Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright 2014 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan

Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you . . . .(Deuteronomy/ D’varim 6:18)

Hello again, it’s a beautiful afternoon in the Hudson Valley and I’m delighted to find a few minutes to offer a Torah thought. I am in the middle of transitions and new challenges and can’t promise a commentary every week, but things should settle down after the Jewish holidays in the fall. Till then, well, I’ll do my best.

Now, onto this week’s Torah portion, Va’etchanan, which continues Moshe’s review of the history of the Israelites since the Exodus some 40 years earlier, for the explicit purpose of reminding them of their obligation to the One Who redeemed them from slavery. To that end, Moshe also reviews the events at Sinai, and recapitulates the Ten Things That Were Said (e.g., aseret ha’dibrot, ten utterances, AKA ten commandments.)

Yet in the middle of all this exhortation to covenantal loyalty comes a verse which reminds them that the law is not the end, but the beginning of a moral life. “Do what is right and good,” from the verse quoted above, is understood to be a basic principle of Judaism: it’s not enough to obey the letter of a legall code or set of spiritual disciplines, but one must also fulfill the spirit of the law, which often requires going beyond a standard of strict adherence to formal standards.

A famous example of this comes from the Talmud [Bava Metzia 83a], wherein workers who broke a barrel of wine were hauled before the judge in order to hold them liable for the damage. Their shirts had been taken as collateral, but the judge, the sage known as Rav, ordered not only their shirts returned but their wages paid. Rav made explicit that his standard was not only the law that workers are liable for damage but the principle that we treat human beings with dignity and relieve their suffering, even if that requires us to go beyond the law. Yes, it would have been legal to take the worker’s shirts, but it would not have been right, nor humane, nor compassionate, nor consonant with larger Jewish ideals of justice and generosity.

Of course, one problem with “do what is right and good” is that it’s a lot easier to know if our actions comply with a specific law than it is to know if our actions are consonant with larger and more abstract moral principles. To which I say: nu? since when is it supposed to be easy to be a mensch? No, it’s not easy to stretch ourselves to go beyond the law (any law, be it Jewish, American, international); it requires active, imaginative empathy for others, humility about our own righteousness, and great generosity. None of those things are easy to discern or to do, but if we are to live in a world balanced with hesed, rather than a world limited to strict justice, it’s the only way.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2012 Neal Joseph Loevinger 

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan/ Shabbat Nachamu

In Va’etchanan, Moshe reviews how he was denied entry into the Land, and warns the people to stay loyal to the covenant once they enter the Land. He tells them that God is One (the Shma) and reviews the Ten Commandments.

Good morning!

Va’etchanan has so many links to the prayer service I could hardly choose- but then again, many commentaries have been written on the Shma , so let’s look for something with less ink (fewer electrons?) spilled over it.

How about Aleinu, then? Aleinu, as you may recall, is one of the penultimate prayers of a typical service- morning, afternoon, or evening- and has two paragraphs. The first paragraph (here is the text) speaks of Israel’s uniqueness as a people, and the second paragraph speaks of the hope that someday all idolatry will be swept away and the world will be united in a common spiritual consciousness.

Yet it’s interesting that the first paragraph of Aleinu ends with a quote from the Torah- from this week’s portion, of course- that also speaks to a universal spirituality, a radical monotheism which in its Biblical context served as a rebuke to any thought of worshiping other gods:

“Know therefore this day and keep in mind that the Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other.” (D’varim/ Deuteronomy 4:39)

The final word of this verse- ein od– literally mean “no other” or “nothing else”, or “nothing but this”, and again, when you look at the verse in its Biblical context, it’s clear that Moshe is warning the people not to make the theological mistake of assigning the different parts of nature- heaven and earth- to different gods or lesser powers than the One who is the Source of all realms. Yet more recent commentators from the mystical streams of Jewish thought have interpreted ein od– “no other”- more radically: there is nothing else but God. Heaven, earth, animals, plants, seas, stars, people. . .it’s all God, all connected, all ultimately One. The goal of religious practice is to learn to perceive this unity in a world of infinite diversity and complexity, and to let those experiences transform us into more compassionate, connected, less ego-bound beings.

You might object that the first paragraph of Aleinu is not at all about the unity of the cosmos- it’s about how the Jewish people have a unique mission and obligations. To which I would reply: of course Judaism is a unique spiritual path, and it’s uniquely suited for Jews because of our shared history and spiritual inheritance, but the deepest experiences of Judaism also open one up to the awareness of connection and surrender to . . . well. . . there’s no other way to put it except: ein od. We delve deep into a particular tradition in order to see the interconnection of all things, just as we delve deep into a language in order to understand poetry and song.

We can’t write a love poem, which is a universal thing, without using a particular language. Similarly, Aleinu teaches us that if we want to understand, through deep experience, that God is One, there is no other, then we have to delve deep into our specific practices of mitzvah, study, and community, which pry us from solipsism and open up the heart to connection and love. Our verse says: know and take to heart, that is, know in your intellect but let your heart be changed when you feel deeply that what we call God is right here, filling the cosmos, there is no other.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan

It’s a beautiful summer day and I have good news for you: by the very
act of reading this email you are fulfilling a mitzvah straight from
this week’s Torah portion!

Which mitzvah, you might ask?

The mitzvah of Torah study, which [according to Sefer HaHinnuch, the
book of commandments we’ve been quoting a lot recently] is derived
from a rather well-known verse in this week’s portion, Va’etchanan.
The verse in question appears as part of the first paragraph of the
prayer known as “Shma,” which tells us to:

“impress [these words] upon your children, recite them when you stay
at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.
. . . ” (D’varim/ Deuteronomy 6:7)

Although the general idea of learning and studying Torah is stated or
implied else where in D’varim, the rabbis see the mitzvah of “teaching
your children” including the act of study- because if you do not
study, how can you teach? There’s even an interpretation that
“children” here actually means “students,” because students are called
“children” in this regard.

So this is interesting: Torah study, which in some ways is the
foundational spiritual practice of the Jewish religion, is actually
derived from a verse which speaks of teaching, not learning. [Please
note, “Torah” is to be understood not in the narrow sense, as the five
first books of the Bible, but in its broadest sense, as Jewish sacred
teaching or text.]

We are not all teachers professionally, but if every Jew has the
obligation to learn in order to teach, that seems to me to be a large
principle upon which we should base our conception of religious
community. Too often, Jewish teaching is left to professionals, but
the Torah itself reminds us that each of us has the obligation to
share what we can, if not in words, then in ritual or compassionate
action. We study not only to solve intellectual puzzles inside our
private minds, but so that we can each be a living testimony to the
power of Judaism to heal the world- and each of us can be a teacher to
others, if we discover our gifts and bring them forth in the context
of spiritual community.

The mitzvah of study is not only about passing something on to
somebody else; it’s about learning how to be more powerful spiritual
personalities. That is why Torah study – in books, in classes, on the
internet, podcasts, you name it – is a foundational commandment:
because it helps us become more ourselves by sharing with others.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan

Greetings!

For the last time, it’s Torah from the North Shore. . . . . I hope my move will
not interrupt
our Torah learning schedule, because Sefer Devarim (Book of Deuteronomy) is
proceeding
right along. In this week’s portion, Va’etchanan, there is a continuation of
the review of
Israelite history since the Exodus, which, as Moshe reminds the people, should
be
remembered as a great and unprecedented miracle. Moshe predicts that in the
future, the
Israelites will turn away from God and Torah, but there will be an eventual
reconciliation.
The Ten Commandments are recapitulated; parshat Va’etchanan also includes the
passage
known as the Shma, as part of Moshe’s overarching plea for loyalty to the
covenant.

This idea- that loyalty to the covenant needs consistent attention- runs through
Devarim
as a recurring theme. On the one hand, it’s quite amazing to think that a people
who had
been liberated from slavery and brought (albeit by a circuitous route) to a Land
of Milk and
Honey would NOT be loyal to God and Torah- but on the other hand, the preceding
three
books of the Torah make it clear that rebellion, doubt, and conflict are
constant realities in
the Israelite community. Moshe pleads with the people to stay conscious of what
they’ve
learned over the past 40 years:

” And which great nation is it that has just statutes and ordinances, as this
entire Torah,
which I set before you this day? But beware and watch yourself very well, lest
you forget
the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart . .
. (Devarim/
Deuteronomy 4:8-9)

Now, again, it’s an amazing idea: could the Israelites forget the Exodus and the
miracles of
the desert (“the things that your eyes saw”) and if not, would Torah really
depart from their
hearts? After all, sometimes I forget where I’ve parked my car at the mall, but
I rarely
forget major life-saving miracles that have changed me and my people forever!

My sense of the text is that we’re not talking about the kind of forgetting in
which
something leaves our memory for good. Rather, I think the text is suggesting
that the
people may remember the events of the Exodus and the experience of receiving
Torah at
Sinai, but may not truly integrate these principles into their consciousness,
into their
being. The challenge is not simply to remember, as such; the challenge is to
stay true to
our memories.

We all have peak moments of spiritual or emotional insight- Sinai moments, as it
were; not
having peak or wondrous experiences is not actually the problem that religion
comes to
solve. The problem is that the potential of these moments becomes lost when we
return to
daily life, with its stresses, temptations, and distractions. What a religious
discipline (such
as Shabbat, or daily prayer, or putting on tallit and tefillin, or regular Torah
study) can do
is call us back to those peak moments, those flashes of insight, those
experiences of utter
commitment to the depth of true living.

Think of our relationship with God like a relationship with a lover: there are
those
moments of extraordinary connection, and then there is cleaning up after dinner.
The
challenge, in a human relationship or our relationship with the Divine, is to
stay true to the
deepest connection, even in stressful or routine moments.

In fact, I think of Judaism as a grand attempt to stay true to our people’s
experience at
Sinai; every mitzvah, every line of text, every prayer, becomes a link back to
that moment
when the people Israel stood completely awestruck before God, and responded by
committing to the highest ideals of compassionate and spiritual living- i.e.,
Torah.

Sinai is the template for my own “peak” (in both senses of the word) moments;
the
challenge of my life, as I understand it, is to constantly reorient myself
towards that higher
awareness. This is what it means that “these things” will not “depart from my
heart.” There
are many things I have to remember on any given day- and probably a few I’d like
to
forget- but the deeper remembering isn’t a matter of writing something down or
jotting a
note. The deeper remembering is integrating our experiences with our ideals, and
becoming the people we know we can be, if only we remember what we know.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5761 and can be found in its archives.

Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)

OVERVIEW

Moshe continues to review the history of the Israelites from the time of their liberation from Egypt; he also repeatedly implores them to accept and faithfully follow the Torah, stressing its goodness and wisdom. Moshe warns the people not to worship any other god or power except the One God who gave them the Torah. Moshe then reiterates the Ten Commandments. The paragraph which we know as the first paragraph of the Shma forms part of Moshe’s long exhortation to the people. He wants them to keep faith with God after they enter the land, when Moshe himself will no longer be able to guide or instruct them.

IN FOCUS

“The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horev. It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain. And the Holy One said. . . ” (Deuteronomy 5:2-5))

PSHAT

Moshe recalls the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai- here known by its other name, Horev. He reminds the people that the covenant at Sinai is binding not only upon the generation that witnessed it, but upon future generations as well- in the words of one contemporary theologian, it is a living covenant. Moshe also reminds the people of his role in the drama; he went to the top of the mountain to receive the tablets, and the people were only too happy that he went instead of them. (Cf. Exodus 20)

DRASH

The plain meaning of our text is clear, although a bit different than the version in Exodus. Moshe was the one who went to the top of the mountain, and the people were afraid of God’s awesome Presence. In the plain reading of the story, Moshe’s standing “between” the people and God was a good thing, because the people felt overwhelmed by the experience and needed a leader.

So far, so good. An entirely different reading of the text reads the words “I stood between the Lord and you” as referring not to Moshe, but to the “I,” or egocentric self, as what comes “between” a person and God:

“I stood between the Lord and you. . . ” It is this “I” of a person that is the barrier dividing a human and her Creator. Any time one dwells too much on “I” it is hard to draw close to the Sacred. (From Itturei Torah, credited to “Hassidic texts,” translation mine.)

I don’t think this text is saying that one should lose all self-identity in one’s religious quest, nor is it about losing one’s sense of individuality while dissolved in a mystic vision. Rather, I think this text points out that an essential aspect of religious growth is learning to see beyond one’s own immediate desires and needs- perhaps learning to put others first, and delaying the gratification of one’s personal wants. This can also include acquiring spiritual or ritual discipline, even at the price of our usual entertainments and distractions. After all, every hours spent studying a sacred text is an hour one is not watching TV or going to the movies.

At the very least, religion teaches that others have a claim on our moral attention- sharing our bread with the hungry or our our clothes with the naked sometimes means that our instinctive, childlike desire to have MORE of everything needs to be subordinated to our sense of obligation and justice. The laws of Judaism, in particular, are very often limitations on our natural appetites, informing what we do with sex, food, clothing, money, houses, and even words. It’s hard to grow in these areas when our own desires- the “I” of our midrash- is always first on the list of considerations.

Conversely, one widens the scope of one’s spirituality with the realization that it’s more important to be grateful than gourmet, or that money can be a means to the performance of mitzvot. It’s important to remember that restraint or selflessness is not an end in itself, but part of removing the “barriers” we feel in the spiritual life. The goal is not restraint, but a joyful life lived in the Holy Presence.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Va’etchanan

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5760 and can be found in its archives.

Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11)

OVERVIEW

Moshe continues to review the history of the Israelites from the time of their liberation from Egypt; he also repeatedly implores them to accept and faithfully follow the Torah, stressing its goodness and wisdom. Moshe warns the people not to worship any other god or power except the One God who gave them the Torah. Moshe then reiterates the Ten Commandments. The paragraph which we know as the first paragraph of the Shma forms part of Moshe’s exhortation to the people to keep faith with God after they enter the land, when Moshe himself will no longer be able to guide or instruct them.

IN FOCUS

“Know this day and set it upon your heart that Adonai is God- in heaven above and on earth below- there is no other.” (Deuteronomy 4:39)

PSHAT

Moshe delivers a long sermon to the people on the dangers of forgetting their experience of Liberation and Revelation- he warns them that they might fall into idolatry once they enter the land of Israel. He also promises that God will take them back, just as God took them out of Egypt to be a unique people. Moshe urges the people to remember the giving of the Torah at Sinai and be mindful of God’s presence.

DRASH

The main point of Moshe’s sermon seems fairly straightforward: don’t forget about the God who liberated you once you settle in the Land. The verse above could therefore be a simple rhetorical device, employing extra phrases merely for emphasis of the basic point. Read this way, there would be no substantial difference between “know this day” and “set it upon your heart”- they might mean basically the same thing, a steady consciousness of God’s existence, authority, and instructions. The next phrase, “in heaven above and on earth below”, could also be read this way, as complementary images which strengthen each other. Scholars of Biblical rhetoric and poetry call this “parallelism,” from the idea that two parallel or similar images strengthen the rhetorical point but don’t really have two different meanings in themselves.

Traditional rabbinic Bible commentators, on the other hand, often like to read the text in more expansive and creative ways, perceiving new and additional meanings in each seemingly superfluous word. Thus Rabbi Israel Lipkin of Salant [popularly known as R. Israel Salanter], a 19th century giant of mussar [ethical development] teachings, sees “know this day” and “set it upon your heart” as two different stages in a process:

It is not sufficient merely to “know” it; this sublime knowledge must be taken into your very heart, so that your will and your virtues both should function in conformity with what you know. This task constitutes the entire service of a Jew. There is as much distance between “knowing” [something] and “setting it upon your heart” as there is between knowledge and ignorance.
[Quoted in Hebrew in Itturei Torah; this translation modified from the English Wellsprings of Torah]

R. Salanter draws an important distinction here: what we know only intellectually may not actually influence our behavior; this must come from a more integrated “knowing” of mind, heart, and soul. We might think of somebody with a bad habit, for example, who knows with their brain that their habit is self-destructive, yet cannot stop until they have really emotionally internalized their desire to change. I think R. Salanter is making the same point regarding the spiritual life: we can know something purely abstractly or intellectually, yet the challenge is to act at all times out of our spiritual convictions.

That’s a deeper, more holistic kind of spirituality; not merely believing something, but acting with great integrity, wherein one naturally behaves according to one’s own ideals. The great American preacher and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King put it this way:

But we must remember that it’s possible to affirm the existence of God with your lips and deny [God’s] existence with your life. The most dangerous kind of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical atheism. And the world . . . is filled up with people who pay lip service to God but not life service. (A Knock at Midnight: the Great Sermons of Martin Luther King, p.15)

I am especially moved by Dr. King’s notion of “practical atheism;” this seems to me very close to what R.Salant is saying: while religious knowledge is a good thing, it’s not the same as leading a truly religious life. There’s a well known story, attributed in different places to different 19th century rabbis, about a man who boasts that he’s been through the Talmud many times. “Fine”, replies the rabbi- “but how many times has the Talmud been through you?”

Striving for a wholeness, an integration, of mind, heart and soul – this is the “entire service” of a Jew.