home

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 5766
Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
www.neshamah.net
Congregation B’nai Israel
Toledo, Ohio

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

God shows His love for us by giving us rules to live by. In this week’s double parsha of Acharei Mot-Kedoshim we have 79 of the 613 commandments. That’s a lot of rules!

There is a certain refrain which we hear this week over and over again:

“Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, ani Hashem Elokeichem, I am the Lord your God.”

“You shall do my judgments, and keep my ordinances, to walk with them; I am the Lord your God.”

“Therefore shall you keep my ordinance, that you commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that you defile not yourselves in it; I am the Lord your God.”

“You shall revere every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths; I am the Lord your God.”

“Turn you not to idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God.”

“And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and stranger; I am the Lord your God.”

“But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy for praise giving to the Lord. And in the fifth year shall you eat of its fruit, that it may yield to you its produce; I am the Lord your God.”

An obvious question we have is “why all the repetition of “I am the Lord your God?”

There does not seem to be a clear connection between the places where the phrase is used and the places it is not. It’s used as a general introduction: tell the folks it’s ME, their God! It’s used with general principles, like “don’t do any of the abominable things the Canaanites do.” It’s used with ritual commandments, like “keep my Sabbaths” or “in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy.” And it is used with ethical commandments, like “And you shall not glean your vineyard.”

The first time this phrase appears in this week’s Torah portion is in Leviticus 18:2: “Speak to the people of Israel, and say to them, I am the Lord your God.” Rashi’s commentary on this verse says this is a reminder of an earlier time I made this statement, at Mt. Sinai—the Ten Commandments begins with anokhi Hashem Elokecha, “I am the Lord your God.” Rashi explains the significance of repeating this phrase is to tell us “you will accept my kingship, then you will accept my decrees.”

That certainly sounds logical enough. We first accept the general idea of being bound by the rules – we accept God’s kingship – then we can get into the details. We first have some faith in God – and then we decide to follow God’s rules.

The Mechilta, one of the earliest Midrashic commentaries (1st or 2nd century) gives us an explanation of how this works. The Mechilta asks “why doesn’t the Torah begin with the Ten Commandments?” After all, isn’t that kind of the point of the whole book, to give us the rules? Why all the preliminaries? Why don’t we just “cut to the chase” and start out with the rules?

The Mechilta explains it with a story. It’s like a new king who comes to town and says to the people “Here I am, I’m the new king, I’m going to rule over you.” The people respond “you haven’t done anything for us to give us a reason to follow you. Why should we listen to you? We should we accept you as our king?” So the would-be king went out and enhanced the people’s security – today he would install metal detectors at airports, back then what he did was to build a wall around the city. He funded and built some infrastructure projects – today he would build a bridge over the Maumee River, back then he put in an aqueduct to bring water to the people. There were problems with the neighboring countries, so the would be king went out to war and defeated the threat. THEN he came back to the people and said “I want to be your king.” And the people all accepted enthusiastically.

Similarly, God brought the Jewish people out from the land of Egypt, He split the Red Sea, He fed them with the manna, He brought them up to Mt. Sinai, He defeated Amalek. THEN he said, “I want to be your king,” and the people responded, “of course!” Hence, Ani Hashem Elokecha, I am the Lord your God”—a reminder that we first accept God’s kingship, then we follow the rules.

Rashi and the Mechilta tell us there is a two step process: step 1) accept God’s rule – have faith in God; step 2) follow the rules.

But is that how it really works?

In his commentary on this week’s parsha the Sfat Emet (19th c.) challenges that logic. The Sfat Emet says that with accepting each decree we are accepting God’s kingship over us. He says, in fact, that the purpose of the mitzvot is to give us the opportunity to accept God’s kingship over us!

What does it mean to accept God’s kingship over us? We moderns are put off by language like “kingship.” We assume that kings are like most modern despots – greedy, ruling through nepotism, not caring about their subjects. Or they are irrelevant, like the Queen of England.

Accepting God’s kingship is about having faith in God. Having faith that God’s commandments are not some kind of penalty, or some kind of tax, but rather are a benefit for us. Accepting God’s kingship is about having a relationship with God.

Perhaps a more helpful model would be the relationship of parent. As a parent why do you give your children rules? Despite what the children may think at times, it’s not because you are mean. It’s because you love your kids and you want them to have a good life.

One of my teachers, Rabbi Brad Artson, wrote “Just as a parent shows love to a child by providing detailed guidance for every aspect of a child’s life, so God shows love for the Jewish people by bestowing a myriad of mitzvot to guide our steps along paths of righteousness and wisdom. Just as a good parent knows that reasonable and consistent rules are the clearest demonstration of caring possible, allowing the child to internalize a sense of right and wrong, so God—our heavenly Parent—continues to provide for our training for a life of goodness and of meaning.”

When our children follow the rules, we feel closer to them. When they disobey the rules, which we give them for their own benefit, we can’t both help but feel slightly distanced. We may get angry with them. They may withdraw from us.

Similarly, following God’s rules allows us to feel closer to God. Following God’s rules, in fact, IS the Jewish path for connecting with God. It is the path for how we develop a relationship with God.

Obeying the mitzvot is not the only possible path to connect with God. There are people who find God in nature, there are people who find God in doing social action, there are people who find God by meditating. The Jewish path for connecting with God includes all of those activities. We find God in nature – for example, there is a blessing to say when seeing a rainbow, hearing thunder, or seeing the ocean for the first time in a long while. We find God in social action, as we are commanded to give to charity and to take care of other people, we are admonished not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbors. And we find God by meditating – the observant Jew prays three times a day, and says 100 blessings a day.

What’s different when Jews do these things is that they are put in a context of obeying mitzvot – they are put in a context of accepting a God who transcends our reality, of accepting a God who loves us and wants what is best for us. It is a spiritually powerful experience to put yourself in the hands of God, to acknowledge God as really being greater than you, and to accept that the commandments God has given us are not a burden but are a blessing.

With some commandments the blessing is clear, with some commandments we have to struggle to figure out the blessing, with some commandments we simply accept them as coming from a God who loves us because we can’t quite figure them out.

This week’s Torah portion contains many examples. We are commanded to keep God’s Sabbaths. Anyone who is shomer Shabbat, a keeper of the Sabbath can tell you what a blessing it is to observe Shabbat. In our crazy modern world, to have 25 hours with no computers, no cell phones, no instant messages is an amazing blessing. It brings peace of mind and it gives us space to not only recharge our batteries, but to renew our relationships with God, our family, and our friends. When I started studying the rules of Shabbat and learned you are supposed to have a good meal, good wine, have relations with your spouse and take a nap, I said “what’s not to like?”

This week’s Torah portion gives us some of the laws of keeping kosher, like not eating blood. These rules take a little more effort to figure out, but there is a blessing in keeping the dietary laws, they are part of how we identify ourselves with the Jewish people, chosen by God to be a mamlechet Kohanim, a nation of priests, a nation dedicated to the service of God and making the world a better place. The blessing of keeping kosher is also a blessing of increasing our awareness of God’s presence in our lives throughout the day – every time we eat we say a blessing, we think of God, we strengthen our relationship with God.

In this week’s parsha God commands us “You shall not hate your brother in your heart,” a commandment which is also clearly a blessing – carrying around hate in your heart is the surest way to destroy yourself and hurt yourself. Hatred is a kind of poison, and it doesn’t matter whether the object hate deserves your disparagement or not.

Blessings, of course, are meant to be shared, hence in this week’s Torah reading we are also commanded to leave behind the gleanings of field, to leave food for poor people, and to provide for poor people in a way that preserves their dignity.

Each and every one of the 79 commandments found in this week’s Torah reading is a blessing God gave to the Jewish people. The Slonimer rebbe said there are many paths to faith. Psalm 119 says v’chol mitzvotekha emet. Emet is usually translated as “truth,” but it can also be translated as “faith.” The Slonimer understands the verse in this sense, and says “and all your commandments are faith,” this teaches us that every commandment can help a Jew more deeply root his faith within himself.

If you’ve been waiting for an epiphany – a light bulb going off moment when you clearly understand what God wants of you – before taking on observing more mitzvot, you are going about the process backwards. We do mitzvot to gain enlightenment -- we don’t wait for enlightenment to do mitzvot. Following the mitzvot, bit by bit, mitzvah by mitzvah, will strengthen your faith in God.

If you are thinking, I’ve been eating non-kosher food for the last 60 years, isn’t it too late, the Sfat Emet has some advice from this week’s parsha. In the parsha God warns Aaron, al yavo b’chol et el hakodesh, don’t come into the holy places at any time you feel like it. He is warned only to come in at one very special time—and that is on Yom Kippur. The most holy place in Judaism, the kadosh kodashim, the holy of holies, could only be approached by one person, the high priest, and he could only approach on one day, Yom Kippur. The Sfat Emet points out that Yom Kippur, of course, is the Day of Atonement, the day when we are forgiven for our sins if we have done repentance—and the Talmud teaches that the completely righteous cannot stand in the place of a ba’al teshuva, a person who was not observant, but became observant.

God always welcomes us with open arms when we turn to Him. To go back to our metaphor of our relationship with God mimicking the parental relationship, if one of your kids goes astray and leads a life of sin for a while – when that child turns his life around, gives up his bad company, gets a job raises a family, becomes a solid citizen – of course the parent is delighted and welcomes the child back with open arms—no matter how long it took.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that Judaism does not call on us to take a leap of faith – it calls on us to take a leap of action, to do the mitzvot, and through the leap in action the faith will follow.

Or, as the Nike commercials put it: “Just do it.”

As our great sage Hillel said: “If not now, when?”

Shabbat Shalom