Judaism – Page 2 – Finding Ourselves In The Bible

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME walks an important line between fundamentalism and fairy tale and fills an important niche in Torah commentary. Fundamentalist perspectives on Scripture abound and so do commentaries denigrating Scripture as unscientific and unhistorical.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME cares nothing about science because the Bible is not a science book. It cares little about history as well. The premise of the book is that its stories were carefully selected for what they can teach us about living more meaningful lives and becoming better people.

Torah presents to the world a deity unlike any others that people worshipped. In the pagan world into which Torah emerged gods and goddesses were force that people worshipped because they presumed these deities had power. The only purpose of worship was to bribe these gods with offerings so that they would not use that power to hurt or to induce the deity to use their power to help those who worshipped them. Ethics, morals and human interaction were of no concern to these gods.

God in the Torah is entirely different. Of course we only worship one God and our God is invisible. But as crucial as these differences are they are NOT the most important.

The most important difference is the agenda of Torah’s God. From the story of Creation on God’s desire is that human beings – we creatures who are in charge of and responsible for the quality of life on earth – use our power to create a just, caring ad compassionate society. All of our religious behavior as Jews – Holy Days, festivals, and life cycle celebrations – is designed to inspire us to work toward God’s ultimate goal.

There is no overstating the importance of this difference. Yes, there are sacrifices in the Bible, but their purpose is to inspire ethical and moral behavior not assuage God’s anger. Over and over again the prophets particularly those of the eighth pre-Christian century, Amos Hosea Isaiah and Micah, instruct the people of Judah and Israel that sacrificial observance unaccompanied by ethical and moral behavior is an abomination.

How desperately we need that message today! Our religious observances only have meaning in so far as they inspire us to care for those less fortunate than we are, to seek housing for the homeless and food for the hungry. In Jewish thought there is no place for an innocent bystander in the face of poverty and injustice. This is the Torah’s timeless message . That is the message I hope my book will help its readers make their own.

At my retirement party as Sr. Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, I was spoofed for the number of times I made reference over the years to the importance of my Bar Mitzvah!

In truth I consider that day, March 21, 1959, the most important day of my life.! I don’t say the best day of my life. Those were the day I got married, the days my children and grandchildren were born, and the day I was ordained as a rabbi. But as for importance my Bar Mitzvah Day tops the list.

Why? I never thought I could do it. That’s why. I mean, me read from the Torah with NO VOWELS (The Hebrew texts of Torah scrolls contain neither vowels nor punctuation)? There is NO way! I was so scared of my impending Bar Mitzvah that I thought I would die before I could get up there and read with no vowels.

But then I went through my first ever exercise – as I realized years later – in deductive reasoning. The process went like this.

There are others in my Bar Mitzvah class
Some of them have already had their B’nai Mitzvah services
None of them died.
Some of them are dumber than I am
Based on 1-4 I might survive.

And I did! And every time I have faced a challenge since then that I didn’t think I could conquer, I think back to my Bar Mitzvah and I say, “I didn’t think I could do that either. Maybe if I just keep trying the best I can, I can do it. It worked when I entered rabbinical school knowing no more than my Bar Mitzvah prep Hebrew and felt like a complete dummy! Though I can’t say it has worked every single time, that mantra has helped me more often than not.

But there is another reason my Bar Mitzvah is so important. It made me take Torah seriously! My portion, Va-yikrah, the first in the book of Leviticus is among the most esoteric in all of scripture. And yet there are two lessons in what I read that are as modern as today:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating it (Lev. 5:17)
Victim compensation should be the major form of redress for financial crimes. (Lev. 5:24)

These discoveries occasioned a major WOW for me! If such treasures were gleanable for my dry as dust portion, what insights relevant to life today are waiting for me to discover in the narrative portions of the Torah. Fifty-four years later, my book, WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME: Finding Ourselves Biblical Narratives is the result. I hope you find it meaningful reading!