Post by Rabbi Neil on Nov 29, 2019 18:52:17 GMT
During the Tikkun Leil Shavuot a number of weeks ago, I was struck by how quickly our study group tended to dismiss the demands of Rabbinic Judaism. Torah Judaism made demands, of course, but those demands were nowhere near as vast as those of Judaism as expressed in the Mishnah and particularly in the Talmud. It seems that the Israelites fled the slavery of Egypt only to struggle with their own freedom and then surround themselves with a dazzling complexity of rules and laws that limited the freedom of every Jewish individual. This has led me to wonder, particularly as this week this country celebrates its independence, can Jews ever be free? In its broadest sense, the idea of freedom or liberty is that one is free to do whatever they wish without external influence. Although the actions may themselves carry consequences, nonetheless the ability to perform the act is not biased in any way. A person may act or may choose not to act as they wish, aware that their choice of action or inaction will have consequences.
The Jewish narrative starts with limited freedom. God gives life to Adam and then immediately restricts his freedom, saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for if you do then you will surely die.” (Gen. 2:16-17) This isn’t just a consequence – if it were it would probably be phrased more like “Be aware that if you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil then you will surely die.” But God is very quick to establish that the act of eating from that tree not only carries consequences but it is also prohibited.
Not only at the start of humanity, but at the start of the Jewish people proper, we see the same king of limitation. “Vay’marru et chayyeichem b’avodah kasha – and the Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter with hard service.” (Ex. 1:14) At the start of the first two books of Torah, we have immediate limitation of freedom, firstly by a divine power, and then by a human power believing that they are a Divine power, as the Pharaohs all did. The Exodus from Egypt is the most celebrated event among contemporary Jews, a radical family-centered expression of our own freedom that we repeat on an annual basis. During that Seder service, we ask a particular question, based on chapter 12 (:26) of the Book of Exodus – “What does this service mean to you?” The Haggadah clearly understands the word “service” – avodah – as the Seder service, and responds accordingly. But back to the beginning of Exodus, that same word was used about slavery – avodah kasha – “hard service.” Avodah, service, doesn’t necessarily mean “service” as in a ritual at all. Indeed, in the song Al Sh’losha D’varim, based on the Mishnaic saying, teaches us that the world is based on three things – al hatorah, v’al ha’avodah, v’al g’milut chasadim – on Torah, on service, and on acts of loving kindness (Avot 1:2). Clearly, the word avodah doesn’t mean “ritual” here or elsewhere. In fact, I would suggest that the Haggadah has deliberately focused us away from the original meaning of avodah by reinterpreting it as service. Who is it who asks “What does this service mean to you?” The wicked child, the contrary child, however you want to describe them. What if they’re asking a really profound question that the drunken adults at the table don’t want to hear because they’re so busy celebrating being free? What if that child is asking, “I get that we’re free from Egyptian slavery, so what does avodah mean to you now?” It’s like they’re saying, “You get that we’re still not free now, right?” No-one wants to hear that.
What does Moses say to Pharaoh when he wants to bring the Israelites out into the desert? Not that the Israelites be freed totally, but that they go into the wilderness for three days to offer sacrifices to God. There is no total freedom. Of course, Pharaoh sees it as a ruse to get the people out of the land and to flee, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Moses asks for the Israelites to engage in a differing kind of service, a service that is required of them by someone else. But Pharaoh wants none of that – the service of the Israelites is a service to him. Service necessitates someone to whom service is offered. And that is why I ask if Jews can ever be truly free? Because the third book of the Torah starts with yet another kind of service – the service of the priests toward God. Just as in the two books before, their lives are limited, their freedom is constrained, in the service of God.
Judaism has two words for work – avodah and m’lacha. M’lacha is a specific term used in Torah and in later Rabbinic literature to suggest creative work, work which changes the state of things. This is the kind of work from which we traditionally abstain on Shabbat. Avodah, though, is a more all-encompassing term which can be translated as work, service, or labor. We were freed from hard avodah, from slavery, in order to engage in our own avodah, our own service of God. Ever since the Enlightenment, progressive Jews have felt free to express their own Judaism as they wish. We have felt free. This profoundly clashes with the traditional Jewish idea that we exist in a state of avodah, in a state of constant service. The Jew is not free to do as they wish. “Mah Adonai elohecha sho’el mei’imach – what does the Eternal your God require of you?” asks Torah (Deut. 10:12). The Jew exists in relationship to God, in relationship to the Other. What makes Judaism different from the secular worldview is that in society we are supposedly free to do whatever we wish, whereas in Judaism we are free to serve God.
How much we serve God, how much avodah needs to be in our lives, then becomes an important question. When the book of Joshua says that the people must meditate on God’s word day and night, the Rabbis understood that while that might have been possible for the generation of the desert who had food rain down on them from above, it would be impossible for us since we need to engage in a craft or a business. Therefore, they put into Joshua’s mouth the following explanation of the phrase “day and night” – “If people recite two laws in the morning and two laws in the evening, and the rest of the day is occupied with their work, it is as though they meditated upon it day and night and thus fulfilled Torah” (Mechilta de Rabbi Yishma’el, B’shallach, Ya-Yissa 3).
According to this midrash, avodah, service of God, means framing our everyday lives with Judaism. It does not mean spending every waking moment of the day in deep contemplation. It means turning everything we do into an act of service. When we work, we do so for God, as a way of thanking God for the gift of life that has been bestowed upon us. When we eat, we do so as a way of continuing our lives, as a way of thanking God for those lives. Avodah is a mindset, not an onerous task. Yes, when we read Talmud, it can certainly seem to be an onerous task, but that was how they understood avodah, how they understood what service to God means. Rejecting aspects of Talmud or Rabbinic law doesn’t necessarily mean that we now say that we are free to do whatever we want whenever we want. That’s a totally secular way of thinking. The Jew is free, but free to serve God. We are free to form our own relationship with God. If someone were to ask me, “What do Jews do?” I think I might answer, with all this in mind, that “Jews serve God.” The obvious secondary question is “What does that mean?” and the answer to that, I believe, explains all the differing branches of Judaism, past and present.
Sometimes, differing expressions of avodah clash, which perhaps is another way of looking at this week’s Torah portion of Korach – as a story of a man who wants to serve God in differing ways to Moses. But what if we saw differing expressions of avodah not as potential crises but as expressions of plurality and diversity. We are not totally free, but we are free to choose what avodah means to us. We are not bound by the avodah of others, or even of our traditional texts. Yes, if we want our avodah to be authentically Jewish then it surely has to be based on avodah of the past, although the amount on which we lean on the past for that authentic connection is also clearly a valid question. Nonetheless, when we celebrate our freedom, it is okay to celebrate freedom from tyranny and freedom from making our own choices of action. At the same time, our tradition suggests that once we are free from such oppression, we have to address how we use that freedom. Freedom isn’t a state of being, it’s a question asked of us – “What does this service mean to you?” or, to put it even simpler, “Now what?” So, may we use our freedom from tyranny, oppression or slavery as an opportunity to explore how we can use that freedom to serve. Whether we understand that as serving God in prayer, in social justice action, in studying our traditional texts or in any other way, we have a choice to make. Shabbat is an opportunity to serve God by abstaining from one kind of labor – m’lacha – to reflect on the other kind – avodah. May this Shabbat serve as an opportunity to reflect on our service, on our labor, on helping establish the pillars upon which our world stands, and let us say, Amen.
The Jewish narrative starts with limited freedom. God gives life to Adam and then immediately restricts his freedom, saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for if you do then you will surely die.” (Gen. 2:16-17) This isn’t just a consequence – if it were it would probably be phrased more like “Be aware that if you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil then you will surely die.” But God is very quick to establish that the act of eating from that tree not only carries consequences but it is also prohibited.
Not only at the start of humanity, but at the start of the Jewish people proper, we see the same king of limitation. “Vay’marru et chayyeichem b’avodah kasha – and the Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter with hard service.” (Ex. 1:14) At the start of the first two books of Torah, we have immediate limitation of freedom, firstly by a divine power, and then by a human power believing that they are a Divine power, as the Pharaohs all did. The Exodus from Egypt is the most celebrated event among contemporary Jews, a radical family-centered expression of our own freedom that we repeat on an annual basis. During that Seder service, we ask a particular question, based on chapter 12 (:26) of the Book of Exodus – “What does this service mean to you?” The Haggadah clearly understands the word “service” – avodah – as the Seder service, and responds accordingly. But back to the beginning of Exodus, that same word was used about slavery – avodah kasha – “hard service.” Avodah, service, doesn’t necessarily mean “service” as in a ritual at all. Indeed, in the song Al Sh’losha D’varim, based on the Mishnaic saying, teaches us that the world is based on three things – al hatorah, v’al ha’avodah, v’al g’milut chasadim – on Torah, on service, and on acts of loving kindness (Avot 1:2). Clearly, the word avodah doesn’t mean “ritual” here or elsewhere. In fact, I would suggest that the Haggadah has deliberately focused us away from the original meaning of avodah by reinterpreting it as service. Who is it who asks “What does this service mean to you?” The wicked child, the contrary child, however you want to describe them. What if they’re asking a really profound question that the drunken adults at the table don’t want to hear because they’re so busy celebrating being free? What if that child is asking, “I get that we’re free from Egyptian slavery, so what does avodah mean to you now?” It’s like they’re saying, “You get that we’re still not free now, right?” No-one wants to hear that.
What does Moses say to Pharaoh when he wants to bring the Israelites out into the desert? Not that the Israelites be freed totally, but that they go into the wilderness for three days to offer sacrifices to God. There is no total freedom. Of course, Pharaoh sees it as a ruse to get the people out of the land and to flee, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Moses asks for the Israelites to engage in a differing kind of service, a service that is required of them by someone else. But Pharaoh wants none of that – the service of the Israelites is a service to him. Service necessitates someone to whom service is offered. And that is why I ask if Jews can ever be truly free? Because the third book of the Torah starts with yet another kind of service – the service of the priests toward God. Just as in the two books before, their lives are limited, their freedom is constrained, in the service of God.
Judaism has two words for work – avodah and m’lacha. M’lacha is a specific term used in Torah and in later Rabbinic literature to suggest creative work, work which changes the state of things. This is the kind of work from which we traditionally abstain on Shabbat. Avodah, though, is a more all-encompassing term which can be translated as work, service, or labor. We were freed from hard avodah, from slavery, in order to engage in our own avodah, our own service of God. Ever since the Enlightenment, progressive Jews have felt free to express their own Judaism as they wish. We have felt free. This profoundly clashes with the traditional Jewish idea that we exist in a state of avodah, in a state of constant service. The Jew is not free to do as they wish. “Mah Adonai elohecha sho’el mei’imach – what does the Eternal your God require of you?” asks Torah (Deut. 10:12). The Jew exists in relationship to God, in relationship to the Other. What makes Judaism different from the secular worldview is that in society we are supposedly free to do whatever we wish, whereas in Judaism we are free to serve God.
How much we serve God, how much avodah needs to be in our lives, then becomes an important question. When the book of Joshua says that the people must meditate on God’s word day and night, the Rabbis understood that while that might have been possible for the generation of the desert who had food rain down on them from above, it would be impossible for us since we need to engage in a craft or a business. Therefore, they put into Joshua’s mouth the following explanation of the phrase “day and night” – “If people recite two laws in the morning and two laws in the evening, and the rest of the day is occupied with their work, it is as though they meditated upon it day and night and thus fulfilled Torah” (Mechilta de Rabbi Yishma’el, B’shallach, Ya-Yissa 3).
According to this midrash, avodah, service of God, means framing our everyday lives with Judaism. It does not mean spending every waking moment of the day in deep contemplation. It means turning everything we do into an act of service. When we work, we do so for God, as a way of thanking God for the gift of life that has been bestowed upon us. When we eat, we do so as a way of continuing our lives, as a way of thanking God for those lives. Avodah is a mindset, not an onerous task. Yes, when we read Talmud, it can certainly seem to be an onerous task, but that was how they understood avodah, how they understood what service to God means. Rejecting aspects of Talmud or Rabbinic law doesn’t necessarily mean that we now say that we are free to do whatever we want whenever we want. That’s a totally secular way of thinking. The Jew is free, but free to serve God. We are free to form our own relationship with God. If someone were to ask me, “What do Jews do?” I think I might answer, with all this in mind, that “Jews serve God.” The obvious secondary question is “What does that mean?” and the answer to that, I believe, explains all the differing branches of Judaism, past and present.
Sometimes, differing expressions of avodah clash, which perhaps is another way of looking at this week’s Torah portion of Korach – as a story of a man who wants to serve God in differing ways to Moses. But what if we saw differing expressions of avodah not as potential crises but as expressions of plurality and diversity. We are not totally free, but we are free to choose what avodah means to us. We are not bound by the avodah of others, or even of our traditional texts. Yes, if we want our avodah to be authentically Jewish then it surely has to be based on avodah of the past, although the amount on which we lean on the past for that authentic connection is also clearly a valid question. Nonetheless, when we celebrate our freedom, it is okay to celebrate freedom from tyranny and freedom from making our own choices of action. At the same time, our tradition suggests that once we are free from such oppression, we have to address how we use that freedom. Freedom isn’t a state of being, it’s a question asked of us – “What does this service mean to you?” or, to put it even simpler, “Now what?” So, may we use our freedom from tyranny, oppression or slavery as an opportunity to explore how we can use that freedom to serve. Whether we understand that as serving God in prayer, in social justice action, in studying our traditional texts or in any other way, we have a choice to make. Shabbat is an opportunity to serve God by abstaining from one kind of labor – m’lacha – to reflect on the other kind – avodah. May this Shabbat serve as an opportunity to reflect on our service, on our labor, on helping establish the pillars upon which our world stands, and let us say, Amen.