Post by Rabbi Neil on Aug 4, 2017 21:54:42 GMT
Lo tosifu al hadavar asher anochi m’tsavvecha etchem v’lo tigr’u minenu – You shall not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it (Deut. 4:2)
So, we may as well go home! I say that because there isn’t a Jewish community in the world that hasn’t broken this rule. We all add and subtract. Of course, we don’t add and subtract to the Torah – the text is the text whether we like it or not. And there may well be parts that we don’t like, but we don’t edit them out and say, “There’s no more Number chapter 5 because we don’t like it any more.” We can’t do that because what one person likes, another dislikes. Numbers chapter 5 is the ritual of the Sotah – some people find it abhorrent, others fascinating. But it’s part of Torah that we have inherited.
The traditional way around this issue is to say that much of what is in Torah is no longer applicable because the Temple is no longer standing. That, of course, is the largest subtraction from Torah that there has ever been, and probably will ever be. If the Rabbis were happy to relocate the focus of Jewish practice from the Temple to the synagogue, they could have easily relocated Temple rituals to the synagogue. But they chose not to because they understood that the religion needed to develop. In so doing, they clearly broke this commandment. In fact, our entire Jewish existence, our community, Reform Judaism itself, is based on the removal of extraneous elements that were brought into Judaism. Interestingly, much of that is Rabbinic Judaism, the fences around the law that the Rabbis added that Reform Judaism stripped away again. These fences, of course, weren’t seen as additions, they were seen as elaborations, or perhaps clarifications. So they were added in order to preserve the law, but they were nonetheless still clearly additions. Reform Judaism came in and stripped some of these back. For example, Torah clearly says that Pesach is a seven day festival but the custom developed for it to be an eight-day festival due to the possibility of doubt. Now that there is no doubt, and that we can calculate when Pesach starts to the exact second, Reform Judaism stripped that fence around the Torah, we stripped away that addition. Torah says that you shall not seethe a kid in its own mothers’ milk and the Rabbis added layer upon layer of levels of kashrut which Reform Judaism stripped away, at least in part.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that Reform Judaism doesn’t also subtract from Torah law itself, though. We do, quite deliberately and consciously. For example, we removed the concept of priesthood where that’s clearly a central theme in the legal sections of Torah. We ignore the idea that a man has to give a woman a get, a bill of divorce, because that makes no sense in a country whereby in the civic courts a woman can divorce a man. So, it’s not just the Reform Judaism subtracts from Rabbinic fences that were added to the law, we also subtract from the law itself.
In fact, it might not be too much of a generalization to say that where Orthodox Judaism is guilty of ignoring this commandment by clearly adding to the law, Reform Judaism is guilty of ignoring it by clearly subtracting from the law. Orthodox Jews would say that they are doing so to protect the law itself, while Reform Jews would often say that they are doing so to protect the integrity or the original intention of the law. And that’s a difficult position, because we can only project back to what we think was the original intention of the law. Either that, or we say, quite boldly, that we aren’t bound by this mitzvah. I think that would actually be a more honest Reform response. An Orthodox perspective would be that Torah is law for all time and that it is our responsibility to expound on Torah laws to bring them into every differing generation and situation. A Reform perspective, though, would be that Torah is the first attempt at guiding the people in a relationship with God, but that it is not the only way to guide us in our relationship with God. Indeed, it spoke to a world so totally different to ours that it would be impossible to apply it fully to our day and age without reversing essential social gains.
The difficulty for Reform Jews, then, is working out what is appropriate and what is not. Is that communally decided or personally? While Reform Judaism celebrates individuality, if everyone has a differing perspective on what is still valid and what is not in Torah, how can Reform Judaism be said to stand for anything other than a free-for-all? This returns us to the question of Reform Jewish praxis. What do Reform Jews do that makes them Reform Jews? I think the answer is in the process of determining mitzvah, instead of an actual list of mitzvot. What I mean by this is that to be a Reform Jew means, in theory, an application of contemporary learning, reason, passion, compassion and other similar factors to a reasoned consideration of every mitzvah in our tradition. In other words, we can’t say Reform Jews do X but don’t do Y, but what we can say is that Reform Jews think critically about X and Y in order to evaluate whether or not it is appropriate for their lives. Reform Jews don’t just do, we think about what we do and whether to do it.
I tend to see the mitzvah of lo tosifu, do not add or subtract, as a social necessity of the time. When all the Israelites were living in one camp, it was inconceivable that there might be wildly varying customs. The religion was new, so the core had to be established. Like the rules a parent might give to a child, the mitzvot in Torah were given to a people who had just come from enslavement in Egypt and who needed a new communal praxis. Individual preference for spirituality wasn’t an option, indeed it probably wasn’t something even considered. That, of course, is based on believing the historicity of the Biblical narrative. If we believe that Torah was written later, as the Jewish community started to develop and widen, then once again of course a communal praxis was essential. In this case, though, it was surely more a method of control as well as of ensuring a coherent community.
My belief, and it’s simply a personal theological perspective, is that God does not want us to be robots. At the beginning, as with a child, we were given certain rules. As we grew, though, we learned to question those rules as we formed our own identity. I simply cannot believe in a Deity who commands specific behaviours from only one specific group of people on Earth. With that in mind, then, I see lo tosifu, you shall not add or subtract, as being a very clear injunction to not alter Torah. It’s the base, the starting point, from which Judaism flows. But can we alter Judaism after that? Of course we can. We always have.
In Talmud, tractate Menachot 29b, we learn that Moses was transported in time and sat in Rabbi Akivah’s classroom. He listened to what Akivah taught but could not understand a thing. He felt faint. A student asked the authority of the law that Akivah was teaching, and he replied halacha l’moshe misinai – it’s a law from Moses on Sinai. Moses’ mind was settled.
If it’s good enough for Akivah, it’s good enough for me. If Akivah can expound law that is so profoundly different to Torah that even Moses himself doesn’t recognise it, then we can add and subtract to Judaism. And that, ultimately, is the core. Judaism isn’t Torah. It starts with Torah, always, but it isn’t just Torah. Judaism is the process of interpreting life with Torah as a starting point. It was, once, a priestly religion, a religion of centralised worship, of the in-crowd and the majority of the community. But then history forced it to change. Life imposed a new way of being Jewish on the Jewish community. So lo tosifu, do not add or subtract, also had to change. Not only can we add to and subtract from Judaism, but we must add to and subtract from Judaism. We must leave Torah as it is, with parts that are profoundly problematic and with parts that are beautifully inspirational. But we add to and subtract from Judaism because to not do so would simply not be Jewish.
So, may we add and subtract to Jewish practice through informed, reasonable discussion, through a journey of ritual discovery, and may God guide us on that journey. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.
So, we may as well go home! I say that because there isn’t a Jewish community in the world that hasn’t broken this rule. We all add and subtract. Of course, we don’t add and subtract to the Torah – the text is the text whether we like it or not. And there may well be parts that we don’t like, but we don’t edit them out and say, “There’s no more Number chapter 5 because we don’t like it any more.” We can’t do that because what one person likes, another dislikes. Numbers chapter 5 is the ritual of the Sotah – some people find it abhorrent, others fascinating. But it’s part of Torah that we have inherited.
The traditional way around this issue is to say that much of what is in Torah is no longer applicable because the Temple is no longer standing. That, of course, is the largest subtraction from Torah that there has ever been, and probably will ever be. If the Rabbis were happy to relocate the focus of Jewish practice from the Temple to the synagogue, they could have easily relocated Temple rituals to the synagogue. But they chose not to because they understood that the religion needed to develop. In so doing, they clearly broke this commandment. In fact, our entire Jewish existence, our community, Reform Judaism itself, is based on the removal of extraneous elements that were brought into Judaism. Interestingly, much of that is Rabbinic Judaism, the fences around the law that the Rabbis added that Reform Judaism stripped away again. These fences, of course, weren’t seen as additions, they were seen as elaborations, or perhaps clarifications. So they were added in order to preserve the law, but they were nonetheless still clearly additions. Reform Judaism came in and stripped some of these back. For example, Torah clearly says that Pesach is a seven day festival but the custom developed for it to be an eight-day festival due to the possibility of doubt. Now that there is no doubt, and that we can calculate when Pesach starts to the exact second, Reform Judaism stripped that fence around the Torah, we stripped away that addition. Torah says that you shall not seethe a kid in its own mothers’ milk and the Rabbis added layer upon layer of levels of kashrut which Reform Judaism stripped away, at least in part.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that Reform Judaism doesn’t also subtract from Torah law itself, though. We do, quite deliberately and consciously. For example, we removed the concept of priesthood where that’s clearly a central theme in the legal sections of Torah. We ignore the idea that a man has to give a woman a get, a bill of divorce, because that makes no sense in a country whereby in the civic courts a woman can divorce a man. So, it’s not just the Reform Judaism subtracts from Rabbinic fences that were added to the law, we also subtract from the law itself.
In fact, it might not be too much of a generalization to say that where Orthodox Judaism is guilty of ignoring this commandment by clearly adding to the law, Reform Judaism is guilty of ignoring it by clearly subtracting from the law. Orthodox Jews would say that they are doing so to protect the law itself, while Reform Jews would often say that they are doing so to protect the integrity or the original intention of the law. And that’s a difficult position, because we can only project back to what we think was the original intention of the law. Either that, or we say, quite boldly, that we aren’t bound by this mitzvah. I think that would actually be a more honest Reform response. An Orthodox perspective would be that Torah is law for all time and that it is our responsibility to expound on Torah laws to bring them into every differing generation and situation. A Reform perspective, though, would be that Torah is the first attempt at guiding the people in a relationship with God, but that it is not the only way to guide us in our relationship with God. Indeed, it spoke to a world so totally different to ours that it would be impossible to apply it fully to our day and age without reversing essential social gains.
The difficulty for Reform Jews, then, is working out what is appropriate and what is not. Is that communally decided or personally? While Reform Judaism celebrates individuality, if everyone has a differing perspective on what is still valid and what is not in Torah, how can Reform Judaism be said to stand for anything other than a free-for-all? This returns us to the question of Reform Jewish praxis. What do Reform Jews do that makes them Reform Jews? I think the answer is in the process of determining mitzvah, instead of an actual list of mitzvot. What I mean by this is that to be a Reform Jew means, in theory, an application of contemporary learning, reason, passion, compassion and other similar factors to a reasoned consideration of every mitzvah in our tradition. In other words, we can’t say Reform Jews do X but don’t do Y, but what we can say is that Reform Jews think critically about X and Y in order to evaluate whether or not it is appropriate for their lives. Reform Jews don’t just do, we think about what we do and whether to do it.
I tend to see the mitzvah of lo tosifu, do not add or subtract, as a social necessity of the time. When all the Israelites were living in one camp, it was inconceivable that there might be wildly varying customs. The religion was new, so the core had to be established. Like the rules a parent might give to a child, the mitzvot in Torah were given to a people who had just come from enslavement in Egypt and who needed a new communal praxis. Individual preference for spirituality wasn’t an option, indeed it probably wasn’t something even considered. That, of course, is based on believing the historicity of the Biblical narrative. If we believe that Torah was written later, as the Jewish community started to develop and widen, then once again of course a communal praxis was essential. In this case, though, it was surely more a method of control as well as of ensuring a coherent community.
My belief, and it’s simply a personal theological perspective, is that God does not want us to be robots. At the beginning, as with a child, we were given certain rules. As we grew, though, we learned to question those rules as we formed our own identity. I simply cannot believe in a Deity who commands specific behaviours from only one specific group of people on Earth. With that in mind, then, I see lo tosifu, you shall not add or subtract, as being a very clear injunction to not alter Torah. It’s the base, the starting point, from which Judaism flows. But can we alter Judaism after that? Of course we can. We always have.
In Talmud, tractate Menachot 29b, we learn that Moses was transported in time and sat in Rabbi Akivah’s classroom. He listened to what Akivah taught but could not understand a thing. He felt faint. A student asked the authority of the law that Akivah was teaching, and he replied halacha l’moshe misinai – it’s a law from Moses on Sinai. Moses’ mind was settled.
If it’s good enough for Akivah, it’s good enough for me. If Akivah can expound law that is so profoundly different to Torah that even Moses himself doesn’t recognise it, then we can add and subtract to Judaism. And that, ultimately, is the core. Judaism isn’t Torah. It starts with Torah, always, but it isn’t just Torah. Judaism is the process of interpreting life with Torah as a starting point. It was, once, a priestly religion, a religion of centralised worship, of the in-crowd and the majority of the community. But then history forced it to change. Life imposed a new way of being Jewish on the Jewish community. So lo tosifu, do not add or subtract, also had to change. Not only can we add to and subtract from Judaism, but we must add to and subtract from Judaism. We must leave Torah as it is, with parts that are profoundly problematic and with parts that are beautifully inspirational. But we add to and subtract from Judaism because to not do so would simply not be Jewish.
So, may we add and subtract to Jewish practice through informed, reasonable discussion, through a journey of ritual discovery, and may God guide us on that journey. May such be God’s will, and let us say, Amen.