Aliba D'Rav
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Weekly Column
  • Politics
  • On being a rabbi
  • THE SIXTY FUND
  • SOMETHING SPECIAL

weekly column

Each week, find a commentary on something connected to verses of Torah or another source of wisdom

AN HONEST SINNER -- Deuteronomy 13:19

10/5/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​AN HONEST SINNER
 
The Last of Deuteronomy
 
For you will be heeding the Lord your God, obeying all his commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.   Deuteronomy 13:19
 
I have always tried to be a rule-follower.  I have not always been successful, but at least I am willing to acknowledge when I have stepped over the line. 
 
One of the lines I know I intentionally blur has to do with the practice of fasting.  To put it simply, I don’t.  Until very recently, when medical circumstances have made nutrition and hydration necessary, I was diligent about Yom Kippur.  But the locus of my rebellion otherwise has been the roster of major and minor fasts that symbolize our mournfulness for past tragedies.  They make me physically miserable and spiritually resentful, never mind some of my philosophical objections to what they commemorate. 
 
The mistake I do not make is suggesting that God does not want me to fast.  Whatever rationale I have developed for my personal practice, I do not lay claim to knowing better than the instruction of the tradition and/or the consensus of believing and practicing Jews in which I count myself what God’s will is for us in general or me in particular.  In the classic words of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I dissent.  Unlike the Notorious RBG, my dissent is not grounded in the law.
 
I mention my transgression so soon after I have atoned for others because I wonder about the phrase “doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.”  The small verse above contains three measures of devotion – heeding, obeying, doing.  Do they represent three ways of saying the same thing (not at all unusual when the Bible is emphasizing a point) or three different assessments of commitment (not at all unusual among commentators who consider nothing superfluous or repetitious in the Bible)?
 
If it is the former, my intentional transgression dooms me to be an unrepentant sinner.  I know that sounds so, well, religious, but it’s a big deal when someone considers himself, well, religious.  For those whose more liberal standards about Jewish practice lead them away from certain kinds of ritual observance, my choice may seem inconsequential.  But at least in theory (and however broadly I define the standard), I am committed to heeding the word of God and obeying God’s commandments.  I go to great lengths and inconvenience to uphold that standard.
 
Let me add that I am not looking for absolution, as if some other rabbi could exempt me from fasting or shabbat observance or keeping kosher.  I am not looking for reassurance from others who have compassion for my reasoning.  I am not looking for support from Jews Against Fasting or some other group that objects to this ritual.  I know what I am doing is, by the standards I accept for myself, wrong.  I prefer to live with that dissonance.  That is, IF heeding, obeying, and doing are parallel concepts.
 
But what if the three phrases mean different things?  What if the first means attending to God’s instruction, the second upholding that instruction, but the third finding that which is the distinct way for me as an individual to do what is right in the sight of the Lord MY God?
 
I have always been skeptical of anyone who claims to know the will of God personally.  I know that flies in the face of some understandings of my own tradition and of broad swaths of believers in other faiths.  Perhaps it is my proclivity to following the rules, but I look askance at any statement that begins, “I believe that God wants ME to…” 
 
Mostly, what follows those words is an excuse to ignore a collective standard.  Often it is to excuse oneself from an inconvenient requirement (which is why I will never say “I believe that God wants me to eat on a fast day.”)  Sometimes it is an excuse to exceed the limits of piety (as when ultra-orthodox Jewish men will not sit next to a woman on an airplane).  But mostly it is used to justify something that has less than nothing to do with God’s concerns; instead, it has to do with a personal desire to be justified with a theological claim.
 
God does not care about touchdowns. God is unconcerned about holiday greetings.  God does not select political candidates.
 
I make those statements not because I know the will of God personally, but because the Bible is pretty clear about what is right in the sight of God.  To do justice. To love mercy. To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless.  To cultivate holiness within and compassion without.  To remember how awful it is to be a stranger.
 
I’d rather be an honest sinner than a lying believer.
 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Jack Moline is a rabbi, non-profit exec, and social commentator.  

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Weekly Column
  • Politics
  • On being a rabbi
  • THE SIXTY FUND
  • SOMETHING SPECIAL