Parasha Shoftim: The 'Common Sense' of the Torah

“Freedom speaks with a Jewish accent,” writes Rabbi Sydney Greenberg. By this he means that the Bible describes a G-d who wants man to be free. G-d hears the cries of the oppressed. G-d demands justice and compassion. “When he proclaims his commandments, G-d introduces Himself by describing himself as “The G-d who brought you out of the House of Bondage”. As we say today, this is G-d branding Himself. The Jewish G-d is first and foremost the G-d of freedom.

In our parasha for this week, Moses prepares the people to set up a system of just government when they enter the Land and possess it. The people, G-d tells him, may want a King to rule over them.  As we know, at the time all of the other nations of the world are governed by kings. It follows that the Jewish people may want one as well. However, the Kings of the Heathen nations had absolute power. Often they were thought of as gods themselves. They could be fabulously wealthy, and, it was common for them to outright own all of the land of their kingdom. Many of the Kings of the Ancient Near East were, in fact, despots, who had little regard, if any, for the well-being of their subjects. 

A King of the Jews must be different, says the Torah. A King of the Jews was not to amass too much gold and silver. They could not acquire many wives. Most importantly a King of the Jews was not to be above the law. The King had to write at least one Torah by his own hand, and keep it by him at all times. He was to refer to it frequently to remind himself that there was a King of Kings to whom he would answer. All of these conditions were designed to prevent the King from becoming arrogant and for placing himself far above the people he ruled over, or even to mistake himself for G-d.  It was of utmost importance that the Jewish King did not lose touch with the struggles of the common people.

For many years after the Israelites settled in the Land, they, in fact did not have a King. Each tribe had its own form of government, led by the local chieftain. In times of emergency, when the tribes needed to defend themselves against a common enemy, a leader would arise to temporarily unite the tribes and lead them in battle. When the crisis had passed, the leader would return to his former station in life. He, or she, in some cases, would not become the monarch. This temporary leader was called a “Judge” and the history of this period constitutes what is called the Book of Judges in the Bible.

Monarchies, however, were the predominant form of government of all nations up until the American Revolution. Kingships were usually hereditary. This meant that certain families wielded enormous power and amassed gigantic fortunes, mostly at the expense of their subjects over the centuries they ruled. This was particularly hard on the Jews, who, as non-Christians living in Europe, were often subject to arbitrary confiscation of their property and expulsion from the kingdom whenever royalty needed money to fight wars or to otherwise enhance the kingdom’s treasury. The abuses of the King of England, King George lll, was one of the main causes of the American Revolution.  The Declaration of Independence states that “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” The Declaration of Independence goes on to list the multiple grievances that the colonies had against the crown.  

In his influential 1776 pamphlet called “Common Sense” Thomas Paine advocates independence from Great Britain. In this pamphlet, Thomas Paine lays out an argument for the abolition of monarchies in general.  For this, he does not rely on the writings of 18^th century Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Thomas Hobbes, whose books and essays on freedom were so influential with the intellectuals of the time. The writings of these men would have been unfamiliar to the audience Thomas Paine was trying to influence – the American farmer, the small businessman, the seamstress, the cobbler, the carpenter, the silversmith. Thomas Paine was trying to reach a mass audience unfamiliar with legal precedents, classical learning and complex arguments. He wanted to draw on a literature that people were familiar with and could relate to in attacking the monarchy. So, he drew upon the Bible.

Now, Biblical literacy in America today isn’t what it was in the 18^th century. Dr. Reverend Albert Mohler, who is President or the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes about the alarming Biblical illiteracy today among American Christians. Citing a recent poll on Biblical knowledge of Americans, we find that sixty percent of Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments, and at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Another survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham.

But in 1776 people did know their Bible, and that is why Thomas Paine drew from the Hebrew Book of Samuel to make the argument that G-d Himself does not favor monarchies as a form of government. (Unlike today, what G-d wanted was very important to most Americans in 1776). Thomas Paine recounts how in the Book of Samuel the Israelites approach Samuel the prophet and demand that he appoint a King over them. Samuel, distraught that the people want to set a king over them, turns to G-d for advice. G-d says, give the people what they want, but first, warn them about what is in store for them when a nation has a king. Samuel then warns them of the dangers of appointing a King. He will want to conquer foreign lands and he will send your sons off to die. When they are not at war he will force them to plow his fields and reap his harvests. He will take your daughters and impress them into service as his servants. He will take your best fields and give them to members of his court. He’ll take the best of your herds and flocks for his own use. You will live to regret the day that you asked for a king to rule over you, says Samuel. But the people are unconvinced. They demand a King.

But the colonies already had a king, and Americans had ample experience with the injustices that a tyrant could inflict. The pamphlet, Common Sense, sold 150,000 copies and was read by many more. At the time of the American Revolution there were only about 1500 Jews living in the American colonies. About 100 Jewish men fought in the Revolutionary war. But Jewish thinking, mediated by Thomas Paine, had an outsized influence on convincing the common man and woman that America needed a new form of government.

It would take human civilization 2700 years from the time Samuel warned against anointing a king for humankind  to begin to free ourselves from this tyrannical form of government. Although the Torah counsels that the power of a king must be limited, experience with that form of government has shown that the very nature of monarchy makes that impossible. “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality,” said the 19^th century Englishman John Dalberg Acton. It is a lesson that the Hebrew Bible taught a long time ago.

Shabbat Shalom

Who Moved Moshe's Cheese?

 Countless books, articles and sermons have been written about how difficult it is to engage in meaningful prayer. Learning to pray is not easy even if you are the son of a rabbi. In fact it may be especially difficult if you are the son of a rabbi, said Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, who, as the son of a rabbi, ought to know!  In recalling his problems praying earlier in his life, he sought the counsel of his own father.   His father’s advice: “If you cannot make your prayer meaningful, make it quick.”

This week’s parasha opens with a prayer by Moses that is both quick and meaningful. Moses has been told that he will not be entering the Land of Israel with the people that he has led for forty years. The Torah records Moses’ prayer to G-d:

“O’ G-d Eternal!  You have begun to show me your greatness and power. What force is there in heaven or on earth that can perform deeds and mighty acts as You can? Please, let me cross over the Jordan River to see the good land…….”

Judging by the Torah’s account, it doesn’t seem like Moses spent hours upon hours in the synagogue imploring G-d to allow him to enter the land. But according to the midrash, Moses’ prayer as reported in the Torah was merely a summary of Moses’ actual prayer.  According to the Rabbis, upon hearing from that he will die before entering the Land of Israel, Moses begins to mourn. He dons sackcloth, strews ashes upon himself, and continues to implore G-d to allow him to enter the Promised Land. The Rabbis teach that Moses draws a circle around himself and vows not to move from that circle until G-d changes his mind.  G-d responds by ordering the celestial being to bolt tight all of the entrances of prayer so that Moses’ prayers, powerful as they may be, cannot breach the gates of heaven!  Moses, not to be outdone, tries another tactic. He asks the stars and the planets to pray for mercy on his behalf. He asks the mountains and the hills to petition G-d to allow him to live. He asks the rivers and the seas to implore G-d to relent. He asks the Holy Angels to make his case before the Blessed Holy One. But they all refuse to take up Moses’ case before G-d.  Finally, Moses is forced to accept the inevitable decree of G-d. He will not live long enough to enter the Land of Israel.

Has anybody here ever wanted something really bad in your life and realized that you were not going to get it? Was there a job that you thought would be the key to your future and you were not hired? Was there someone in your life who was ill and you wanted to see well, but they were not healed? Was there someone who you loved and you wanted them to love you back, but they couldn’t return your love? In 1999, Spencer Johnson wrote a slim volume entitled Who Moved My Cheese? The book, 94 pages of large type, sold 28 million copies worldwide. Who Moved My Cheese was a cautionary fable about how to deal with change. In the book, “Cheese” is a metaphor for what we want in life – money, status, love, security, or health, for example. The book has four characters, Sniff and Scurry, two mice, and Hem and Haw, two mice-size human beings. They all set out to find the cheese hidden in a section of a maze. They all succeed in finding the cheese. Day after day they eat the cheese and are satisfied. One day, however, the cheese disappears. Sniff and Scurry immediately set out to find more cheese. But the humans, Hem and Haw, complain and feel cheated. They waste a lot of time bewailing their fate and hoping that the cheese will somehow reappear. They are frightened to set out again in the maze to search for new cheese. They feel angry and entitled to the cheese because they had nothing to do with its disappearance. Finally, Haw, one of the humans, overcomes his fear and set out to find new cheese.

These four characters in the book represent parts of ourselves. We are “Sniff” when sniff out change early. We are “Scurry” when we take action. We are “Hem” when we resist change and fear it will lead to something worse. We are “Haw” when we adapt to change and understand that it can lead to something better in the future. 

In our Torah portion G-d moves Moses’ cheese, as it were. The one thing he wants that will bring him happiness, the goal that he has worked toward for forty years, is denied him. Like most of us would do in this situation, and like Hem and Haw, the two humans in the book, he resists the change with all of his might and all of his resources. He feels cheated out of something he believes he deserves -- entry into the Promised Land. He rails against his unwanted fate.  But just as it is often impossible to resist change, Moses cannot prevail against the will of G-d. Nor can we. We, like Moses, must accept and adapt to the new realities of our lives when they change, as they inevitably will someday.

Although Moses’ prayer did not achieve its desired effects, the Talmud sees it as a model to be followed whenever we pray. Moses’ prayer begins with praise, “O, G-d Eternal, you have begun to show me Your greatness’” and only then presents the request, “allow me to enter the land”. That format – we begin our prayers with praise and follow with our request, has been the classic pattern of Jewish prayer ever since. But we must ask, “Why do we begin with praise?” Is it simply a matter of flattering G-d before we ask for something? Is this the same as “buttering up” a powerful person before we make a request of them? Are we pandering to G-d’s “vanity” as it were?

Rabbi Avraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, the first chief Rabbi of Israel gives us one answer. He writes that prayer is not about changing G-d’s mind.  It is impossible for a human being to affect the will of G-d. Prayer will not make our “cheese” magically re-appear. Yet prayer is not a waste of our time. Prayer cannot get us the love we want, but prayer can mend a broken heart. Prayer cannot get us the job we desire, but it can reinforce our will to persist. Prayer cannot give us the health we wish for, but it could help us cope with our illness.  And praying together can offer us much needed comfort in a time of crisis. Prayer has the power to change us. As a result of that change, we will experience our lives differently, perhaps, even, find the courage to set out on a new course, to find our “cheese” once again.

When we introduce our prayers with praise of G-d, we remind ourselves of the true nature of G-d and the true power of prayer to effect change in our lives. May we all find a way to make our prayers quick….. AND meaningful.                                                                           Shabbat Shalom

Parasha Ekev : The Power to Change the World

I want to start out this evening by giving you a quiz. Don’t be nervous, it is not a quiz that you needed to study for before you came to services!  You won’t be graded; it will not go on your life transcript.

Where does the saying, “A drop in the bucket” come from?

Where does the saying, “There is nothing new under the sun” come from?

Where does the saying, “Man does not live by bread alone” come from?

Where  does the first saying, “a drop in the bucket” come from? It goes back to Prophet Isaiah in the 6^th century BCE.   The Prophet Isaiah uses the term when reassuring the Jewish people of G-d’s power over Israel’s enemies: “Behold, the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance……”

The world weary author of the Book of Ecclesiastes, traditionally identified as the wise King Solomon, writes that “There is nothing new under the sun.”  

The phrase, “Man does not live by bread alone”…. comes from this week’s Torah portion. Its meaning is that human beings certainly need food, clothing, and shelter to survive, but we need more than to satisfy our basic physical needs to truly be alive. We are social beings, so we need others for nurturing, for companionship, and for protection in order to thrive. But the Torah tells us that we need even more than that. “Man cannot live by bread alone,” states the Torah, but that is only the first part of the verse, the famous part. The verse continues, “But on all that comes forth from G-d’s mouth as well he will live.” The verse comes to teach us that there is a spiritual component to life without which a person is truly not “alive”.   

This truth is contained in the very word for “Life” in Hebrew – Hayyim. The word consists of four letters. The middle two letters are “Yuds”, which spell the name of G-d. This teaches that if we put G-d at the center of our lives, we can better face challenges in our lives without despair, without feeling defeated, alone or overwhelmed. With G-d at the center of our lives we are better prepared to move forward with a sense of purpose and meaning, with the knowledge that although our lives are little more than a “drop in the bucket” in the grander scheme of things, our lives  matter  a great deal and have  profound significance.

Perhaps the most famous exponent of “Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone” in the 20^th century was the psychiatrist Victor Frankl.  Frankl was deported from his home in Vienna to the Theriesenstadt Concentration camp in 1942. After two years there, he was sent to Auschwitz, and then to Dachau. He endured great suffering, but discovered that even under the most painful and dehumanizing conditions, life held the possibility of yielding meaning and purpose. He observed that those who were able to find meaning in their suffering had a greater chance of surviving the horrors of camp life. In his book entitled Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl described a type of psychotherapy which he called Logotherapy. The therapy is based on Frankl’s belief that a person’s striving to find meaning is the single most powerful motivating force in their lives. It is more powerful than the “bread” in our lives – our chasing after power, after money, after status, after pleasure. He is thought to have coined the term “Sunday neurosis” which afflicts those who live without a sense of greater purpose. He describes the symptoms of this malady as a sense of boredom, apathy and depression that occurs when the workweek has concluded, when the pursuit of material gains must cease. It is then that a feeling of emptiness surfaces in the individual as they struggle to understand the purpose of life outside of acquiring things.

What does it mean to put G-d at the center of our lives? Does it mean to come to synagogue every week, or to pray every day, or to keep kosher, or to celebrate the Jewish holidays, or to light Shabbat candles or to don tallis and tefillin each morning?  All of these rituals are a means to an end, but they are not ends in themselves. All of these practices reinforce important values and connect us to one another, and in this way they are important. But the essence putting G-d at the center of our lives is the place to where these rituals point – the love and connections that we have for one another. There is nothing new under the sun – we find meaning and purpose in life through those we love and those who love us, through those to whom we lend a helping hand, through those to whom our lives have made a difference because we have been here. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived – that is to have succeeded.”

In his “Laws of Repentance” Maimonides writes that a person should view himself as if his or her deeds are perfectly balanced between those that are meritorious and those that are sinful. If a person has more positive deeds than negative ones, he is judged for the good. If the negative outweigh the positive, he is judged for the bad. Maimonides asks us to imagine that the entire world is similarly balanced. Should we sin one more time, we tip the balance to the negative and assure our destruction and the destruction of the world. Should we do a mitzvah, we tip the balance to the positive and assure our salvation and the salvation of the world. Thus, every deed we perform has cosmic significance. Each one of us has within us the power to change the world for the better – the world of our families and friends, our communities, our workplace.

Shabbat Shalom