D'var Torah: Eikev: Rain for All Seasons
July 25, 2010
Torah
(1 comments)
by Amy R. Perlin
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Reform Voices of Torah)
The climate debate over global warming rages in political and academic circles, commanding media attention daily. A recent article in The Washington Post1 explored the dramatic change in Australia's rainfall, which has resulted in a decade of drought. Today, the Jordan River is more of a creek than a river, and geologists are worried that the Dead Sea is drying up. The thing most prayed for on our planet is "rain . . . in season" (Deuteronomy 11:14). The Torah teaches us that the world began as water, and the water crisis looms dark on our planet's current horizon. We need rain now, no less than our ancestors who farmed the soil of biblical Israel.
So our portion this week states, "If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Eternal your God and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain (m'tar) for your land in season, the early rain (yoreh) and the late [rain] (malkosh) (11:13ff.). Our Torah commentary2 says that the yoreh falls in October and early November, and the malkosh in late March and early April with the majority of Israel's rain falling in December and January. When I complained that all it did was rain during two visits to Israel in December and February last year, Israelis reprimanded me: how dare I complain about Israel's most precious and cherished resource? Israelis appreciate the gifts of rain for arid soil to blossom.
Rashi explains yoreh as "the rain which falls in the time of sowing and drenches the soil," and malkosh as "the rain which descends before the harvest and fills out the grain on the stalk." These two rains, the early and late, are the most important for agriculture. There is an awareness of Israel's agriculture in this portion that again lends support for the theory that Deuteronomy was written while the people were already inhabiting the Land. There are many biblical, Talmudic, and midrashic quotes about rain testifying to its importance for the survival of the Land of Israel and the Rabbis' knowledge of the cyclical nature of rainfall over time.
Our Torah portion this week contains the second paragraph of the traditional Sh'ma (Deuteronomy 11:13-21), which was removed by our Reform liturgists for its agricultural content and theological implications. Theologically, according to our portion, observance of the mitzvot and obedience to the commandments result in rainfall. Obedience to other gods results in divine anger and the "shutting up of the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce" (Deuteronomy 11:17). We are told that if we fail to observe mitzvot we will perish from lack of rainfall.
As you might imagine, this was a problematic theology for rational, classical, urban Reform Jews of the nineteenth century approaching the Sh'ma for daily worship. Linking observance of mitzvot to rainfall was not a modern or scientifically supportable concept, and positing a God who punishes with drought and famine did not seem consistent with the Reform concept of personal autonomy and choice in the observance of mitzvot. Many of us find a disconnect with a description of our God as "climate controller in chief." We are more likely to blame human greed and consumption, neglect, and pollution for modern day climate problems than we are to turn the rainfall over to a providential and punishing God. As the president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi David Ellenson points out: "Simply put, it presents a doctrine of reward and punishment that most liberal Jews have found problematic, if not offensive. It has therefore been removed from most liberal prayer books in the modern era" (quoted in My People's Prayer Book, Volume 1: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries - The Sh'ma and Its Blessings, Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed., [Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997], pp. 104, 108).
An article called, Commentary on the Principles of Reform Judaism states, "Most early American Reform prayerbooks retained the first paragraph of the Shema (V'ahavta,"And thou shalt love . . .") but removed the Second [Deuteronomy 11:13-21] and most of the Third paragraphs. Some Reform congregations are now re-instituting these sections. The Second Paragraph (V'haya im shamoa, "And if you listen to Mymitzvot. . . ") states that there is a relationship between the faithfulness with which the Jewish people observe the mitzvot and the orderly conduct of nature. This statement in the Principles affirms our obligation to preserve and protect God's creation, of which we are a part. Contemporary insights into the fragility of our environment underscore the traditional Jewish commitment to take care of God's world" (see http://ccarnet.org/documentsandpositions/platforms).
If we see our portion through new eyes, the eyes of the environmentally aware, we can see that our actions do have an effect on the weather. For example, allowing the Land to have fewer trees leads to erosion, which, in turn, leads to greater runoff and less absorption of the precious commodity of rain. Our new understanding of the environment brings new meaning to the words of our portion that Reform liturgy once discarded. The portion implies that our behavior determines rainfall and the productivity of the Land. Whether we believe that our fulfillment of the mitzvot determines whether God provides rainfall in the Land of Israel, we would all certainly agree today that the sanctity with which we appreciate the environment is a factor in determining the quantity and quality of rainfall on our planet, including in the Land of Israel.
Our passage from Eikev has a long history in Reform Judaism. It may not be appropriate liturgy for us, but it offers us an opportunity to understand our relationship to our environment, our God, and the teaching of Torah that showers our lives with blessing.
1. Blaine Harden, "A lingering pool of disbelief," The Washington Post, December 9, 2010 (http://tinyurl.com/yg6334l).
2. The Torah: A Modern Commentary, rev. ed., ed. W. Gunther Plaut [New York: URJ Press, 2005] p. 1,239)
Rabbi Amy R. Perlin, D. D., is a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, and was ordained from the New York School of HUC-JIR in 1982. She is the senior rabbi of Temple B'nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
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Thank you for succinctly pointing out the problem we face as a movement, with respect to mitzvot. I grew up in the 70s, at Isaac M Wise Temple, one of the birthplaces of reform... to myself and my peers, a mitzvah was a good deed. There was no awareness of command, though some sense of obligation above an ordinary act of kindness was implied. For many good reasons, Reform has always struggled with the notion of command and obligation, especially when connected to supernatural outcomes.
This struggle is certainly worthwhile, and traditional reform correctly fingers the problem the inverse sets up – when bad things happen to good people, unwarranted judgment is passed by mere circumstance. I think your perspective helps reconcile this.
It matters because classical reform missed something important: Judaism is a way of life, and mitzvot mark your path through it. When one follows any time-tested path (i.e. getting good grades, going to college, getting married, buying a house, having kids, etc) good things tend to accrue, while divergence rolls the dice. We have free will. All the people in the Torah left the path, so it's not set in stone. In fact, it's entirely up to us! The choice to eliminate the notion of commandedness from Reform was a well intentioned mistake.
Mitzvot regulating our interactions with one another, the poor and strangers, not to mention our obligations to our congregation (financial, social and time) are useful tools to navigate our fast-changing world. Jews are blessed with ethical methods and measures to manage deep cultural reforms in the form of mitzvot, reinforced and informed by Reform's unique ethical traditions and orientation.
A truly REFORM approach to mitzvah is not only possible, it easily reconciles tradition with modernity in a way that elevates our lives and understanding. We can assert ethical Kashrut as equal to traditional practice, on a personal level, since it requires equal care and consideration.
We can choose to reconsider borders and boundaries defined 2000 years ago for our Shabbat observance, based on modern life. We must engage with words of Torah daily for it to change our hearts sufficiently to work properly, and deliver it's promises. Today we can connect in ways and means entirely unimaginable to the Rabbis, prophets, or our forefathers.
This gives us another easy example to cite from this weeks parashat:
"22: If, then, you faithfully keep all this Instruction that I command you, loving the Lord your God, walking in all His ways, and holding fast to Him, 23 the Lord will dislodge before you all these nations: you will dispossess nations greater and more numerous than you. 24 Every spot on which your foot treads shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River — the Euphrates — to the Western Sea. 25 No man shall stand up to you: the Lord your God will put the dread and the fear of you over the whole land in which you set foot, as He promised you."
In the time of Moses and through the time of the sages, Adonai's fulfillment was seen as political and military in nature. Through the lens of history, it becomes something else: Jews have prospered and spread throughout the world, with pogroms and the Holocaust being terrible products of dread and fear. And the spread of God's word is not limited to the traditional Rabbinically subscribed denominations; Ethiopian, Yemeni, and even Iraqi Jews prospered for millenia. Rastafari, Christians and Muslims and others hear the word of the Adonai. So this prophecy is clearly fulfilled, across the fullness of time. Only in a way the Rabbis nor Moses, and certainly not Avraham could have imagined.
We can see things Isaac M Wise couldn't as well. We needn't view these obligations as quid pro quos, or assign judgment for bad outcomes, in a world where free will belongs to all men, even evil ones, and unintended consequences are the norm. There's unique potential for Reform Jews to respect our founders while meeting our obligation fully, by rejecting practices that exclude people and diminish our lives.
It also matters because Reform is disrespected in Israel, not to mention many traditional places around the world. Our open, inviting brand of Judaism has led to our converts being rejected, and recently our very identity challenged. At the same time, our voices are often the only ones present in many important institutions. We need one another, because we are one people. If we openly reform our approach to mitzvah, our more traditional brethren will lose their only valid claim against our "jewishness". At the same time, our individual lives may in fact improve, as we learn what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves, and accept them as they are.
Thanks for a great piece!
Shabbat Shalom!