Creating Sacred in the Moment
Have you noticed people in a better mood with the arrival of better weather? We suffered a long, cold winter with plenty of snow, and by the end of it I know many people were not only tired of the darkness and cold but their moods were affected. Environment matters. It twists both how we feel, and as a result, how we act toward others.
The end of Leviticus 22 that we read this week contains some really interesting commandments. First a general principle: “You shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people.” (v. 32) What’s the general principle? “That I may be sanctified in the midst of the people.”
In the real world, dealing with our daily lives, how do you do that? Why would I do that? Well, some of the answers appear right here within a few verses, so perhaps we’ll find enough examples to understand what and why.
In the very next chapter, just 2 verses after the command to sanctify our lives, we discover the most obvious and the most observed of holiness for American Jews: sacred times. Leviticus 23 lists the biblical holidays. “These are my fixed times of the Lord, which you will proclaim as sacred occasions.”
We American Jews at least superficially understand holy times. Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover and finally Shavuot. We get it. We’re assigned to do things we think of as holy, like pray, or maybe have a special meal with the family. We get it.
Add to that personal holy times: Births, brises, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals: we get it. These times are special, and to mark them we need to do something extraordinary. We change our routine. We mark the occasion, and hopefully we enable ourselves to experience the sacred presence in the moment. It’s pretty easy to do that when a healthy baby is just born. The miracle of life somehow inspires awe in us. When we lose someone to death the sacred in the moment is more difficult to bring to the surface. But interestingly, and many say this, the mystery of life is present also at the moment of death, not just the moment of birth. At such times, the manifestation of something “other,” something beyond our grasp, presents itself in such a way that demands our affirmation and yet we cannot put it into words. So we use symbols and ceremonies to capture, explain and enhance such moments.
Judaism attempts to attach us to sacred in good and bad moments. That’s the reason that Pirkei Avot says that an ignorant person cannot be pious. It’s tough discovering and extracting the holy in trying times, like when you feel horrible. I fail daily; but I also succeed daily. So, for instance, this chapter in Leviticus (v. 28) demands that no ox, sheep or goat should be slaughtered on the same day as its mother. Well, why? The obvious answer: compassion for animals. Does an ox recognize its offspring? I don’t actually know. But our guts are churned by slaughter. That’s why we stay so far away from the processing of the meat we eat. We limit our exposure. Jews separate out the blood, because the blood symbolizes the life, and we don’t want to take the life but we must in order to survive many would say. God is “rachum” in Exodus 34’s 13 attributes of God, and so we must be compassionate as well. Creating compassion within calms our nerves, settles our churning stomachs upset by what we feel we must do, or by what we must do to satisfy appetites.
You see how this works? God is available in every circumstance and every moment. But just as it’s easier to be happy in spring weather for some people, it’s easier to feel the sacred in the birth of a child than in a moment of slaughter or frustration. The Jewish ideal is to live in holiness all of the time. Study trains us to both find what is holy in this moment, and then actually do it, not just talk about it.
In Lev. 18:4 Torah commands us to live by the commandments. During the Maccabean wars, two millennia ago, a Jewish town was besieged by Syrians. They held out until Shabbat, when, interpreting the Torah to mean that they could not fight on Shabbat, they lay down their weapons and were slaughtered. Our Rabbis thereafter interpreted Leviticus 18 to mean, “You shall live by the Torah laws and not die by them.” So, since that time a coerced Jew may break any but 3 laws rather than give us his/her life for being Jewish.
Now, thank God, we do not live in a place or time in which Jews are told, “Eat pork or I’ll kill you.” But it’s interesting to know what those 3 things are for which a Jew must die rather than transgress. We may not murder another person to save ourselves, commit a sex crime to save ourselves, or publicly practice idolatry to save ourselves. For the first two that means: your life is of equal importance to others, but not more important. Loving your neighbor does not mean giving that neighbor the water that will save your life. You are commanded to live. But we may not take another’s life to save ourselves.
How might this apply today? It will be interesting to watch the research about fracking as it develops. If it turns out that fracking is destroying lives in order to make the United States oil independent, or lower the cost of fuel, or make life more convenient: which is the path of holiness? May a Jew compromise another person’s life to improve his own? Is that holy?
I am painfully aware that I have not always been able to live in this fashion. My fear of hypocrisy is nearly as bad as my fear of being wrong. So I want to tell you a story:
The Dubner Maggid, a Hasidic rebbe and story teller, was a friend of the great 17th and 18th century rabbinic genius, the Vilna Gaon. It is said that the Vilna Gaon asked of the Dubner Maggid one day, “Preach musar to me.” Now musar is everyday moral teaching. It’s not fancy university stuff. It's how to live a moral life. The Dubner Maggid refused, “How can I teach anything to the great Vilna Gaon?” And indeed on a certain level, the Maggid was right. The Vilna Gaon knew every Jewish text, and was very worldly besides, having mastered both philosophy and mathematics as well as Jewish law and kabbalah. But the Vilna Gaon insisted. “Preach musar to me.”
Said the Dubner Maggid, “You teach how Jews should live their day to day lives, but you sit and study and teach all day. Come down here and live with the people, and then you tell them how to live.”
It’s a great insight. I see, I watch, I listen to how the pressures of the day to day world press people to do things and live in ways they would not choose to live. My own father was told one day, in a business for which he kept the books, “We need to lose $50,000 on the books, Bob.” Dad knew it was a bribe to a New Jersey union. He also knew he needed a job and had a wife to support and a son in college. But within weeks my dad quit his job, and without having found another job, moved to a new state. He never told me that was the reason. I just surmised. He did what the job required, and then quit and left.
Living with religious theory is one thing. Living with the pressures of daily realities may be another. But let me conclude with this: Living attached to God yields great satisfaction of the spirit. Compromise does not. I have witnessed great people who live as a blessing, have little material wealth, and thank God every day for God’s nearness. God has given us this gift of the spirit. The Torah and all of Jewish writings try to help us to figure how we live our particular lives in holiness. There are only two judges of your life that truly matter: God above, and God within. Be true to them, and God’s holiness is yours.