by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann
Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Beverly Hills, CA
(Text: Vayikra/Leviticus 18: 1-30; 2Tim 3:1-5; 1Tim 4:1-4)

 

You are to obey my rulings and laws and live accordingly: I am ADONAI your God" [Vayikra 18:4]

  

Of this passage, our sages speak with characteristic wisdom.

"Our masters taught: 'Obey my mishpatai [rulings]' matters that, had they not been set down in Scripture, should have been set down (because they pertain to basic decency)--matters such as the prohibition of idolatry, of unchastity, of shedding of blood, of robbery, and of blasphemy.  'And [keep] my laws [chukkai]--matters that Satan and the nations of the world challenge [as having no rational justification], such as not eating swines flesh, the sending away of Azazel, and the Red Heifer. Lest you think these are vain things, Scripture says, 'I am the "(Vayikra 18:4): I, the set them down as statutes.  You have no right to question them"

 

[B. Yoma 67b and En Yaakov, ad loc; Yalkut, Aharei Mot, § 578).

Our sages understood who God is and the implications of His Being far better than we do.

We live in a day of eclectic spiritualities, a time when we imagine we have a smorgasbord of choices laid out before us.  Take generic spiritualities, for example.

There is a wonderful independent bookstore near me that has just about everything a book nut could want.  They even have an entire section of books labeled "Spirituality." But these books are of no religion in particular--they are just about spirituality in general.  This kind of "I get by with the help of my friends" kind of spirituality is all around us.  And then there are other-culture spiritualities.  For example, Buddhism is big in California, and across the country there are Jewish groups of "Jew-Bu's"--those who dress their Buddhism in a tallis, or perhaps, to change the metaphor, put on their tefillin with one hand clapping.  And this is just one of the other-culture options that are all around us.

Then there are close-but-no-cigar biblically flavored spiritualities, what we used to call "cults," and also what I would call "cultish" groups, groups that use the Bible and adapt behaviors from bonafide religions, but which, when one exercises discernment and looks closely, one finds to be ersatz, non-legit, close-but-no-cigar.

I am reminded of the comment I once heard from Steve Martin: "I believe in eight of the Ten Commandments."  We all want to whittle revelation down to a convenient size we can carry around with us and, if necessary, dispose of easily.

It seems to me that now, more than at any time in history, people are crafting spiritualities to their own liking.  Tailor-made religions, personally assembled collections of spiritual practices and beliefs that they find to be life-enhancing and confirm what they most want to believe about life, about God, about the cosmos and themselves.

This is what Paul is saying to us in the passage we read from 1 Timothy 4:1-5, that in the last days people will have itching ears, and will gather around them teachers to their own liking.  They will give heed to deceiving [or seducing] spirits and to things taught by demons.  In 2 Timothy 3:5, he speaks of people who have the form of godliness, the outward appearance of religiosity, but deny its power—that is, its power to transform lives.  These are people with religion, but are preaching a message that cannot transform anyone, indeed, they are themselves untransformed people.

It is easy to be seduced by the atmosphere and approach.  It is so comfortable, so non-intrusive, so politically correct, and so user-friendly—but it is dead wrong.

That is why we are fortunate that from time to time our tradition gives us unambiguous reality checks, passages where God is direct, unambiguous, authoritarian, distasteful to us.

Without passages like this, we would be sure to succumb to the self-seduction and idolatry of making gods after our own liking, deities always affirming of our own preferences, a pleasure to be around, socially acceptable and oh so cool, gods that are no gods at all, that only require us to do what seems reasonable to us.  This has the added benefit of leaving us as the authorities, and God as simply someone who makes suggestions rather than issuing commands.

Such a concept of God is of course utterly false, deceptive and dark.

This is not to say that God's ways are always a negation of our own.  It is to say that his ways are higher and more noble than those we would normally choose for ourselves, and partake of a certain indefinable "otherness."

He has higher standards, fewer loopholes, and more grace than we can muster. .

And sometimes he requires of us things that go against our grain or at least against our preferences.

The point of today's Torah reading in Vayikra 18 is not the specifics of the sexual taboos he expresses here, although these are of course important.  What is more important is for all of us to come to terms with the fact that God conducts Himself as one who has the right to mandate our behavior even in this most personal area of our life.  He doesn't recognize the kind of "right to privacy" which is at the center of public debate on sexuality and government in our day.  In His case, our "right to privacy" is overruled by His right to tell us what to do.  That is because, yes, he thinks he is God.

And if we cannot handle this kind of dynamic, we may be incapable of having a relationship with the living God and are sure to substitute a more user-friendly and non-intrusive idol of our own choosing.

If we are to grow in our relationship with the true and living God, we must demonstrate in our lives that we are prepared to treat him like God.  Among other things this means doing some things and avoiding others simply because he says so.

And when we stray off the right path and do the wrong thing, the trick is to acknowledge it as being wrong and to return to the right path.  This is what the Bible calls confession and repentance: confession—admitting that what we did was wrong, and repentance, turning from the wrong way to the right way as defined by God.  Fortunately, as Vayikra 17, also part of our parsha, demonstrates, God has provided atonement for people just like us, in all our messiness, that is if we will but admit our wronGodoing, repent and return.

The trick is to not redefine the paths God would have us follow by simply looking at our lives reassuring ourselves that the way we do things will just have to do, imagining that the kind of loving God we have chosen for ourselves would of course only approve of our perspective.  It is like the man who shot an arrow at his barn and then drew a bulls-eye around it.  It looked like he was right on target but actually he had lousy aim.

When we come to services, it is appropriate that we come with a certain sense of holy dread: dread that we are going to hear from God and be responsible for what we hear. But don't be afraid: yes, the voice of God is terrifying in its might, but it is also transformational, and since all other representations are mere fantasies, idols that hear not, speak not, and can do nothing at all.  The voice of the Lord is, when all is said and done, the only show in town.  Accept no substitutes.