Summary:
In our portion, God promises blessings to the Children of Israel if they follow the law and warns about the curses that will befall the people if they do not observe God's commandments. Then, gifts made to the Sanctuary whether by conditional vows or by unconditional acts of pious gratitude are discussed.
Lessons from our Haftarah - Jeremiah 16:19-17:14:
In our Torah portion this week, the book of Leviticus comes to an end. Its final words remind the Jewish people that when they follow God’s word, they will be blessed and when they go astray, they will be curses. Jeremiah, in our haftarah continues this theme, telling the people that when they make the right choice, they can be certain of God’s favor.
This message is often a difficult one. In our lives we see evil people seemingly blessed and good people suffer great evils. Throughout the generations we have asked ourselves if our actions actually have an impact on the world. Is there reward and punishment? There seems to be no correlation between right belief, good acts and positive results. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a best-selling book relating to this issue – When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Reform Judaism took issue with Jeremiah’s message from our haftarah this week. Like Rabbi Kushner, most modern Jews believe in a God that does not direct daily events and does not intervene in the ways of the world. Reform Judaism felt so strongly about this, that in our siddur we took out a significant paragraph of the V’ahavta which reads:
And it will be, if you will diligently obey My commandments which I enjoin upon you this day, to love the Eternal your God and to serve God with all your heart and with all your soul, I will give rain for your land at the proper time, the early rain and the late rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be sated. Take care lest your heart be lured away, and you turn astray and worship alien gods and bow down to them. For then the Eternal’s wrath will flare up against you, and God will close the heavens so that there will be no rain and the earth will not yield its produce, and you will swiftly perish from the good land which the Eternal gives you.
These words are hard for most modern Jews to believe. Rain and draught are not due to our actions or our prayers. My teacher and mentor, Rabbi Richard Levy, wrote a modern interpretation of this paragraph of the V’ahavta:
If you hear the words from Sinai, then love will flow from us; and we shall serve all that is holy with all our intellect and our passion and all our life. If we can serve all that is holy we shall be doing all that humans can to help the rains to flow; the grasses to be green, the grains to be golden like the sun and the rivers to be filled with life once more. All the children of God shall eat and there will be enough. But if we turn from Sinai’s words and serve only what is common and profane, making gods of our own comfort or power, then the holiness of life will contract for us; our world will grow inhospitable….
Jeremiah and traditional theologians teach that there are direct ramifications to our actions…rains or draught, health or sickness. Rabbi Levy reminds us that while the consequence of the lives we live may not have an effect on the rains or the produce of our fields, they do deeply affect our world. The message of Jeremiah is relevant for us in our day. Who we are and how we live makes a difference in our world.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Don Goor