The following is not a d'var Torah, but rather my own opinions on the tense situation that exists right now in the Middle East because of Iran's nuclear armament goals and Israel's right to defend itself.
A Bully in the Yard: An Analysis of the Israel-Iran Situation
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 21, 2012
Everybody wants to be a prognosticator today—but no one can be, at least not when it comes to the Middle East. The region has been unpredictable and explosive from before World War I yet, and it’s only gotten worse since.
The reason you don’t want to think about what tomorrow—or the next few weeks—might bring is that any way you look at it, it can’t be good.
The news is undeniably scary with threats and counter-threats, with stories of assassinations and terror. The media have been full of columnists trying to analyze the Iran-Israel situation and to predict its outcome. No matter how they chart events and their outcome, the end result is always disastrous.
What some people call saber rattling is much worse than just that; it’s actually a dangerous game of brinksmanship, with Iran pressing hard to achieve its nuclear ambitions and taunting Israel to react.
For many reasons—primarily because it is run by a regime rooted in medieval thinking—Iran’s economy has been inching steadily closer to catastrophic failure. Predictably, its titular head, Ahmedinejad, has found Israel to be a convenient scapegoat and for several years now has been threatening to destroy it. Simultaneously, he has been pushing ahead with nuclear development leading toward production of nuclear weapons.
Couple that with the fact that Iran already has missiles that are able to reach just about any point in Israel and Europe and is currently developing an ICBM missile with the capability of reaching targets in the US, and what you have is a very dangerous situation indeed.
Israel is not alone in feeling threatened. The memory of the Holocaust and World War II is still raw enough in most people’s minds to realize that when a country proclaims its intent to destroy another sovereign nation, and is shown to be hard at work developing the capability to do just so, it’s probably a good thing to see it as a serious and valid threat.
So far, international trade sanctions and periodic—but futile—inspections by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) have not stopped Iran. The question is, what will?
For quite some time now, Israel—which, understandably, has the most to fear—has been talking about carrying out a preemptive strike. There is reason to believe Israel. It has carried out such strikes in the past, the first in 1981 when it destroyed a French-built nuclear facility in Iraq, and more recently in 2007, when it destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria. In the case of Iran, however, the circumstances are different.
First, Iran’s nuclear facilities—constructed with Russian aid since 1992—are dispersed throughout the country. Secondly, it has buried some of them deep underground. Third, Iran has the capability of striking back, with possibly catastrophic results.
It is estimated that the State of Israel currently has 200,000 missiles aimed against it. Close to 30,000 of them are in the hands of the Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon. Hamas, Iran’s proxy army in Gaza, also holds a frightening arsenal of missiles, some of them with the ability to hit targets 30 miles away, at the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel’s most heavily populated cities. There is no question in anyone’s mind that, if a preemptive attack on Iran is carried out, Hezbollah and Hamas will not hesitate to join Iran in unleashing their full fire power. That, of course, will lead to a full out regional war as Syria and Egypt might wish to deflect attention from their own political and social problems and join other Arab states that might see this as their best opportunity yet to destroy Israel.
It is possible, of course, that a successful preemptive attack on Iran will destroy its nuclear facilities. It is just as possible, however, that such an attack will not be conclusive and will result only in delaying Iran from reaching its goals for a couple of years. In either case, a counterattack against Israel as well as the United States (termed by Iran “the little Satan” and “the great Satan”) is certain to follow. In an election year, such an attack on the US or its staunchest ally will not be met with silence, and the US will find itself in yet another conflict with an Islamic country—one it can hardly afford economically or diplomatically. Israel, naturally, will be blamed, giving anti-Semites all over the world the “proof” they need for their claim that the Jewish state wields undue control over US foreign policy.
Additionally, Iran has the ability (and has already threatened) to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which pass those giant supertankers laden with much of the oil used by the western world. Iran’s navy also made its presence known in the Mediterranean Sea, with several of its vessels recently visiting Syria (and possibly supplying Bashar al-Assad with more weapons to enable him to further bombard his own cities). The intent behind this display of power by the Iranian government cannot—and should not—be underestimated.
In consideration of world-wide disastrous consequences, the United States and Britain—among other European nations—recently called on Israel to refrain from attacking Iran. President Obama—swallowing his pride and his much-publicized dislike of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—will certainly deliver a similar message at a meeting with Netanyahu scheduled for March 5.
What will happen next? If more countries adhere to tougher international sanctions against Iran, it is possible that Iran will change its course, and then the world will heave a sigh of relief. But such a rosy outcome isn’t very likely. The current mission of the IAEA is doomed to fail as have all previous missions, as inspectors are not allowed to visit and inspect some of Iran’s most secretive sites. And so far, despite economic sanctions and international warnings, Iran has managed to carry on its nuclear enrichment work unhindered. Even if Europe and the United States are successful in convincing Israel to refrain from carrying out a preemptive raid, even if a full-out war is temporarily averted, covert operations are bound to continue. As the world’s foremost exporter of terror, at some point Iran might conceivably succeed and deliver a strike that will call for response either from Israel or the US. And if that happens, we’re right back to square one, with less recourse than ever to avert an all-out war, only this time against a regime now equipped with nuclear warheads.
And if nothing at all is done, if Iran successfully develops and builds nuclear weapons, what will stop it then from actualizing further ambitions of regional and global dominance? It’s a nightmare scenario no less dangerous from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and possibly even more so.
But all this is speculation. There’s no way of knowing what will happen next. Hopefully the international pressure on Iran will succeed; perhaps the Ayatollah Khameini—the real source of power in Iran and no lover of Ahmedinejad—will succeed in his efforts to marginalize Ahmedinejad and remove from him any leftover delusions of executive powers. In the best of all worlds, a social-media-driven revolution such as those that recently took place in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world will help restore power to the Iranian people and sanity to the region. Only time will tell. Until then, we will sit nervously and watch as the world tries political maneuvering, a process that history has shown to be much less successful than simply standing up to a bully and putting him in his place to begin with.
It might remain Israel’s obligation to do just that, despite the dangers inherent in such a move, and it might just have to happen sooner than later.
©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Building Bridges to Heaven
Building Bridges to Heaven: D’var Torah for Parashat Mishpatim
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 17, 2012
Judging by the laws we find in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (“Ordinances”, Ex. 21:1—24:18), c. 1000 BCE was a pretty terrible time to live. Slavery, kidnappings, robbery, manslaughter and murder, child abuse, animal abuse, high-stake financing and other assorted and sordid misbehaviors.
It isn’t, however, that those were lawless times; there were laws, and when they weren’t circumvented (or when the judges couldn’t be bought), these laws were pretty tough: “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:23-25). Tough indeed, yet from the number and varieties of crimes referenced in the parasha, one can be forgiven for wondering if such harsh punishment served to deter anyone from doing just about anything they wished to.
In fact, it didn’t. As Jewish law evolved, the famous litany of consequences quoted here served only as a starting point, not as a reference, for countless reforms. The human imagination is as perverse as it is wonderful, and as the process went forward, with each misdeed variation came its own recourse, addressing intent and cause along with intended—and unintended—consequences. With each refinement, Jewish law moved farther away from the legal foundation it found in earlier Mesopotamian law. See, for example, the laws concerning the “wayward and rebellious son” (Ex. 21:15, 17). In its first incarnation, such a boy can be killed by his father. However, by its next occurrence (Deut. 21:18-21), the case is expanded to include several examples of the boy’s misbehavior, each more outlandish than the one before. In the end, even if he is found guilty of all those offenses, it isn’t the father who kills his son (since what true father ever would do such a terrible thing?) but rather “all the men of the city.” At first reading, that punishment seems even more harsh; yet what is implied in the Deuteronomic development is the presence of a court system that is absent in Exodus, with the result that the father does not, may not, kill (or abuse) his own son.
Moreover, by Talmudic times, it is ruled that “such a case never happened and never will happen” (BT Sanhedrin 71a). Since the crime never happened, the Talmud teaches that the punishment was moot too—good only for the sake of learning to appreciate exactly how seriously the Torah regards the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.”
Earlier Mesopotamian law codes found equity in the concept that whatever a person did to his fellow would be followed up by exactly the same deed. If you set your neighbor’s house on fire, your house was set on fire too. Thus, “an eye for an eye.” Mishpatim has another, a better, idea: Justice rather than revenge; the value of an eye for an injured eye. Instead of two half-blind men for the entire community to accommodate and take care of, why not have the injured party taken care of by the individual who caused the injury to begin with? What a concept! Individual responsibility!
This new, improved view of justice is applied throughout the parasha. Slaves released at the end of the sixth year must be provided for by their owner on exiting their servitude. Similarly, a woman taken with the intent of marriage but later found wanting cannot be sent away without provisions for the future. Yes, the very societal conditions these laws paint are terrible. Yet what the Torah imposes is a system of responsibility, of caretaking. The consequence the Torah ultimately looks for isn’t only satisfaction. Its higher call is for compassion and cooperation. These, Moses teaches us, are the true foundation stones of society. With them in place to begin with, there would be less recourse to violence and crime. Eliminating the conditions that are the breeding ground of crime makes all the laws and harsh consequences of Mishpatim moot.
Ex. 23:4-5 is a case in point. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.” How long will this person remain your enemy if you cooperate with him in the caretaking of his property and animals?
According to the Torah, the key to a utopian society isn’t in the number of laws it flaunts in its codes or in how severe they are. It’s in the respect and compassion we show one another as we work together toward common goals.
This portion reminds us of our humble origin as strangers in a strange land, slaves to a cruel and heartless master. Freedom isn’t the same as lawlessness and chaos; freedom means helping out and cooperation. There may be 53 laws in Mishpatim, this week’s Torah portion, but they are not to be seen as restrictions on our freedom. Rather, they are guidelines meant to lead us to a higher plane, to a place where we qualify to be “a holy people” unto God (Ex. 22:30).
Coming so soon after the giving of the Ten Commandments, Mishpatim is more than simple commands. Together, Yitro and Mishpatim describe a process that reflects a whole philosophy. It’s a whole new way of thinking about crime and punishment.
Almost incongruously, following these laws Mishpatim goes on to describe Moses, Aaron and 70 elders of the People of Israel attaining a vision of God. “And there was under God’s feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity” (Ex. 24:10). The vision takes our breath away.
Yet it seems so distant! The world at God’s feet is nothing like clear and brilliant sapphire. On the contrary, it is murky and even dark. It is filled with the rasp of war and violence, hate, envy and greed. The year 1000 BCE might as well be 2000 CE. Not much has changed.
Could the Torah guidelines be misleading?
Or is it more likely that we haven’t really tried them fully yet? That our justice system is still as crude as it was 3,000 years ago; that we still think of deterring the criminal by the severity of the laws we pass?
Mishpatim calls on us to ascend to the heights, to look up and see the model of justice and compassion that we need in order to establish a better system. True justice is a system, not merely a series of laws. Holiness, after all, isn’t a one-time condition reached through some act of ecstasy. It’s an ascent. It’s a process, a step-by-step climb that begins deep inside each one of us, inside our hearts, and reaches all the way to the very heart of heaven itself.
©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 17, 2012
Judging by the laws we find in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim (“Ordinances”, Ex. 21:1—24:18), c. 1000 BCE was a pretty terrible time to live. Slavery, kidnappings, robbery, manslaughter and murder, child abuse, animal abuse, high-stake financing and other assorted and sordid misbehaviors.
It isn’t, however, that those were lawless times; there were laws, and when they weren’t circumvented (or when the judges couldn’t be bought), these laws were pretty tough: “Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:23-25). Tough indeed, yet from the number and varieties of crimes referenced in the parasha, one can be forgiven for wondering if such harsh punishment served to deter anyone from doing just about anything they wished to.
In fact, it didn’t. As Jewish law evolved, the famous litany of consequences quoted here served only as a starting point, not as a reference, for countless reforms. The human imagination is as perverse as it is wonderful, and as the process went forward, with each misdeed variation came its own recourse, addressing intent and cause along with intended—and unintended—consequences. With each refinement, Jewish law moved farther away from the legal foundation it found in earlier Mesopotamian law. See, for example, the laws concerning the “wayward and rebellious son” (Ex. 21:15, 17). In its first incarnation, such a boy can be killed by his father. However, by its next occurrence (Deut. 21:18-21), the case is expanded to include several examples of the boy’s misbehavior, each more outlandish than the one before. In the end, even if he is found guilty of all those offenses, it isn’t the father who kills his son (since what true father ever would do such a terrible thing?) but rather “all the men of the city.” At first reading, that punishment seems even more harsh; yet what is implied in the Deuteronomic development is the presence of a court system that is absent in Exodus, with the result that the father does not, may not, kill (or abuse) his own son.
Moreover, by Talmudic times, it is ruled that “such a case never happened and never will happen” (BT Sanhedrin 71a). Since the crime never happened, the Talmud teaches that the punishment was moot too—good only for the sake of learning to appreciate exactly how seriously the Torah regards the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.”
Earlier Mesopotamian law codes found equity in the concept that whatever a person did to his fellow would be followed up by exactly the same deed. If you set your neighbor’s house on fire, your house was set on fire too. Thus, “an eye for an eye.” Mishpatim has another, a better, idea: Justice rather than revenge; the value of an eye for an injured eye. Instead of two half-blind men for the entire community to accommodate and take care of, why not have the injured party taken care of by the individual who caused the injury to begin with? What a concept! Individual responsibility!
This new, improved view of justice is applied throughout the parasha. Slaves released at the end of the sixth year must be provided for by their owner on exiting their servitude. Similarly, a woman taken with the intent of marriage but later found wanting cannot be sent away without provisions for the future. Yes, the very societal conditions these laws paint are terrible. Yet what the Torah imposes is a system of responsibility, of caretaking. The consequence the Torah ultimately looks for isn’t only satisfaction. Its higher call is for compassion and cooperation. These, Moses teaches us, are the true foundation stones of society. With them in place to begin with, there would be less recourse to violence and crime. Eliminating the conditions that are the breeding ground of crime makes all the laws and harsh consequences of Mishpatim moot.
Ex. 23:4-5 is a case in point. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.” How long will this person remain your enemy if you cooperate with him in the caretaking of his property and animals?
According to the Torah, the key to a utopian society isn’t in the number of laws it flaunts in its codes or in how severe they are. It’s in the respect and compassion we show one another as we work together toward common goals.
This portion reminds us of our humble origin as strangers in a strange land, slaves to a cruel and heartless master. Freedom isn’t the same as lawlessness and chaos; freedom means helping out and cooperation. There may be 53 laws in Mishpatim, this week’s Torah portion, but they are not to be seen as restrictions on our freedom. Rather, they are guidelines meant to lead us to a higher plane, to a place where we qualify to be “a holy people” unto God (Ex. 22:30).
Coming so soon after the giving of the Ten Commandments, Mishpatim is more than simple commands. Together, Yitro and Mishpatim describe a process that reflects a whole philosophy. It’s a whole new way of thinking about crime and punishment.
Almost incongruously, following these laws Mishpatim goes on to describe Moses, Aaron and 70 elders of the People of Israel attaining a vision of God. “And there was under God’s feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity” (Ex. 24:10). The vision takes our breath away.
Yet it seems so distant! The world at God’s feet is nothing like clear and brilliant sapphire. On the contrary, it is murky and even dark. It is filled with the rasp of war and violence, hate, envy and greed. The year 1000 BCE might as well be 2000 CE. Not much has changed.
Could the Torah guidelines be misleading?
Or is it more likely that we haven’t really tried them fully yet? That our justice system is still as crude as it was 3,000 years ago; that we still think of deterring the criminal by the severity of the laws we pass?
Mishpatim calls on us to ascend to the heights, to look up and see the model of justice and compassion that we need in order to establish a better system. True justice is a system, not merely a series of laws. Holiness, after all, isn’t a one-time condition reached through some act of ecstasy. It’s an ascent. It’s a process, a step-by-step climb that begins deep inside each one of us, inside our hearts, and reaches all the way to the very heart of heaven itself.
©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman
Friday, February 10, 2012
On This Side of History
On This Side of History: D’var Torah on Parashat Yitro
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 10, 2012
Last week’s Torah portion, B’shallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), culminates with the parting of the Red Sea. It is THE Exodus. This scene of the Israelite people crossing the parted Red Sea is a magnificent image. We’ve read it, seen it or imagined it many times. In both Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” and the animated “Prince of Egypt,” this is the climactic scene. But this image of the Israelites crossing from one shore of the sea to the other is more than just a scene in a movie. It is climactic, coming as it does immediately following the Ten Plagues, but it also represents a new beginning, symbolizing nothing less than Israel’s dramatic emergence into world history.
With this week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23), the Israelites find themselves encamped on this side of the shore of history. They have shed their previous identity as slaves to Pharaoh. But who or what exactly are they now? Back in Egypt they were described with more than a hint of repugnance: “The children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and increased and became very very strong, and the land became filled with them” (Exodus 1:7) Sounds more like a description of a throng of fruit flies than a glorious nation destined to hold God’s crown.
But that was then, when our spirits were crushed by oppression to the point where there was no room for faith. And really, what was our faith comprised of back then anyway? Some foggy stories of a hazy past and of gnarled ancestors who quarreled among themselves and with everyone around them. Yes, somewhere there a promise was given, an oath of redemption. But like the rest of those old stories, it vaporized away like early morning dew in the hot Egyptian sun, as the Israelites labored and anguished away. Finally they forgot all about it.
Even as this week’s parasha begins, the people still swarm. Free from the infinite yoke of slavery and the daily directives that defined their days and years, for once they find themselves purposeless and without direction. They swarm around Moses, calling out to him for guidance, seeking meaning in the exhausting wilderness. Yet this is the moment when they must rise from the dust and begin to assume the shape they were destined to become. Their faith restored by the miracle of Redemption they had so recently witnessed, their very restlessness is a sign that they were now ready for something new.
Helped by his father-in-law, Yitro, Moses first establishes a system of justice, assigning judges and magistrates to officiate among the people. A series of appellate courts enables the people to seek justice all the way to Moses, the ultimate arbiter and decider. This new organization frees the Israelites to attend to other routines; and as Moses only needs to judge the most serious cases, he can spend the rest of his time receiving God’s words and teaching them to the People.
Justice is the first value that raises the People of Israel from the dust, no longer a swarm as they become a community of communities.
But a nation needs more than a system of courts and magistrates. It also needs laws to guide them, laws that direct them ever higher in the pursuit of meaning, laws that eventually—hopefully—will raise them to a state once reserved only for God and the angels: holiness. “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” exclaims God (Ex. 18:6).
Holiness is the goal God wants us to reach.
Holiness is a strange concept to us. Indefinable, powerful, it frightens us. The possible consequences of trying to reach it are beyond comprehension. (In hindsight from the 21st century, we weren’t all that wrong at that moment, standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, to feel that way).
And yet, that is what God was demanding of us.
The holy mountain began to shake and tremble. Thunder incessantly rolled in all directions while a shofar blast, announcing God’s presence, reached from one end of the world to the other, getting ever louder. In fright and anticipation, the people’s hearts must have been shaking as violently as the very ground they were standing on. Then, despite the hands clasped to their ears in a vain attempt to shield them from the waves of sound that crashed all around, through the indescribable noise, they heard the all-penetrating voice of God. Coming from the top of the fiery, smoke mountain, it resonated in the air and in their lungs and ears and hearts.
The Ten Commandments are the steps the people must take if they wish to attain the summits of holiness. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ten Plagues with which Pharaoh and the Egyptians were afflicted. With the Plagues, Egypt’s might was crushed. By accepting the Commandments, the Israelites proved themselves worthy of God’s trust and Redemption.
And what are those Commandments, that stairway to heaven? Three of them have to do with God and with the kind of respect we are to show the most powerful force in the universe. The fourth reminds us of the link that unites us with God: Shabbat.
But then, the next six commandments have nothing at all to do with God. Rather, they are rules for civil behavior, regulating our relationships with one another, people to people. They teach us to develop loyalty rather than mistrust, faith rather than despair. They remind us of familial and traditional duties and bonds; they call upon us to set boundaries to violence, to our desires and our cravings. They are the basic rules of living as part of a larger community.
The simplicity is awesome in itself: To be “a holy nation” means that we live with respect for one another, with faith, loyalty and justice as our guiding lights.
The yoke of moral responsibility that God wants us to accept—and which we do—feels good on our shoulders. Unlike the choking, heavy burden that Pharaoh had placed on us, this one feels as light as a shimmering robe woven with threads of starlight.
And thus begins the rest of our journey, a path we have been following ever since the seas of world events parted to give us our birth and our freedom. Wherever we go, remembering the Ten Plagues on the one shore and the Ten Commandments on the other, from this glorious moment onward, the goal we all strive for is nothing short of holiness, a state of being just a step, a word, a gesture, or a kind deed away.
©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
February 10, 2012
Last week’s Torah portion, B’shallach (Exodus 13:17-17:16), culminates with the parting of the Red Sea. It is THE Exodus. This scene of the Israelite people crossing the parted Red Sea is a magnificent image. We’ve read it, seen it or imagined it many times. In both Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” and the animated “Prince of Egypt,” this is the climactic scene. But this image of the Israelites crossing from one shore of the sea to the other is more than just a scene in a movie. It is climactic, coming as it does immediately following the Ten Plagues, but it also represents a new beginning, symbolizing nothing less than Israel’s dramatic emergence into world history.
With this week’s Torah portion, Yitro (Exodus 18:1-20:23), the Israelites find themselves encamped on this side of the shore of history. They have shed their previous identity as slaves to Pharaoh. But who or what exactly are they now? Back in Egypt they were described with more than a hint of repugnance: “The children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and increased and became very very strong, and the land became filled with them” (Exodus 1:7) Sounds more like a description of a throng of fruit flies than a glorious nation destined to hold God’s crown.
But that was then, when our spirits were crushed by oppression to the point where there was no room for faith. And really, what was our faith comprised of back then anyway? Some foggy stories of a hazy past and of gnarled ancestors who quarreled among themselves and with everyone around them. Yes, somewhere there a promise was given, an oath of redemption. But like the rest of those old stories, it vaporized away like early morning dew in the hot Egyptian sun, as the Israelites labored and anguished away. Finally they forgot all about it.
Even as this week’s parasha begins, the people still swarm. Free from the infinite yoke of slavery and the daily directives that defined their days and years, for once they find themselves purposeless and without direction. They swarm around Moses, calling out to him for guidance, seeking meaning in the exhausting wilderness. Yet this is the moment when they must rise from the dust and begin to assume the shape they were destined to become. Their faith restored by the miracle of Redemption they had so recently witnessed, their very restlessness is a sign that they were now ready for something new.
Helped by his father-in-law, Yitro, Moses first establishes a system of justice, assigning judges and magistrates to officiate among the people. A series of appellate courts enables the people to seek justice all the way to Moses, the ultimate arbiter and decider. This new organization frees the Israelites to attend to other routines; and as Moses only needs to judge the most serious cases, he can spend the rest of his time receiving God’s words and teaching them to the People.
Justice is the first value that raises the People of Israel from the dust, no longer a swarm as they become a community of communities.
But a nation needs more than a system of courts and magistrates. It also needs laws to guide them, laws that direct them ever higher in the pursuit of meaning, laws that eventually—hopefully—will raise them to a state once reserved only for God and the angels: holiness. “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” exclaims God (Ex. 18:6).
Holiness is the goal God wants us to reach.
Holiness is a strange concept to us. Indefinable, powerful, it frightens us. The possible consequences of trying to reach it are beyond comprehension. (In hindsight from the 21st century, we weren’t all that wrong at that moment, standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, to feel that way).
And yet, that is what God was demanding of us.
The holy mountain began to shake and tremble. Thunder incessantly rolled in all directions while a shofar blast, announcing God’s presence, reached from one end of the world to the other, getting ever louder. In fright and anticipation, the people’s hearts must have been shaking as violently as the very ground they were standing on. Then, despite the hands clasped to their ears in a vain attempt to shield them from the waves of sound that crashed all around, through the indescribable noise, they heard the all-penetrating voice of God. Coming from the top of the fiery, smoke mountain, it resonated in the air and in their lungs and ears and hearts.
The Ten Commandments are the steps the people must take if they wish to attain the summits of holiness. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ten Plagues with which Pharaoh and the Egyptians were afflicted. With the Plagues, Egypt’s might was crushed. By accepting the Commandments, the Israelites proved themselves worthy of God’s trust and Redemption.
And what are those Commandments, that stairway to heaven? Three of them have to do with God and with the kind of respect we are to show the most powerful force in the universe. The fourth reminds us of the link that unites us with God: Shabbat.
But then, the next six commandments have nothing at all to do with God. Rather, they are rules for civil behavior, regulating our relationships with one another, people to people. They teach us to develop loyalty rather than mistrust, faith rather than despair. They remind us of familial and traditional duties and bonds; they call upon us to set boundaries to violence, to our desires and our cravings. They are the basic rules of living as part of a larger community.
The simplicity is awesome in itself: To be “a holy nation” means that we live with respect for one another, with faith, loyalty and justice as our guiding lights.
The yoke of moral responsibility that God wants us to accept—and which we do—feels good on our shoulders. Unlike the choking, heavy burden that Pharaoh had placed on us, this one feels as light as a shimmering robe woven with threads of starlight.
And thus begins the rest of our journey, a path we have been following ever since the seas of world events parted to give us our birth and our freedom. Wherever we go, remembering the Ten Plagues on the one shore and the Ten Commandments on the other, from this glorious moment onward, the goal we all strive for is nothing short of holiness, a state of being just a step, a word, a gesture, or a kind deed away.
©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman
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