This week’s Parsha, the double portion Behar-Bechukotai, begins with the laws of Shemitah. “…the land shall observe a Sabbath of the lord. 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 25:2-4).
This idea of of working for 6 years in order to take care of our needs, but resting on the seventh is a direct parallel to the idea of Sabbath. With the weekly Sabbath, we are told that for six days you may work, but the seventh day of the week we must cease to work.
In regards to Sabbath, in order to have a pleasant/restful day, a lot of work has to be done in preparation. We have to prepare our food before the seventh day begins, prepare the house, prepare ourselves; all this work needs to be done in order for a positive Shabbat experience to occur. Once the seventh day begins, we are no longer permitted to do any work. Similarly, with the shemittah laws, in order for the people to survive the sabbatical year, they had to have been preparing for it the six previous years.
The notion of working for a designated amount of time in order to be prepared for something later becomes a very important idea in Jewish mysticism and how the mystics understand the idea of the relationship between this world and the world to come. Some Jewish mystical traditions understand the duration of the world to be 7000 years long. For 6000 years the world is preparing itself, and during the 7000th year, the world will reap the benefits of the work done in the previous 6000 years. Whether we understand these years to be literal or not, the idea is a direct parallel to the Sabbath of the week and the Sabbath of the land.
Our job in this world is not to be primarily focused on the short-term, instant benefit of our work. Everything we do should be viewed as an investment for the long-term benefit of the world, and ourselves as inhabitants of that world. As you reap, so shall you sow. The way in which we view the purpose and benefit of the work we do in our lives should always reflect the idea that we need to prepare the future, and not just be motivated by our own selfish short term benefit. This idea is integral to the Jewish experience of space and time, as reflected in the laws of how treat the land (the shemittah – agricultural sabbatical), and how we treat the working week (the weeky Sabbath). Judaism teaches us to think about preparing ourselves and our world for long term sustenance.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Parshat Acharei Mot - Kedoshim
This week, since this year is not a leap year, we read two torah portions, Acharei-Mot and Kedoshim. In the second portion, Kedoshim, God directs the Jewish people to be holy, and the rest of the Parsha is a list of the laws which make us holy. One verse that I would like to discuss (19:11-12) reads, “You shall not steal, and you shall not deny falsely, and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby desecrating the Name of your God – I am the Lord.” Rashi, the medieval commentator suggests: “If you have stolen, your end will be to deny falsely; and then your end will be to lie; and then your end will be to swear falsely.”
This idea that one negative action will lead to another negative action is prevalent in Jewish thought and moral literature, not just in reference to the effects of stealing. The idea being, that once you do something that is wrong, you have become desensitized to the inherent negativity of that act. Initially, one’s ability to sense the wrongness of the behavior acts as a deterrent, but when that deterrent is no longer effective, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have moved for that person. When we habituate ourselves to negative acts, we no longer see them as being negative. And, when we are habituated to doing negative acts, the human psyche needs to justify that behavior. Eventually, we start to see the negative act as something positive, thereby negating the possibility of change. This verse is teaching us the important impact our actions have on ourselves. We are defined by what we do, therefore we should be careful that we are comfortable with the statement that our actions make about us. There is a relevant rabbinic statement from Pirkei Avot (4:2), “A mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and a sin leads to another sin.” Nothing that we do happens in a vacuum. This is true with regard to the way in which our actions affect others as well as ourselves.
It is for this reason why the verse ends with the words, “I am the Lord.” This phrase repeats itself throughout this week’s Parsha. Its purpose in almost every case is to remind us that even when no one else sees what we will do, we still need to be honest with ourselves about our actions and their consequences. In this case, it is often hard to see where we have convinced ourselves (and sometimes others) that what we are doing is right, simply in order to justify the behavior for our own conscience. Nevertheless, no matter how many other people we fool with those justifications, when we fool ourselves, we end up the loser.
This idea that one negative action will lead to another negative action is prevalent in Jewish thought and moral literature, not just in reference to the effects of stealing. The idea being, that once you do something that is wrong, you have become desensitized to the inherent negativity of that act. Initially, one’s ability to sense the wrongness of the behavior acts as a deterrent, but when that deterrent is no longer effective, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have moved for that person. When we habituate ourselves to negative acts, we no longer see them as being negative. And, when we are habituated to doing negative acts, the human psyche needs to justify that behavior. Eventually, we start to see the negative act as something positive, thereby negating the possibility of change. This verse is teaching us the important impact our actions have on ourselves. We are defined by what we do, therefore we should be careful that we are comfortable with the statement that our actions make about us. There is a relevant rabbinic statement from Pirkei Avot (4:2), “A mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and a sin leads to another sin.” Nothing that we do happens in a vacuum. This is true with regard to the way in which our actions affect others as well as ourselves.
It is for this reason why the verse ends with the words, “I am the Lord.” This phrase repeats itself throughout this week’s Parsha. Its purpose in almost every case is to remind us that even when no one else sees what we will do, we still need to be honest with ourselves about our actions and their consequences. In this case, it is often hard to see where we have convinced ourselves (and sometimes others) that what we are doing is right, simply in order to justify the behavior for our own conscience. Nevertheless, no matter how many other people we fool with those justifications, when we fool ourselves, we end up the loser.
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