Filed under: Thoughts of the Week
Parashat Va-etchanan
Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11, we read 5:1 – 7:11
July 28, 2007 / 13 Av 5767
This Shabbat in mid-summer began the readings of the haftorot of consolation after our remembrance on the 9th of Av. In our congregation, we discussed the section of the Torah reading that many know – the Shema and the following paragraph which begins with loving the divine with all one’s heart, one’s soul, and one’s might (6:4-6:10). Rav Jeremy noted the repetitions of “bet” or “in” in this paragraph – perhaps we are to reflect about the inwardness of this biblical reading that stresses both one’s own love and one’s need to be extroverted about speaking of the divine to one’s children, in the street, within one’s gates, in the time when one rises and when one lies down at night.
Rav Jeremy and I commented on the nature of chosen-ness in the readings when I went up for an aliyah. I mentioned that the 7th aliyah discussed that the divine chose the people Israel and that this would not be a beloved passage for Reconstructionists. Rav Jeremy responded that Reconstructionists recognize that this notion of being chosen by the divine is part of the past civilization of the people but may need to change in these days. He also thought that the previous section on intolerance to the other nations’ ways of worship would be more problematic.
This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. The haftorah starts with 40:1 “Comfort, comfort My people, says your God” and relates the primacy of the divine in comparison to the vanity and temporary state of people – 40:7 “The grass withers, the flower fades beneath God’s breath; surely the people are like grass”. 40:8 “The grass withers, the flower fades; but God’s word will stand forever.”
My college room-mate and his wife came to visit us on Saturday afternoon. They might describe themselves as secular Jews, not synagogue-goers. We discussed the variety of expression of ethnic feelings among Jews in the United States. I introduced Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan’s writings on Judaism as a civilization – based on the religion but included other forms of spiritual and communal experiences. Does not a social worker fulfill the need for repairing the world expressed in the prophetic readings? Does not someone who participates in Passover sederim and in high holiday services not also expressing their support for the ongoing culture that is Judaism? How much of Jewish allegiance is in reaction to others who identify Jews as being different from the general US population?
I differ with Rabbi Kaplan’s notions of chosen-ness, which seems to be that believing that Jews have a special relationship with the divine denies the path of spirituality for others and places us as separate from our neighbors. I believe that Judaism is a choosing tradition, we choose to accept the culture and try to find a way to both live in a contemporary life and in a life that is eternal, balancing the present with the comforts of the past and the promise of tomorrow. The divine will last forever and our time in short, yet there are many ways to expression of connectiveness with each other and some greater than we might ever imagine.
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