Godtalk

Some years ago, before I became a rabbi, I had the opportunity to go to a URJ Biennial convention, to join 3,000 Reform Jews in study, song, and worship. Even though I was part of a fairly large congregation at the time, I had no idea that it could be so moving to pray with such a large crowd. The Biennials are simply awesome, in the best sense of the word.

Along with all the events, the convention had a hall dedicated to the vendors of every kind. They had every imaginable form of Judaica, from paintings to books, from kippot to challah covers. And, of course, there were vendors for congregational services.

One of the vendors there was a Torah scribe – a Sofer. He was selling his Torah-checking services: a congregation could hire him to come and check their Torahs for missing letters, tears, and other forms of damage. I was fascinated by his work, and he was happy to answer my questions. He patiently explained how the Torah scroll is made.

The scrolls themselves are made of parchment paper obtained from a kosher animal, usually sheepskin or deerskin. The ink is hand blended by the Sofer – he declined to explain how – and then the letters are hand-written using a feather quill from a kosher bird.

To create the smooth, even lines of Torah text, the Sofer etches guide-lines into the parchment. This process that was once done entirely by hand with a straight-edge and a razor; now they have a machine. And, unlike English, in which all the letters ‘sit’ on the line, in Hebrew the letters all ‘hang’ from the line.

A sofer will follow the Masoretic tradition when writing the text. The Masoretes standardized the Torah text, so that all Torahs written thereafter will have exactly the same content, following the same rules of transmission.

The accomplishment of the Masoretes should not be underestimated: note, for example, that the Dead Sea Scrolls – the scrolls that were found in caves near the Dead Sea, that date back to the time of the late Temple period – have a number of variations in the texts, and we are not entirely certain as to why. The Masoretes included some known errors in the text – they made the decision that it is better to keep the error intact than to create new ones by guessing what was the correct version.

Personally, I also like that they gave up on the possibility of perfection. Of course the Torah scroll has small errors in it – that is how life unfolds.

The Sofer writes out the Torah by hand. He will only write the Tetragrammaton – the four-letter name of God, which is the most holy name and is not pronounced – after visiting a mikveh that same day. The mikveh is a pool of water gathered from living waters – either a lake or stream or rainwater – for the purposes of ritual purification. If no mikveh is available, or he does not wish to go that morning, then he can skip the name and write it later, but there is an upper limit as to how many lines he may write beyond that point.

After he is finished writing the whole Torah, the text is checked by another scribe. They also have computers to do this task, but according the Sofer, ‘humans are more accurate than machines.’

The Torah, after it is written out, is attached to two poles, called etzim. These poles are what allow us to roll it in one direction or another without getting tangled. The use of a scroll, in fact, is an old form of technology: it is the form of printing that predates books. If you’ve ever noticed in paintings and drawings of the ancients, they are always reading from scrolls. That’s because books haven’t been invented yet.

Books are medieval; they originate from hand-written folios and then eventually become volumes made on the printing press. The Talmud, for example, is standardized in its printed form in a folio layout, and it continues to be printed that way today. One difference is that each page has a number, with a front and a back, rather than the continuous pagination of books today, because it may or may not be bound together. And each page has a small repetition of the page before it, in order to identify the order of the text.

The act of reading Torah before the congregation is at least 2000 years old, and possibly older.

We have the story in Ezra, for example, of the discovery during the post-exilic period of a scroll of law that had been lost; Ezra records the decision to read it before the congregation of Israel at regular intervals.

According to the Babylonian Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin 21b, “We learn that Rabbi Yose said: Had Moses not preceded him, Ezra would have been worthy of having the Torah given to Israel through him. And even though the Torah was not given through him, its script was changed through him.” Ezra specified that the Torah text should be written in the Assyrian block letters – the ones we use now.

Dividing the Torah into weekly portions dates back to the rabbinic period. In this week’s portion, we are told about the procedure for bringing the first fruits to the ancient Temple: the person brings a basket, sets it before the priest and makes a declaration.

The ancient rabbis, writing after the destruction of the Temple, disagreed about what was included in the declaration before the priest. At the time that they were writing – primarily from the second to sixth centuries of our common era — the first fruits were no longer brought before the priest, and they were seeking to preserve a cultural memory of what had happened in the time when we were still in the land.

They were the ones who decided that studying about the first fruits was the equivalent to bringing the first fruits. So, by their logic, in reading this text, you have fulfilled the commandment of bringing the first fruits to the ancient Temple.

Similarly, with regard to the sacrificial offerings that were brought in ancient days: the rabbis determined that the prayer of the heart would be an appropriate substitution. Thus, it is possible to atone for our sins by engaging in fasting and self-reflection on Yom Kippur.

Created in God’s image, each of us is worthy of honor.

Our Torah portion reminds us that we need to be mindful of the humanity of others, particularly those who are vulnerable: “You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pawn. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.”[1]

We may well be owed money, for example, but we still have to let the widow keep her garment. Her very humanity is deserving of honor, because she is a creature of God.

Yet the objection may be raised, and rightly so, that you don’t have to believe in God to honor the humanity of others. And, more to the point: if you can honor others without invoking God, then why invoke God? God, it would seem, is superfluous to this conversation.

For example, you might be someone who objects to all the usual names for God, seeing them as idolatries. You may have the sense that there is something out there, perhaps, that is bigger and grander than what the Bible might hold. If that is the case, then, you might be willing to extend your belief that the world has purpose to include the idea that we are here for a reason. You might use this belief as the basis for honoring others.

Or, alternatively: if you cannot believe in God, then you might conclude that our tradition provides a basis for honoring others. That is to say, our tradition is organized around a set of rather demanding ethical commitments. Our tradition argues that each human being, by virtue of being, is worthy of honor.

Or, alternatively: you might conclude, along with the great French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, that we must extend this sense of honor in God’s place. Levinas argues that we are expected to fulfill the role of God for each other and extend this gracious honor to others without limits or conditions. If God does not do it, then we must act in God’s place.

In other words, we can reach this end-point of honoring the humanity of others, regardless of whether or not it is grounded in a belief in God. What is most important is the idea that all of us, every one of us, is worthy of honor.

But perhaps you might rebel at that suggestion. You might be offended. What of the abusers, the sociopaths, the murderers, the hostage-takers? How can we find it within ourselves to honor these individuals? And is it not an outrage to even suggest that we ought to honor them?

It is, of course, one thing to suggest that we should give people the benefit of the doubt, or to adopt a non-judgmental attitude regarding the people we meet. But it is another thing entirely to use this approach to excuse the behavior of known killers.

Some might argue that there’s always a hope for redemption, a possibility for repentance. This position, by the way, is very well represented in our High Holiday liturgy. God waits until the very last moment for sinners, hoping that they will repent, calling to us: ‘return, O you wayward children, return.’ As we intone: ‘Lord, it is not the death of sinners that you seek, but that they should turn to you and live.’

But what of the scoundrels, and those whose misdeeds are so great as to outweigh half-measures and simple apologies? You might argue, like Maimonides, that it is possible for a person to behave so badly that they no longer can achieve true repentance. He suggests that the sinner must acknowledge so much wrongdoing and make such great changes in his or her character that the goal becomes nearly unreachable. As Maimonides explains: “It is possible that a man might commit a grave iniquity or many sins so that the sentence of the Judge of Truth might be that the doer of those wrongs, done intentionally and deliberately, would be denied repentance.”[2]

“Consequently it can be said,” he writes, “that the Lord did not decree Pharaoh to do ill to Israel, or Sihon to sin in his country or the Canaanites to act horribly or the people of Israel to be idolatrous. All these sins were their own doing and consequently they deserved no opportunity to repent.”[3] In these cases, the magnitude and multitude of the person’s sins has eliminated the possibility for repentance. The pattern of behavior may have become too ingrained to renounce.

You should know, by the way, that this situation is very rare. Maimonides is speaking of tyrants and other forms of extreme behavior.

Even so, we still must ask ourselves: are these individuals ineligible for honor? Have they gone so far that it is no longer possible to extend that sense of humanity to them?

At this point, we might want to argue for a distinction: there is honor, and there is respect. It is possible to honor the humanity of a person but not respect their deeds.

Many of us have family members or friends who might fall into this category: people who have treated us or others badly, who have abused their power and position to dominate others, or who have created endless drama in their lives and the lives of the ones who try to love them. We know of alcoholics and wife beaters and child abusers; we are aware of thieves of all kinds; we know of those who are untrue.

Honoring someone is not the same thing as cooperating with them.

Sometimes the best way to honor someone is to refuse to be a codependent in the bad behavior. Sometimes the best way to honor someone is to say no: you and I both deserve better than that.

One of the most difficult parts of the approaching High Holiday season, in fact, is this process of self-inspection. Have I acted honorably? Have I respected those worthy of respect, and honored the humanity of all? Have I acted in a way that magnifies the image of God in the world? Have I sought to enlarge the realm of the holy? We should treat each other as holy: ‘you shall be holy for me, as I, the Lord, am holy.’

We all fall short, of course: that is what it means to be human. We should make use of that awareness to grant honor to others as well, graciously, whether or not it has been earned.

Be gentle, forgive easily, and treat everyone with honor — everyone, including you.

[1] JPS translation.

[2] Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, Shlomo Pines, transl. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 6:3, p. 124.

[3] Ibid., p. 125.

We all make mistakes. It’s one of those basic truths.
So, the question is not ‘how do we become perfect?’ Rather, it is, ‘how do we learn to learn from our mistakes?’

In our Torah portion this week, it states that guilt or blame is not established on the basis of the testimony of a single witness. Rather, “a case can be valid only on the testimony of two witnesses or more.” One person’s testimony is not enough; it needs to be validated by the testimony of another witness – someone who can say, ‘yes, that’s what I saw too.’ The idea here is that the court should not easily fall sway to one individual’s interpretation of the events.

There is wisdom in this approach: how the witness interprets events actually matters quite a bit. Let me use an example derived from Max Kadushin’s works on rabbinic thought. If Plonit enters a building, one where Ploni lives, and takes something from Ploni’s room when he is not there, is that a theft?

Maybe. For this action to be a theft, it is necessary to have a whole series of concepts in place. In order for this to be theft, Ploni and Plonit need to be part of a group that has a defined sense of possession and ownership. The group must agree that Ploni has a room and that it is his and that the stuff in it is in his care and he has a right to say ‘no one may take this from me.’

There also must be some kind of working legal definition of theft; a court or forum in which it is possible to accuse someone of theft, and process by which such accusations might be actionable.

So, for example, if your sister comes in and takes one of your blouses from your room, that’s not theft, even if you’d like to see her convicted of it.

It’s not a theft if Ploni and Plonit are married.

If, on the other hand, Ploni and Plonit are strangers and there has been no prior agreement made between them regarding this object, then yes, it is indeed a theft for Plonit to take something from Ploni’s room.

Context matters greatly. You can’t take the action out of context, because the context is what gives it meaning.

So, the witness is actually pretty important, because the witness must not just report what was seen, but also (at some level) be able to construct some kind of narrative regarding the events, to put them in context for those who hear the case.

That is to say, the stories we tell ourselves matter quite a bit.

Sometimes, of course, the narrative that the witness constructs is mistaken or wrong. And sometimes the witness constructs a false narrative. As our text acknowledges, sometimes witnesses lie, and those cases it is necessary to respond. So this is what it says to do in that situation: “If a man appears against another to testify maliciously and gives false testimony against him, the two parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests or magistrates in authority at the time, and the magistrates shall make a thorough investigation.”

It says ‘man’ here because women were not counted as full witnesses. The concern was that they could be bullied by their husbands into giving false testimony. But note that this case also requires a thorough investigation by more than one magistrate. You cannot convict on the basis of a single witness’ testimony.

So what happens if the witness is found to be lying? The Bible’s answer is a one-for-one retribution: “If the man who testified is a false witness, if he has testified falsely against his fellow, you shall do to him as he schemed to do to his fellow. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst; others will hear and be afraid, and such evil things will not again be done in your midst. Nor must you show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

The ancient rabbis, the inheritors of this text, did not like the implied barbarism of putting out someone’s eye in exchange for an eye. How could that possibly work? What if the person already was missing an eye? What if one man had small eyes and the other had large eyes? This is how their discussion of the subject goes. They decide that clearly it must mean monetary compensation.

It means that they must pay the value of an eye for an eye, the value of a tooth for a tooth, and so on.

In our own lives, we have to decide on an ongoing basis how to interpret the events that occur. Which events are actionable? In the case of theft, it is usually fairly clear as to whether or not you should press charges. But what about the murkier events, the interpersonal stuff that never sees a court of law but that creates a sense of loss? How do we evaluate these events?

Here is what I would propose:

First, determine whether the series of events represents an injustice or a slight. An injustice is when someone of greater power takes advantage of the situation to the detriment of the person in a weaker position.

A slight, on the other hand, is something that hurts your feelings. A slight is when you were not invited to an event when everyone else was.

In fact, the intensity of your hurt is one possible indicator of whether it is an injustice or a slight: an injustice might make you angry or sad, but a slight wounds you. The injustice challenges your sense of reality; a slight feels like a thorn in your side.

If it is an injustice, try to right the wrong. Injustice should be challenged.

But if it is a slight, try to let it go. You might want to talk to the person. But an attitude of forgiveness will go a long way toward resolving the situation.

“See, this day I set before you blessing and curse…”[1]

Set before us, in this week’s Torah portion, is a choice between doing good and doing evil, between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing. When it is put that way, it seems so easy, really: you should choose to do the right thing.

Some things are in fact that clear: when you are standing in line at the cash register, it is indeed wrong to take one of the items on the counter and put it in your pocket without paying for it. Perhaps, when you were younger, you had this sudden awareness when standing there – at a moment when the cashier’s back is turned – that you could do something like that. Maybe it startled you, or frightened you: why am I thinking of such things?

But you should know: this awareness that it is possible to do something wrong is actually your moral insight at work. It means, in fact, that you are making an active moral choice. You know better. In the course of your moral development, you will encounter these decision-points and have to choose. And eventually, through the force of repetition, a particular decision-point becomes second nature. It’s no longer a choice but rather a habit to do the right thing. That’s a good thing.

The shoplifting scenario I just mentioned – the awareness that you could take something without paying for it – is one that adults don’t usually have much trouble resisting. Most of us have worked through that temptation and put it aside. Our habits are well-established in adulthood, in favor of paying for what we use.

So let’s talk about how Judaism frames these choices that we make. Judaism teaches that we are born with competing impulses – the impulse to do wrong, called yetzer ha-ra, and the impulse to do good, called yetzer ha-tov. These two impulses pull us in opposite directions. The image of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other is really a Jewish image: the idea that we have these competing views, urging us to make a choice.

Our view is that we have a dual nature. Sin does not always win. In fact, it shouldn’t always win. You are presented with a choice between doing good and doing wrong. And you are expected to choose to do good.

In some areas of your life, that choice is easy. Once you’ve mastered your impulses and grown into adulthood, you don’t need to be congratulated for ignoring the temptations of the candy on the cashier’s countertop: of course you pay for what you take. But there are other places, other points in your life, where that choice is much harder.

Every one of us has a decision-point where it is necessary to make an active choice: Maybe it’s the choice between gossiping and refraining from gossiping. Maybe it’s the choice between fudging the numbers and giving full disclosure. Maybe it’s the choice between giving in to sexual temptation and remaining chaste. Any one of these things has the potential to be a decision-point.[2]

One of those decision-points, for example, might relate to issues of race, class, and gender: how do you approach someone who is different than you – someone who comes from a different background? Do you choose to learn about the other, to find out what makes that person tick, so that you might find common ground? Or do you retreat into stereotypes? Do you assume you know a person’s motivations? Or do you ask to hear a person’s story?

I will give you a hint: if you ever find yourself saying ‘oh, but they’re like that’ you are engaging in a generalization – a stereotype – and haven’t yet done the work of finding out what really is motivating this group’s behavior. Ask yourself: how do I know that’s true? Have I actually ever met someone who’s like that? And did we ever have an extended conversation to learn why that might be true?

We are fed a steady diet of stereotypes in our movies and television shows. If you don’t actually know an immigrant or a migrant personally, for example, it’s easy to start believing the stereotypes, whether you intend to or not.

Judaism’s answer to this difficulty is found in the edifice of the commandments. We have this elaborate list of do’s and don’ts as a way to give us a way to structure our lives. In the midst of the chaos of competing impulses, the commandments provide an external grid by which we might measure our response. We are taught: you should not oppress the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

But there’s a catch: it is entirely possible (in the words of the ancient rabbis) to be ‘a scoundrel within the bounds of the law.’ It is entirely possible to oppress the stranger while fulfilling the letter of the law to its outermost details. You can’t just give over all of your moral authority to the law and assume that its literal fulfillment will save you from any wrongdoing. We don’t believe that.

Rather, the Jewish view is that you must save yourself.

As a matter of fact, you must save yourself by working painstakingly through the moral code that you have inherited, deciding point-by-point, decision-by-decision how to act. It’s really difficult work, actually.

But we build a better world in these small steps, in these small acts of moral courage. It’s those moments when you say the right thing or resist the temptation or choose well. That’s how we live a life of dignity and integrity. That’s how we redeem the world.

[1] JPS translation

[2] The idea that we face these decision-points is one that I learned from the Jewish Mussar movement. Mussar teaches how to build character in response to these decision-points so that the choice to do good becomes easier.