KI TETZE
Dianne Saxe, August 16 2002
What good is religion if it doesn't give us a to do list?
This week's parsha gives us a to do list, but it's a dog's breakfast
One of the defining questions of Judaism is: who gets to filter the list?
What good is religion if it doesn't give us a to do list?
Per Myers Briggs, half the world like lists, rules, schedules, to do lists, ways to order the world (J v. P); the other half hates them. Who are the people who participate in organized religion, who come to services most weeks? We're the people who like lists. Some of us even write things down on a to do list that we've already done, just for the pleasure of ticking them off.
For us, Judaism is great. Jews specialise in to do lists: we have a rule for everything. We believe in order (seder, sidur). This is one of the key things Judaism gives us: a set of rules to live our lives by.
This week's parsha gives us a to do list, but it's a dog's breakfast
So if you love to do lists, this week's sidur looks really promising. Hard to get practical relevance out of the weeks, for example, that talk about the route in the wilderness, or the building of the Tabernacle . but it should be easy to get them out a list of 74 "do this, don't do that". We read it every year, kiss it, stand up when it goes by. Some believe it is God's word. Torah ought to be the mother of all to do lists
But in fact, this week's list is a dog's breakfast. We can't do all of these things. Some of them are good ideas, some even required by law, but others are irrelevant, impossible, illegal, offensive or unwise.
Good ideas:
Help neighbour in a moment of crisis
Send away mother bird
Legally required:
return lost property
put a parapet around your roof
Treat your children fairly, regardless of how you feel about their other parent
Irrelevant
Don't let the Ammonite marry in
What to do with captured enemy female (at least in my life)
Illegal
Stone a bride who isn't a virgin
Stone a disobedient son
Exclude the disabled
Unwise
Give double portion to eldest (which things fall into which categories changes with time and secular society. For example, when I was growing up, who had two wives? Now, with divorce and remarriage, we say, can't give the firstborn two portions.)
Plant only one kind of seed
Eat from your neighbour's garden
Check men's genitals, and exclude those who are deformed from the congregation
Offensive
Woman not to wear anything pertaining to a male, e.g. tallit
Conclusion: of the 72 Rules in this parsha, many are no longer matters of free choice: they are illegal, or legally required, by the civil laws of our country. Still, quite a few remain. Who will choose among them, or are we bound to follow them all regardless what we think of them?
One of the defining questions of Judaism is: who gets to choose from this list which items go on our actual religious to do list?
Deuteronomy: don't add or subtract, don't turn to left or to right
Also: do exactly as you're told and you will be safe and prosperous, the religious dogma most steadfastly contradicted by experience.
But adding and subtracting has been necessary at least since Temple was destroyed
Rabbis did it 2000 years ago, e.g. law of rebellious son (Nb they did NOT do much to protect the woman who didn't bleed on her wedding night)
today, still must choose who chooses?
This is a defining question of what it means to be a Jew, and who we mean to be as a congregation.