This week's paresha has more laws than any other, touching on a vast array of topics with little apparent order. This mishmash is, I believe, intended to engender confusion and agitation; to stimulate the natural inclination towards order and categorization. Once that inclination has been awakened, it becomes easier to note that there does seem to be some pattern to the laws here presented: they mostly address that very topic, insisting upon our cooperation in the establishment of an orderly society with clearly defined categories, or in a few cases reminding us of the exceptions that limit even our ability to set limits.
Much of Jewish thought, in particular legal thought, depends upon the identification of distinctions and similarities to find the order in creation. We are not merely observers in this process, but active participants in making creation orderly, and so these categories can be prescriptive as well as descriptive. However, we also need to recognize that division and definition are things that apply only to the created world; God is a perfect, transcendent unity. Thus, transgressing boundaries has an aspect of holiness, but in a way that is incompatible with the material world. So we see that when the produce of a mixed field is prohibited, it is prohibited with the language of kedusha. So we see that shatnez is prohibited, but required for the clothing of the Kohen Gadol, the hangings of the mishkan, and allowed for the sake of the mitzvah of tzitzit. Tzitzit are a physical representation of this idea of clearly defined boundaries with an element of holiness that transcends them. However, if we go beyond those gedarim in a way that we are not given explicit license for, we transgress against the holy rather than sharing in it. This sort of transgression is incompatible with created existence, as Nadav and Avihu found, and the elders who were led astray by Koraḥ. The mishna that accompanies this week's paresha is masechet Gittin, focusing mainly on the laws of divorce. Few subjects in Jewish law are as fraught with this need for clarity in categorization, with blurred lines and uncertainty leading to agunot and mamzerim, real human tragedies.
Aside from tzitzit, where does our paresha divert from setting down subject after subject that must be assigned to its proper place, and remind us to remember that gevurah must always be balanced by ḥesed? The place that seems clearest to me is the treatment of the ger, the yatom, and the almanah. These three groups, strangers/converts, orphans, and widows, are the classic recipients of ḥesed. What do they have in common? They are unsupported, cut off in some way from the general society. According to the Rambam, when two converts marry, their children retain the status of convert until they marry into the broader population or until enough time has passed that the status is forgotten. Without the bonds of family, they lack a proper place, and so room must be made for them beyond the boundaries of propriety. In a strict sense, the gleanings of our fields might be seen to be the same as the produce harvested on the first gathering, ours by right. However, we revoke that right for the sake of ḥesed. Not only with grain, symbolizing basic sustenance, but also with regard to wine and oil, joy and luxury, we make a space for those who have none by strict right and say that only that can be called unperverted justice. Compared to the laws of tithing for the poor and leaving the corners of the fields, which are taught elsewhere, the laws of gleaning make this point especially clear. The space that we leave in this case is dependent on our own limitations. While we partner with God to impose order on chaos, some things get left out or left behind, and that too is part of the way the world functions.
Shabbat Shalom uMevorakh!
Much of Jewish thought, in particular legal thought, depends upon the identification of distinctions and similarities to find the order in creation. We are not merely observers in this process, but active participants in making creation orderly, and so these categories can be prescriptive as well as descriptive. However, we also need to recognize that division and definition are things that apply only to the created world; God is a perfect, transcendent unity. Thus, transgressing boundaries has an aspect of holiness, but in a way that is incompatible with the material world. So we see that when the produce of a mixed field is prohibited, it is prohibited with the language of kedusha. So we see that shatnez is prohibited, but required for the clothing of the Kohen Gadol, the hangings of the mishkan, and allowed for the sake of the mitzvah of tzitzit. Tzitzit are a physical representation of this idea of clearly defined boundaries with an element of holiness that transcends them. However, if we go beyond those gedarim in a way that we are not given explicit license for, we transgress against the holy rather than sharing in it. This sort of transgression is incompatible with created existence, as Nadav and Avihu found, and the elders who were led astray by Koraḥ. The mishna that accompanies this week's paresha is masechet Gittin, focusing mainly on the laws of divorce. Few subjects in Jewish law are as fraught with this need for clarity in categorization, with blurred lines and uncertainty leading to agunot and mamzerim, real human tragedies.
Aside from tzitzit, where does our paresha divert from setting down subject after subject that must be assigned to its proper place, and remind us to remember that gevurah must always be balanced by ḥesed? The place that seems clearest to me is the treatment of the ger, the yatom, and the almanah. These three groups, strangers/converts, orphans, and widows, are the classic recipients of ḥesed. What do they have in common? They are unsupported, cut off in some way from the general society. According to the Rambam, when two converts marry, their children retain the status of convert until they marry into the broader population or until enough time has passed that the status is forgotten. Without the bonds of family, they lack a proper place, and so room must be made for them beyond the boundaries of propriety. In a strict sense, the gleanings of our fields might be seen to be the same as the produce harvested on the first gathering, ours by right. However, we revoke that right for the sake of ḥesed. Not only with grain, symbolizing basic sustenance, but also with regard to wine and oil, joy and luxury, we make a space for those who have none by strict right and say that only that can be called unperverted justice. Compared to the laws of tithing for the poor and leaving the corners of the fields, which are taught elsewhere, the laws of gleaning make this point especially clear. The space that we leave in this case is dependent on our own limitations. While we partner with God to impose order on chaos, some things get left out or left behind, and that too is part of the way the world functions.
Shabbat Shalom uMevorakh!
So, this post made me think of the well documented tendency for behavioral conditioning to work best ( or at least last longest) if done inconsistently. If you always reward the desired behavior during the conditioning process, then if you fail to reward it for a little while, the desired behavior lapses. But if you reward it inconsistently during the conditioning process, the desired behavior, once inculcated, will persist much longer in the face of inconsistent rewards later on.
ReplyDeleteSomehow this feels similar to imposing mitzvot that are inconsistent, I.E. shatnetz voided in the case of tzitzit or priestly garb. Or laws of kashrut that seem inconsistent such as voiding the prohibition on eating insects in the case of locusts (though I am not aware of this exception relating in any way to kedushah).
Could this "inconsistency" in application of the order man imposes on creation have a similar salutary effect on observance of mitzvot - otherwise man would tend to rely too heavily on his own judgment in deciding whether any given commandment makes sense.
It is unquestionable that the necessity to labor in talmud Torah is intentional. If the law were simple and mastery easily accomplished, as you say, the acquisition of mastery would not be transformative and the knowledge would be less likely to be valued and heeded. I don't know that this particular tension is motivated in that way, but I wouldn't necessarily rule it out.
DeleteI wasn't really reflecting on the complexity of the mitzvot in my post, but rather the inaccessibility of some mitzvot to human reason. Exceptions to the rule don't necessarily make mastery difficult as long as there aren't too many of them, but they do give the student pause in thinking he or she is capable of deducing them on their own.
DeleteYour perspective seems to value complexity for its own sake, but this flies in the face of the famous lines which assure us that the precepts and commandments are not difficult and far off so that someone must go across the sea and bring them to us, but rather are in our hearts to do them. This is one of my strongest objections to the Orthodox approach, which really does seem to violate the spirit of this crucial passage in the Torah.
There is a distinction often made between those commandments that are clear to human reason, and those that seem more arbitrary, and one lesson regarding the latter category is that they teach intellectual humility, as you describe, and that we shouldn't seek to nullify the mitzvot whose reasons we think we understand just because the reasons we have identified don't seem to apply in a given circumstance.
DeleteThere is a midrash on that passage, lo niphleit hi mimkha, based on the ambiguity in the Hebrew prefix mem. In the standard reading, it means "more than" or "too much for", but in many contexts it would mean "from". So, the rabbis darshened the pasuk, "lo niphleit hi" (it is not hidden/difficult in itself) "niphleit hi mimkha" (it is hidden/difficult on account of you), to say that it is only too difficult if we refuse to devote time and effort to its study. It is accessible, but not easily.
I am not really talking about complexity for its own sake, which is why I was hesitant to agree that this would be an example. It is more an issue of pedagogy, that rabbinic texts are traditionally exceedingly terse, relying on grammatical irregularities, superfluous words, and apparent contradictions to teach underlying concepts. By making the text difficult, they seek to preserve the dialectic of oral Torah in writing by engaging the student rather than serving up a predigested lesson. If I recall, you had a professor who said much the same of Plato.