Sitting by the fire in
the old Vermont inn as the snow swirled outside, I drifted back in time to what
might have been a similar scene in late eighteenth century Vitebsk, Belarus. I
had come through the swirling snows to visit Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk.
My time machine was the Rebbe’s own book, P’ri Ha’aretz, Fruit of the Land. I
wish I could say that I had taken the holy book with me as part of a greater
awareness of what I might encounter. In truth, it is a slim volume that fits
easily into my pack, thus a frequent companion when traveling. Like snow
settling into intricate patterns upon the windowpanes, as though each flake has
been carefully placed, meaning emerges of its own, and I soon knew with deeper
insight why I had brought the book.
Finding our way on the
journey, vision blocked by the snow at times, windblown across the path,
transitions can be hard to follow and to navigate.
The weekly Torah portion of
our time in Vermont was Mishpatim (Ex.
21:1-24:18), in which there is one such transition, seeming to appear suddenly
as a sharp turn at the base of a wooded hill. It is what I think of as a
watershed portion. From the very beginning of Torah, from the first word, B’reishit/In the beginning of…, there
has been a continuous flow of narrative, only three commandments, in fact, until just a few weeks and
portions earlier. Most of that first large enumeration of commandments is
primarily of a ritual nature, concerning the marking of Passover, helping to
insure that we remember through the generations that we were slaves in Egypt.
Suddenly, with the portion of Mishpatim,
we encounter a portion that is almost entirely of law. As the word mishpatim is understood, most of these
laws represent social ordinances,
laws meant to mediate civil and interpersonal relations.
The transition can be
difficult at first, slipping and sliding a bit as we make our way. It is
helpful to remember that such portions of law are also part of the narrative,
also part of the journey. Since leaving Egypt, all of Torah unfolds along the
way of the desert journey, and so it continues to guide along the way of our
journeys as the Torah of Life/Torat
Chayyim. Pausing on the trail to catch our breath, we wonder about the
relationship between the narrative that has come before and this portion of
law. In the way of Torah, there is no introduction or acknowledgement of a
shift in tone or approach, its own teaching on the seamlessness of life, all
facets as part of one whole. There is a small hint of continuity about which
much teaching emerges. On the first word of the portion there is a prefix of
one small letter, the conjunctive letter vav/and;
v’eleh mishpatim/and these are the social
ordinances that you shall set before them. The letter vav/and appears superfluous, unnecessary, and in that appearance is
its mystery and teaching, beckoning, asking us to look more carefully. Teachers
through time suggest that the vav is
to make clear that all that has come before and
all that is about to be told are all part of the legacy of Sinai, all given as
part of one whole. Drawing on rabbinic teaching to the book of Sh’mot/Exodus, the great commentator
Rashi notes very simply, the vav adds to
what came before/mosif al ha’rishonim, thus indicating continuity.
Of that continuity that
stretches all the way back, joining us to the very beginning, Rabbi Menachem
Mendel then spoke up, offering his thoughts as I sat by the hearth, warmed by
two fires. Looking back to creation, with which the human narrative begins,
setting the universal backdrop from which the particular Jewish narrative
emerges, the Rebbe of Vitebsk teaches that from the first moment of the world’s
becoming there begins a flow of chesed/lovingkindness
into the world, and so it flows through time. He teaches that God created the
world as an act of chesed, drawing on
the oft-sung words of Psalm 29, olam
chesed yibaneh/the world is founded on lovingkindness. As the narrative
unfolds and social constructs become more complex, there comes to be greater
need to mediate human relations in all realms of human interaction, whether
economic, political, juridical, or familial and interpersonal. Rebbe Menachem
Mendel worries about the danger of chesed
overflowing its banks, of even lovingkindness becoming dangerous without
any way of containment and focus. Torah becomes that container. He suggests
that something, however good in its essence, that is entirely unbounded becomes
unrecognizable and returns the world to primordial confusion.
As I listened,
the Rebbe taught further of the role of Torah: it is the bounded container and the vessel that holds the way of
blessing and reveals kindness in the world, for if there is no boundary, there
is no world/she’im eyn g’vul eyn olam…. Of so much pain caused in the
absence of boundaries, and in the failure to honor the emotional and physical
space that is each person’s world, the world itself is threatened with return
to the chaos of before there was a world, from before there was a human
narrative and its laws of justice and compassion.
As we navigate the
transition that comes with the portion of Mishpatim,
finding our way from narrative into law, so the Rebbe anticipates our concern,
that kindness and compassion may become lost in a thicket of laws. The goal
then becomes to join and unite the
attribute of compassion to the attribute of justice/m’chaber u’mishtatef midat
ha’rachamim l’midat ha’din…. We realize that we have not left the narrative
after all. Rather, we have been given signposts along the way, laws and
teachings meant to guide us in our going forward together in the ever-unfolding
narrative that is ours to shape.
Of law that is meant to mediate human
relations and yet to be infused with something deeper than itself, Rebbe
Menachem Mendel teaches, and to every
commandment that is in the Torah is a root that is beyond its particular
detail/u’l’chol mitzvah she’ba’torah shoresh l’ma’aleh b’f’ratit. As law
helps to shape the narrative of human relations, so it needs to reflect the
higher ideals of which the narrative tells and toward which it strives.
Flames dancing upon the
hearth, I looked out at the snowflakes swirling, the beauty of creation singing
to me of God’s kindness. Feeling content as one small part of a greater
narrative, I sat back and closed my eyes, closing the holy book and kissing its
cover, savoring the teaching that had come through time from Vitebsk to
Vermont.
Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein
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