgment and no God.” (For a wonderful fictional account of the life of Elisha ben Abulya, read Milton Steinberg’s As a Driven Leaf.) The other Rabbis who saw Elisha tried to explain to him that he was mistaken; the real reward happens in the next world.
This has become the accepted notion of why keep mitzvoth? We will be rewarded for our good deeds and punished for our bad deeds – but only in the next world. The good will go to Gan Eden – the Garden of Eden, the Jewish vision of heaven. And the wicked will go to Gehinom – the Jewish vision of hell. In fact, the good face suffering in this world to atone for their minor sins so that they totally deserve their reward in the next world.
I have never liked this understanding of what happens to our soul in the next world. I prefer a version told by the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement. He explains to his students what is hell. Here is his parable as I told it in my forthcoming book, The Kabbalah of Love. “Once there was a peasant from a small village who, in a moment of anger, cursed the king. Unfortunately, the king’s soldiers heard the peasant and had him arrested. He was sure that he would be put to death or perhaps thrown into prison for life. The peasant was brought before the king who sentenced him to live on the palace grounds and work in the king’s garden.
“The years went by. The peasant was skilled at gardening and soon he had become the chief gardener for the king. Then one day he was invited into the palace to be an advisor to the king. As more years went by he became one of the king’s closest advisors. He saw how hard the king worked for his kingdom and the difficult decisions the king had to make.
“One day the king spoke to him. ‘How do you feel about your job?’ The peasant answered, ‘I am miserable. The closer I come to you the more I remember how I cursed you on that day. I wish I had behaved differently when I had the opportunity. How wrong I was and how guilty I feel.’” Our reward in the next world will be our soul’s understanding that we fulfilled God’s will; our punishment will be if we live a life of disappointment to God.
This brings me to the real reason why we do mitzvoth. Ben Azai teaches, “The Reward of a Mitzvah is the Mitzvah itself.” (Avot 4:2) Translated into English, this means that “virtue is its own reward.” We keep God’s mitzvot not with the expectation of some kind of reward, whether in this world or the next. We keep God’s mitzvoth because living a life according to God’s will is its own reward.
PARSHAT BEHAR – BEHUKOTAI
(5767)
BEING A BOSS
“You shall not rule over him ruthlessly; you shall fear your God.”
(Leviticus 25:43)
Last week I waxed philosophical; this week I want to be more practical. What are the obligations of a boss towards an employee? I am speaking not only for those who own businesses and those who are managers in companies, but for all of us. We all hire other people to work for us on occasion. We all hire baby sitters, house cleaners, pet walkers, gardeners, home repair workers, etc. We all pay someone to do our hair and nails, our dry cleaning, tutor our children; we use personal trainers at the gym and servers at restaurants. Whenever we pay another person to work for us, we become the boss. And we enter a deep ethical obligation towards those who work for us.
We received the Torah during a time when slavery and indentured servitude were the norm. A Hebrew unable to pay backs debts would sell himself into servitude, hoping a family member would redeem him. He would go free after seven years, or if he chooses to stay, he would go free during the Jubilee year. The key idea is that humans are servants not to an employer, but to God. The master of such a servant was commanded not to rule harshly over him. If this was true in ancient days of those who were indentured servants, how much more so is it true today of those who freely sell their services to another as workers.
The Torah contains numerous laws regarding how a boss must treat a worker. Wages for a day worker must be paid by the end of the day. A worker in the field was allowed to eat what was necessary for sustenance. The Talmud (Baba Metzia 83a) tells a moving story of workers who broke a barrel of wine belonging to Rabbah. In response, he seized their cloaks as collateral to demand repayment. The case came before the great sage Rav, who demanded that Rabbah not only return the cloaks but pay them their daily wage. For it says in the Bible, “Follow the way of the good and keep the paths of the just.” (Proverbs 2:20)
I live in a state that has Right to Work laws. I realize this is a euphemism for the right not to work; here in Florida a worker can be fired without cause. Nobody owes somebody else a job - everybody owes everybody else basic human dignity. Whether an employee is doing quality work or failing to live up to expectations, nobody should have his or her dignity challenged. Even when a worker must face a negative job performance review, it must be done with dignity and a respect for the worker. Certainly every reasonable effort must be made to pay a living wage and to make sure that workers are given appropriate opportunities to eat lunch, take breaks, and have time off. (The flip side is that a worker has an obligation towards an employer to do the work in a responsible and timely manner.)
I have heard countless horror stories of mistreatment of employees. I am not simply speaking of those who are forced to work in sweatshops or under dangerous conditions. (It is sad that such situations still exist around the world.) Closer to home, I have heard of job performance reviews that attacked the very dignity of the employee. I have heard of employees being fired after years of service to a company with little notice and no help through a transition. And I have heard of workers yelled at by their supervisors. (I once told a synagogue president, not in my current synagogue, who screamed at me, “You will never yell at me again.” I then walked out of the room.)
We hire employees because we need certain work done, and we have every right to expect the work to be done properly. But the message of this week’s Torah reading is that those who work for us are first and foremost human beings, created in the image of God. Even if we pay someone’s salary, we never have the right to take away the dignity of another human being.
PARSHAT BEHAR – BEHUKOTAI
(5766)
BEASTS IN THE LAND
“I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.”
(Leviticus 26:6)
It has been a sad week in our community. Daniel Wultz, a sixteen year old student at the Hebrew Day School, passed away from wounds he received in a terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv. As he lingered for a month, our synagogue added our prayers to those said throughout the world for Daniel’s recovery. But sometimes the answer to a prayer for recovery is “no.” We pray that his family finds comfort.
On Monday morning I went over to the Hebrew Day School to meet with bereaved students and give whatever Rabbinic wisdom and insights I could. Let me share some of our conversation. After listening to the students speak and share memories of Daniel, I gave them some thoughts that I will share in my forthcoming book. A soul comes into this material world with a mission to accomplish. Some of us are given a long lifetime to do whatever we need to do to accomplish our mission. And sometimes that lifetime is cut short, when someone has hardly begun to do their mission. There comes a time when the body can no longer hold onto the soul. To quote the Bible, “The dust returns to the earth from where it came, the soul returns to God Who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) I am sure Daniel’s soul is with God and he is giving a full report on a mission cut short.
I then asked the students what we who are left behind are to do. They gave me the answers I was looking for. We need to do the work on this earth to accomplish what he was unable to do. We need to continue what he started. I tried to get across to these young people a powerful idea – the greatest source of comfort is the actions we do in this world. How can we make the world a little better by continuing the work Daniel started?
One student then asked me a brilliant question. If Daniel had a mission to do on this earth, that means each of us has our own mission to accomplish. Should we not focus on our own missions? One way to honor the memory of someone else is to do what we need to do while on this earth, inspired to use the gifts God gave us to make this a better world. Sometimes it takes the sad loss of someone else to realize what a precious gift life is, and how we need to use that gift wisely. Any death, but particularly a tragic death, is a time of soul searching as to what our lives are really all about. How can we better fulfill our own mission?
Then another student asked a difficult question, one I hear too often from young people. I had said that what the terrorist bomber had done in Tel Aviv was evil. This student claimed, from my perspective it was evil. But from the bomber’s perspective it was good – in fact, it was a ticket to paradise. Different people have different perspectives? Who is right?
I responded that it was a great question. I told the students that when they get to college they will study a philosopher named Nietzsche. The essence of Nietzsche’s philosophy is called perspectivism – I have my perspective and you have yours. There is no right or wrong. According to Nietzsche there are different kinds of morality, master morality and slave morality. All morality can be deconstructed, to use the modern term. Nietzsche’s philosophy is extremely influential today; these young people are growing up in a world of moral relativism. There are no absolute standards of right and wrong.
I then said part of their job as young Jews is to proclaim to the world that Nietzsche is wrong. There are absolute standards of good and evil. The deliberate taking of innocent life to advance a political cause is always wrong, in every culture and every society. Part of their task is to proclaim to the world the value of life.
This week’s portion talks about the blessing of living in the land of Israel. Part of that blessing is to live in peace, when wild beasts will no longer be a threat in the land. The Torah commentary Etz Hayim gives one interpretation, - the wild beasts refers to people who act viciously towards one another. People who blow up other people who are innocently eating lunch in an outdoor café have lost their humanity and are no better than vicious beasts. We can only pray for the day when peace will reign in the land and the terrible scourge of terrorism will finally end.
PARSHAT BEHAR-BEHUKOTAI
(5764)
THE WORTH OF A HUMAN
“Speak to the Israelite people and say to them, when anyone explicitly vows to the Lord the equivalent for a human being, the following scale shall apply.”
(Leviticus 27:2-3)
How much is a human being worth?
This parsha speaks about the valuation of someone who donates his or her human worth to the ancient Temple. How does one go about placing a value on a human being?
On the most basic material level, we humans could get thousands of dollars for our various organs. Of course, such organ sale is illegal. Women can legally sell their eggs for a substantial amount of money, and there is a black market for kidneys. But according to the Indiana University School of Medicine, if we were to break our body down to its basic chemicals, we are worth approximately $4.50. Not very much!
When we speak about human worth, most people have economic worth in mind. How much can we earn on the open market? That is the reason that ageism and sexism is part of the calculation. According to the Torah’s evaluation in this week’s portion, men are worth more than women, adults are worth more than children, adults in their prime are worth more than seniors. This seems troubling, but such evaluations based on economic worth are still common today. Men are still paid more than women, there are more employment opportunities for younger people than older people, and courts still evaluate earning power when assessing damages in litigation.
We each have an economic value. We are worth a certain amount in the market place. When I speak to young people about careers and money, I talk about the importance of increasing their economic value. I tell them, get an education, learn a language, develop skills, and perhaps most important, acquire a reputation for honesty, integrity, and hard work.
Nevertheless, there is a problem with only seeing economic value when evaluating a person’s worth. It eliminates those not in the labor market – people too young or too old to work, people with disabilities, people who are home raising families. Too often it devalues women. And certainly it devalues those who have retired. How often have I heard people who retire from their jobs, only to lose their sense of purpose and joy.
Our worth as human beings goes far beyond our economic worth. Children, rushing to greet mommy or daddy at the door at the end of the day, never say, “Mommy, daddy, how much did you earn today?” Or as I often say, “Children want your presence, not your presents.” We each have a value to our parents, our siblings, our spouse, our children, and all those we love, which has nothing to do with economics.
As a rabbi in Florida, I spend too much time at cemeteries. Sometimes I wander around and read the stones – “beloved father, grandfather, husband, brother,” “beloved mother, grandmother, wife, sister,” “dearly departed son or daughter.” Rarely do I see headstones that read, “doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, accountant, teacher, truck driver.” Our ultimate value is not in the economic sphere but in the sphere of relationships.
Our value to our loved ones and those we touch is far beyond the sphere of economics. The popularity of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, about a suicidal man who sees what would happen to the people in his life if he never existed, is perhaps the best testimony to this point. We attain our human worth through our relationships. We achieve value through those we love and those who love us.
But what of the person who is alone, who has no family, no friends, no loved ones. What worth does such a person have? The book of Psalms has the answer: “Though my father and my mother abandon me, the Lord will take me in.” (Psalms 27:10) Even someone who feels alone and rejected among humanity has infinite worth in the eyes of God.
How much is a human being worth? The Talmud teaches that no human being is worth more than any other human being. To use the Talmudic language, nobody can say his or her blood is redder than anybody else’s blood. (Sanhedrin 74a) Each of us has infinite worth in the eyes of God. For God measures us not by our physical value nor by our economic value, but by our spiritual value. Spiritual value is ultimately immeasurable.
PARSHAT BEHAR
(5763)
FAMILY AS REDEEMER
"One of his kinsmen shall redeem him, or his uncle or his uncle's son shall redeem him, or anyone of his family who is of his own flesh shall redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself." (Leviticus 25:48-49)
In our daily prayers we call God Goel Yisrael, the Redeemer of Israel. The word goel "redeemer" actually comes from this week's portion. It refers to a family member who comes forward to rescue another family member who is in trouble. If a man is unable to pay his debts, he was forced to sell his labor as an indentured servant. (This is long before the United States Constitution outlawed indentured servitude.) His goel, a brother, sister, uncle, or other close relative, was expected to come up with money and redeem the servant.
Brothers and sisters are expected to take responsibility for their brothers and sisters. Family is there for family. I recently published a piece in the magazine Reform Judaism about the obligation of family members from one another. Let me share part of that piece:
Many years ago my younger brother Jeffrey and I had a fight. The details are unimportant; it was related to his greater involvement in the gay community and my greater involvement in traditional Jewish observance. For over a year we did not speak to each other, something I regret to this day. When I think of this time, I think of how hurt my parents were by our estrangement. The Bible speaks of Rebecca whose children Jacob and Esau fought. "But the children struggled in her womb, and she said, if so, why do I exist?" (Genesis 25:22) Children who fight bring pain to their parents.
One day I received word that my brother, temporarily unemployed, was far behind on his mortgage payments. The bank was beginning foreclosure proceedings. My wife and I immediately sent him $1000. Since he was not speaking to us, he did not thank us. But about a year later we reestablished contact and he paid back the money he owed. In the end, before his death from AIDS in 1991, Jeffrey and I grew very close.
Why did I send him the money? I suppose it goes back to my childhood, and the strong emphasis my parents put on being close to my brothers. I remember my father showing me a picture from Boy's Town in Nebraska of an older sibling carrying a younger with the caption "he ain't heavy, he's my brother." My father told us, that's how I want you boys to be. Perhaps by caring for my brother, I was fulfilling the commandment to honor my parents. I try to impress in my own children the importance of siblings taking care of siblings.
This aspect of honoring parents is best illustrated with a classical Jewish story. A couple had two sons, one well off and one extremely poor. The couple wanted to have a big fiftieth anniversary party and told their wealthier son to spare no expense in honoring them; they would reimburse him. The son threw a lavish party and came in elegant clothes; his poor brother came in rags. When the son went to his parents to be reimbursed, they said, "Sorry, we said to honor us. If you had truly intended our honor, you would not have allowed your brother to come dressed like a beggar."
Perhaps that is why I sent the money to my brother, in order to honor my parents. When we say that we are our brother's keeper, it is a way of fulfilling our parent's dream for us. The Biblical book of Proverbs teaches, "At all times we love a friend, but a brother is born for adversity." (Proverbs 17:17) The classic Jewish understanding is that friends are wonderful for the good times, but a sibling is there to help when a sibling is in trouble.
We are the goel, the redeemer, of our siblings. Family takes care of family. Only then can we hope that God will take care of us.
PARSHAT BEHUKOTAI
(5763)
WHAT’S A PERSON WORTH?
“The Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the Israelite people and say to them, when anyone explicitly vows to the Lord the equivalent for a human being, the following scale shall apply.” (Leviticus 27:1-3)
How much is a human being worth?
Sometimes we must answer that question. In tort cases, when someone has been injured or killed by someone else’s negligence, we must estimate their worth to access damages. Usually it is based on their age and their earning power.
The Torah used to estimate human worth in the same way. A person would make a vow to donate their worth to the Temple. The amount was set, based on a number of factors - in particular age and gender. A male in the prime of life (twenty to sixty) was evaluated at fifty shekels of silver, a female at thirty shekels. Children were worth less depending on age, and those above sixty still less.
Certainly this is sexist as well as ageist. Why are men worth more, why are children worth less and seniors still less? It seems to be based on their earning power. We can ask the question, has our society today truly changed? Why do we still pay men more than women for the same work? Why do we still value people in their working prime more than those who are retired? Why do we not value the worth of children before their productive years?
Part of the problem in our society is we value people based on their earning power. We value the wealthy more than the poor, the successful more than the struggling, those working more than those retired, and too often men more than women. Why do people retire and start feeling useless, as if their lives have lost a sense of purpose. Too often women (and occasionally men) who stay home to raise families rather than going out into the workforce feel devalued and less worthy. Often those on disabilities who cannot work feel less respected by their neighbors.
We all have an economic value, what we can sell ourselves for on the open market. Often I counsel people who are struggling to earn a living. I will tell them that they need to increase their economic value, make themselves more salable on the job market. I will urge them to go to school, obtain skills, take on new responsibilities, and find ways to become more valuable to employers. Economic worth is important. But ultimately what we earn is not what we are worth.
Every human being has a worth beyond their economic ability. This is true for men and women, children too young to work and retired seniors, those on disability and those who cannot find work. We have a worth and dignity because we are created in the image of God. Just as God has infinite worth, so each and every human being has infinite worth. Ultimately, no price can ever be placed on a human being.
One of the great insights of the Jewish Sabbath is that we are valued not on what we do or how we earn a living, but simply for being. A man would go home on the Sabbath and whether he was a poor tailor or a successful merchant, he was a king. A woman, whether she worked outside the home or was raising children, was a queen. Nobody was judged on what they do; their worth came from the fact that they were humans created in the image of God.
We all have a tendency to see the worth of people in terms of income. The rich must be more worthy. Those struggling to earn a living must be less worthy. It is important to remember that in the eyes of God we have an inherent worth. That worth has nothing to do with the material and everything to do with the spiritual.
PARSHAT BEHAR - BEHUKOTAI
(5762)
ADVERSE POSSESSION
"In the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard."
(Leviticus 25:4)
There is a principle in common law called adverse possession. If someone encroaches on someone else's property for a period of time, usually seven years, and the real property owner takes no action, the one who encroaches can lay claim to the property. For example, if my neighbor builds his driveway over my property, and for seven years I do not protest, he can continue to keep his driveway there. He has claimed adverse possession and I have lost my legal rights.
Often private property owners will have a park or other public access area set aside. Once a year they will close off their property to reclaim ownership and prevent adverse possession.
This entire principle of law grew out of this week's portion in the Torah. The Israelites were given use of the land to cultivate their crops and grow their fields. However, once every seven years they had to allow the land to lie fallow. It is a powerful way to proclaim the message that the land does not belong to them; the land belongs to God. By not working the land at the end of each sabbatical, we are prevented from taking adverse possession of the land. We may use the land for our needs, but ultimately the land does not belong to us.
The Psalm for Sunday, the first day we go back into the work world, begins with the words, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein." (Psalms 24:1) It is as if, when we reenter the work world after a day of rest, we must be reminded that the earth belongs to God. We humans have been given responsibility "to work the world and to guard it." (Genesis 2:14) Ultimately, the world does not belong to us. We must work it, but we must also guard it for its true owner.
Today there is much discussion of religion and environmentalism. Many in the environmental community blame the Western Biblical religions for our tendency to pollute the earth. They claim that the Bible has given humanity the mind set that they must conquer the earth and use it for personal economic gain. The great faiths that are built on the Bible - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - stand accused of insensitivity to the environment and encouraging irresponsible economic activity that destroys the earth. Unlike indigenous peoples of other cultures, we Westerners have not lived lightly on the earth.
This is not the message I read from our tradition. Yes, we have been told to work the world and transform it. Responsible economic activity, whether growing crops or taking metal and minerals from the earth, is permitted. However, we must do this with the constant reminder that the earth belongs not to us but to God. I recall when my oldest son was a little boy, he wanted to pick a flower on Saturday afternoon to give to his mother. I told him, "Today is Shabbat. We don't even pick a flower, but we leave God's earth alone. We have to remember that the earth does not belong to us."
According to the Midrash, when God created Adam he showed him all the trees in the Garden of Eden and told him, "See how beautiful and perfect all my works are. Everything I created I made for you. Therefore, be mindful, do not abuse or desolate My world. For if you ruin it, there is no one after you to repair it." (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28)
PARSHAT BEHAR - BEHUKOTAI
(5761)
PUNISHMENT
"If you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you."
(Leviticus 26:14-16)
Some people remember the fire and brimstone rabbis of old. These rabbis used sermons to scare their congregants to death about the consequences of their sins. I remember one congregant who shared with me, "I loved our rabbi growing up. All he talked about was sin. Our rabbi was an expert on sin." Of course, with the sin came the punishment.
In this week's portion, Moses becomes this kind of rabbi. Verse after verse speaks of the consequences of disobedience. Traditionally this is read in a soft voice, reflecting the pain of hearing these curses. The only scant comfort is that the litany of punishments is relatively short; an even longer list is found towards the end of Deuteronomy.
How can we moderns understand the sin and punishment of the Torah? Perhaps the best understanding is that the Torah was written during the childhood of the Jewish people. Children must learn to behave properly. Often the only way to teach children right from wrong is the most simplistic - good behavior will be rewarded and bad behavior will be punished. The threat of punishment is the best incentive for children to get on the right path.
How far should parents go in punishing children for improper behavior? The Bible instructs parents, "Teach a child the way he should go, even when he grows he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) It also teaches, "He who spares the rod hates his son, but if he loves him he shall chasten him." ( Proverbs 13:24) The Bible seems to advocate discipline and the threat of punishment, including corporal punishment, to teach children the right path.
Certainly the threat of punishment is a powerful tool in raising children. On the other hand, the rabbis warned that such threats must be used sparingly. The Talmud tells the tragic story of a boy in B'nai Brak who broke a valuable vase on Shabbat. His father threatened to box his ears. The boy became so frightened he committed suicide. The rabbis learn from that not to use threats - punish immediately or be silent. (Semachot 2:5) A parent may never terrorize a child. In contrast, the Talmud says that if you must use corporal punishment, do so with your left hand and then draw the child near with the right hand.
Today, many have questioned whether corporal punishment should ever be used at all. The Israel Supreme Court has recently outlawed such punishment as unlawful and against public policy. Personally, I believe the court overstepped their bounds. A slap on a young child's tush ought not become a criminal matter. But I do urge parents to use such punishment sparingly, and only if their own temper is under control. I also urge parents to remember the Talmudic principle that "there should never be a punishment unless there is first a warning."
The only comfort to parents dealing with misbehaving children is that "this too shall pass." Children grow up. As adults they no longer need the threat of punishment to do the right thing or behave correctly. Eventually they learn to behave not because of consequences but because it is the right thing to do. As the saying goes, "Virtue is its own reward." Or as the Talmud puts it, "The Reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah itself." (Avot 4:2).
So too this week as we read the curses, we need to remember that this was the childhood of the Jewish people. As adults, we ought to keep God=s Torah not for fear of punishment, but because of the quality of Jewish life.
PARSHAT BEHAR
(5760)
THE NUMBER SEVEN
"Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield, but in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest."
(Leviticus 25:3-4)
The number seven is a magic number. And yet there is nothing obvious, nothing in the heavens, that would indicate any special status to the number seven.
If we think about our measures of time - a day corresponds to one rotation of the earth, a month corresponds to the phases of the moon, a year corresponds to a revolution around the sun. What does a week correspond to? Would primitive people living on an island, building a calendar over the generations, have come up with the division of a week?
The number seven is built into our Biblical view. Our week is seven days long, because God used six days to create the world and rested on the seventh day. We imitate God by working six days and resting on the seventh. This pattern is followed throughout the world.
In numerous places in the Bible, time is divided up into factors of seven. Pesach (the holiday is Passover) is seven days, as is Sukkot (the feast of tabernacles; the Eighth day of Assembly is considered a separate holiday.) The Torah says that we should count seven weeks in order to celebrate Shavuot (the feast of weeks.) In Jewish tradition we literally count seven times seven weeks, the forty nine days from the festival of Pesach until Shavuot.
We Jews celebrate the seventh month as our New Year. Rosh Hashana is the first day of the seventh month, counting from the month when we went out of Egypt. The seventh month also includes numerous other holidays, including Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) and Sukkot. It is almost as if the Bible is saying, count six months and use the seventh for a month of celebration.
In addition, the Bible mentions seven festival days when no work may be done - (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, the 1st Day of Sukkot, Shimini Atzeret, the 1st Day of Pesach, the 7th Day of Pesach, Shavuot.) Jews outside Israel add an extra day to these Biblical festivals, bringing the total number of holy days to thirteen, but losing the magic of the number seven.
Even years are counted in cycles of seven. According to this week's portion, every seventh year the land is allowed to lie fallow, slaves go free, debts are forgiven. Then seven cycles of seven years are counted. After forty nine years, the fiftieth year is known as the Jubilee, when all property was returned to its ancestral owner. People who lost family property due to debt were allowed a fresh start. (To use a rather vulgar comparison, we can compare this to the game of craps. When a seven is rolled, the board is cleared and people start over.)
Even millennia are measured in sevens. "R. Kattina said, Six thousand years shall the world exist, and one thousand it shall lie desolate (leading to the days of the messiah.)" (Sanhedrin 97a) This counting gives us food for thought; we are in the Hebrew year 5760, which makes the seventh millennia 240 years away. On the other hand, the ancient astronomers spoke of Seventh Heaven as the highest concentric circle, the ultimate of happiness.
Why is seven so magical? Perhaps the number seven is a deep part of the human psyche. In mathematics seven is the first prime number (a number with no divisors besides one and itself) following the first perfect number (a number that is the sum of its divisors i.e. 6=1+2+3) In music, in the diatonic scale there are seven notes before the scale starts over. (do, rei, me, fa, so, la, te ..) Seven seems to resonate with the very essence of the universe.
We count our cycles of time in patterns of seven. Skeptics might say that the number is arbitrary. Five, six, eight, nine, any other number would serve as well. For the religious mind, seven was not chosen at random. God took seven days to complete the world and rest; with the number seven we humans can commune with God.
PARSHAT BEHUKOTAI
(5760)
OUR NEEDS OR OUR CHILDREN'S NEEDS
"You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat." (Leviticus 26:29)
This week we end the book of Leviticus with the blessing and the curse. If we follow God's commandments, blessings will come upon us. If we do not follow God's commandments, we will be the victims of a series of terrible curses.
In the middle of this long list of curses is an extremely disturbing image. Conditions will become so terrible that parents will be forced to eat their own children. Traditionally parents have always protected their children, even putting their own lives on the line. It is hard to imagine parents in such terrible straits that they would sacrifice their children for their own survival. Such times would be a terrible curse.
Unfortunately, we live in a time where too often people carry out this very curse. Often I see children sacrificed to meet the needs of their parents. Whether it was the family squabbles here in Florida over the future of poor Elian Gonzales, or divorcing couples making their children pawns in their battles, or parents neglecting their children to pursue their own identities, or parents attempting to live their own dreams through their children, many parents put their own needs above their children. Children come out losers.
I recently shared my interpretation of the story of King Solomon and the two women who claimed the same baby. Both had given birth, but one baby had died. That mother had stolen the healthy baby in the middle of the night, and then each claimed the baby for her own. This was in the days before genetic testing. Solomon took his sword and recommended that the baby be cleaved in two, each woman receiving half. One mother agreed, the other said, "No, give him to her." That way, Solomon proved who the true mother was.
In my book God, Love, Sex, and Family I wrote about this case. "King Solomon's threat to cut the baby in half resulted in the real mother's cry to give up her child rather than injure it. Parental rights were turned aside. A true mother would do nothing to hurt her own child. The lesson of this story is that the child's self-interest becomes the center of all decision-making." (p. 212)
For those of us blessed with children, our focus needs to be, "what are the needs of my child?" Parenting means sacrificing one's own needs to meet our children's needs. Children need many things; let me mention four. Children need Nurturing, Providing, Protecting, and finally Mentoring.
Children need to feel that they are loved unconditionally. This love is irrespective of their grades in school, their athletic or musical pursuits, their intelligence or talents, even their behavior. Many parents dole out their love reluctantly, forcing children to earn it. Children must be nurtured for what they truly are; each child is a unique gift from God.
Children need to receive provisions for their survival, and eventually learn to provide for themselves. How many parents, particularly fathers, walk away from this responsibility of providing child support. R. Hisda used to stand outside the synagogue on a box and proclaim, "Even the raven feeds its young, but so-and-so does not take care of its young."
Children need protection. This is the reasoning behind the Talmudic dictum that parents are obligated to teach their children to swim. The perfect vision of motherhood in the Bible was Moses mother placing her son in a basket and sending him down the river with his big sister following, because she could no longer protect him at home. It is hard to imagine the self-sacrifice of this mother.
Finally, children need mentoring. They need to learn right from wrong, even if that means discipline and consequences for actions. I see many parents who want to be companions to their children rather than guides and mentors. They are worried that their children will not like them. Again, too many parents are focused on their own needs. The Hebrew word for parents "horim" comes from the Hebrew root meaning teacher or mentor.
The curse of parents eating children is a powerful, disturbing image. Unfortunately, it still happens too often in our society. We need to focus on our children, and how we can meet their needs.